the jellyball family blog

Dear Noah,

A few weeks ago, you turned 19 months old. We have still been recovering from your brother's third birthday, so my apologies for the lateness of this letter. Plus, I've been busy spending all my spare time soliciting kisses and hugs and munching on any and all exposed skin, so all this really cuts into my free time.

You are an awesome, funny little bugger. Sometimes you blow us away with how smart you are, to the point where we really cannot believe that we have a toddler on our hands. And other times, we are reminded that you are still very young and sometimes still very much a baby. It's a strange transition period where you are too big to do certain things and too small to do others.

Let's start with the sleep department. This continues to be a bit of a struggle, but we've made tremendous progress in getting you to fall asleep on your own. Naps are a breeze now - we put you in your crib, there may or may not be some complaining, but usually you stay lying down and will ask for your blanket. You'll whine if we forget to take off your socks. You may call out for us or cry a little, but usually by 1pm you are so tired that there is little resistance to napping. You usually sleep for about an hour to an hour and a half. Bedtime can be a little trickier - you, like your brother - seem to be able to stay up late and probably would if we didn't shut down the fun.

We have a little bedtime routine now where Caleb goes to get the toothbrushes, you both sit down on the rug in our bedroom (modeled after "storytime" routine at Caleb's preschool where everyone grabs a little square carpet and sits down on it) and while you two "brush" your teeth (mostly just chewing on the brush), I read a story. Lately you boys have only wanted me to read one particular book about a pig named "Petit Curieux" (Little Curious). It's about an overly curious and nosy little pig whose curiosity often gets him into trouble, but he happens to use his curious nature to save his cow friend when she gets her head stuck in a fence. When we get to the part where the pig hugs his crying cow friend, you promptly get up from the seated position, remove the toothbrush from your mouth, point to the cow ("vache!"), plant a big wet kiss on the page, and then sit back down. Sometimes the pig ("ochon!", cochon - meaning pig) even gets a kiss. Your brother usually follows your lead and also kisses the cow and/or the pig. That poor library book has never seen such juicy lovin' and probably doesn't want to go back to the library it will sadly remain on the shelves, unkissed.

Once the storytime routine is complete, we put your brother down to bed first and then you. Some nights it goes very smoothly and you'll occasionally call out "Maman!" or "Papa!" just to hear us shush you and reassure you that we're still in the neighbourhood. Other nights it is more challenging - you'll refuse to lie down, or you'll stand, clutching the rails as you wail in protest, or - my personal favourite - you'll sit down with your legs hanging between the bars of the crib, kicking away while crying. Eventually, you'll go to sleep. Some days we take you out to wipe your tear and snot covered face, and other days we just let you wail until you give up. I'm looking forward to the day where we put you down and you go down and stay down!

You are known to wake up two to three times during the night, sometimes as early as an hour after falling asleep. Once we cross the 4:30am barrier, you will wake up and call for me, greet me with an "Allo Maman!" and refuse to go back to sleep unless you are lying in a big bed with a minimum of one parent to kick, poke, and provide hair you can pull. Caleb is usually the first to wake up somewhere around 7am, and I can't remember the last time it was just your father and I in bed. Inevitably, you are sandwiched in there, hogging the pillows or sleeping sideways across the bed, kicking someone in the throat, or banging your head on the headboard. While this can be incredibly annoying, there are nights when we have trouble getting to sleep and I swear, we joke about going to get you from your crib so that we can snuggle with you. Your father particularly enjoyed the stretch of several weeks where you preferred sleeping cheek-to-cheek with your arm wrapped under his chin and around his face, while showering me with the occasional loving kick in the face.

Some day, hopefully in the next ten years, you will learn to fall asleep on your own and sleep a full night in your own bed. Some day we'll even miss it a little. Caleb was never much of a co-sleeper, as much as we wanted to snuggle with him. Boy did we ever get our wish with you!

