the jellyball family blog

Dear Noah,

You are 32 months old now.

You are SUCH a big boy now. Some days, we look at you and we just do NOT know where the time has gone. Our sweet, fat, chipmunk cheek baby has been replaced with this delightful, hilarious, sensitive little man.

You have become so articulate and good at expressing what you want with your words – your beautiful, wonderful sentences. There are some points in the day where your age gets the better of you to the point where you are overwhelmed with your emotions and it all comes out in a tearful, incomprehensible mess of wailing. But most days, you wow us with these complex thoughts and lovely words, and every day you are learning more and more new things to say.

You have all these little insightful things that you say – like how you admit – “Parfois j’ecoute, et parfois j’ecoute pas" (sometimes I listen, sometimes I don’t listen). You tell me a million times a day, and even in the middle of the night when you are sleeping next to me in my bed, “Maman – t’es belle" (Mom, you are beautiful). I certainly have no shortage of compliments! You express your feelings with grace – “Je vais m’ennuyer de toi pendant la journee Papa" (I am going to miss you during the day, Daddy) or “Content de te voir, Maman" (happy to see you Mom). Sometimes you say the funniest things because you haven’t quite mastered the words – “Moi l’aime toi" (Me love you) but the intent is still very clear. You crack yourself up with your own jokes and you love to laugh. I have a feeling you are going to be a little class clown.

Since you started school in September, you have learned all kinds of new songs and English words, and you talk about your new friends in the “Yellow" classroom. The first couple weeks were a little rough – there were still some tears at drop off, but now you proudly march to into your class while greeting your teacher after giving some hugs and kisses! Your teacher says that there are no more tears during the day – you do your lessons and engage with other children, and you take a little nap in the afternoon with your Elmo doll tucked under your arm. There are days where you say that you don’t want to go to school, but once you’re there, I know you have a good time. (And when you stay home, you get bored.)

You are a total ladies man at school, charming all the female teachers with your lovely, suave words. Your favourite assistant is a teacher named Stephanie, who you met when she was a substitute assistant in your toddler camp this summer. She gained your trust and your affection during that one short week where she helped out in the classroom. Even though she is not the teacher’s assistant in your class, you are always chatting with her at recess and after school, and she loves you so much that she wipes your snotty nose in the playground, even though you’re not even one of the kids she’s responsible for. When it’s time to go home, you run around the playground to say goodbye, give hugs, and shake hands with all the teachers and assistants, at which point I feel a collective swell of female hearts melting.

Whenever we drive away from the school and you see the toddler’s playground in the back, you talk about how you see your old friends from the toddler class playing outside, but I know that you are so proud that you’re in the big kids group now.

You continue to be a bit of a picky eater but in the last few months you have made some really good strides in the eating department. We started you out on school provided hot lunches, but after a month and a half, we gave up on that. There were just too many unfamiliar foods served that you simply would not touch, and since we’ve been sending you to school with home-made lunches, your teachers have commented that you are finally, happily eating now. You’ve added a few vegetables to your repertoire – you’ll now entertain things like asparagus, cucumbers, red and yellow peppers, broccoli, and Caesar salad (though let’s face it, your favourite part of salad are the croutons).

The other day, we bought a hot roasted chicken at the grocery store and after watching your big brother Caleb and I happily munching away on pieces of hot chicken, you decided that you too wanted to have some. This was a pretty big deal – you’ll usually eat chicken if it’s breaded, but to eat chicken in its unbreaded form was previously unheard of. You will also happily eat brisket sandwiches and pulled pork sandwiches (which I christened the “Bob the Builder" sandwich and this seemed to do the trick) so we’re starting to expand our variety a little bit beyond our standard fare.

You love to pour milk into your cereal. You will eat ice cream at an alarmingly fast rate. We’re still working on getting you to eat with your mouth closed, and you are usually the last one to be sitting at the table, especially if you are trying to work through your vegetables in an effort to get to dessert.

Sleeping through the night continues to be a bit of an elusive goal. You’re still waking up once or twice during the night – usually around midnight or so when we take you to do a quick trip to the bathroom. You have started showing up at my bedside in the early hours of the morning with your Lapin (bunny) tucked under your arm, just waiting to be brought into bed with us.

Sometimes when you wake up during the night, you ask to come sleep with us, and as much as we love to snuggle with you, we try to postpone that as much as possible until the late hours of the morning. The longer you seem to sleep in bed with us, the more sideways you tend to end up, so while it starts out all nice and snuggly, eventually it ends up with someone getting a foot to the throat. We’ve figured out that you love to have physical contact, whether it’s your foot or your arm, so you will inevitably gravitate towards your father’s side in an effort to snuggle up to him, but unfortunately for him that means that you eventually take over his spot until he is sleeping at the foot of the bed. Still, sharing a bed with you remains the last bit of baby joy we have that reminds us of your infant days.

You occasionally talk in your sleep – I’ve come to your room alarmed to hear you screaming or crying, only to hear you half-asleep, babbling away about how Caleb stole your toy. I’ve heard you scream out, in the middle of the night, “LIGHTNING MCQUEEN!"

You have become so independent – you can go up and down the stairs on your own. You can get yourself on and off the toilet. You can put on your hat and your shoes, though zipping up your jacket still remains a small challenge, but you’re always trying! You can get dressed and undressed on your own except for shirts. You are usually a bit of a monkey when it comes to convincing you to get dressed or undressed, but usually with a little motivation (or threats) we can get you going.

Your independence comes through even when you are half asleep. The other night your father took you to the bathroom in the middle of the night and you started WAILING because he had the nerve to put you on the toilet as opposed to let you climb up on your own.

You know most of your alphabet and will proudly announce that N is part of the word Noah, or hey, there’s an M, like in Maman! You can recite your favourite book (“Bob") almost entirely by heart, word for word, which is a pretty amazing feat considering you are only two and a half years old. The other day I heard you count to fourteen in English! You play “Memory" with your father and brother, where you hold your own with Caleb and you beat the pants off your father.

You are this great little worker bee. In the past month, we’ve had lots of landscaping work to do outside, and you are so game to pick up rocks, fill up buckets of dirt with your shovel, or bag up some leaves. I’m amazed that you will be happiest working by our side and doing lots of physical work, and that you don’t get bored or sidetracked.

You will proudly declare to anyone that asks that Caleb is your best friend.

I love seeing all these new dimensions coming out in your personality. You are a wonderful, cheeky, and smart little bugger and we hope you continue to make us laugh every day.

Love
Maman & Papa

Dear Noah,

Hey there, big fella. You have gone through something of a growth spurt lately, because I've started to notice that there are pants that you wear that we don't have to roll up anymore, and how when I am carrying you up the stairs, your feet bang against my knees. You are now 29 months old and so so so grown up.

In the past few months, you have become articulate (in two languages), fiercely independent, and talented beyond your two years. Sometimes I have to remind myself that you are JUST two years old and that despite the fact that you walk and talk like an older kid, sometimes you behave and react like one your own age. You are silly, goofy, and often times you hear exactly what I say and choose to do your own thing. You can also be sensitive, affectionate, patient (when you want to), and be a real "big boy" like your brother. You are tough as nails – if you fall or hurt yourself, all it takes is a "magic kiss" to cure the hurt and within seconds you're off running again. You are fearless – you are game for new and exciting things and you will do things like embark on an amusement park ride or jump in a cold swimming pool without a second thought. (Or, in some cases, jumping in it naked because you couldn't be bothered with wasting your time putting on your bathing suit.)

When asked what your name is, you easily respond "Noah", but occasionally (and especially if asked by your beloved Papie) you will answer "Noah Bam-buuuuni", which is apparently your Italian name. You speak in these long, beautiful sentences and master so many of the social rituals you've observed around you. I've heard you repeat the most hilarious things, like how you will say "Salut, mon grand" (Hey big guy) or "Ca va bien, mon amour?" (How's it going, my love?) You love to say hello to strangers, wave a "thank you" when someone yields to let us cross the street, fist bump, shake hands, give kisses and hugs.

The biggest breakthrough in the past month has been your toilet training. We'd started slowly several months ago, but when we realized that the start of school only months away, we put the toilet training in high gear and decided to make it a priority. We put you in underwear all day and watched you like a hawk for a week. There were some accidents, and some reluctance on doing the number 2 on the potty, but with a little help from M&Ms and an incredible amount of celebration after every success, you quickly got the hang of it. It really helped when we had you toilet-train Elmo at the same time, a job you assumed with real zest.

You're now fully toilet trained! We're now just refining things – making sure that when you declare you have to go, it's not a burning emergency where we have a mere seconds to make it to the potty. A few days ago, we put you in underwear for the night after having seen dry pull-ups every morning for a week. The best part of celebrating your success on the potty is when we cheer for you, and you take a bow – with one hand on your belly and one hand on your back, you dip forward with a dramatic bow to the sound of thunderous applause. It's truly awesome.

