interviewing a three year old: eight

interviewing a three year old: five

We recently returned from a trip to Texas.  Jonathan's parents (Nannie and Doodad) gave Noah a set of magnet tiles.  They have been great for Noah.  He has started creating all sorts of pretend things with them and I have loved getting to see this transformation.

This month's questions were based on some outer space imaginative play and the building of a space ship (from magnet tiles) that had been going on throughout the day.  I was surprised by some of the detail in his answers.  I wonder where he had learned some of the vocabulary.  I am really amazed by him and learning so much about what's happening inside his little head.  

Where is somewhere you would like to go? Outer space!

How do you get to outer space? I'd use my toll tag. Then I would fly. 

How are you going to fly to space? Use a space ship. 

How did you get a space ship. I built it.

How did you do that? I made an overline here, two circles, another circle on the top, a circle for the steering wheel and two lines for a seat belt. 

Who's going to drive the space ship? Noah and mommy.

What does outer space look like? Looks like our house.

Is there anything to see in outer space? Lots of holes...

Noah's 3rd birthday!

Noah shared his birthday with Superbowl Sunday this year.  We partied on anyways! We had originally planned to do something small and go to Disney Land, but the recent outbreak of measles and Olive not yet being vaccinated kind of put that plan on the back burner.  So we decided to host a party at our house!

Keep reading if you want to see all the lovely details!

Invitation idea from Preparing for Peanut(s).

I found a lot of ideas on Pinterest. I wish I could have made more myself, but Jonathan's work brought him to Hong Kong while I was party planning so I basically had NO time to get into crafting mode.  I found tons of supplies at the 99 cent store and through Amazon Prime.

Here were a few of the Construction Birthday Party elements:
-construction themed bounce house
-sand pits with construction trucks and sand toy play
-hammering station with floral foam and golf tees
-Home Depot aprons with wooden hammers in pockets (also the party favor)

I did have two projects that I did manage to fit into the party planning.  I made Noah's birthday shirt which is a little tradition I want to try and keep up while he still loves everything I make for him. And I constructed a photo booth.  This was more for me than for the party.  We LOVE having people over and I usually try and set up a camera on a tripod to do some fun photo action.  Since my camera was stolen, I decided to make do with our Ipad and bought a ZINK hAppy printer.  I stayed up until the wee hours of the morning working on a booth box out of an Amazon Prime box.  I will update more on that in another post, but seriously... it turned out great for a prototype and worked out well for the party!

We were really lucky to have friends take pictures at the party for us.  I don't think they realize how much that meant to me especially since my camera was stolen.  Anyways... I'll stop typing and you can enjoy the slideshow!

How I potty trained Noah...

skip this post if you don't want to know about anything related to potty training this little guy...

back in April around the time we were moving, I decided that I was going to do my best to start potty training Noah.  I figured an empty house with wooden floors and a big back yard would be a perfect area to just let him roam diaper free and get him trained.  Not to mention, changing nasty toddler turds while going through morning sickness was a total gag.  I was DONE and he was already showing readiness.  After reading lots and lots of potty training blogs and the three day potty training manual, I had decided that come hell or high water we were just going to go for it!

The good.

Noah took to peeing on the potty easily.  I would say he was 85% pee trained pretty immediately.  This is what the day would mostly look like...

• I would wake him up a few minutes early in the morning and he was always still dry (had been this way for a while since 18 months) and we immediately headed for the potty or sometimes Noah would go pee on the grass right outside our back door.  I allowed this because he's a boy and he should get to enjoy all the fun that entails.  I can honestly say that if I were a little dude I would get so excited about all the neat places I could pee without having to squat and be all girly.  He's a dude and he should get to embrace that!   
• I would feed him breakfast and then we would go potty.  I say WE because I would sit when he would sit... made things easier.
• Played in the yard and then went potty OR went potty on the dirt spot in the yard.
• went inside and went potty.
• Ate lunch and potty.
• Read some stories and went potty
• take a nap
• wake up dry and go potty
• snack then potty
• play outside until daddy got home  and potty
• eat dinner and potty
• bath and potty
• bed

During this time we were at the house A LOT since we had contractors stopping by and lots of boxes needed unpacking.  It was definitely easier to do all these things from home.  If we went out for dinner it was usually a quick place where I knew we could get Noah to pee before hand and then he could pee again whenever we got home.  He could hold it for usually an hour or two so we had a fairly easy time staying dry.

