this week {according to my blackberry}

N is many things, many wonderful things. He is willful and extraordinary, loving and independent, adventurous yet reserved. He always has a smile upon his beautiful face, a smile that lights up any room in an instance. He can make my incredibly crappy day instantly wonderful, simply by being him. He also has some, erm, not so desirable traits…which will totally come in handy down the road for him but sorta suck for me right now. Like his stubbornness, and his desire to constantly push the limits. The limits being the ‘rules’ I try to enforce on the daily {i.e not doing dangerous things like climbing {and dancing on} the coffee table, not playing with electronic things like Matt’s xBox or the TV, and so on and so forth}.

I am incredibly lucky to have such an amazing son. I know, we all say that about our own kids, and I suppose that’s good, right? In the book I am reading right now {Scar Tissue, Anthony Kiedis and Larry Sloman}, I read a passage that has sorta stuck with me as it makes such complete sense: on some level, spirits choose their parents, because these potential parents possess the certain traits and values that the soon-to-be child needs to assimilate during his or her lifetime {pg. 8}.

I feel like N was destined to be my child. From his willful, stubborn ways right down to his infectious grin and longing to make everyone as happy as he is {so long as he’s getting his way}. This child is such a part of my core being – of Matt’s core being too – that I can’t imagine our life without him in it. He completes it, he shapes it, he inspires it. He is my muse. My beautiful muse.

I can remember being pregnant with him in the fall of 2008, my first trimester. I can remember laying in bed late at night, unable to sleep, with my hand on my {still flat, at the time} belly trying my hardest to picture this child I was carrying. I knew I was pregnant, I had seen the positive results on the test and the little peanut sized being on the ultrasound screen, but it wasn’t real yet because I didn’t know anything about the wee one in my belly. I kept trying to imagine what he would look like and be like. And trying to imagine what traits he would possess was just downright impossible. N is nothing I thought he would be, and yet…he’s everything. Motherhood is nothing I thought it would be, and also…it’s everything. Does that make any sense?

I’m rambling, I know. Sorry for that! Let’s just move on to the pictures from this week, shall we?

:::::::

Morning cuddles again; another day. N has been a wee bit cranky lately; I’m pretty damn sure his molars are coming in or something. He’s biting more lately, and drooling like crazy. Mouthing everything he can get his hands on – which isn’t usual for him. Plus, he’s been waking up fussing in the middle of the night again. Sigh. This makes for a slower start for the both of us each day. Luckily, cuddles are amazing and low energy! Win-win, I’d say.

Another gorgeous day of playing outside in the yard. The weather was warm and sunny, a nice change from the weather we’ve been having {rainy and cold}. N loved soaking up some rays {and having me chase him away from the trails, heh}

Spoon-feeding the eggs I made him Tuesday morning. I wish I could find his matching little fork – the fork and spoon are perfect for training a toddler how to use culterly when eating because they are thick enough to hold easily and small enough to not gag a child too much. But the fork is MIA, so I’ll have to find that soon. Anyway, N really enjoys feeding himself. I don’t really enjoy cleaning up the mess, but I love how proud he is of himself so I’ll take the messy clean-ups!

Another sign of teething; N’s sudden taken to the nummy {aka pacifier}. He’s never sucked on a pacifier before unless he’s teething or not feeling well, or simply just wanting to play with it. All of Tuesday afternoon, he sucked/chewed/drooled on this here nummy.

Also another sign of teething; N was super cuddly. Usually, I *might* get maybe a total of half an hours worth of cuddles from my busy boy each day. But Tuesday was jammed pack full of cuddles! Like, every 10 minutes he was crawling up my lap for more cuddles.

But N is still himself; so no worries. He still does silly little things to make me laugh. 🙂

This picture is a tad bit misleading. N just finished devouring chocolate cake that our landlady baked {she was baking a cake and sent over a few pieces for us. She’s sweet like that}, and N LOVED the freakin’ cake – especially the icing. But he looks a little pissed off here. Probably because there is no more cake. There, I solved the mystery!

