Noah Come Lately

Lately, Noah is particularly ... well ... particular. Here are a couple of examples of what I am talking about.

He has renamed each of us as a certain monster. Josh is Cookie Monster, Anna is Crawling Monster, and I am Tickle Monster. He has yet to decide what monster he is. I am ever so interested to see where he lands on that one.

Noah has begun to negotiate punishments. If he knows I am coming to spank him, he offers a time out and runs to that spot. Other times, he will spank himself first (perhaps thinking I will find that a sufficient substitute). Worse even, now he runs like a rocket away from us. I won't even tell you how mad that makes me. And he hasn't picked up on the fact that that only makes it worse.

When we watch Caillou, Noah will let me know when Caillou is misbehaving - usually at things I have pointed out to him before (because we don't want Noah to mimic the behavior he is seeing)...things like talking back, stomping feet, being selfish. He will say "Caillou pank you" which means Caillou needs a spanking. He says "pank you" because he always hears it worded that way when we tell him "If you do this or that again I will spank you." So pank you it is.

Noah always, always, always wants to see Anna's dirty diapers when I am changing her. He even grabs his camera to photograph those dirty diapers.

Because he's no taller than my rear, it is not uncommon in our household to hear me telling Noah to "Stop taking pictures of my butt."

He calls everyone "Dude" lately, except it comes out sounding like "Toot." Examples: Ok, toot; Bye, bye, toot. Often he says the word just to be silly and not even in reference to anyone at all. But it really took the cake the other night when he finished his prayer with "Amen, toot."

Noah went through a phase in his potty training for the last two weeks where when I told him it was time to go potty, he would furl his eyebrows and tell me that he has already pee-peed 2 times today - to which I was compelled to remind our budding pottier that we go potty more than 2 times a day. He doesn't care for that fact.

Watching Noah pull Anna in the wagon is too precious. He pulls her 5 feet and then puts the handle down, runs to her side, and puts his arms around her carefully and hugs and kisses her. And repeat and repeat.

Every time I tell Noah to do something lately, he requests a countdown. Why, you ask? Well how else can he be like Special Agent Oso on the Disney Channel. Watch one episode of that and you will understand.

I had a headache the other day. Noah had a solution. "Noah kiss it" he says and grabs my face and pulls it down to remedy my ache with his love. Didn't work, but it made me grin.

Every time Noah keeps his pull-up dry and uses the potty, he gets two pieces of candy. And lately, he immediately holds one of his candies up to me and says: "Ha go, Mommy." (Here you go, Mommy) That sweet baby hands over half his potty booty every time and it just melts my heart to see him be so unselfish.

Every time Noah gets his potty reward candy, he asks for 2 green ones. Always, green.

We ate at an italian restaurant the other day. On my toasted ravioli were little green pieces of parsley or something or other. Noah looks at my dish and, as serious as anything, asks me if that is grass.

Noah does not enjoy getting his allergy shots. But he enjoys getting to the allergist's office thanks to the "abbaytor," (elevator) and it doesn't hurt either that Ms. Millie supplies him with "two pops" (lollipops) right after the shots are over.