The bad.
The only real accidents we would encounter were #2s.  Yes... those are the worst ones, but he couldn't become potty trained without going through that part, right?  Noah still does this, but around the time he would need to go #2 he would get SO cranky.  I will often ask repeatedly "what's the matter with you" before it would click that he needed to poop.  So I think initially he would try to get away from me and be really cranky, hide and poop.  Then he would be so upset that he had soiled himself.  It took and still takes a lot of energy to ask him 400 times if he needs to poop.  And now we just go potty a lot and I always tell him to check and see if poopoo needs to come out.  He is really good about trying to push now, but for a while it was pretty tricky.

I kind of put a hold on our no tv/no ipad rule and let him sit for sometimes 30 minutes straight several times a day to try and get things going on the potty.  After he pooped for the first time on the potty, things totally clicked for him! We started using stickers to chart his successes and he would get rewards for consecutive successes.

After a while, I was ready (ok... dying) to leave the house and test out our little potty pro.  I bought a portable potty seat, toddler undies, pull-ups and didn't look back.

The awesome.
Another variable that fueled my desire for potty training Noah was that a lot of the preschools in our area do not take children who are under the age of three unless they are potty trained.  I really wanted Noah to start preschool in the fall but with his sister arriving around that time I thought that I should probably potty train BEFORE her arrival.  Anyways, we found a preschool that would work WITH parents on potty training.  Noah was already pretty close to being trained when he started, but school helped him that much more.  When he started at school, I had originally sent him in pull-ups, but after two weeks in school, the teachers advised me to just go ahead and make the switch to just undies. Which has been awesome.  In fact, we have been on just undies for the past month and had hardly any accidents at all.  Which is fantastic!

We still have issues from time to time... especially if someone who isn't used to watching Noah doesn't ask him 15 times a second if he needs to pee or poop or if we have been on a long car ride and couldn't make it to the potty in time, but for the most part,  I would say he is trained (at just shy of 2 1/2).  We actually don't even bother with the potty seat any more.  I found that if we have him straddle the toilet backwards that he has perfect peepee aim and doesn't need help to keep from falling in.  It's pretty fantastic.  I had to let go of the germ-o-phobia though.  I do a LOT of lysol wiping and sanitizing before I let him sit, but honestly... I don't want him to have fears of using public facilities.  If he's gotta go... he needs to go.

Photography Class Photo Session

I mentioned before I was taking a photography class and that I was feeling really insecure about the work I was producing.  I think it didn't help that I was smack in the middle of planning Noah's birthday party, having lots of family visitors and in the middle of computer crisis.  It all seemed to be happening at the exact same time and completely stressing me out.


Right as I was starting to get the hang of things... the class is OVER. hah.  Isn't that the way things usually work?  Anyways, the class ended up being great.  I learned a lot about natural lighting and using features of my camera that I wouldn't normally use.  I also learned that sometimes a photo does not have to be technical to be good (technically)? haha yeah exactly!  My instructor, Kellie Hatcher, was pretty amazing and a very informative instructor, not to mention she gave great feedback.

Anyways, I wanted to share my final project from the class as it is the one that makes the most sense to someone who is not knee-deep in the lessons.

This is my attempt to photo-document the last morning of Noah being o-n-e.

More on Noah being T-W-O

I am FINALLY getting a chance to sift through photos from the last month and that means I finally got to Noah's birthday photos.  YAY! I thought I would give a little blurb on how his big day went.

I decided this year to have his birthday at our local beach park because the thought of having several toddlers at our house made me very uneasy.  I just kept thinking that there wouldn't be enough to hold their interest.  So the park seemed like it would be the easiest.

I had planned Noah's party throughout the month of January.  It was Sesame Street themed.  I had made hand-made the decorations and my mother-in-law, Janet, helped out with creating party favors. Everything went smooth-ish.

The weather has been really warm in LA for this time of year and so I assumed that the weather would be good on the day of Noah's party.  Well, the wind was INSANE.  My friends, Rachel and Will, arrived early to help me set up for the party and we spent a good hour just trying to hold various party items down because the wind was just so intense.  Half of the decorations couldn't even be used because of the wind.  The cupcakes went flying with every gust and some random kid came by and slammed his hand into the cake... this was before the party had even started. HAH.

BUT... even with the crazy wind, it was still a beautiful day and Noah had SO many wonderful guests! It was just a wonderful party and I am so glad that we have so many wonderful friends in our lives.

