Noah

Noah made it through his first Thanksgiving. And seemed thoroughly confused as to why everyone was sitting around the table. (Me too.) Only a few more first holidays left. Sadly. Where did 9 months go?

This boy is about to have 5 teeth. Five. For months he had two and I was starting to wonder where all the rest were. Now I know. Getting ready for the three teeth at once sneak attack. The upside of all this teeth business is that he deals with it fairly well. Four or five teeth have broken through the gums so far and I've only used Baby Orajel on him once- and I don't know if he even truly wanted/needed it. He seems satisfied with binkys, chewing on everything, and drooling.

His crawling is out of control. He went from a kind of bunny hop crawl, to full blown crawling in about a week. Now he crawls about as fast as I can walk- and it's ridiculous. He creeps along on furniture and is even starting to climb up on things (and standing). My prediction is that he'll be walking by Christmas- so we'll see.

'Mama' is by far his favorite thing to say- mamamamama. He says it all day long- to call for me, when I'm not around (like he's looking for me), and when he's totally distraught and expecting me to remedy all that ails him. He knows who 'mama' is, but I also think he just likes saying it. I have convinced Jason that he occasionally says 'dada' as well.

He and Lily can finally play. A little bit. Sort of. Not nearly on the level she would like and I have to constantly remind her to be gentle, play nice, he's just a baby, stop being so rough, let him play with that, you need to share, give that back to him, he was playing with that first, can you let him play with something, ohmagoodness. Part of the problem is, I think, that most of his toys used to be her toys. So, it's hard to say "that's Noah's!" because.. it was only a few years ago that they were her toys.. and at only 4, she doesn't get that. To her, she thinks 'OH there are my toys- I was wondering what happened to those things.. what do you mean they aren't mine anymore?'

I assume it will only get worse.

The "lessons" I'm trying to work on with Lily, mostly in regard to Noah, are about sharing, not being mean, etc. I tell her that if she's going to be mean to him now that when he gets a little bigger, he's not going to want to play with her.. and that he's going to find another big sister.. one that isn't mean.. and that can play nicely. Also, that he's probably going to be bigger than her- and she should keep that in mind.