Noah and his cats

Noah has always loved cats and dogs. More so cats, but I think that's because until recently, we had a cat but no dog. Noah has also always loved stuffed animals. For Christmas when he was one, I bought him a stuffed orange cat. Meet Orange Kitty.

This is not the authentic Orange Kitty. The real Orange Kitty is more orange and grey instead of orange and white, and is missing an eye. The real Orange Kitty looked like this at one time, a few years ago. For about a day. Orange Kitty, is the sacred bedtime stuffed animal. He has slept with this thing every single night and nap time since he got it.

About a year ago we went to a yard sale, and Noah managed to find Black Kitty crammed into some box marked "$ .25." The Yardsalees thought Noah was just SO cute, that they gave it to him for free, so Black Kitty came home with us and kept Orange Kitty company.

(Yes, we're very creative with our cat naming.)

Black Kitty, is not the favorite, but second favorite. Noah also sleeps every night with Black Kitty, but if he wants to choose a cat to play with during the day, Orange Kitty is the one that's always chosen. Black Kitty pretty much stays in Noah's bed.

Now for the reason I started this post to begin with. Noah also has a quilt I made him a few years ago that he also loves, and sleeps with every night. These three things, Orange Kitty, Black Kitty, and the quilt were getting pretty grungy, and I decided that today was the day to run everything through the washing machine. I had timed it so that I knew that the holy trinity would be clean and dry before nap time so that Noah wouldn't have to be without his favorite bedtime things when 1pm came, which is the boys' nap time. Sure enough, 12:50pm rolled around and I gave Noah his ten minute warning, and then went out to the drier to get all his stuff. I was impressed with how clean Orange Kitty came out....he was lookin' pretty rough. I gave Noah his cats and explained how they were clean now because Mommy gave them a bath. Then we talked about how when he gets a bath, he gets all clean too, just like the kitties.

I went to take care of William, and Noah went back to his room to play. Well, I thought Noah went back to his room to play. He was awful quiet, so I went back to check on him. He was at the end of the hallway, talking to his cats.....which he had put into our real cat's litter box to "go potty."

Blah! I explaining to him that only the real cat, Virginia (aka Miss Kitty), is allowed to go potty in there, and she gets angry when other cats go in there and use her potty. So, while trying not to laugh too hard, I took his two cats directly to the washing machine to get yet another "bath." Now, he's in his room where he's supposed to be taking a nap. Instead he is, for the first time ever in bed talking to his stuffed frog, and his grey cat, both of which, are not part of the bedtime brigade. Here's to hoping Noah takes his nap today...

Happy 8 Months, William!

Today is William's 8 month birthday! It's been a big month for him. He learned how to crawl, pull himself up, cruise, attempt to stand on his own, only to fail miserably, and, he got his first two teeth. He's also (finally) started to consistently sleep through the night. Well, sort of- He wakes up around 6am to eat and then usually gets up between 8 and 9am.

Noah has started to put two words together on his own, and is saying *gasp* FOUR syllables at a time. Oh, and counting. He's very in to counting. He used to be able to count to five, and then all of the sudden he started skipping over four. I don't know why, but we're workin' on it.

We've started a new thing around here with Noah. Every day he gets 30 minutes of Mommy Time, where I don't do anything except for pay attention to him. No multi-tasking, just paying attention to Noah. During Mommy Time, we do whatever he wants to do (within reason), except for watch TV. Today for Mommy Time, we attempted to make Silly Putty. Key word being, "attempted."

One of Noah's favorite things to do is to sit on the counter and help me make whatever I'm making. Especially if it's something he'll have fun with when it's done....or cookies.

What was supposed to be silly-putty-ish turned out to be silly, but not really putty-ish. It did however make an exploding bouncy ball, which might be even better. :) Noah spent the rest of Mommy Time throwing balls at me, that explode upon impact, which is apparently hilarious.

He just looks so grown-up in this last picture. On Saturday I called him "Baby Boy," and he looks at me and says "No."

"You don't want Mommy to call you 'Baby Boy?"

"No."

"Can I call you 'Little Boy?'"

"Yeah."

" Ok, Little Boy."

*runs off to play*

Oh well, I guess I'll just have to call William "Baby Boy" now. *tear*

Teeth and prayers

These last couple have days have been big ones for the smallest family member. William started crawling about 3 days ago, and then today he had his first tooth break through, with a couple more soon to come, and also started pulling himself up on furniture, which means that today I lowered his crib mattress so that I don't have him trying to jump out of his crib, which I fully expect him to try to do. That kid is in to EVERYTHING. Much more than Noah was at that age. Oh well, a little more incentive for me to keep everything picked up, right? Bleh. He's a fast little booger too. I dropped a teeny tiny little piece of a cracker on the floor yesterday, and he took off across the room to go get it. Thankfully, I got to it before he did. It's so funny to watch him- Noah didn't ever (and still doesn't) want to try something until he's absolutely sure he can do it without too much trouble. William is all gung-ho about everything, which means it's very entertaining for me to watch him.

Noah has recently discovered Veggie Tales. Gone are the days of only wanting to watch Blue's Clues. *happy dance* I don't hate Blue's Clues, but I'm definitely ready to hear something else. He only gets 30 minutes of tv a day, so it's not like I'm hearing it all day long, but still....a little variety is nice! He even has his Veggie Tales music that he listens to. It's SO cute to watch him dance. Last week Josh had his guitar out, so he played some of the Veggie Tales songs, and I sang them to Noah. He danced harder than I've ever seen him dance. It was hard not to break out laughing watching him do his thing. :)

As part of our bedtime routine, we say a bedtime prayer with Noah. Usually Daddy puts Noah to bed, to tonight Daddy was gone, so I did it. Typically we say the whole thing for him, but tonight, I thought I'd see if he could fill in the blanks. It went like this.

Mommy: "Dear Jesus, thank you for..."

Noah: "...Mah-ee..."

Mommy: "...and thank you for..."

Noah: "...Dah-ee..."

Mommy: "...and thank you for..."

Noah: "...I-em (William)..."

Mommy: "...and thank you for..."

Noah: *silence*

Mommy: "...Bob."

Noah: *jumping in quickly* "...Gob. A-men."

I just wanted to squeeze him so hard his eyeballs would pop out. Don't worry, I restrained myself. :)

Now for some pictures. Noah's not wanted his picture taken lately, but William still doesn't know what's going on.

Birthday wishes for Great-Grammy

I love chubby baby feet. (And hands)

Bat Baby!