Simple Pleasures

One of my favorite things about Elliot is how he gets such joy out of the little things. Last week before heading out of town I decided to buy some cereal to make things easier on our babysitter. We don't eat cereal very often. Usually Elliot eats eggs and fruit for breakfast. I let him pick out cereal and he chose Chocolate Cheerios. Oh my gosh did that rock his world. First, he wanted to carry it. Then put it on the belt for the cashier. As the sacker was sacking groceries, he let him know he wanted the cereal. As soon as we got home he wanted a bowl. I don't know how many times he thanked me. He was so excited and it was adorable.

A couple of days ago I bought new toothbrushes for the boys. Theirs were getting frayed and usually I just get them from the dentist, but didn't want to wait. So I got Transformer spinbrushes. WOAH! Did it ever make Elliot's day. It was so funny and cute. He carried it everywhere. Thanked me countless times. He wanted his bath early and got out pretty quick so he could brush his teeth. As I handed it to him he said "This is going to be so fun!". Two days later and he's still carrying it around everywhere, and still thanking me daily for buying it. I got out my iPhone to capture him loving on his toothbrush and totally spontaneously caught the funniest moment. He wants a toothbrush birthday cake.

I hope he always dances like this

I love his belly dance :D

Noah loves him some rock and roll

Noah has a new regular station he asks for in the car. XM39 Hair Nation. It's pretty funny to watch him rock out in the car. I took a little video the other day after school.

*I realized watching this is carseat is not secured tightly enough.  It shouldn't move more than an inch side to side*

Noah at Gymnastics

We joined a new gym. It was a better fit for Noah AND they have a class for Elliot the same time and day. They also have open gym/play immediately following their class. Win-Win-Win. Here's Noah showing some of his moves during open play.

The Name Game song by Elliot

Grandma Anita's raccoon encounter

Last month driving home from my sister, Sam's college graduation in Springfield, my mom hit a raccoon going about 70 mph on the highway.  It was very loud and woke Rick up,  who thought she'd hit a deer.  It was only when she got home she realized said raccoon took out half her bumper.  The next day she showed Elliot and told him about it.  Ohhhh boy.  For days, no weeks, Elliot asked me several times a day why Grandma hit the raccoon.  He's moved beyond it now.  He doesn't ask me about why anymore.  He seems to finally have accepted it's because the raccoon came out of the woods and she was going too fast to stop.  But, he does tell strangers it happened and his Grandma's car is broken.

Monday driving home from dropping off Noah at school Elliot pointed out a flashing light alerting us to the reduced speed school zone.  He said "Mom, that light tells us to watch out, right?".  I said "Yes, also it tells us to slow down."  His reply was "Yeah, so we don't get in a wreck like Grandma."  So funny!  I guess he thinks Grandma must have been recklessly speeding when she hit that raccoon.

Here's a video I took on my phone.  One day driving home he became so insistent on wanting to know "why" Grandma hit the raccoon I had to actually pull over and turn around to address him.

Jump Rope

Elliot's first root beer experience this summer

He liked it.

Friday

In honor of this tiring, hot week being almost over, may I present to you Elliot singing Rebecca Black's version of her youtube hit anthem, Friday!

Healthy habits

We don't always role model everything as well as we should for our kids, but one thing they are getting used to is us exercising regularly, which is a good habit to get into.

Noah routinely asks Mandy if she "won her race" when she gets back from jogging in the morning, and he also accompanies me downstairs once in a while during my workouts. He likes to show me how strong he is by lifting both the 5lb dumbells over his head. Even when he was just a little older than Elliot is now, he would join me whenever I'd do a few pushups.

When Elliot was still too little to crawl (but still waking up before dawn), I would occasionally take him downstairs with me to work out while he was in his little portable seat and he would just sit there and watch me for awhile. The other morning, at Elliot's typical early-bird hour, I was doing some pushups in the playroom while he was playing with his toys and he decided to get in on the action. He watched me for a few seconds, then scooted right up next to me and did it just as long as I was doing it.

Mandy caught it on camera a little later - he hasn't quite perfected the form, but he'll get there:

Evenings at the pool

Paul & I have regular "date nights". Instead of a long date once a week, we take two mini-dates (usually 6-8pm). Paul gets to wind down after work and we are still home in time to read stories and put the kids to bed. It's good for us, but we have found evenings at the pool with kids to be just as fun (if not more fun) this summer. Especially now that Noah has improved his swimming so much he doesn't require that constant hands-on attention in the big pool.

