Tongue Kissing

One day I was giving N a kiss when he asked me to give him a "tongue kiss". Surprised, I asked him what that was.

N: "You stick out your tongue and I stick out mine, and they touch. Tongue kiss"
Me: "Who taught you that?"
N: "N"
Me: "Your cousin N, or N at daycare?"
N: "N at daycare"
Me: "Oh. Does she only tongue kiss you, or does she tongue kiss everyone?"
N: "She tongue kisses everyone"

Update: I asked him about it again recently and he said she doesn't do that anymore. Then he said maybe it was his cousin not the girl at daycare.

Subtraction

On our last camping trip, I was surprised to notice N understands some simple subtraction. We had the mugs on the picnic table while the hot chocolate was warming on the fire. N looked at them and then said:
"There are three mugs. If I take one away, there are only two."
Me: "That's right. What happens if I take one more?"
N: "Then there is one left"
Me: "Wow. What if you have three and I take two away? What's left?"
N: "One."

Maybe I'm wrong, but I think that's pretty good for a 3 year old.

One year

Can't believe the baby is now one. I've barely written anything about him.
Here's some of the new things he's learned in the last couple of months.

1. Q started walking. He took his first steps the day before Father's Day (and walked to dad). By the beginning of August, he'd pretty much given up crawling for walking. Now, he's fast... and quiet. You never know where you'll find him.

2. First words. Banana. We were at DeLuca's getting some groceries and he saw bananas on display, reached for them and yelled out "nanana". Since then, he's added Dad, dog, cat, hat, mom, hello, and really tries to say any word. I should note Dad and dog sound quite similar, although Dad is usually screamed. He also signs water, cat, and dog, although he sometimes pats my leg for dog instead of his own (see sign for dog)

3. Climbing. He climbs the stairs, the step stool, all furniture, and if you're not watching, he pulls out the drawer under the oven so he can stand on it to see what's cooking...

4. He, like his brother, loves trains. There is often a fight over who gets Thomas and Percy. I think I'll have to buy some duplicates. Q also recently figured out how to roll cars along the ground. Before it was either play with the wheels, chew on the cars, or throw them.

5. the phone. He loves the phone. Every time it rings he yells out hello and puts the palm of his hand on his mouth. He also likes to yell at the phone if it's on speaker. To his Dad, usually.

Can We Talk?

That is N's latest late night question. This past weekend it was directed at Dad.
It was followed by these questions:
1. How do people eat?
2. How do people walk?
3. How do you know when you're good?
4. How do you know when the food goes down the right pipe?

I think Dad handled them quite well.

Brotherly Love

Often when N and I are in bed, he'll tell me I'm "the bestest Mom". Last night, Q was sleeping next to us. N reached over, patted his head and said "you're the bestest baby". Put a little lump in my throat.

Of course, this morning, N was back to sitting on Q or telling him to keep away from his toys

busy week

Baby Q had a very busy week... another tooth came in (top this time, but one to the side, not the middle), he started crawling (he's been dragging himself by his arms for a couple of weeks now), and just yesterday he started clapping. Oh, and he has a bad diaper rash.

first tooth for baby Q

Actually, now it's two bottom teeth! Unlike his older brother, he had a tough time with teething. Poor kid. Hopefully the others will be easier (other teeth that is, not babies).

Sitting!

It's now official. Baby Q has learned to sit. Not even leaning on his arms, but actual sitting. It only lasts a minute or so, and then he slowly topples over, but it's sitting. For that minute, he's quite happy to have use of both hands, which he uses to grab whatever toy is close by and cram it into his mouth.

Rolling over!

Yes, little baby Q is now rolling over. Started last week, and I missed the first time. Ok, I missed the first three times. He was in the den and would wait until I would leave the room for a minute.

On Saturday I put him on his back on the floor and stood over him with the camera until he finally rolled over for me. Yeah, that was a long five minutes. I'll need to do lots of editing on that video. No one needs 4.5 minutes of me rambling on.

Now we're at the lovely stage where I put him to bed on his back, he rolls over, and then wakes himself up and gets upset because he can't roll back yet.