Noah had such a fantastic time that he didn't even notice that his nap was 3 hours delayed and he played hard and smiled the entire time!  It was really a great day for a little boy to turn two!

weekly wonder: fifty-two

For the last excursion of the year, we decided that it was time for Noah to receive his very first haircut!
You can't really tell in this photo, but the little nugget's hair was really starting to get crazy cray and since he is going to be participating in my cousin's wedding in a couple of weeks, I thought it would be very appropriate for him to get a little trim to ensure that his hair wasn't wild and crazy for her big event.

The day that Noah got his haircut just so happened to also be his last official day as a one year old.  Oh man I was pretty emotional.  I had talked to him all week about getting his hair cut.  I told him that mommy and Noah were getting their hair cut on Friday and that we were going to look so nice afterwards for his big boy birthday party.  He acted really excited and babbled about "hairs" all week long.

When we walked into the hair salon on Friday, he wasn't scared because it wasn't his first time to come with me and he has known my hair stylist since before he was even born so the real fear didn't really settle in until he was sitting in the big black chair.  He started whining for mama, so I had to put down my camera and sit in the chair with him.  I was a little bummed because I was hoping to get some really good photos of his first haircut.  Thankfully another salon patron saw what was happening and jumped in to snap some photos for us.  The haircut only lasted about 5 minutes, but Noah had lots of fun squirting the water bottle and wriggling all over the place.  After she was done, he was really satisfied with his new look and I proceeded to get my hair cut too.  It was a very stress-free and happy experience.

monthly noah: seventeen

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My little bug is now seventeen months old.  With every passing day he continues to just surprise me with every new skill he picks up.  In the last few weeks, Noah's vocabulary has really begun to increase.  He says words like up and down while actually move up and down and pick up his water cup and yells agua.  He yells "owside" while he throws his shoe at my head so that I will put his shoes on his feet and we can head out the door.  He recently said "mine", grabbed some food out of my hand and hastily gobbled it down.  His ability to follow commands and act on simple phrases is also getting better.  I yell "bath time" and he runs to the baby gate at the foot of the stairs and screams "bath bath bath" until he is physically set inside of the bath tub with bubbles and water.  I say "time for a clean diaper" and he will lay down on his changing mat and yell "die-der".

Noah has been dancing for a while, but I have noticed that his sense of rhythm has really improved over the last month or so.  He taps on beat with music or will clap like a metronone.  He also loves to mimmic some of his favorite songs that he hears me sing or on the radio.

I mentioned last month that he was beginning to get quite a temper on him... I can see that this phase is going to be sticking around for a while and that I will need to get a big heaping dose of patience in order to deal with what lies ahead.  I have found that the more time we spend outside, the more pleasant he generally is and the less melt downs we have.  Fast paced walks generally make for a good mood-booster as well.

We are currently going through a rough patch with napping.  I am trying to move Noah from two naps a day to one.  It seems that Noah has a different idea in mind.  It's either two naps or none and when it's none, the rest of the night is also really difficult.  It doesn't help that I am also working really hard at weaning him (more about that to follow).  HE REALLY DOES NOT LIKE THAT.  Before Noah had gotten sick with his ear infection and infectious rash, he was sleeping quite wonderfully... now our whole household is pretty miserable.  It's a work in progress though... that's what counts right?

Noah still loves trying new foods.  He especially loves food when it comes off Mama's plate.  Meal times are becoming much more independent which is nice.  And his ability to use utensils is improving every day! Back on the weaning subject.  He still nurses twice a day, at 6am when he wakes up the first time and when he goes to bed at night.  While he actually ended up nursing quite a bit more because he was so miserable and not eating table food.  We are trying really hard to do a gradual wean because I feel like that will be better for both Noah and I emotionally and physically.  It's really hard though to give up that special time between the two of us.  He is so big and independent now and the only time I really get cuddles are when he is nursing or I am baby-wearing... both of those are slowly coming to an end and it's really so hard for meto let them go.

In the past month, Noah has really been on a book kick.  We read ALL day long...sometimes it's the same book all day long.  It is so fun.  He even laughs at the stories.  I am so happy that we will have that interest to share with each other and I cannot wait to build a grand literature collection with this boy.