You are able to switch seamlessly from French to English and back again. Your English pronunciation can be a little rough sometimes but you never let a lack of vocabulary get in the way of trying to express yourself. You will yammer away in "English" to anyone who will speak it with you, and I'm often amazed at how much you are able to speak considering we still speak French at home and you're learning it from TV and from these occasional conversations with other people. You and Caleb will often play in English when you're doing train voices or car voices, and I can foresee that maintaining French as the language at home is going to be more of a challenge in the future.

You have these funny little expressions that you say that always make us laugh. You tell me a dozen times a day that I am beautiful ("T'es belle, Maman"). If you're a little slow at putting on your shoes and we've started to head outside, you will call out "WAIT UP GUYS!" as you run to catch up. You have a pretty good ear for repeating new words, but on the odd time that you mispronounce something, it will just make us laugh, like the way you say "all the time" in French – itself of saying "tout le temps", you say "toun-temps, toun-temps!"

Your sleeping habits have come a long way. You still sleep with your white bunny rabbit, Lapin, tucked under your arm and you have a small blue ball with fire trucks tucked away in the corner. (Up until recently, you also had a mini foam soccer ball in the mix too, but we recently found a couple big bites missing from it and pieces of foam next to the bed, so that was the end of that.) You still wake up a couple times a night and I've started to think that the frequent waking that you've always had have been attributed to night terrors, because there are times when you wake up wailing, with your eyes closed, and it isn't until you have your eyes open that you are able to respond to any kind of comfort.

You occasionally nap, though most days you don't. You usually wake up around 4-5am and ask if you can come sleep with us in our bed, sandwiched between the two of us. Once you're done with sleeping, you like to amuse yourself by sleeping sideways, kicking one of us in the face and neck, sticking your fingers up our nose or in our eyeballs, or – my personal favourite – slathering our faces with kisses while you coo "Allo Maman… Allo…." There are truly worse ways to wake up. We're trying to discourage too much sleeping in our bed (even though you've always done so to some degree) but secretly we still kind of love it, as you are a huge snuggle monkey and you still have such fat, kissable cheeks.

You are a picky, picky eater. There are days when we feel like we're banging our heads against a wall trying to get you to eat. Chicken? Only if it's in the form of a nugget. Forget an actual piece of undisguised chicken. A couple times we got you to eat some and this was only under the threat of not getting to go to the park after dinner, and each mouthful of chicken looked like it was sheer torture. Steak? Forget it. Sausages – surprisingly, this, you'll eat. Your vegetable repertoire includes red bell pepper, cucumbers (like it's nobody's business), red onion, broccoli, and roasted asparagus. Not bad considering a couple months ago you ate like, none. You and Caleb are hilarious when it comes to cucumbers – we cut them in rounds and serve them with vinegar to dip in, but usually we serve a single plate, which leads to a cucumber-eating race as you both attempt to get the most cucumbers possible. You are notorious for hoarding cucumbers on your side of the plate, and stealing from your brother's pile when he's not looking. If only you guys would fight over carrots or brussel sprouts! This is my dream… one day, maybe!

Not so surprisingly, you will eagerly open your mouth to try some new pastry or junk snack food, undoubtedly when your unhealthy-food-radar goes off. But try to introduce you to a new healthy food? Good lord, I'm so sorry to insult you. The worst is when I serve you a plate of food, you take one look at it, and then you shove the plate away as far as possible from you, declaring "Moi veut pas ca" (Me no want this). I wish you would do a lot more of "Moi l'aime ca!" (Me love this!) You've been so stubborn that you have basically skipped your dinner, even on the threat of no dessert. The other day you pretty much went to bed with no dinner because you refused to eat. I'm really worried that you won't eat anything when you start school next week, but experienced parents have told me that after a couple of days, hunger and peer pressure sets in and even the pickiest eaters will start to eat.

You have got a real sweet tooth. Ice cream has got to be your favourite thing in the world. You have quickly mastered the technique of eating ice cream with a spoon to the point where you out-eat your brother when we are all sharing ice cream in a cup. Heck, you practically out eat ME, you're so fast. You're a big fan of popsicles, too. Heck, you'd probably trade Lapin for a popsicle if it came down to it.

You are an affectionate little guy who loves to hug and give kisses. I love it when you grab my face in your hands and plant kiss after kiss on my lips and my cheeks. You love to give hugs, and when you do, you lovingly pat-pat-pat us on the back as your arms are wrapped around us. The goodbye routine when I go to work is always quite lengthy – you usually get a little upset if you don't get to say your goodbyes the way you like to. It's like a checklist – you need to say "Bonne journee" (have a good day), "A tantot" (see you later), "Je t'aime" (I love you), and "bye-bye!", not to mention endless hugs and kisses. Some days you are so distraught that your dad has to distract you with "Hey, want to go watch an episode of Franklin?" to which you will react with diminished crying, because you still don't want me to go, but darnit, you really do want to go watch your favourite TV show.

Sometimes you and Caleb role-play, where Caleb is "Franklin", the turtle from the animated TV series of the same name, and you are "Bear", Franklin's best friend. Sometimes you guys are trains, and sometimes you're characters from Bob the Builder. It's quite amusing to see you guys acting out these elaborate scenarios. Sometimes we call you "Minh-Minh", Minh being your middle name, especially if we can't seem to get your attention (which is quite common because la-la-la, you are your own man and you answer to no one!)

Next week, you will be starting a four-week stint in a toddler program at your new school. We had signed you up to start school a little earlier to ease the transition into the older group, so for the first four weeks you're going to be on the older end of the age scale, and then once September rolls around, you'll go into the older group. We hadn't been sure if you would be fully toilet trained in time, so the toddler program was a good transition in that respect as well, but since you've done so well, we now just get to focus on transitioning you from doing full days at home with a parent and Caleb to a full day at school without Caleb (who will be in a different class). My heart breaks at the thought of it – but I have a feeling, especially in recent months – that you are ready for this. The initial transition might be hard, but all kids do it, and all parents survive it. I know that once you're adjusted, you're going to love it.

Because, as you love to say, you're a big boy now.

Love you very much, my little Minh-Minh.

Maman & Papa

Dear Noah,

You are a character. Oooh boy, what a funny little guy you are. You're now 26 months old but growing up far too fast.

You have made tremendous strides in the past couple of months in the food department, even though in general you can be a fairly picky eater. You are now a lover of spaghetti and I am pleased to report that spaghetti is no longer something you eat strand-by-strand with your hands, but you have transitioned into a much more polite fork-eating, slurping kind of technique. Pasta was never a favourite of yours but thankfully with the help of our friend, parmesan cheese, you are now a believer. (But as far as we're concerned, there is no other pasta other than spaghetti.)

You eat broccoli and sweet potato fries! Hooray for vegetables! I mean, there are days where the first thing you eat on your plate is broccoli and it ends up being one of the only things you eat. I never thought I'd see the day where you'd wolf down your side of broccoli and demand more, but I'm happy to provide you with as much broccoli as you want. Your brother wants nothing to do with these sweet potato fries (the "orange fries", as he calls them) but you are totally up for it, which makes me really happy! You'll even occasionally entertain red pepper strips, so I am happy that your vegetable repertoire has expanded so greatly in the past couple of months.

You're a fan of pineapple, watermelon, oranges, kiwis, and pears. You can be persuaded to do just about anything for a cracker or a pastry (clearly you're mother's son there). You can be a really funny eater - some days you will try just about anything, and sometimes you will ask me for a bite of what I'm eating, then turn up your nose when I offer you a piece like you're really offended that I would dare even ask.

You have learned to ride a tricycle. You got your first bike helmet not long ago and broke it in within hours of wearing it when you took a wild U-turn and learned why it's important to wear a helmet. You'd gotten a two-wheeler for your birthday but you're not quite ready for it just yet, but given how quickly you've learned to ride the trike, it probably won't be long before you're whizzing around the driveway doing loops like your brother.

One of your favorite things to do is to play with our neighbours' kids, Morgan and Oliver. Sometimes you are so desperate to see your friends that you will moan to me that you need to see your two friends, and where ARE they? Every time we get home, you and your brother will make a mad dash across the front lawn to peek at their driveway to see if they're there playing or playing in the backyard. The four of you happily play in our yard or theirs, and we couldn't be happier that you guys have some play buddies.

You and your brother Caleb are like two peas in a pod. All in all, you guys get along really well for two brothers. When you guys wake up in the morning, it's like you missed each other. You greet one another with an enthusiastic "Hi, Caleb!!!" and "Hi, Noah!!!" as though it's been days (not hours) since you last saw each other. Some mornings, you greet each other by running into each others' arms for a long hug and some kisses. (Definitely a favourite sight of mine.) It's not long before you guys are climbing all over us in bed, demanding to go downstairs to play, while we are desperately clinging to a few last moments of sleep.

You are totally the instigator between you and your brother. You are always coming up with new schemes and troublesome activities. You are always making him laugh, especially while you two are eating, with some kind of silly face or word. On one hand, I find it really adorable that you guys really make each other laugh, but sometimes it makes a meal really frustrating when no one is eating because you guys are egging each other on.

