Definitely a Toddler

Over the last couple of weeks, Noah has demonstrated to us that he is definitely a toddler. He's no longer the happy go lucky little guy who enjoys everything you put in front of him. Now he has opinions and he makes sure that we are aware of them. Lately he's taken to demonstrating his opinions by screaming and crying. We try with all our might to ignore the bad behavior so that we don't perpetuate it, but at times this can be quite difficult. Take the drive home from work/daycare today for instance... Noah was happy for the first 5 minutes peering out the window. I was thankful for these five minutes because the entire remaining trip home was filled with Noah screaming at the top of his lungs as he no longer wanted to be stuck in his car seat. No it wasn't pinching him. He didn't have a dirty diaper. He had recently had a snack so he wasn't hungry. He was a bit tired, but definitely was not willing to take a short snooze in the car. No, he just decided he was going to cry us home. I've now taken to telling Noah that his behavior is not acceptable and turning the radio up to (hopefully) help me focus on something else so I'm not ready to leave him on the curb when I arrive home each day. Today unfortunately, I had to leave him in the car for Eric to retrieve because I just couldn't stand to listen to the screaming anymore. It's not an incredibly long trip home, but it can feel like an eternity when there's a screaming toddler in the back seat.

Noah has also decided that making dinner is not an acceptable activity for his mother. Each night, while I'm preparing dinner Noah will stand or sit in the middle of the kitchen floor crying because I'm not paying enough attention to him. Sometimes Eric can distract him. Other times we just have to let him cry. I hope this phase is short.

If anyone has any ideas of how we can shorten the screaming phase, we're all ears!!! I'm particularly looking for ideas to deal with him in the car. As a last resort, I may have to order noise canceling earphones (like the ones you see in airplane catalogues) and wear them home from work everyday.

Big Cough and Diarrhea

Last week Noah caught a stomach bug from one of his friends at daycare. Beginning Thursday night, Noah began vomiting and had very bad diarrhea. Unfortunately, Noah did "The Big Cough" all over Mommy three times and Mommy caught his bug too. Since Noah aimed so well at Mommy, Daddy was stuck cleaning up the mess and throwing stinky clothes in the wash so he also caught the bug. We were a family of three sickies all weekend. In fact on Sunday we were all feeling so ill that we had to call in reinforcements. Grandma Barb came to the rescue and watched Noah on Sunday while Mom and Dad rested. Monday, Grandma Annette watched Noah while Mommy napped and Daddy went to work. Tuesday we were starting to feel a bit better and today we were all back to work and daycare. It was an icky weekend. None of us enjoyed it, but we're thankful that we have recovered before the holiday festivities will begin. Don't worry everyone, we're all well again and no longer contagious.

Special thank you to the grandmas for helping out!