And there you have it, I am *mostly* caught up in the pictures from the last two weeks. Except for the whole house pictures thing, which I promise I will get to once I charge my camera {erm, once I find my charger to charge my camera, that is…}.

On to…NOLAN UPDATES! Cause this kid is crazy smart, and I’ve been pretty brief with the updates on him, keeping them mostly to myself {I know, shame on me!}. But, on the 23rd {TOMORROW} N will be 17 months old. Shit son. It’s definitely time for a What He’s Doing update!

FOOD:

As pictured above, N enjoys feeding himself. He’s not exactly pro at it yet {my floors…oh my floors…after every meal…wah} but he does love doing it. He’ll eat mostly anything I put in front of him, but he’s damn sick of chicken. Unless it’s chopped finely and in pasta. N loves pasta, he goes nuts for it. And recently? He loves his eggs too. We went through a stage where he would not eat eggs at all, but now I try to make him scrambled eggs or sunny side up eggs every other day. I do have to add a teaspoon of cream cheese to the eggs in order to add a bit more flavour, since plain things bore him {omg; I’m raising a food critic} but it works! This past weekend, N ate double the portions he usually eats in a day. It was insanity, I barely got to eat because anytime he finished a meal he’d eat the rest of mine. But now, his growth spurt seems to be over and he’s back to his regular intake of food {which is still a lot, I might add, but at least I get to eat again}.

Also, we’ve been given him peanut butter more now. He’s had a few tries of it in the past to make sure he wasn’t allergic to it {and he’s not} and on a lazy day for me he eats up peanut butter toast like it’s some fine dish from Paris, which is awesome because cooking eggs every day gets boring for the both of us.

SLEEP:

Since we’ve just moved and all that jazz, N has been remarkably good with sleep. His door sticks, and you have to like slam your shoulder into it to open it {the door clearly needs to be shaven down a bit, which will happen soon…I hope} so he has woken up a few times due to us ‘sneaking’ in to plug the monitor in or when his teething pains wake him up, but aside from that he’s great. He loves his new room, and despite it being brighter than his old room, he does just fine. I did have to leave the rocking chair at my step MIL’s house because it simply wouldn’t fit in N’s new room {it’s smaller, but oh well} so our night time routine has been disrupted and altered a bit. Now we read our stories and have our snuggles on the living room couch and then go to bed. Or I sit in N’s miniature wooden chair and read. Either way, N doesn’t mind so long as he gets his milk and evening stories {seriously; my boy loves his stories}.

WORDS:

N still uses body lanugage and grunts to communicate for the most part, but he does know a lot of words. He just perfers to store them and not use them. He has said; cat, dog, purple, epic, papa, dada, mama, mum, mum-mum, bum, bath, duck, red, car, truck, ball, eat, no, ya and he uses them in proper context too {i.e ‘do you want to go to bed?’ ‘no!’ or…’would you like some milk?’ ‘YA’}. He signs too, he constantly does the sign for eat whenever he’s hungry, and juice whenever he’s thirsty. He recognizes words too. I’ll say ‘where’s the truck Nolan?’ and he’ll point at it {or if it’s a toy, he’ll bring it over to me}.

UNDERSTANDING:

He seems to have a broader understanding for the world around him now too. For instance, Nolan knows when he shouldn’t touch something. He will look at it, look at me, shake his head and look at the object again. This doesn’t often stop him from touching it, but he still knows that no means no. He just chooses to {rarely} listen. In fact, our constant battle is Matt’s xBox. N is not supposed to touch it, at all. Period. But he’ll touch it, then walk straight over to his time out chair and try to climb on it, shaking his head. It’s amusing, and annoying {because HELLO, you get no…so don’t touch it!} but I know, it’s just him making sense of the world {and trying to give me gray hair}.

So, there you have it. Pictures and a pretty detailed N update. 🙂

P.S. I just noticed it’s Wednesday, which means I probably should have made this post a ‘Wordless Wednesday’ post but I’ve had too many wordless days over the past two weeks so I think I can get away with skipping the wordless part of Wednesday this week 😉 hehe