Noah, you have an amazing vocabulary for a two year old. You express your thoughts in French with eloquent little sentences. You understand just about everything in English, and can have a pretty basic conversation (or at least attempt one) with anyone who will talk to you. People are always pretty amazed at you because you follow directions fairly well and are so autonomous for your age, not to mention the fact that those big chipmunk cheeks and baby fat make you look younger than you are.

You and your brother have a pretty tight relationship with your grandparents. You have been spending a day a week with your paternal grandparents, which usually results in you guys coming home with all kinds of interesting expressions and phrases, like when you look me square in the eyes and say "Hey, baby!" Your grandfather (Papi) has been preparing for their upcoming Italian vacation by inventing Italian nicknames for everyone - Papi Zamboni, Mamie Pronto, Noah Bambouni, Caleb Scusi. It's gotten to the point where you will fart and then say "El petto!" or "Scusi!" Most days we just shake our heads, but we laugh at how much fun you guys have with your grandparents and how much you love them.

You usually have a short playdate with your grandmother every weekend, too, where she comes fully stocked with fruit ("Hey, Ba Ngoai, what food did you bring me today?"), surprises (lately it's been fortune cookies), and elaborate games that only a grandmother would have patience for - like the time when your grandmother showed up ready to teach you guys about the concept of money with all kinds of hand-cut cardboard coins and dollar bills, all colour-coded, with numbers written on them. At some point, you, Caleb and Ba Ngoai (Vietnamese for maternal grandmother) end up eating a snack in the TV room by the large window facing the back yard, looking at birdies or counting squirrels and inventing all kinds of funny stories about them.

Your sleep habits have gotten a lot better in the past month. You sleep in a toddler bed now. You still nap about half the time - sometimes involuntarily (due to a long car ride) or when you clearly need it. You've stopped waking up a gazillion times a night. It seemed like a few months ago, you were up 4-5 times a night, but there have been a couple of nights in recent weeks where you've more or less slept through the night, or have only woken up 1-2 times.

Lately you will call out for us when you have lost your blanket or your bunny rabbit, and this week you've been asking for kisses or rarely it'll be a glass of water (which is significant considering 2 months ago, you'd wake up 3-4 times a night asking for water). It's still fairly common for you to wake up at least once between bedtime and midnight. You'll sometimes wake up as early as 5:30am but can be persuaded to sleep a little longer if it means you get to sleep in bed with us. I know it's become fairly habitual for us to stretch you out an extra hour this way since we've started keeping a pillow just for you in our bed. You'll setttle into our bed between us, asking us "Mon oreiller?" ("my pillow?")

You keep up pretty well with your brother in general, and in keeping up with him, you've learned some pretty amazing things. You can count to 20 in French and recite the entire alphabet. You know most of the train names for Thomas the Tank Engine and his friends. You know that Gordon is the #4 engine, and that James is the red one. You know all the names of the characters in Bob the Builder and sing the theme song. Speaking of music, your favourite non-children's songs are "Low" by Flo-Rida, "Whatever you like" by T.I., and "Boom boom pow" by the Black Eyed Peas. There is something quite funny when I hear you sing fragments from those songs and talk about whose booty you're going to slap.

You have had your decidedly two-year old moments. There are some tantrums, which mostly escalate from you hitting Caleb or failing to listen to repeated requests to stop doing something, and then ends up with some full-out meltdown because you won't do your timeout in the corner. You are a pretty stubborn little guy - these episodes of discipline can last up to an hour where we are talking you through first calming down enough to hear us talk, to getting you to stop talking, to getting you to go stand in the corner silently for a couple of minutes. Doing all those things at the same time is a tough job for a two year old, but I know you'll get better and understanding who the bosses are in this house. (No, it isn't you, really.) There are days where we feel you are light years ahead of your age, and there are days where we are reminded that you are only two.

Your potty training is going pretty well. You have started to have a lot of dry diapers in the morning, and dry diapers throughout the day between your trips to the potty. We are still having a really tough time getting you to do the #2 on the potty, though you're pretty good about telling us about it after the fact. Your dad says he's going to be having you run around pantless and diaper-less all summer and it'll be fixed in no time.

You really hold your own - you have never been the little brother who follows along aimlessly. You will boss around your brother like you will try to do anyone else. You have your little diva moments where you insist that you will be the only one who will be allowed to sing - solos only! You throw up your hand and insist, "Non! Noah chante!" (No, Noah sing)

You have started to be a little bit better with your fear of dogs - you still like them in concept but don't like to be anywhere near big ones. I no longer have to take you in my arms every time we pass a dog on the street (which, living in our neighbourhood, is a real relief now!) but you will go into a tizzy and wail "J'ai peur!" (I'm scared) if there is a sizeable dog anywhere in your vicinity for more than a few seconds. You're not a huge fan of birds either, but thankfully your brother really enjoys chasing them away on your behalf, so we seem to be OK in that department. You really do love all animals, just mostly when they're in books and not so much when they're in your face.

Your favourite book is one called "Bob", which is about a rooster that is learning to crow, but that learns all kinds of other animal sounds as well on his journey to find another rooster to teach him how to crow. You will enthusiastically belt out all the animal sounds with zest! I could read you "Bob" five times a day and you wouldn't get bored.

Easter pretty much blew your mind. I mean, a holiday that involved bunny rabbits AND chocolate? Holy moly.

You do a pretty decent mean face. I especially love when you give me this face when I ask you to smile for the camera:

That pretty much sums it up. You are a funny guy, and far, far too smart for age. You give the best kisses. You are a real joy to be around, and you make us all laugh with your sweetness and sense of humour.

We love you lots!

Love

Maman & Papa

Dear Noah,

Several weeks ago, you turned two years old. Mommy's been a pretty bad girl, because you are almost 25 months old by the time I write this. I could give you a million excuses, but the bottom line is that I am spending all of my non-working time munching on your face so I really don't have time to do much else. This letter is going to have to be both your 24 and your 25 month old newsletter, because I've had to come to terms with the fact that in order to reduce my guilt and stay sane, I'm going to have to start writing these every 2 months until you are 3 years old. Technically you are getting 50% less newsletters in the next year but I promise you that I will be munching on you 200% more of the time.

It's hard to believe that our little baby boy is now two years old. You still have a healthy coat of baby fat on you (especially in your face), which is why sometimes people think you're younger than you are, but the minute they see that you can practically carry on a full conversation, they either think you are your age or you are a baby genius. We think it's a little of both!

We had a great birthday weekend celebration for you, where we invited both sides of the family to come and celebrate with you. You enjoyed a lot of cake.

On your actual birth day, you had chocolate cake.

And then over your birthday weekend, we celebrated with some vanilla cupcakes.

I think "cupcake" is now one of your favourite words. It's certainly one of your favourite things! Your idea of a cupcake is icing with some cake added to it. Once you eat off the top of an iced cupcake, you demand "Un autre cupcake!" (another cupcake), never mind that you are still clutching the bottom of the cupcake in your hands. You simply want more ICING... you just haven't figured out how to ask for it yet.

In the last month or two, you have decided that you no longer need a nap. I was pretty much ready to have you nap until the first grade, but apparently you have different plans for us. Most days you are chipper and fairly well behaved in the afternoon when you are trying to convince everyone that you don't need your nap. Car rides can still be tricky, because you still actually need the nap, you just insist on not doing it. The only place where you will consistently take a nap is during your weekly visit to your grandparents' house, where it somehow still happens to be engrained in your routine. The afternoons when your brother goes to school, you usually fall asleep somewhere on the way home in the car, and your dad puts you to sleep in the living room on the couch or on a pillow on the floor.

You and your brother hunker down for your bedtime around 7:30pm after tooth brushing, storytime, and a glass or five of water, after which point you instruct me to put your glass of water in a designated spot, and that I am to go to my room. At which point I inform you that no, Mommy is NOT going to her room to wait for you to fall asleep, I'm going downstairs to deal with the aftermath of your full-day tornado of toys, do dishes, or finish up my work day. Most days, you vocalize your disapproval of this for about twenty minutes until I threaten to take away your bunny or the two balls you keep in your crib.

You're still waking up a couple of times a night, sometimes not even quite awake and half-sleeping, half-crying. Usually I can distract you by asking you if you want a glass of water, after which point you tell me that you'd like for me to put the glass of water back in the designated spot in your room, and you tell me "Dodo" (sleep) and you're back in your bed. Thankfully there has been very little cosleeping in the last little while, except for the odd morning when you threaten to be wide awake at 5am and we attempt to lull you back to sleep in bed between us, only to get kicked in the face around 6:30am. We take what we can get, sleep-wise, with you.