And then there's the eating. You are a picky, picky eater. You're not a fan of meat, though fish sticks can be a reliable source of protein and provided there's ketchup, chicken fingers or nuggets are occasionally accepted. You've gone through phases of eating homemade macaroni and quesadillas, but lately you'll have nothing to do with either. Last week, you agreed to be served some macaroni, except all you wanted was to eat the parmesan cheese. Your father gave you a small bowl of cheese to sprinkle on your macaroni, thinking it would be fun enough to incite you to eat it, but in the end you just ate the cheese by the spoonful. Please. Pasta is for chumps, and you totally knew I'd pureed a cup of vegetables into that tomato sauce.

You haven't eaten many vegetables lately. In fact, other than fruit - there aren't many healthy things that you will eat reliably, which really drives us nuts. You'll eat cookies, crackers, and recently you discovered yogurt-covered raisins (hello, it's like CANDY). You love your blueberries, grapes, watermelon, pears, and dried apples. You love getting yogurt with the little pieces of fruit in it - you love hunting around for the fruit. You love to eat Shreddies with milk, sometimes eating it with your hands. Your father thinks perhaps you are a future vegetarian. Some day we're probably realize that you are a total food snob and we should have been trying to feed you blue cheese and caviar.

Now that we have your areas of improvement out of the way, I get to go on and on about what a perfect, lovely, delightful baby you are! You are really our little ray of sunshine with all your funny little tricks and the endless hugs and kisses. You are always the first to greet me when I come home from work. I open the back door and instantly hear the pitter-patter of you running from the living room to the kitchen, screaming "MAMA! MAMA!" and when you see me, you flash your million-dollar smile, exclaim "Allo Maman!" and jump into my outstretched arms for a long and sweet hug. You shower everyone with hugs and kisses. It's almost as if you know that this gets you all kinds of special treatment with your grandparents - your brother's so busy doing his own thing that he barely stops to say hello, and there you are, dishing out the hugs and kisses at the door like our official greeter. You are always particularly happy to see your Papie - you two have a very special bond. When we arrive at his house and you see him waiting at the door for you, you will run as fast as you can while screaming "Papie! Papie!" with your arms outstretched. It would probably take the Jaws of Life to separate the two of you during the first five minutes in his presence.

You are not only affectionate with people, but also with your little animal friends. You love animals! In addition to kissing your animal friends in your favourite book, you also kiss your little animal figurines that we bought you recently. You will often hold out the cow or the horse to me and say "Bec!" (kiss), demanding that I also kiss the animals. And then there's the little white rabbit doll. Your grandmother (Mamie) brought this to the house over a year ago when we first moved in and Caleb didn't want to get in the bath at the new house. Lapin (rabbit) was thrown into the bathtub with Caleb and Caleb washed him while we washed him. Lapin spent much of the past year hanging out, untouched, in the bathroom but a few months ago I threw him in the washing machine and put him back into circulation. You call him "Pin!" (short for "lapin") and in the past week, you've started taking very good care of him - you give him sips from your sippy cup, you try to feed him cereal, and of course, there are lots of kisses.

You love to point out any animals you recognize and know most of their names. You can say "vache" (cow), "val" (short for "cheval" meaning horse), "singe" (monkey), "phant" (elephant), "seau" (short for "oiseau" meaning bird), "coq-coq" (rooster - but you use this for chickens too), and "quack-quack" (you refuse to acknowledge the real word for duck, ducks are quack quacks). You love to make all the animal noises, and surprise! The quack-quack goes "quack! quack!"

You know so many words and you express yourself really well for a little guy your age. You have started stringing together words and this past week you started saying "Allo Maman" and "Allo Papa", and thanking us with your version of "merci", only you say "Aah-see Maman!" You really have great manners. You are decisive with your opinion - providing "yes" and "no" answers when asked if you want something. Your father is convinced that you even speak English, and there are certain things we can ask you in English and you'll respond with a resounding "Yeah!"

You know almost all the parts of the body - hands, legs, feet, toes, nose, cheeks, head, hair, etc. You are a big fan of your own bellybutton - you often have your finger poking around in there and you are never shy to pull up your shirt and point to your "daine!" (short for "bedaine", meaning belly). The other day I was sitting in a restaurant with you and your brother when you pulled up your shirt, proudly showed me your belly, which led to your brother doing the same, and you two were totally egging me to show mine. Which I did not! I am such a party pooper, I know.

