Rubber Ducky, You're the One

Bath time is a rarity around our house, unfortunately. For all residents. Noah takes after his pops and "showers" every other day or so...I mean, he's a baby and we wipe his nether-regions several times a day...how dirty can he be, right? We haven't figured out if he likes his bath or just likes to be naked so he tolerates his bath time. Nevertheless, it makes for some pretty cute photos:

He will not think this was such a great idea in the future.  
"Butt" that's a cute fanny.

 

He finds the cleaning of his "parts" rather interesting/entertaining.

I'm speechless. Mesmerized by those baby blues. 

It's legit, no editing, folks.

Snug as a bug.

Shenanigans

Ever since he was just a wee little guy, Noah really enjoys his time on his changing table. Especially when his pops is changing his britches. We've made it a fun place for him, unintentionally at first, where we sing songs, make funny faces, introduce him to "Larry the Lizard" that hangs above his head, give him zerberts, and so on. He LOVES it. I don't mean he likes it a little bit, I mean he lives for this part of his day. Several times a day, of course. It is rare that he fusses...and only if he's hungry or overly tired, which is maybe once a week. Maybe.

A lot of times his laughter is unprompted. Just the sheer delight of being buck-naked gets his gopher every time. We may have a future streaker on our hands. In a couple years, campers beware.
And he hasn't quite figured out laughing yet, so it comes out as this inhaling-air-shriek-because-I-don't-know-how-to-laugh noise. Equally as cute.

 

Not only does he LOVE his changing table time, he thinks it's time for acrobatics as well. Makes it quite the ordeal to put a cloth diaper on that fanny. 

Good thing we don't use pins.

Fat rolls, let me count thy ways?

 

  

But his lamp and Larry are just too cool.

Live from Ten Mile, it's Noah Matthew:

Find a cuter kid.

I dare you.

Attention K-Mart Shoppers: Part II

Okay. This is getting out of hand.
Soon he will be calling China from our phones.
Slow down, kid.

Excuse the bed head and bad breath.



Ridic.
Ulous.
I know.

Growing Beans

Someone slipped my baby some growing beans.
Since I will start working in March, we decided to start introducing him to solid foods now, figuring it would take a while for him to catch on and enjoy.
Not so much.
He figured it out quite easily and loves every last morsel. And for some reason he would rather Chris feed him his cereal than me. I think because he knows I have the other goods, the ones he can control and get as much of as he pleases. He can't control the spoon, though he tries with all his might.

 

And for some strange reason he leans all the way down to his tray to get to the spoon. We try to get him to look up but that's usually a no-go. Grits also GREATLY enjoys this new mode of feeding, as she is the lucky winner of spilled bowls and messy fingers. Noah is amused, as you can imagine.

I must also add that he is sleeping much better at night since we started feeding him cereal twice a day. He always gets out of whack when we travel and he doesn't have his own bed. It only takes him a night or two back home before he's figured it out again, but this time he has decided that he would like for his bedtime to be earlier. He has been in bed, and stayed in bed, before nine every night since we've been back. Crazy. Last night he slept from 8:15pm-4:30am. Amazing. And then slept again after he ate until 9am. Even better. 

I will continue to say, I don't know what we've done or haven't done, but we are blessed beyond blessed with such a good baby. 

Makes me want more. 

Later.

Much. Much. Much. 

Later.

Attention K-Mart Shoppers

Clean up on baby aisle.Not really, but in case you thought I was exaggerating in the post Four, I was not. Noah's new obsession is shiny objects with lights, quiet noises, or beeps (i.e. phones, remote controls, monitors, etc.) and he will stop at nothing to make it his.
Whatever it is, whatever it takes.

This is how I found him waking up from his nap this morning:

 

So there you have it. Wake up on Aisle 4.

And who could resist those baby blues anyway?

Four

I've decided to try something new. Each month on the 2nd (being Noah's "birthday") I am going to share "x" new things I love about our son, "x" being the number of months he is. Whether it's new cute things he's doing or just new discoveries we've stumbled upon as new parents, I will share them here. I do believe it will be hard to limit myself to only 4 this month. There may be cheating involved to sneak them all in. Don't worry. I will subtly slip it in that I love that he mimics our singing.