You are a real cheeky monkey. You really are. You always have this mischevious twinkle in your eye. You will ham it up for the camera on demand! You are playful and engaging, and disarmingly charming - and I think you kind of know it. There are always parts of the day when you are determined to be a big boy - you'll want to go down the stairs on your own or sit without a booster seat at the table or play with scissors. And then there are more tender moments, when you insist on being in our arms ("dans les bras!!!") and refuse to play on your own.

You love to crawl underneath the dining room table like it's your fort, and play under the table. You crawl under the chairs like they're tunnels. Sometimes I look for you and can't find you anywhere, only to see that you are sitting under the table, happily playing with a couple of cars.

Your favourite toy at the moment is a little tractor from the Bob the Builder series called Travis. You're also a big fan of a couple of the race cars from the movie Cars, including RPM and Leakless. You're really good with all the names of the characters, too - you know them all!

You love to watch an animated series called Pocoyo, and continue to love Caillou. You will watch Bob the Builder with your brother, though you don't usually make it through an entire episode. You seem to enjoy Thomas the Tank Engine shows a lot more now that you have gotten more into the characters and all the trains we have at home.

You speak in these cute little sentences - "J'ai peur!" (I'm scared), "Temps de manger?" (time to eat?), "Pas fait caca dans couche" (didn't poop in diaper - usually a sign that you just did, by the way), and my personal favourite "Pas de Frank dans la maison? Frank dans Cars?" (No Frank in the house? Frank in Cars?) which is a reference to Frank the evil Combine Harvester in the movie Cars. Your vocabulary is amazing for your age, and you converse with your brother like it's no big deal. Your brother is still your universal translator - sometimes we have on idea what you're saying and we have to ask Caleb to translate for us. He seems to fluent in Noah-speak.

You love to speak in English. You're able to say hello, goodbye, thank you, and answer "How are you?" with "I'm good!" There are a bunch of English phrases that you know, like "You're it!", "I'm stuck!", "I'm trying!" or "I did it!" and usually if you are asked a question, you answer "Yes." no matter what the answer actually is. I know you are aware of the two languages, because when we are out and about and you are hearing English around you, I can ask you, in French, to say thank you to someone, and you will say it in English instead of French. Sometimes you get really stuck wanting to speak in English, and you will call out to me and repeatedly say "Mommy?" until I have responded to you in English instead of in French.

You're still a pretty picky eater. There aren't many foods that you LIKE, which makes it really frustrating to plan meals around you. You'll pretty much eat anything if it's breaded (fish, chicken nuggets, turkey), occasionally you will entertain roasted sausages, spaghetti is occasionally tolerated although you eat it with your hands one strand at at ime and sometimes dip it in ketchup, and you love anything in the bread/cracker/pastry family. Breakfast is probably the easiest meal with you - you love cereal, waffles, toast, etc. Thank goodness you will eat most fruit, or else you wouldn't have any fresh fibre in your diet. You'll eat yogurt and occasionally some applesauce. Potatoes used to be the only vegetable where you'd eat more than 2 bites. On the rare occasion, I have managed to bribe you into eating 2 or 3 pieces of roasted asparagus or broccoli, but nothing consistent. In the last couple of weeks, you've started enjoying red bell peppers and will pick them out of my salad. I managed to convince you that sweet potato fries are as good as the white kind (Caleb isn't buying it one bit, though). Alas - if only I could meet all your nutritional needs with food shaped like a cookie, you'd be fine, but unfortunately, that's not really the case.

But let's move on from the things you won't do and talk about the things you LOVE to do. You love to dance and sing. You do this great little shuffle dance with your feet that involves a whole lot of dangerous sliding with socked feet. You will sing your heart out, but will sometimes insist that you be allowed to do a solo and that no one else is permitted to sing. You love to read books! Sometimes when your brother is at school, your father will put you in the wagon with a backpack of books and take you to the coffee shop where you will eat an entire cookie and drink two huge glasses of milk, and happily read through every single book in your bag. You are a social butterfly - you love to say hello and goodbye to everyone you see. Sometimes you wave at random people as we are crossing the street or walking through public places. You love to be the one to hand over Mom's credit card when we are paying for anything.

We've been starting to toilet train you in preparation for you needing to be toilet trained by September when you start preschool. So far it's been going well - you've figured out how to pee and if we can catch you in the act of starting a #2, you can usually crank one out into the potty and are thrilled to see the results! We're working on getting you to vocalize your needs and be able to do so before the event and not after it. The reward of mini-M&Ms was a great way to get you started, only now you expect that every time you squeak out a few drops, you get a reward. You will squeak out a few drops, jump with your arms in the air in a celebratory pose and exclaim "BONBON!" (candy)

You are still terrified of dogs up close - you love to see them from far but if one of them gets close to you, you scream in terror and start to cry. The other day you were walking along when a couple of pigeons were minding their own business off by a tree and you FREAKED OUT... I couldn't convince you that they were more scared of you than you were. Caleb took charge of the situation and took it upon himself to scare off the birds by running after them and yelling at them, and then came back to tell you that you didn't have to worry, because he'd look out for any birds and scare them off for you. That's love!

Being two years old, you deal with your emotions in a two year old way. They don't call them the terrible twos for nothing! When you are upset, you will cry and wail and it will be the END OF THE WORLD as we know it. Sometimes it's so hard to shake you out of these crying fits, but I know this is a temporary thing and your father reminds me that Caleb was the same way at this age (I have wiped it from my memory). You are a happy go lucky guy most of the day with the exception of when you have your two year old moments (heck, we all have those, even though we are not two!) - and when you have your tough moments, they're tough, but you get past it, you wipe away those crocodile tears when you're done and demand a tissue to blow your nose. I think the hardest thing I find with disciplining you these days is that sometimes you don't take it seriously - you'll laugh at a punishment, or stomp your feet and declare "NO!" if we insist on a punishment. It's rough being two, I hear you.

Pretty soon you'll be sleeping in the toddler bed. Caleb's already moved into his new twin bed but we decided to hold off on putting you in the toddler bed since you still wake up so much during the night. The thought that you could crawl right out of your bed is just too much for us to handle. We'll work on geting you to sleep through the night, and then we can talk about the toddler bed. That is, until you figure out how to climb out of the crib, which is what happened with your brother.

Noah, you are a real gem. We love you more than you can imagine, and there are days when I wish you were still my sweet little baby, but I have to say that I am really happy you are growing up too, because I can already see that you are going to be a real funny little boy.

With love,

Maman & Papa

Dear Noah,

You are almost two years old. In the last couple of months, I've so often said you were "almost two" that I forget that right now, you're technically still 1. You seem to be every bit the little boy and the only thing remaining from babyhood is that delightful baby fat in your cheeks and legs.

You are an energetic, delightful little boy. You wake up in the morning bright, happy, and full of energy. You greet us with an enthusiastic "ALLO MAMAN!" or "ALLO PAPA!" even if we are groggy and cranky. You are always thrilled to start your day. Granted, you do get about 12 hours of sleep every night (minus all the social calls you make at night) but you are definitely always ready to go.

You have become a great play friend for Caleb. The two of you are always up to something, whether it's racing your cars around the same path (around the poof and along the back of the two-seater couch) to the soundtrack of the movie "Cars" or chugga-chugging your trains along the tracks with Thomas the Tank Engine and his friends. Lately, you too have been collecting Bob the Builder figurines along with your brother, as we've gotten into that phase where we need to buy two of everything.

You're still a pretty picky eater, but if there's one thing you love to do while eating, it's to dip. You love to dip in ketchup, in steak sauce, in tzatziki, in maple syrup (to you, simply referred to as "sauce" with your waffles), in hummus. The speed at which you go through a dollop of ketchup is astounding. Upon closer observation, we can see that a single tiny bite-sized piece of chicken sometimes get dipped a couple of times.

One of my favourite games to play in the car to keep you awake is the game where I ask you which is better, and then give you two choices. Ketchup or ice cream? Ice cream. Ice cream or chocolate? Chocolate. Ice cream or chocolate? Chocolate. Mommy or chocolate? Chocolate. I'd have to say that the way this usually stack ranks is that chocolate is number 1, followed by ice cream, ketchup, your Papie, and maybe some chips. Every once and while, one of us happens to trump ketchup or chocolate, and that's where we really feel good about ourselves. ("Yeah. I beat CHOCOLATE.")

This past month, it's become increasingly more difficult to put you down for your nap. Most days, you don't nap, but if there's a car ride close to noon or in the afternoon, it's guaranteed snoozeville. Your temperament when napless shows that you're ready to drop the nap - usually you aren't cranky or irritable. We still think it's pretty outrageous for a kid who's not even two to drop his nap - in fact, when we tell other parents that you are on a nap strike, they gasp and shake their heads like they've never heard anything so unreasonable. Some weekends, I manage to convince you to nap, but most of the time we let it go because anything more than a half hour nap results in a difficult bedtime routine.