Your vocabulary is truly stunning at this age, and even when you can't say the words, we can sit down together with a book and ask you to point out various things and you point to them with your chubby little finger while saying "la" (there). Your favourite book for this is the point-and-tell Sesame Street book that your Aunt Sarah bought us. You love pointing out Elmo and his friends, as well as all the various animals and objects in that book.

This week, you learned to say your own name! When asked what your name is, you no longer say it's Bob, but you say your name! (This is also something you respond to when asked in English.) You call your brother by his name, except you call him "A-leb" instead of Caleb. It is quite funny to hear you running through the house calling "A-leb? A-leb!" as you look for him.

You love to talk on the phone. You hate to hang up. You call me up at work and most of the conversation consists of saying hello, and you will sometimes say "bye!" about twenty times before hanging up.

You love to sing! You know the words to various parts of various songs. We sang happy birthday to Caleb for the entire week of his birthday and even recently we will hear you singing happy birthday to your brother. The other day you did a pee in the potty and you stood up, clapped your hands wildly, and started singing happy birthday to your brother. I guess you'd gotten used to that being the theme song of celebration lately.

You have always been a great fan of music in general, and you have excellent musical timing and rhythm! Your best dance move is when you bob up and down in an aerobic/hip-hop style squat. You stomp around to the music, lifting your legs one at a time, swinging your arms and clapping your hands. If only we could all look this cute while dancing like this.

Speaking of toilet training, you have always had a real interest in what goes on in the bathroom. You'll often waltz right up to one of us while we're sitting on the toilet and push our legs apart in an effort to see what the heck's going on in there. You happily exclaim "pee-pee!" or "ca-ca!" when you figure out which of the two we're doing. Sometimes you sit down on the potty (fully clothed) so that you aren't left out of the action, and start to dramatically grunt away - an imitation of what we do to try to convey that sometimes you need to push! When we put you on the potty right after you wake up, you'll often pee in the potty, and your eyes will light up with happiness as you hear the sound of your own pee. You are always SO HAPPY to stand up and look at the result of your work.

You love to follow along with whatever your brother is doing. The other day when your father dropped off your brother at preschool, you made a mad dash into the classroom and tried to jump into the action. You weren't too happy when you realized that he was staying back while you were leaving with your father. I know you'll be more than ready to go to preschool next September!

You love to draw with crayons and markers. You've always been great at this and your brother didn't start really doing any colouring until he saw you doing it. You have even shown some flair for painting! One of your favourite things to do is to paint fences and walls with water when we're outside.

You've learned how to swish milk in your mouth like you are rinsing before you spit (thankfully no spitting, sometimes it just dribbles out the side) and to make a delightful gurgling noise by talking into your glass of milk. Your brother has no idea what you're doing and wonders how you're making those noises. It's been some time now, but you've been drinking in plastic cups, using grown-up cutlery and dishes like a big boy.

Your absolute favourite toy continues to be a ball. Any ball. You LOVE balls. We are always looking under the furniture for missing balls. You love to run around the house with a big plastic kitchen spoon, and I've even seen you hit a small ball with your spoon like you're serving in table tennis. You are incredibly coordinated with a ball, you kick a ball better than your older brother and you love to throw. You love to hit the big balls with your small baseball bat and run after it. Some day you are going to be a great ball player of some kind and we'll look back to this and say yup, we surely knew this would be the case.

It's amazing to see you show such aptitude for certain things like painting or ball sports, because these are often things that your father and I enjoy. That's when we look at each other and say "That's MY son!" At first when you were born, we thought you'd be much more like your mother, but lately we're thinking that you are much more like your father. Only time will tell who you most resemble, but you definitely have traits from us both.

You are growing up fast and becoming more and more a little man with each passing day. We couldn't be more proud of you.

Love you lots.

With love,
Maman