lately

Ok, first, I want to thank everybody for all of the good advice. I've always been a pretty big stickler for routine (because I operate best on one!), and when our schedule is normal, it totally works. The problem happened when Noah kept getting sick, crashing at odd times, Tylenol making him drowsy... resulting in naptime being too long. OR he would sleep 12 hours straight and not be tired at all when nap time rolled around. Other than recently, he's been an awesome sleeper (minus the newborn colic). But yeah, definitely gotta get the routine back in place and adjust it all accordingly. But like it was stated in a comment, SO hard to keep a routine when hubby works retail. Also, when said hubby is completely and naturally spontaneous. Anyways, thanks for the input, and I'll be sure to update yall on how it's going. :)

***

We've been pretty busy lately. Brad has had the last few days off, so we've been spending some good quality time with him.
But I figure it's time to catch up.

Like I mentioned, Noah's been sick a lot. Which is so weird to me, because for the first year, he was totally healthy. No colds or anything. Then he turned one and BAM. All the germs headed straight for him. New meat I guess.
But during all of the non-sick days, here's a list of what we've been up to.

First Haircut.

Yep, we did it. You may have already noticed (probably not) in some of his pictures that his hair isn't as long. It started to get in his eyes. Plus, he looked like he was growing a rat tail. Remember those? I don't care how small you are, those things just aren't cute on anybody.
So about two weeks ago, my super smart husband set Noah up in his high chair in our loft, in front of the tv. Seriously. Genius.
He didn't squirm or fuss or anything. Brad and I took turns snipping. He took care of the length, then I went in and trimmed it up a little. Feathered it. All that hair stylish jargon. We were pretty pleased with ourselves, considering neither one of us knows what we're doing.

Oh, and for those of you who actually know Brad, you'll appreciate this first picture. My husband (and his whole family actually) have this certain "face" they give people. They're all incredibly confident (ahem... if not slightly cocky) and have a hard time hiding it if they think you're a total moron. Or that what you're currently doing is really dumb. Or just questioning your intelligence in general. Anyway, Noah has inherited this trait. He can't help it. He'll give you the look. And he doesn't know he's doing it. The best part? When he gives Brad the look. Priceless.

The rat tail...

*shudder*

All better!

Bubbles.

After much convincing (thanks Ben and Sara), Brad finally let us give Noah a bubble bath. While he does have sensitive skin, I really wanted Noah to play with bubbles. I certainly wasn't going to give him anything that would irritate his skin and made sure to keep it short. Gotta tell ya. The kid was enthralled.

He spent the majority of his first year being all silly and giggly. Now? He's Mr Analytical. I mean, sure, he still smiles and laughs. But mostly, he's all about studying stuff.

It cracks me up.

(don't you just love little wet eyelashes??)

Family.

We've been spending a lot of time with my inlaws, which is always fun. Noah looooves his cousins. He's learning how to play with other kids, which is awesome. His favorite thing to do with them is run around Granny and Granddad's couch. Over and over. RyRy (the one Noah's age) apparently likes playing with Noah too, because after we leave, we hear he keeps asking for "Oah". :)

Last week, we went to Discovery Kids with everybody, which was so fun. And I have to say, his older cousins are so incredibly sweet to him. Such good kids!

Gonna start putting this man to work around the house more often...

Love all the colors on the wall. Also, this is one of Noah's faves.

He loves to practice on the ramps and stairs.

Noah's not much on pretend play yet. He does love pretending to drive cars. That's his favorite, and he makes the "vroom vroom" noise. But mostly, he'd much rather run around, observe other people, and work on his ramp skills... as in, going up and down ramps. :)

I love this picture, mainly because it's so hilarious to see all those kids behind him playing with the airplane, while Noah completely ignores them. He's very focused. At one point, a couple of moms stopped to talk on "his" ramp. Didn't bother him. He just scooched right through, and they eventually got the hint.



Noah and RyRy love to run. Forget the fire truck; check out the awesome ramp!

Since they had all these pretend job areas, Brad thought he'd see if he was good at any of them.

Turns out, he may have found himself a second job.

Noah was very concerned this cow was real.

Brad making moo noises probably didn't help.

  

The kids found a cool sea world there, complete with sunken pirate ship and a submarine. It was a big hit. 

(notice in the right pic, a certain little guy on top looking for Brad... too cute, right?)

    

    

Reading.

Noah has about 10-15 favorite books that we rotate. His selection is really random, so we're not sure why these have made the cut. Most new books? He closes them immediately. Some he'll look through, but doesn't want us to actually read.

But his favorites are all full of good vocabulary, numbers, concepts, etc; so I figure why ruin a good thing by pushing ones he's not interested in? Anyway, we had one of those really good nights where we let him eat some ice cream, watch a little Curious George in our bed, and then end the night with some books.

And yes, those are Curious George jammies. :)

Lots of doctor's visits.

I know I already mentioned that he's been sick, but what I didn't mention was our weird issue we had last weekend.

On Saturday, we were outside most of the day. Since our family is so ridiculously Irish (kiss me!), we have to practically bathe in sunblock. I put a little on Noah before we went out. That day, he also got into some potting soil. I didn't think much of it. He didn't eat it or anything. Just thought it was fun to play in. That afternoon, I put him down for a nap. When he woke up, I noticed his eyes looked a little puffy. As the night went on, it got worse and eventually looked like this:

I know. So pitiful. It didn't seem to bug him much. He didn't cry or whine. He did rub a little, but that was it. Of course, we called the nurse (and also family to get some advice). Brad, being the overprotective one, was ready to take him to the ER. But we knew all they'd do is tell us to give him some Benedryl and then charge us $200 for it. We also knew that our awesome pediatrician office is open on the weekends! So we went first thing. The doc said it was most likely due to the sunblock (and not the potting soil), especially after I mentioned that both sides have sensitive skin. Brad's side is actually allergic to the sun. If they get any kind of sun on them, they get itchy. But it's not a normal itch. Brad says it's like itching underneath his skin. On my side, my mom is allergic to latex and certain makeup, and my dad's side is allergic to most lotions and sunblock. I should've seen this coming, but since I used Water Babies, I figured we were safe. Poor little guy.

After a couple of days, it cleared up, and he's all back to normal.

Gardening.

I threw this in here, just so the last thing you saw wasn't poor Noah's red eyes.

So here it is. Our botanical garden. In the bath tub.