Wednesday was our date night and it was hot. Paul wanted to go for a swim. As we were pulling in, he commented it feels weird without the kids and wished they were there. I did too. So I called our sitter and told her to get them dressed and drop them off after dinner :) It still gave us an hour to ourselves swimming, but we were happy to have see them when they showed up. Noah learned to jump in reaching out to Paul from a young age and he gets the whistle blown at him by lifeguards for not jumping feet sometimes. Tuesday he finally got it after swimming with a friend and seeing him do cannonballs. Now he goes feet first, but mostly does cannonballs. Paul was excited to watch that.

Elliot goes underwater all the time (when he gets wild and falls or something) and it doesn't faze him. But, yesterday he purposefully dunked his head under the water and started smiling and clapping. When I told him what a good job/big boy he was and made a fuss, he did it over and over repeatedly. WOW! Noah just started that a couple of months ago and here my 18 month old is already doing it. Such a big boy!

We started out in the big pool and after awhile they were ready to play with toys in the baby pool (no toys allowed in big pool). These are in the baby pool:

These are the colors...

As much as Noah picks on, messes with, pushes and pulls his little brother, he is pretty protective of him, and always worries when Elliot gets really hurt. This video doesn't capture an Elliot injury, but it does capture the song that Noah usually sings to him when he wants him to calm down, and Noah trying to brush those curls out.

Two fish...

This is Elliot's second summer at the pool. Last year, he couldn't move around on his own, but that didn't stop him from splashing around. Even then we knew he didn't have any fear of the water.

This winter, when he was about a year old, we took him to the YMCA, which sported a zero-enty pool. Thinking he might have fun splashing around the shallow part while Noah played in the deeper part, we turned him loose. He immediately crawled into the water at lightning speed and kept going until his whole body was underwater, including his head. We were so shocked we just stared at him for a few seconds before we pulled him out. I expected tears, coughing up water, etc, but he was just mad we picked him up out of the water. We put him down again, and he did the same thing. The zero-entry pool may have been fun for him, but it was more work than either of us expected, protecting him from himself.

Pretty soon he was wading out as far as he could go and jumping up and down. By the time the pool opened this summer, he was ready to go. Our pool has a zero-entry baby pool that goes up to two feet in depth, and a larger zero-entry pool that is five feet in depth. He is equally at home in both, at either end.

At not quite 18 months old, he can actually do a swimming stroke, kicking his legs and crawling his arms. And he's learned to hold his breath while underwater. And he's crazy fearless.

Going into the pool. He has had many, many wilder entries.


Spinning around in the water


Jumping int he baby pool. The second entry isn't all that unusual.


Splashing in the fountains.


It was the end of the day, so we didn't quite capture it, but he will often just run right up to us in the deep end and jump in, whether we're ready to catch him or not. I'm tempted not to catch him once, and see what happens. I wouldn't be totally surprised if he came up and swam back to the side. I think he loved climbing out of the pool just as much.

One fish...

Noah has always loved the water. From the time he was little baby he loved the bath - it was practically impossible to get him out - and ever since he discovered pools, he has loved jumping in and splashing. But until recently, he's always been very timid about getting in over his head.

We signed him up for swim lessons at the YMCA in mid-May, and he lasted less than one lesson as he decided the pool was crowded with too many kids for him to be letting some stranger try to pull him away from the safety of the side of the pool. We had been swimming quite a few times over the winter (it's an indoor pool) and by this point, I had been trying everything to get him to at least put his face in the water and blow bubbles, without success.

We tried signing him up for private lessons to avoid the crowd. He had one lesson with his teacher, and then a break of a few weeks. In those few weeks, he suddenly started putting his face in the water and something must have clicked. His water skills started improving very quickly, and it was amazing to both of us how good he got at swimming in such a short time.

His tricks include swimming under water finding sunken objects (eyes open the whole time), swimming on his back and swimming nearly 20 yards in the deeper part of the pool without stopping. The only time he ever gets bothered by anything is when he gets water up his nose.

These videos don't capture it all, but do show quite a bit of what he can do. And you can imagine who is watching all this, and is thinking he can do just what big brother is doing. We'll have another post soon on "Two fish..."

Racing daddy across the pool


Swimming like a madman. Sometimes he just turns on the speed and hauls ass.