We've realized recently that our habit of letting you sleep with one of us (usually Mom) for half the night has got to stop. We are now a few weeks shy of your birthday and for the past week and a half, your mother has experienced the wild delight of waking up in her own bed for the first time in months. It's been a rough week to say the least - I'd gotten used to going to get you when you start to scream in the middle of the night, and then just zonking out with you in the guest bed until the morning. Since we resolved to no longer do this, there are nights where you wake up seeking comfort so many times that we start to lose count. One night, you were up from 3:30am-5:30am doing various combinations of being happy, angry, and sleepy. Another night, your father gave up counting the number of times you'd woken up when he got to 15. In the last few nights, you've only gotten up about two to three times, and it takes a special effort to rock with you a few minutes in the rocking chair and then put you back in your crib. You're usually just looking for comfort, and thankfully it seems like you actually only need a few minutes of it, not five hours of it from 2-7am. Things are looking up in the sleep department - for the first time in a long time.

In your bed, you always have your blue ball with the fire engines on it, tucked away in the corner within arm's reach. You still sleep with your Lapin, though in the last week or two, you don't talk about him as much and I can't remember the last time I saw you walking around with him tucked under your arm during waking hours. There was a stretch of a couple of days where you insisted on adding a small soccer ball into the crib interior decorating scheme, as well as a couple of farm animal figurines - the cow, the goat, and the horse. I managed to phase out the farm animals, especially because they kept falling out from between the crib rails during the night and I would hear you start to wail "CHE-VAAAAAAAL!" (horse) or "CHEEEEEEEVRE!" (goat) like you'd just lost the most precious things in the world.

You have become really good at playing independently and playing with your brother. Your favorite toys at the moment are your balls, your farm and all the animals that go with it, and this plastic toy pumpkin that's been around since Caleb's first Hallowe'en. You like to load up your pumpkin with all kinds of toys and then complain that it's too heavy ("trop lourd, Maman!"). Whenever we get ready go to upstairs to start the bathtime/bedtime routine, I always ask you and your brother to bring a couple of toys upstairs in a backpack, box, or in your case - the pumpkin. You then go and pick up every single toy in sight as though you're preparing for the apocalypse, and make me carry it upstairs for you.

Your ability to speak is pretty mind blowing. You speak in short sentences and have become something of a little social butterfly in recent months. We love to do imitations of you when you eat something you enjoy - you say "C'est bon" (it's good) except the way you say it, it sounds like "Heeeeey bon!" You know all your animals in English and in French. You know your colours, some of your shapes, how to count to ten in both languages, and have a full vocabulary when it comes to the day-to-day routine. You know when you're in Mom's car as opposed to Dad's. You enthusiastically point out the moon when you see it. You are curious about your environment and are often asking "Quoi ca, Maman?" (What's what Mommy?)

It's been many, many months now that we've been stroller-free. You now walk everywhere with us when we go out. The best is when you and your brother hold hands as you walk around some public place. There's always a flurry of little old ladies that swoon at the sight of you two. (I especially love walking with the two of you right by some parent that has a five year old in a stroller with their knees tucked up as high as their head.) You love to say hello to everyone! Sometimes as we're walking around a public place, you will make eye contact with someone and say "Hello monsieur" or "Hello madame!" I think you have quite the future as a ladies man, judging from your present luck with the ladies.

I remember just six months ago, you were so shy around strangers that you would cry at the sight of someone new. Last month, you met your idol, Caillou, on an outing to the Biodome in Montreal. Your brother wouldn't go within five feet of Caillou, but you were game to sit on his lap and have your picture taken. It was hard to get you to keep moving after that, you kept going back and calling out "Bye bye Caillou! Je t'aime Caillou!" (I love you Caillou)

Your hair is starting to finally get a little thicker! This week your hair started showing signs of those delightful curls again, and I can't wait to see a full head of curls on you. You never had a mohawk, but perhaps a fro is in your future.

You've picked up a few bad habits from your brother - like the "mean face". Occasionally, you say a bad word (stupid) and are sent to the corner to repent. You're still not old enough to understand why you can't say bad words and hold yourself back from saying them. Occasionally, we see you act your age - like when something doesn't go your way and you break down into a full out fit of crying. There are many times when you are wise beyond your years - you learned to blow candles before your brother did (he just spat on them) and you can already spit and swish water (or milk!) in your mouth.

Noah, you are just an awesome little fella. Your laughter is infectious and you go about your day with such zest and happiness.

We can hardly wait to celebrate your 2nd birthday.

Love,
Maman & Papa

Dear Noah,

You are now 22 and a half months old! Hard to believe our little baby is going to be 2 years old next month. Because your momma is now a big slacker (translated in adult terms this means that I work a full time job and spend all my free time munching on you and your brother), this is going to have to be a short and sweet update because I'm starting to get close to the deadline for the NEXT newsletter.

You are our sweet, tender, too-smart-for-your-age, expressive, music-loving little boy. Your favourite things in the world are your blue mini-hockey stick (you will refer to any hockey stick as the blue one - "baton d'hockey bleu!") and it's absolutely mind blowing how good of a stick handler you are already. I forsee many early morning hockey practices in your future, at the rate you're going. You expertly run around with stick in hand, handling the ball - or, as you are often known to do, a plastic toy cookie which doubles nicely as a puck.

Your hand-eye coordination is really astounding - you love to play with your grandparents' table tennis racket and will happily swat away at the tiny balls, running after them as they bounce all over the place. (It's almost like fetch, except you run after your own balls!) You love to kick a ball back and forth with anyone who will play with you. You will often tug at our hands and say "Come" in French, trying to get us to play ball with you. And you are known to scream "CATCH!" and throw a ball at unsuspecting participants in an attempt to rope someone into playing.

You sleep with a ball in the top left hand corner your crib - a medium-sized blue bouncy ball with fire trucks on it. It's always within arm's reach and sometimes we find you with the ball tucked under your arm as you sleep, or with a few fingers touching it. Or, if you're being particularly hard-headed, with the ball under your arm, standing up at the railing demanding to be let out instead of napping. The threat of having your ball removed from your crib during bedtime or naptime is always one you take very seriously.

Sleeping continues to be a bit of a struggle with you. The biggest change recently has been that just before Christmas time, you moved into your brother's bedroom. You were pretty excited about this and your brother was a real sport about it too. On Christmas Eve, you two were excitedly chatting away about Santa Claus and presents - so much so that neither of you was able to settle down to sleep for almost half an hour.

You still wake up multiple times during the night - sometimes you wake up in a panic and you're not even awake, then will go from crying one minute to asleep the next. Other times you're waking up looking for a drink of water or some cuddles. Your brother, thankfully, is a pretty sound sleeper so all this night waking usually doesn't seem to bother him. Occasionally, he sits up in his bed and asks us if you are OK, but most of the time he doesn't wake up.

Usually in the second half of your sleeping time, you'll wake up and ask to be taken to the spare bedroom/office, where we have a double-bed setup and you get to sleep with one of us, and it's the only way any of us gets any sleep these days, because the alternative to that would be to have you continually waking up and spending time attempting to convince you that you should sleep in your own bed.

Pretty soon we'll need to move you into a toddler bed, which we're kind of dreading considering you don't yet sleep a full night in your own bed, and the idea that you could be getting up and wandering around at night is something we are just not fully ready for just yet.

At least when it comes to eating, you've started to be a little bit less picky, though you are still fairly limited in what you eat. Sometimes we like to laugh about how it hasn't been all that long since you were breastfeeding, or how you used to gag on purees and refused to eat baby food. You've recently decided that spaghetti noodles are OK, even though you prefer to fish for them with a fork, then pull them off your fork a single noodle at a time with your hands, and dip them in ketchup or steak sauce. It's kind of gross but kind of funny too. If crackers and ice cream were a food group, you'd be a great eater.

You're pretty stubborn about not wanting to eat your vegetables, or sometimes will shove your entire plate away before you even try a bite of new food. Some day I know you'll eat, just like how some day you'll also sleep in your own bed. Hopefully before you are off to university.

You're probably too busy being a big boy to be distracted by such nonsense as eating and sleeping. You are a smart little guy - probably too smart for your own good. You are a real chatterbox - you are talking in short sentences and you really never did the whole babbling phase - you just went straight to talking. Your pronounciation is still a little rough for certain words, but it's never just babbling - it's a real word that's mispronounced that we have to figure out. One of my favourite mispronounciations at the moment is the French word for toilet, "toilette", which is supposed to sound something like "twa-lette", except you say "ta-loo-ette". As in, "Noah, where does the poo-poo go?" and you respond with, "Dans la ta-loo-ette!" (in the toilet).

Caleb often serves as your translator. Sometimes we don't understand what you're saying, and Caleb will chime in with an annoyed, "Mom, Noah is trying to say blah-blah-blah."

You can count to ten in two English and French, though sometimes when you get too excited and want to rush through it, counting to ten goes more like 1, 2, 3, 4, 8, 9, 10, 20! You know most of your alphabet. You speak French and quite a bit of English, and you can understand both. Sometimes you and your brother like to speak English to each other and I hear you saying things like "Catch, Caleb!" or "Look, Caleb!" or "Come here, Caleb!" English seems to sometimes be a fun game for you to play, to the point where you get so stuck on it that you will say "Mommy?" and if I don't respond in English, you keep saying "Mommy?" as though I haven't even spoken.

