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