Nice form


under water


Noah diving for sunglasses


Noah swimming on his back


Noah jumping. He can jump in under water and come up by himself, but he doesn't like to do it in the deep end without me there to catch him.

Noah Gaga

Noah riding his bike without training wheels!

I apologize for my annoying voice! I will get better video's soon. He also likes taking it off road. At the end I said something about brakes. Right now it's 100% foot powered, but we'll take it in (today) to have a hand brake installed now that he's going down hills fast. As it is, he turns and goes up hill to stop or slows himself down by putting his feet down.

Dancing Fools

We took this video quite a while ago, as you can tell by E's short hair. We post this simply to showcase the awesome dancing machine that is cousin Charlie. You've gotta admit, the boy's got some rhythm.

Sled Fest 2009

We had a blizzard on Christmas Eve, carrying on into Christmas Day, which dumped enough snow for some serious sledding this year. Thanks to a late March snow, we already initiated Noah earlier this year to the joys of Suicide Hill, but he was really starting to get the hang of it this year.

So far, we've been sledding three days in a row. The first was Christmas Day, when it was so cold and windy that neither Mandy or me could stand to be out in the cold for more than a couple of runs.

Christmas Day. It was too cold for snapping a bunch of pictures, especially at the top of the hill where the wind was blowing sleds out of kids' hands left and right. Even though a ton of snow fell, the top looks grassy because it was all blowing away. This first video is of Mandy and Noah going for their second ride down - note the 'high five' given just before they go airborne, and the loss of boot as they regroup. Noah didn't seem to mind the snow on his sock feet and down his mittens. That's Elliot making some noise at the end.

Looking back up the hill after a fast ride to the bottom.

Noah staring at me impatiently while I take a pic. There is sledding to be done.
Passed out shortly afterwards - with a little windburn. Even with the brutally cold wind, he still didn't want to leave but Mandy and I couldn't take it anymore. His feet and hands were wet and his face seemed almost frozen.

The day after Christmas. Noah and cousin Charlie sledding at the Grandparents house, at the same spot their moms went sledding, in the steep front yard that empties the sledder right into the street. No safety issues there...
Noah "hurt his shoulder" sledding into the jeep - according to him, he needed some candy to make it feel better.
Charlie's turn.

Two days after Christmas - better mittens, boots on tighter and another, thicker hat - now we're ready for some serious time outside. Uncle Todd and cousin Dylan joined us for the fun. It was mid-20's, wind still blowing hard at the top, but sunny and nice once you were down the hill a few feet.

We went down together about 10 times (with Noah getting "tired" at the bottom, and wanting to ride on my shoulders back up the hill). After a while, he suddenly announced "Daddy you can't go with me" and wouldn't let me ride on the sled with him any more. After begging a few times (hey, it's fun for adults too) I said OK and told him he was on his own. His first solo ride on Suicide Hill, he went all the way down. We took him on the more child-friendly (but not entirely safe) side of the hill, but Uncle Todd is spotting him just in case.

His first crash. It was inevitable. He laughed.

Mixing it up a little.
We lasted over two hours. Noah, as might be predicted, fought me pretty hard when I told him it was time to go and I had to carry him to my Jeep kicking and yelling about only wanting "five more times". Afterwards we all went out for pizza, and he almost passed out on the five minute drive there. Mandy and E met us there, and we devoured two large pizzas pretty quickly.

Noah is still dressed in his PJs under his snow bib, and sporting some rosy red cheeks.
This is what a tired boy looks like when we tell him we're out of St. Louis-style cheese pizza and he has to eat the regular crust combo. Seriously.
He passed out shortly after I loaded him back into the Jeep and ended up sleeping for 2 1/2 hours. If he had stayed awake, we would have seen the face above all afternoon. Instead we were treated to this one, and a happy boy once he woke up.

Noah gets his groove on

I was making dinner for Noah and I looked over and he was dancing to the radio like he didn't have a care in the world. At least he's got a better sense of rhythm than his old man.

*That sound you hear in the background is our range hood vent going off because I let the water boil too long*

Caged Animal

Yesterday was one of those days. We've only had one non-rainy day this week. Noah's like a caged wild animal if he can't get outside and exercise. This was only the beginning of a long day. He was such a pistol. I had a locksmith out to install deadbolts up high on all our doors, because Noah can open the current ones. However, with our tri-lock system it can't be done. This weekend Paul will install those hotel chain lock things at the top. I thought we finished babyproofing when Noah was a baby. But, obviously not.