You know all your animal names in French and you know most of them in English, too. You have started to refer to yourself in the first person, so for example, if I ask you who just farted, you say "Moi!" (me) You love to give yourself lots of encouragement! I love seeing you do something, like kick a ball and then proclaim to yourself, "Bravo, Noah!" - an imitation of all the encouragement we like to throw your way. No need for us to do it anymore, you do it yourself! You are equally generous with your recognition - you are always one to pat me on the back for a job well done ("Bravo, Maman!"), even if it's just serving you breakfast or returning the ball to you.

Your Lapin is still your buddy. He's starting to get pretty dirty and it's probably time for him to have another bath, but Lapin is your faithful companion and sleeping buddy. You are not so completely dependent on him when we're out of the house and perhaps we don't have Lapin with us, but you definitely love to sleep with him tucked under your arm.

You have been really enjoying going to a playgroup run out of an elementary school during the morning. The playgroup is moderated by a former kindergarten teacher named Beth who you and your brother simply adore. Playgroup includes up to an hour of gym-time where you get to run around chasing after balls, playing soccer with Beth as the goalie, and zooming around the gym in plasma cars. Apparently when you arrive in the gym, you look for Beth to say hi, and then Beth goes and fetches your favourite blue ball (also the purple one with the dimples for Caleb) that she knows you love. You love all the toys in the classroom. You love to play with Play-doh, paint, play in the toy kitchen where you run around with a teapot and teacups serving all the parents imaginary tea. You enjoy singing and story time, and your dad says sometimes you get so into snack time that you're the last one at the table. Your eyes light up at the suggestion that you'll be going to see Beth.

You love to explore and you have a curious spirit. You are charming, expressive, playful, high energy, and incredibly social. Which is funny because at one point, you used to cry whenever you saw a stranger or someone you didn't know very well. Now you are often the first one to come running to see who's there, to say hello, and you will often say "HI!" to random people as they walk by.

You've started to get really good at walking up and down the stairs. You still love to sing and dance. You can sing Happy Birthday in English and French. You love Caillou and Elmo, and you love to watch clips of "Old McDonald Had a Farm" on Youtube. You can sing a good part of the "Bob the Builder" theme song.

Christmas this year was awesome. You loved the tree, and the presents, and all the festivities with the family, especially because there were always lots of bowls of chips and crackers lying around!

This past month saw the introduction of the "mean face", which is a knock off of your brother's "mean face". It drives me nuts. But makes everyone laugh if they've never seen it before, because man is it ever MEAAAAN.

You and your brother are like two partners in crime. You have become such great friends and play buddies. And you are always laughing or making each other laugh. I love seeing the two of you together and seeing the genuine love that is there between the two of you.

Keep being that lovely, sweet, special Noah that all love to bits.

I'll try not to be so late on the next newsletter, as long as you start sleeping in your bed. Do we have a deal?

Love,
Maman

Dear Noah,

You are now 21 and a half months old. The baby fat in your cheeks and the hair on your head that is still filling out still scream "BABY!" but there is very little left of you that still feels like a baby. You eat the same food as your brother. You play the same games. You enjoy the same TV shows. And you talk! Oh boy do you ever talk.

You are now piecing together three to four word sentences. "Boire du lait, Maman" (drink milk Mommy), or "Un autre craquelin, Papa" (another cracker, Daddy). You count to ten in English and French, though there is the occasional missing number, like "1, 2, 3, 5, 12, 13..." You know most of your alphabet but mostly to you, it's just a song that ends with a rousing "YAAAY!"

You can readily identify characters by name, like Mickey Mouse, Bob the Builder (whom you refer to by his tagline, "Yes we can!"), Thomas the Tank Engine, and Teletubbies ("Lalapo!" you say, referring to two characters, Lala and Po).

You've even learned some sign language through your brother, who learns it at preschool, so you can sign for words like cracker and apple.

You are amazing with a ball! You love to walk around with a toy ladle with a ball in it, and I've even seen you throw a small ball and hit it with the ladle like you are serving in ping pong. You can control a ball with a small hockey stick. We can pass a ball back and forth by kicking. You recently acquired a blue ball with fire trucks on it and for a couple of days, you insisted on having the ball in bed with you. The only thing you love more than playing soccer is saying "soccer!" I think it's inevitable that you will end up being a little sports star.

As always, you love to sing and dance! Your favourite song is still Old Macdonald (or "Moo moo here!" as you call it) but you know plenty of other songs. Your repertoire of dance moves is slowly increasing - though your signature moves continue to be the bobbing, the running-man, the swaying back and forth, and doing the airplane.

You have started showing signs of the impending terrible twos. For the past few weeks, you have been expressing your discontent with full-blown little tantrums. We’re talking wailing, doing the "sloppy noodle" with your body, crocodile tears, and smacking whatever body part on us that you can reach. You have started asserting your will – you WANT that toy that your brother has, and you will scream “Donner!” (“give”) and wail if he doesn’t say yes (he rarely does). Apparently you have started trying to order Caleb to go stand in the corner in a time-out when you are not happy with him. You will point to the corner with your finger and say “Dans coin, Caleb!” (“in corner, Caleb!”) Just for the record, your brother doesn’t take orders from you. Seriously, he doesn’t always take orders from US.

You have really enjoyed a new playgroup that you go to with your father and Caleb that runs out of a local elementary school. It runs out of a school and is meant to provide structure like school, so there is lining up, snacks time, play time, circle time, crafts, plenty of amazing toys, and – your personal favourite – gym time! This is where you get to run wild in a huge gymnasium with balls and Plasma cars. The playgroup moderator is always asking your father how old you are, because she’s always amazed at how well you follow along and all the amazing things you can do at your age. Apparently you are a great driver with the Plasma car!

You love to play along with your brother. You love to play cars with him, build train tracks with him, bang on the walls with your play tool set, colour with markers and crayons. You don’t play alone a lot, but it’s because you’re hardly ever alone. When you go with your father to drop Caleb off at preschool, you often get quite upset that you don’t get to stay and play along with him. I really love the relationship that you guys have together – you seem to really enjoy each other’s company, even if you’re not always playing the same game.

It's funny to think that you are usually the instigator of trouble - you are slighly mischievous and always roping your brother into doing some silly things.

You’re still a pretty picky eater, especially when it comes to the healthy stuff. It’s never difficult to get you to eat chips, crackers, ice cream or anything else that’s basically junk food. Thankfully, you do have a few healthy favourites – grapes, cheese, peach yogurt, cereal, and milk. You’re pretty good with most types of meat but there are days where you don’t touch the stuff. You’re still fairly anti-vegetable though you’ll eat potatoes and usually try at least one bite of whatever vegetable we put on your plate. You’re pretty notorious for spitting out what you don’t like, but I always appreciate that you at least give it a go. You’re great with pretty much any fruit.

It’s been really easy to put you down for naps and bedtime – there’s never any protesting anymore. The challenge has been for you to stay asleep and sleep in your own crib. We usually put you down somewhere between 7 and 7:30pm, but you’re almost always up again at 11pm. Most of the time we can easily coax you back to sleep by tucking your little rabbit, Lapin, under your arm and pulling the blanket over you. But usually by 2-3pm, you wake up and stand up in your crib, and you will point to the double bed in your room and say “La” (there). This is usually the part in the night where I am just wanting to get us both back to sleep, so I put you in the double bed, you roll over and fall asleep almost instantly, and then I sleep beside you for the rest of the night.

Around 6:30am, you’ll start to pull my hair, smother my face with wet kisses, and demand that I go fetch you a sippy cup with milk in it (“gobelet de lait, Maman”). I try to ignore you for as long as I can, trying to squeak out a few extra minutes of sleep. Caleb usually wakes up around the same time and as soon as you hear him get out of bed and head to the washroom, you start calling out to him – “Allo Caleb!” cause you’re ready to start the party.

This month will mark an important milestone – you and I will be separated for the first time, ever! I am writing part of this newsletter while sitting on a plane, heading to California where I’ll be on a business trip for just over a week. Nine days, to be exact. Your dad plans to take this opportunity to break you of your co-sleeping habit. I, on the other hand, will be trying to focus on not crying because I miss you, your brother, and your dad so much! I bought a webcam so we can talk and see each other every day. Having spent most of the day on airplanes and in the airport, I have to say that I am just not used to being without you guys for so long. I’m so used to always teaching you guys something – pointing out interesting things, explaining what’s happening… it feels a little strange not to be narrating the world around me to you guys.

We’ll be starting to potty train you soon. Your father already tells me that he’s started changing your diaper standing up, and that this morning, you happened to make a huge pee on the floor, which made you really really happy! You’re already really well versed in the toilet process – when you spot someone answering the call of nature, you’re always keenly stating the obvious – that someone is peeing or pooping. You like flushing the toilet. You like to sit on the potty, even If it’s just to pretend like you’re doing something.