New Phrases

A few more commonly used phrases from N:
- "That's not part of the plan" (or part of the deal)
- "That's what I'm talking about"
- "Good job Mom/Dad. High five!"
- "We've got work to do!"
- "Hopey dokey!"
- "I'll never have anything again in my whole life" which seems to be morphing into "I'll never have anything again in the whole world". Always said in an incredibly sad voice. It's becoming the response to any denial on my part (no more tv, no more cookies, blah blah blah)

Knock Knock...

N is really liking knock knock jokes, but he doesn't quite get how they work. Here's an example of how they go at our place, no matter how many times I try to correct him:

Me: "Knock knock"
N: "Who's at the door"
Me: "Boo"
N: "What does Boo say?"

Yeah, so that kind of kills the punch line. We'll stick to the "banana, banana, orange" one for now. Lucky for me (?) he's ok with repeating the same joke over and over again.

32 Week Ultrasound

Pudgy baby. It weighs a bit more than expected for 32 weeks, so the SUA seems to have no affect.

The tech took some great 3D photos too.

Letter Recognition

N recognizes one letter. The letter 'S'. When he sees a sign with an S on it, he points and says "Look Mom. Like Shrek!". Ok, I guess we've watched that movie a few times...

Chatterbox

Before I forget, I wanted to list a few phrases N uses regularly before he moves on to not speaking to me at all.

- "Hmm" (holding index finger to lips) "Aha!" (pointing up in the air). "I have idea!" However, when you ask what the idea is, he just looks blankly.

- "Come here. Follow me. I have to show you something." Which is followed by him looking quickly around the room to see what he can show you.

- "Will you play trains with me?" His voice gets quite high up at the end.. very cute and impossible to say no to.

- "I'm not closing my eyes." Said often at bedtime.

- "But I need (fill in blank)". The best was when asking him to take his finger out of his nose: 'But I need my finger in my nose.'

- "I'm not cute/handsome/smart/a monkey. I'm N!" I loved listening to him argue with a woman in Carson City that he wasn't cute.

- "Wow. That is kewel!" Yes, that's how he pronounces it.

And it starts...

Why?
Why?
Why?
Why?

and on, and on. At this point, I'm having fun trying to think up different answers for each "Why?", but I'm sure I'll tire of it soon enough.

SUA

So, according to my OB/Gyn, I have SUA, or Single Umbilical Artery. Normally, there are two arteries and one vein in the umbilical cord (who knew?). I only have one artery. Not that uncommon. Often it's not even noticed until the baby is born and they look at the umbilical cord.

According to the Dr. since everything else looked fine in the ultrasound, there is nothing to worry about (sometimes this occurs along with heart or kidney problems, but the 20 month ultrasound should show that). They'll do another ultrasound at 32 weeks to make sure the baby is growing, as there is a tendency for lower weight births.

Meh, but they had that concern for N and he came out just short of 8lbs.

Counting... for real

N is pretty good at reciting his numbers... well 1-29 anyway. I can't convince him yet that next is 30 not twenty-ten.

But I think he finally figured out how to count. He came up to me last week at daycare with a couple of dinosaur figures. Then said "Look Mom, I have dinosaurs. One, two", and stopped at two. Usually he'll keep counting for a while. But this time he held out each dinosaur individually while counting it. He looked really proud of himself.

Seventeen Weeks

Well, I'm now 17 weeks into this pregnancy. I wish I'd kept notes last time because I'd like to know if I was this exhausted. Good gravy, I'm falling asleep every night at 8:30 with N. Let's just say the house has looked better.

I think the nausea is finally gone at least. Once again, all food is wonderful and I want it "in my mouth" as N would say.

Whoop-a**

We don't subscribe to Treehouse TV, but we sometimes go to their web site and watch the 2 minute videos. N's new favorite is Wonderpets. Of course, he can't pronounce it quite right. Hubby stopped me on my way out and asked what the heck N was saying... it sounds kind of like he is saying whoop-a**. While jumping up with his fist in the air.

Pumpkin

Brought up a small pumpkin from the basement today. N instantly took it into the living room. He knocked off the stem and then played with the pumpkin and stem for quite a while (which for N is about 10 minutes). I felt bad taking it away and making soup out of it.

Luckily, there's another downstairs.