Wow... I really cannot believe how Noah is almost a year and half old.  It really seems like just yesterday I found out I was pregnant with him.  Can't wait to see how much he changes in another month... maybe I can wait.  It does seem to be going a little too fast.

O-N-E

I prayed for this child, and the LORD has granted me what I asked of him - 1 Samuel 1:27

I'm crazy...

I had fully written a post about how sad I was that Noah was growing up so fast and that I couldn't handle everything and how I really wish that he was still a newborn and yadda yadda yadda.


It was written and I was just waiting to hit the publish button.  Then bath time happened tonight and I just realized how in love I am with this absolute moment with Noah.  Sure, there are sleepless nights and tear-filled afternoons.  I don't get to sit for more than 5 seconds during the day.  I am constantly covered from head to toe in drool and I spend more time washing and folding diapers than I do taking care of my own personal hygiene.

But seriously...

I get to stare deeply into these baby blues ALL day long!  I am so very lucky and I cry sometimes just remembering how lonely and horrible I felt waiting for Noah to get here.  As much as I miss his little bitty baby days... I truly love these days too!  

LAME...

that's the only word I have for it...


Lately I have been wheezy and I wasn't really sure what was bothering me.  I thought it might of been my acid reflux acting up again because sometimes it makes it hard for me to breath, but it felt a little different.  And it always seemed to be during certain times of the day.  After a few weeks of not knowing what's the matter with me, I realized something while watching Noah play.

I am allergic to Noah's toy, Sophie.

Yes, I have known for years that I am allergic to latex, but it never occurred to me that my baby's toys were going to kill me.  I guess this is my form of a PSA?!?  Look at your children's toys and inspect them.  Make sure they won't hurt your baby and also make sure they won't hurt you!  Yes, that might mean that something costs a few extra dollars, but isn't it worth it to you?

So now I am on the hunt for the perfect squeaky, chewy toy that Noah will love... and I still don't want to get rid of Sophie because she is SO CUTE and he loves her so much.  I guess every time Noah plays with her I will just have to wash him immediately, and then wash myself after touching both the toy and the baby...

Never a dull moment, right?

Baby Bums...

I am either going to get a lot of flack for this post or a lot of praise or even a whole lot of nothing.  I have prepared myself for all of those responses... so here goes nothing.

If you had told me this time last year when I found out that I was pregnant that I would be cloth diapering my baby I would have slapped you and called you a big fat liar.  Well... maybe that is extreme, but I probably would have chuckled at the idea.  Not that there was anything wrong with it, it just seemed "messy" to me.  Well, my good (no... GREAT) friend, Chelsea, had been modeling her diapering skills with her little boy Jarvis and had kind of planted the seed in my head.  Initially, I thought if I was going to cloth diaper that I might try one of the many diaper services in Los Angeles since that seems to be the route most Los Angelenos go, but Jonathan was REALLY not liking the cloth diaper idea at all so I had to go a different and more sneaky route.

self-soothing part 1

We are at that point where I have to teach Noah how to sooth himself.  I just can't hold him and rock him the entire day.  My body won't physically allow it.  I am tired and cranky and he deserves better than that.  Up until now, the only way we have had a happy baby is when he is in constant contact with a person and we have kept that up through wearing him in the baby k'tan.  This has worked really well and as much as I want to be in constant contact with him, he is getting bigger and staying awake longer which means even less break time for me.

I guess you can call me selfish?  But I am with him 24/7... holding, rocking, walking, nursing... and I want to be in the best mood every day when I see those adorable baby blue eyes peering up at me.

So tonight I am attempting to put him to bed drowsy, awake and on his back.  I am praying he won't scream himself hoarse, and that he will sleep easy.  That he will sleep more than 2 hours at a time.  I hope that I am not making a mistake and I hope I will not lose his trust.  

I love cuddling my baby to bed.  I love nursing him to sleep.  I love our times together, but neither or us sleep well like that.  We need our space so that we can cuddle all day and be in the best moods.

I will update after trying this approach for a while. errr... okay... cross your fingers and say some prayers.  

looking inwards.

sometimes I still don't see it.  Someone I know from a support group just had her baby.  She went through something similar to what I went through with preeclampsia and a premature baby, but her little one survived.  It's a wonderful story.  She went on to have another baby and this pregnancy was completely different from the last.  She had a full term little one and didn't get sick.  Another absolutely wonderful story.  It's hard to believe sometimes that I am on the other side of the fence and that I have had a wonderful story.  I know I live it and breath it now that I interact with Noah every single day, but sometimes I just can't feel it.  Sometimes I feel like I am back in that place where I was sick and without a baby.  How horrible is that?  I have a gorgeous, precious and living baby right here with me and I am still doubting it all.