Here we go...I love:
1. When he pats me on my arm or back when I am holding him. Moreover, when I watch him pat his daddy, like he's saying, "Good job, pops. I knew you could do it."

2. Finding him flipped over from his tummy to his back in the morning or waking up from naps...and how he's somehow squirmed to the monitor, with his mouth real close, saying in his best squeals and babbles, "Attention, is this thing on?"

3. His laugh. His big, fat, glorious laugh.

4. He has discovered Grits, like REALLY discovered her. It's hard not to discover a 60lb brown dog that likes to lick your ear when you are rolling around on the floor. And he thinks she is the coolest and weirdest creature ever. He has no idea the adventures and trouble they will find together. Before we know it, Noah will like her better than us.


Here's Noah on his 4 month "birthday" sitting like a big guy in the rocking chair his Aunt Erika gave him.
Cute kid, I think. All 16.6lbs and 25.75in of him.

Feel free to share your favorite new things about my little ham. Or your little ham.

Speaking of ham... my domestic duties are calling.

What's for supper? Can't wait til Noah pesters me with that question like I did my mama. That may or may not appear on one of my "favorite things" lists.

Monitor Mayhem

I used to be a hard sleeper. As in, prop me up against the wall and I could probably get a full 8 hours of sleep. Heck, I slept an entire winter outside in below-freezing temperatures while surrounded by ten shoeless, at-risk teenage girls and never missed a wink.
Not anymore.
Since we brought Noah home I have had this slight concern about how far his room is from ours. Granted, our house isn't THAT big, but his room is all the way across the house, with two thick wood doors between us at night. Hence, why he slept in our room until just after Christmas. I was the one not ready for the transition, he did great (as he does with just about everything). And I was really starting to get used to it. Chris and I really enjoy having our room to ourselves again so our nightly routine could commence.

Get your minds out of the gutter.

We like to read favorite books together and have long conversations. About dreams and goals. About the future. About how we have the cutest little guy ever. Ever.

All was well, we were getting back to normal. And getting some sleep. Until last night.

Noah went down around 9pm and we followed around 10:30pm. This is a new bedtime for him, he had been going to bed around 11pm (or later some nights) and we were beginning to think we were raising a teenager already. That being said, with the adjustment he's been waking around 3am to eat and then goes right back down. I know he will eventually just drop the 3am feeding, since he had previously been sleeping from 11pm-9am, it's just a matter of adjusting.

So we turned on the monitor and hit the hay. Or so we thought.

I stirred around 3am, as my body is used to this, and no noise from little guy. I rolled over and went back to sleep.

I stirred again around 6am, no noise from little guy. I rolled over, but couldn't go back to sleep. Something didn't feel right. Something didn't sound right. I couldn't hear him sleeping on the monitor. So I tried to convince myself, in a sleepy daze, that I was over-thinking things, that this was probably Noah getting back to sleeping through the night. I laid there a little longer, 20 minutes or so, and just couldn't shake the thought that something wasn't right. Something didn't sound right. I couldn't hear the hum of the monitor.

I couldn't hear the hum of the monitor.

I quickly hopped out of bed, went over to the monitor, and sure enough, nothing. No noise. Nothing. The green light was on but there was no static, no white noise. Nothing.

Remember, it's now 6:30am, he normally stirs around 3am. You can imagine the thoughts running through my head. With cat-like speed I scurry to his room to find him on his back (other mama's, don't freak out, but we sleep him on his tummy because he breathes better) squealing, not upset, just making noise. I scoop him up and take him back to our room. He eats for about 15 minutes and dozes right on back to sleep. Like the amazing baby he is.

I will never know what happened between the hours of 3am and 6:30am. I can only hope that he just slept on through because I would have never heard him if he was crying. I will tell myself that he was happy, talking and singing to himself like he usually does. That's the story I am going with.

But the huge wet spot in his crib from drool and probably (sigh) tears may prove otherwise.

Poor baby.