You are an amazingly charming little fella. When you are happy (which is most of the time), you are really happy. And when you’re not, you display your mood with the same zest. You are a passionate, expressive, hilarious little monkey with a great sense of humour and a real charisma to you. We can already sense your personality at this tender age and I know that years from now, we’ll look back at the way you were at this age and say that you’ve always been this way.

Love,
Maman & Papa

Dear Noah,

You are now 20 1/2 months old. Going on 2! Sometimes I forget that you are JUST 20 months old, because you communicate so well, but there are moments where we are reminded that you really are under two years of age.

We are happy to report that you are finally easy to put to sleep! For the past month, your bedtime routine has been so easy - story time, teeth brushing (more like me wrestling you to brush your teeth), you grab your bunny (whom you call "Lapin" meaning rabbit, or sometimes just "Pin"), tuck him under your arm, we put you in bed, you snuggle up to Lapin, we tuck you under a blanket, you remind me to take off your socks, we saw goodnight, and that's IT! You are usually snoring before your brother is, but it's usually about a five to ten minute race at most.

Now, staying asleep and sleeping in your crib all night continues to be a real challenge. It has always been a challenge with you, but I figure if we can change the way you fall asleep so dramatically, there's still hope for us! You usually wake up two to three times a night. Sometimes you're just looking for a few cuddles, sometimes a sip of milk, and usually you're good to go back to sleep. But if it's past 2am and you wake up, usually you stand right up in your crib, with Lapin tucked under your arm, ready to be taken out of your crib.

We've stopped letting you sleep between us in bed. This was just a bad scenario, which usually involved one or both of us parents getting kicked in the head or the face. You tend to drift over to your father's side, inevitably stealing his pillow and forcing him to sleep in the bottom quadrant of the bed. Your dad would wake up stiff and sore and tired and no one would have really slept well.

Now when you wake up for that last stretch, one of us will sleep with you in the double bed that is in your room. We've installed a wooden rail on the side where you tend to roll (still looking for your dad, I imagine). There's lots of room to let you sleep in any which direction you please, and the person who serves as the physical barrier on the other side of the bed tends to sleep quite well. That is, until we hit the 7am mark where you roll over and say "ALLO MAMAN!" in the sweetest little voice. You will attempt to rouse whoever it is that is sleeping with you on that day - with kisses all over our face, with demands of drinking milk ("boire lait!" meaning "drink milk!") or going downstairs ("en bas!" meaning "downstairs") or you will simply start calling out to wake up your big brother ("ALLO CALEB!"), who usually gets up around the exact same time as you do anyway.

So unfortunately, while you aren't sleeping a full, uninterrupted night's sleep in your own bed, we're making really good progress month to month. Something tells me that what you really want is to sleep in a toddler bed. A few weeks ago, you climbed into your brother's bed and wanted to nap there. (Your brother was gracious enough to let you sleep there for the afternoon, but he was pretty clear that the bed was just on loan.) We're looking at getting your brother a big-boy twin bed, so realistically I suppose we could get you to sleep in a toddler bed soon, but I'm not sure I'm quite ready to think about how you'd crawl out of your own bed and wander into our room and stick your fingers up our nose. Which I know that you would, because you're just a bugger like that.

We recently phased on the high chairs in the kitchen. Your brother was long overdue to be transitioned into a table and chair, though you're probably not quite ready yet. We are getting a wooden table for the kitchen in a few weeks but in the interim, we have a plastic table with small chairs, though you're not quite ready to sit on the chairs just yet so you're sitting on a small step stool. It was a pretty crazy first couple of days when you realized that you could stand up in the middle of your meal and start running around with a fork in your hand. It can still be a little tricky at meal times, and I know I am looking forward to getting a real table so I can strap you into a small booster and keep you relatively contained, and not have to worry that you will poke your eye out with a fork.

You are still a very finnicky eater. Picky, picky, picky you are! You truly follow the advice that your doctor gave me months ago - toddlers eat one big meal a day and if you see they're eating, get them to eat as much as they can! There are meals where you graze, and others where you are making up for lost time and eating your big brother under the table. But we never really know what you'll eat or when you'll eat or even IF you'll eat.

Your favourite foods? There are a few sure-fire favourites - like Greek gyro meat or chicken nuggets. You'll eat just about any fruit, though your favourites include grapes, pears, and apples. You love your crackers and cookies, and you still love your Goldfish. You love to eat cereal with milk, and lately you've been loving waffles, which we cut up into little pieces and let you dip in maple syrup or honey.

Actually, I should just state for the record that you love to DIP. It's all about the dipping. I tried to leverage your love of dipping to get you to eat some vegetables but you saw through that whole charade. Your dad got you to eat some veggies swimming in vinegar last week, but your cheeks broke out in a big rash and we think we may have identified vinegar as that mystery substance that makes you break out in a rash.

You love to watch TV with your brother, and it's great that we have good quality TV shows we can show you guys that you both equally love. You watch Caillou, an animated series about a 4-year old boy, and you love Poko, a stop-motion animation series. You especially love the simplicity of Poko episodes - there are some that you watch where you break out in laughter - "HA! HA! HA!" since you find it so funny.

Your vocabulary is amazing. You eagerly narrate the world around by pointing to things and exclaiming their names. You have started saying so many two-syllable words, like "bouillon" (broth) or "poisson" (fish) instead of just saying the second syllable. You can repeat almost anything. I love making you say pineapple in French ("ananas") because we inevitably make a big joke out of it and you will say "nanananananananana" in a sing-songy way. You can easily state what food you want by name. You've even started putting two or three words together in little sentences. This past month, you learned to say your brother's name properly, and instead of calling him "A-leb", you say "Ca-leb".

You've started putting together mini-sentences too - two to three words strung together, like "voir Caleb" (see Caleb) or "viens, Maman" (come, Mommy). You have also developed an ear for English. Whenever we ask you anything in English, it usually seems like you understand, and you respond back with "Yah" instead of "Oui". You know quite a few words in English, especially animal names.

You love music and dancing. You are happy to sway to the music, do the "running man", and crank your arms like you're doing the chicken. Your favourite song is "Old MacDonald", which you request by asking for "Moo moo here". You love your animals!

You love to sing and even though you may not know all the words to the song, you hum along until you know a word, then promptly throw it in at the right time. You have always had an affinity for drawing (much to my delight). You developed a love of colouring long before your brother did - he only recently got into it a few months ago, but you've always loved to doodle. You love to sit with Caleb and colour.

You recently went out on your first trick-or-treating experience with Caleb. You were dressed up in a cow (or more accurately, a bull) - a costume I threw together with an old fleece jacket and pants, with felt patches sewn all over it. You couldn't say "trick or treat", but you knew the routine and you held out your pumpkin to get candy, and left with a charming little "Merci! Bye bye!" which brought a smile to every house.

Sometimes I am reminded that we are headed right back into those terrible two's with the little tantrums you pull. You are a happy go lucky guy most of the time, unless I tell you that you can't have any more Elmo crackers, and then you just lose it!

You have a very special connection with your Papie. You two share the same sense of humour, it seems. When the two of you are together, it is like watching a two-person slapstick comedy routine. You have picked up all his little quirks and sounds, and you make it pretty clear that he totally rocks your world. Poor Mamie is often left in the dust as you make a run for Papie as soon as you arrive at their house.

I'm pretty sure you are going to be a little athlete. You are steady on your feet - a friend recently described your walk as one with "tremendous purpose". Given your love of balls, it's no surprise that you've become quite good with them. I've seen you toss a tiny ball and hit it with a plastic toy ladle like you're serving in table tennis. It's absolutely mind-boggling to see you do it.

You and Caleb get along famously. You guys have a lot of fun together. Even though you watch what he does and you often imitate and learn from him, you definitely don't just follow him around like a puppy. He's often the one trying to rope you into playing some game with him, to which you will sometimes respond with an enthusiastic "OK!" or a definitive "Non, Caleb." Either way, you two are always laughing about something and I love seeing you spend time together.

Did I mention that you can smile on command for the camera? We're still working on getting you to keep your eyes open, but I just love that little hamster face.

You love to talk on the phone, but mostly it's all about the hellos and the goodbyes. You will clutch the phone and repeat "Allo Maman" about twenty times, and intermittently answer my questions between telling me hello. Then there is a whole routine of saying goodbye that involves me saying goodbye about another 20 times before someone has to hang up for you. My coworkers even sometimes start yelling "BYE!" from their cubicles. I especially love it when I ask you "Comment ca va?" (how are you) and you reply with "Bien" (good).

You are my special little monkey, and while Caleb and I have a special bond that only a mother and her firstborn can share, you and I have a special bond that only a mother and her littlest baby can share.