I don't get it...Is there something terribly wrong with me?  Why can't I feel as though we had a successful experience?  Will Mason's birth overshadow everything with a negative light?

long time coming: newborn photos

Again, I apologize for the delay, but sometimes these things take awhile, especially when they are so very beautiful!  Here are the photos taken when little guy was just a week old.  BE STILL MY HEART!

Happy Mother's Day

Seems like just yesterday that I was sobbing in bed on Mother's Day.  Seems like just yesterday I spent a lot of my private time sobbing in bed.  Today, I was celebrating with my adorable 3 month old and in spirit with our beloved 19 month old.  I wish I could be holding both of them tightly every moment of every day, but I guess I will just hold on to Noah (and Gus the dog) extra tight instead.
So happy and so blessed.

Feeling so blessed

To have our little Noah with us this Easter.  I cannot believe how much I took for granted before having children.  I can't imagine giving up your ONLY son to take on the the sins of the entire world so that we might have a hope of life after death with our perfect creator.  It is the most terrible thing I could ever imagine, that choice of sacrifice, but I am thankful for a God who loved us enough to make it for us.

1 Peter 1:3 

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead...

3, 539 minutes

That's how long Mason was in our lives.  That's 2 days 10 hours and 59 minutes.  How could such a short life have such a profound impact on a person?  How could his little self change my life forever?  His very existence makes everything else my life so much more meaningful, including this little baby I have sitting in my arms.  It makes every breath, eyelash and dirty diaper the absolute best thing that could have happened in my life.  I am savoring every second because I didn't get that chance with our Mason.  I am trying so hard to soak up every inch of this child because I don't want to miss what I am already missing. And boy do I miss that boy... our sweet sweet boy.

birth announcements

It's taken me a while to share these with everyone and I am just getting around to mailing out hard copies to close family members, but here are Mr. Noah's birth announcements created and photographed by Cynthia of Cynthia Spivak Photography. 

I STILL cannot believe how precious this little guy is and these sweet photos give me chill bumps! There are many more photos from the session still to come, so be on the lookout for those sweet cheeks!

meaning well...

I have always thought myself to be a faithful person.  If something was meant to happen it was going to happen.  I believe that God takes care of His children in various ways and we can't always see or understand how it's going to happen.  In my pregnancy with Mason, I was sick.  From the very moment of conception, God had a special plan for him (long long before, though I didn't know it) and he was not going to come home with me.  No amount of praying and begging would have changed that unless it had been part of God's ultimate plan.  And the help that I received from doctors and nurses, that was part of his plan.  He put those people in my life and those connections helped me to find the doctors I needed to sustain my pregnancy with Noah.  I prayed just as fervently and if anything I was probably LESS faithful because I was scared out of my mind about all of the horrible possible outcomes.  It's just very complicated. 

What I am rambling on and on about is that I hate hearing (or reading) that someone is so much more of a Christian because she didn't use medication to get pregnant or didn't see a high risk specialist to sustain pregnancy.  What these women do not realize is that every day of my pregnancy with Mason, I prayed over my belly that he would grow strong.  I believed that he was coming home with me all the way from the beginning.  I thought that because I was so faithful nothing bad could possibly happen to me.  But that is TERRIBLY unrealistic.  After being hospitalized and numerous tests, I know that I need medication to sustain pregnancy.  I should have a doctor look over me to make sure my blood pressure isn't crazy... it's not about being faithful, it's about trusting that my plans are aligned with God's plan and that if they aren't that I can trust Him anyways.  It's like the woman who knows she has cancer and refuses treatments but expects God to heal her instead.  God may choose to heal her (or have already chosen), but again is she less of a believer if she had chosen treatments after all?  Not in the slightest!

In regards to (in)fertility and the Bible... do you not think that Sarah or Rachel or Hannah wouldn't have used medical interventions instead of waiting decades to conceive children or even watching their husbands take on concubines to continue on their legacy?  God has given doctors the knowledge to help us in these areas; is it wrong to use that knowledge?

I have a GIANT knee-jerk reaction to these types of discussions.  I guess people mean well when they say what their saying, but I can't help but feel as though my faith is being attacked.