"I'll keep playing until you call me."

"I'll keep playing until you call me."
Originally uploaded by mskat

Noah's learning to play outside alone. His comment today, "I'll keep playing until you call me."

On his t-ball stand, he found a spider web with two giant eggs from a brown widow spider. I kinda freaked out and tried to wash the web off. It was pretty sticky and resilient. Then when I went to pull it down, I saw the spider itself. Again, freaking out and killing ensued.

Look, I'm all live and let live with spiders, but not with my kids' toys.

Star warred

Star warred
Originally uploaded by mskat

I am not sure if I'm ready for Noah to get into Star Wars, but we watched 7 minutes of Empire Strikes Back so his At-At shirt would make more sense.

Fine.

Yes, it's been almost a year. Time to post again?

Think of this like those holiday letters people send:

Since last year...Noah has started preschool, been almost potty trained and learned how to talk incessantly from sun up until we can get him to sleep.

The biggest changes are with Grace. She's HOME! She gets home made food blended for her so no more formula. She's almost walking. She knows how to cover her trach and laugh (she sounds like a cross between a dolphin and a crow). She signs (my favorite is how close she is to saying "I Love You" in sign).

She's amazing.

More later. I promise.

Mom is encouraging him

Mom is encouraging him
Originally uploaded by mskat

Noah tried ice skating for the first time. It was a hit, even if he didn't do very well.

Monkeys Jumping on the Bed

Monkeys Jumping on the Bed
Originally uploaded by mskat

We're in a big language acquisition spurt. Little Man doesn't know the whole song, but he's getting close.

Been too quiet for too long

Just a quick update. Things here are continuing apace which is good. Boo is getting bigger and stronger and is a hair's breadth from pulling up to stand.

Little Man and family went to the NICU reunion at Huntington which was amazing.

Little Man is a walking, talking, growing, learning machine which I think is AWESOME.

One of my favorite things is the fact that he requests to sleep in the big boy bed. This is fine, but it also means he's able to let himself out of the big boy bed, which he does. And you hear his little padding feet walk to the door and scrabbling at the door. He lets himself out with such frequency. It makes me miss the crib.

A week ago, I had breakfast with a former co-worker. I had a dulce de leche and Noah, in his inimitable way, wanted wanted wanted some. I scooped some foam and gave him some. He was satisfied with foam until he wasn't. So I gave him some of the coffee. He had a couple of spoonfuls or more.

Katie rolled her eyes at me. Joseph raised an eyebrow and I just shrugged. Noah gets sugar off and on. He never gets juice. He's never had soda.

As a preemie, he had caffeine therapy for his breathing, but it was nothing big or long term.

I thought nothing of it.

The report from Noah's daycare and from Noah's speech therapist who sees him on Friday said he was OUT OF CONTROL. Not in a rude way and not in a bad acting way. But he had terrible case of the sillies and he was just sort of crazy funny.

Oops. I caffeinated my child. Bad Mommy. No Biscuit. Or at least no more coffee.

Empathy

Little Man has been getting language. It's pretty exciting and requires a great deal of repetition, patience and twice weekly visits from the Speech Therapist.

He has lots of nouns, which makes sense from a language acquisition perspective that he is getting the cognitive label for things.

Non-concretes are harder to teach. He understands Bye-Bye and LOVES to say it (and often blows a kiss to go with it). He knows when and how to use Please (and man, he's effective at getting what he wants). He sort of knows Thank You, or at least the Britishized Version he gets at daycare (Ta!).

I've been trying to teach him Love You and Sorry.

Today he was kicking when I changed his diaper and I told him, "Ow. That hurts. No kicking!" and he signed Sorry and attempted to say it.

My heart melted.

I love watching him learn.

Grandma got me a drum (moms are groaning)

Grandma got me a drum (moms are groaning)
Originally uploaded by mskat

Gift to be given only to a grandchild far away.

Why? Why? No really, why?!

We were just at CVS. Some girl was standing with her foot on the car window ledge and her other foot on the seat of her mother's car. Her brother was peeing on the car door and mom, mess that she is was ignoring both of them even when girl said, "He's peeing on the car."

I am tired. My son is sick. I just spent too many hours in the car through Orange and Los Angeles Counties. And I have zero tolerance for egregiously stupid public behavior. When I got into CVS, the boy was yelling in an aisle waving his penis around (he must be 4 or 5). Mom? No where to be seen. As I walked out I said to the boy, "You better put your penis away or someone might cut it off." That made him scream and run.