Noah's first steps

We have been in Seattle scoping out where we might be living come January. While there, Noah practiced taking his first steps (around Sept. 17). His balance is been getting better and he had been standing solo increasingly well just before we left. Noah definitely wants to walk and is exceedingly proud of himself when he does it. The end of this video is pretty representative of how Noah 'walks' in that it is more of a step and a lunging fall. To date the most he's done is 3 consecutive steps. It is difficult to define whether he is actually walking. One of our friends claimed that in order for him to consider his own kid a walker, he needed to take 5 consecutive directional steps. I feel that that bar is too high. But we'll just say that Noah took his first steps but is not quite a toddler.

Ferberizing

We caved and Ferberized Noah. It was an awesome decision. We clearly fall into the category of parents that desire to be a 'No Cry' family, but clearly are a Ferber family. Noah cries for 10-30 minutes going to bed and he usually wakes up 1-2 times per night and cries for an additional 10-15 minutes. I actually don't feel this is too bad, maybe because this way I get more than 5 hours of continuous sleep at a time. Any guilt I had about doing this has quickly gone away with each additional hour of sleep I obtain. Selfish perhaps, but necessary, and I will definitely do this with my next kid!

First major illness as a mom

I am just getting over having Strep throat. It really knocked me out. I was out of work for nearly a week and Grant did nearly all Noah-related duties because I didn't want to get Noah sick (though I actually think I got it from him as what adult randomly gets Strep throat?).

Moms really can't get sick. It is no good. It was breaking my heart not playing or cuddling Noah. And he wanted me to carry him so badly and would stand up holding my legs and reach up for me. It was terrible. I still was breastfeeding, but I would wear a mask, which he found to be hilarious, so that was really the only contact I got with my little boy.

Additionally, I feel that Noah is kind of a sickly kid, so I really can't be missing a week of work being sick myself. I am having serious guilt about working because between job interviews, Noah being sick, and me being counter-sick I haven't worked a full week in a while. Not good.

The silver lining in all of this is that Grant did a great job as primary parent. Grant and Noah really bonded while I was sick and are extra good buddies now. Cute.

Noah's blocks

Noah's favorite toy are these wooden alphabet blocks.

We keep the blocks in a wooden storage tray that we slide under his crib. There isn't any reason to keep them there except that is where I first put them when he was too little to play with them and then I kind of forgot about them for a long time. But now Noah knows that is where his blocks are kept, so first thing in the morning when we put him on the floor to play he'll crawl over to the crib and pull his blocks out. It's so cute. Even when we went to Maine and were gone for nearly a week, when we got back in the middle of the night, Noah went straight for the blocks storage place.

I am trying to get him to say "blocks" as his first non-mama or dada word. Currently he'll hold up a block and say "Ba," which I can imagine is meaningful, though admittedly he'll say that syllable at any random point in time. In my defense, though, my mother interpreted the "Ba" syllable as meaning: book, butterfly, balloon, and several other words starting with the letter b when my brother was a baby. I'm going to keep pretending that he means it.

Noah and Grandpa video

Grandpa Randy and Uncle Tyler were in California last weekend for a baseball tournament in Compton. We drove up and watched a little bit of Tyler's game on Saturday, then Grandpa came down to Corona del Mar while Tyler and his team went to Knott's Berry.

Noah really, really loves Uncle Tyler, and he kept preferentially crawling to him, which was making Grandpa jealous. However, Noah really loves Grandpa too, as you can see from this video. I think the feeling is mutual.

New Noah video

Noah's first airplane trip

Noah's first trip was a doozy. We flew from Orange County to Maine so that Noah and Grant could accompany me on a job interview in Bar Harbor, Maine. It is not easy to get to Bar Harbor, and we did 13-17 hour days of travel. Noah was perfect . He smiled and flirted with everyone on the plane, so when he got a little fussy (which wasn't very much) no one really cared. He also slept a fair amount and just did a great job. I quickly had to get over my germ-a-phobia as Noah insisted on chewing on the plane safety information card (which would literally send chills down my back because it is so disgusting) but he was very insistent on doing it and it kept him happy and quiet, so what else could I do.

Our brand new stroller, which we had bought to replace our previously stollen stroller, got stollen in the airport on the way out to Maine. Well, stollen or lost, but we checked it at the end of the gateway, and when we got off the plane it was gone. There goes another $150. I have no idea why people keep taking our crappy stuff. It wasn't even an expensive stroller brand. Another couple had a MacClaren, and somehow our cheap-o Kolcraft stoller is the one that goes missing. Anyway, Grant had to go buy a replacement stroller in a Walmart in Maine and it is terrible and I hate it. Plus, what is double sucky is that the stroller we had has been discontinued it so now I can't even get the same one to replace it.

Maine was beautiful and Grant and I really loved it. I'm not going to take the job, but we would have really loved to live out there.