Love,
Maman

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

Dear Noah,

You are now a year and a half old. There have been some truly magical changes with you these past few weeks. You are really, truly no longer a baby. You walk, you talk, you dance, you run, you jump, you assert your will. I really think our baby is gone. I mean, it's hard to imagine that just a few months ago, you didn't eat and you were a breastfed baby.

You are nothing like that plump little baby from a few months ago. Now you're just this slightly chunky, watermelon eating machine who today ate his lunch, then ate his brother's leftovers. You eat that one square meal a day and the rest of the day, you graze and snack. You're pretty unpredictable as to when that meal might be, and we never know what you'll be in the mood to eat. But whenever the mood strikes, we attempt to feed you as much as you'll eat!

You eat with utensils - you have from a very young age, probably due to the fact that you want to do everything big brother Caleb does. You drink out of a cup, though you tend to get distracted and there are still lots of spills. You wake up in the morning and demand "LAIT!" (milk), though you often call it "jus" (juice), even when you are pointing to a glass of milk or water. Perhaps you're not confused at all - you're simply pointing out that this is not what you want, and what you want in that glass is juice. You really are a little talking genius, so I won't put it past you.

You love your crackers and your pastries. You have a definite sweet tooth - you can eat a mini ice cream cone faster than your brother, and you shovel spoonfuls of gelato down like someone's about to take it away from you (which is true). You love grapes, blueberries, watermelon, raisins, and occasionally you'll go for some pear and strawberries. You're still pretty limited in the vegetable department, but you'll entertain the odd potato or asparagus, and lately you've started enjoying eating salad. You eat sushi! Avocado rolls, that is. You have your moments when you'll try new things without hesitation - even if it's just a bite, but other days you'll give a definitive "NO!" with a shake of the head to tell us you are just not interested.

You love eating cereal with milk for breakfast. You rarely eat toast, unless it's raisin bread, and you will meticulously pull out all the raisins until your toast resembles swiss cheese. You are a fan of ketchup, there's never really enough of that.

You sing! You dance! You have always been a huge lover of music. Your dancing repertoire is quite impressive. There's the chicken dance, with wild flapping of wings and all. There's the running man, where you dance on the spot like you're jogging. There's the random lifting of the legs, doing the wave, and your specialty, spinning around in circles while saying "tourne! tourne! tourne!" (turn, turn, turn). You just started running this week, and you are getting to be quite fast and nimble. This will come in handy when you hit the dance floor!

You ask for music ("sic!") and you sing along to some of your favourite songs. You sing parts of the alphabet - the best is when you say "Q R S, T U V, wuh-wuh-wuh X..." You count to five. When you call me at work to talk to me on the phone, I say to you "Allo mon Noah" (Hello my Noah) and you repeat it back to me, only your version goes "Lo lo (random babbling here) Nwaaahhh..."

You scream "marche!" (walk) when you are in our arms and you want to be put down on the ground to walk. You say "main!" when you want to walk holding someone's hand. You greet your brother with an enthusiastic "ALLO!" when you see him first thing in the morning. You tell your brother "bouge!" (move) when you want him to get out of your way. You say "bas" (down) when you want to go downstairs, and "en haut" (upstairs) when you want to go upstairs. When asked where are your nose, cheeks, eyes, teeth, hair, head, tongue, and mouth are, you can not only say the French words for them, you can also point to them and say "là" (there).

And oh. Diaper changes are always entertaining. The minute your diaper goes off, you point to your manhood and exclaim "meh-mis!". Repeatedly. As if we didn't know what it was and hey, have you seen my meh-mis? I try to correct your pronounciation, and you repeat it back to me the same way all the time. Meh-mis. Yeah, Mom. Meh-mis. MEH-MIS. Uh huh. I got it. Meh-mis.

Your dad told me that the other day, you spotted your brother's meh-mis when he was going for a pee, and when he got up from the potty, pantless and without his underwear, you exclaimed "MEH-MIS!" while pointing to the meh-mis in question, and Caleb started backing away from you. You started following him with your finger outstretched, and proceeded to chase your half naked brother around the house while crying "Meh-mis!" It was quite the sight, I wish I had seen it.

You love animals! You make all kinds of sweet animal sounds, and you recognize many of them when you see pictures or photos of them, or even when you see them in the flesh. You do not, however, like dogs. If you are put at eye-level with one, you will scream and cry with fear. You love to see them from far, and say "woof woof" when you see one, but that's about as close as you want to get.

You have the benefit of playing with all kinds of toys that are not exactly age appropriate but way, way more fun than baby toys. You love to play with all your brother's big boy toys that we have in the house, from the make-believe tool set to the many trucks and trains. You make vroom-vroom car noises, you respond with a "choo choo!" when I say "All aboard!" and pump your arm like you're pulling the whistle. Your favourite toy is a ball. You LOVE LOVE LOVE balls. I think someday you are going to be great at ball sports - because at the tender age of 18 months, you throw a ball better than your big brother. You invented a game this week that I like to call Spoonball. You have a big plastic spoon which you stole from my utensil drawer in the kitchen, and you either run around with a ball in the spoon, or you hit the ball with the spoon like you're playing hockey. Actually, I'd have to say that Spoonball resembles lacrosse quite a bit, so perhaps someday you'll be an excellent lacrosse player. Your dad thinks that you've inherited his knack for sports (yeah, definitely NOT from my camp).

The biggest development from this past month has got to be the sleeping. A month ago, you were spending most of the night in our bed. It would take sometimes 45 minutes of rocking and walking and patting to get you to fall asleep in my arms, and then potentially even longer to put you into your crib without waking you up. when your father started being the stay at home parent, he couldn't duplicate the routine and had a lot of trouble putting you down for naps. Your father is always the one to take the bull by the horns and make the big changes around here - thank goodness for him because otherwise, we'd get stuck in our crazy do-what-it-takes routine and never make any progress.

It has taken about a week and a half to change things up, and while not all days are successful, we've made amazing progress. We can now put you down in your crib and you'll go to sleep on your own. Sometimes there's some crying, sometimes there's some convincing to do, but lately there hasn't been as much. Since you've started falling asleep on your own, you've been sleeping better through the night - probably because you're able to fall back asleep without us. Last night, you fell asleep on your own and you slept the entire night without crying out for us, NOT ONCE. It was truly amazing. By the time we write your newsletter next month, I imagine bedtime will be as simple as putting you down, blowing you a kiss goodnight, and walking out the door. Already the routine has gone down to just a few minutes, so it can only get better from here.

You've always had an interest for drawing. You love to scribble with crayons. You can't be trusted with them unsupervised, as you'll inevitably start throwing them or drawing on something other than paper, but I have a feeling that while you have your sporty side, you also have a little of your Mom's artistic side as well. I can't wait to see you turn into a total artsy jock.

You have a big, big heart. You have a ton of love to give in the form of big, sloppy, wet kisses, and your kisses are truly the best. You're always up for giving a hug. You especially seem to love your Papie - when you see him, your eyes light up and you reach out for him to take you in his arms. You wrap your arms around him, nestle your head into the crook of his neck, and you sigh with happiness. While you sometimes need to warm up around certain people, with your Papie, there is never a need.

You love to babble on the phone. You especially love to call your Grandmother (my mom, whom you refer to as "Ba Ngoai", meaning maternal grandmother in Vietnamese). You'll often go pick up the cordless phone, give it to us, and say "Ba Ngoai", as if to say "Dial it for me. Now." I love hearing your little voice on the line when I'm at work, even if you're just randomly babbling away in your sweet little mix of French, English, Vietnamese, and baby talk.

You seem to have really flourished since your father started staying home with you. You have developed an even stronger bond with him, and these days it seems like you're all about your Dad. Some days I come home from work and while you greet me with an enthusiastic "MAMA!", there are moments where you only want to be with your father. I'd be lying if I said it didn't hurt a little, especially since I haven't seen you all day, but I couldn't be happier that you are enjoying your special time with your father and that you love him so much that you don't want to give him up. (I know what you mean, I feel the same way.) Your dad always has and always will be the hero in this household, and he definitely is WAY more fun that I am.

You love to climb things. You've taken quite a few tumbles this past month. You're a monkey, what can we say.

When you turned one year old, we were in the craziest part of our renovations, and we kept meaning to have a birthday party for you, and things just kept getting crazy.

We finally got around to celebrating your 18 months. Maybe we're not the best at planning parties or keeping our house in a state where we can have guests, but what we lack in organization, we make up for in love. Whoa boy, did you ever love that cake. It was love at first bite. You dug your fork into the cake (because, puh-lease, get my hands dirty? I think not.) and looked at me like, "This is my piece, right?", meaning, THE WHOLE CAKE. (That's my boy.)

Promise you'll get a party when you turn 2.

Noah, I miss you SO much when I am at work. But I know you're having fun and learning new things and doing really boyish, awesome things with your Dad, and I'm so happy he gets to share some of the amazing experiences of your childhood. You are amazing. You have a sweetness that cannot be described.

We love you so much, my sweet little Noah.

Love
Mama