Signs of Spring

We are not out of the woods yet.  But we're definitely getting closer.

One of the best parts of childhood--rubber rain boots.

Now that Noah is 13 months, I've had some time to feel like things are getting back in kelter. He's been sort of sleeping through the night for the last 3 months and he mostly just takes one nap a day now. That may not sound like much, but the accumulated effect is quite nice.  It boils down to me *usually* not being very sleep-deprived. And all of us *usually* able to plan and schedule outings with some degree of accuracy.

Rollin' with my Nomies.

And now that Judah is 3.5, he is definitely a lot easier to deal with. He mostly keeps his emotions in check and has cut way down on the oppositional behavior. About 6 months ago I was probably still giving him time outs at least once a day. Now we can go for week-long stretches without a single disciplinarian action.

And best of all, he plays by himself a lot. If you've been following Judah's development since birth, you know that's nothing short of a minor miracle. So take heart parents of clingy, attention-starved children! They do grow out of it! Of course, Judah being Judah, he's not that good at occupying himself. But compared to his younger self, he's like a freaking Olympic champ now.

The activities that hold his attention longest is building spaceships from bristle blocks and cutting construction paper. He says he's cutting out "badges" and likes to decorate them with hearts and write the occasional letter on them. "N" is for Noah. "M" is for Mommy. And "I [heart] U" is a little love badge just for his favorite person in the whole world--Mommy.

Super-heros and villians + bristle blocks = sanity for mommy

Judah likes to call himself a "cutter" and people who overhear give us weird looks.

Judah has always been a momma's boy and his crazy expressive affection has really exploded in the past few months. Now he can't go 10 minutes without exclaiming "I love you Mommy!" As flattered as I am, I'm pretty sure it's just kind of a tick at this point--kind of like love tourettes. He often exclaims love for all kinds of, uh, lesser-order-things, like string cheese and grapes.

But I'm sure a lot of it is genuine too. Judah's really into quantifying love these days. He says a lot of the following:
How much do you love me Mommy?
I love you as high as the moon, and then all the way up to heaven, plus a hundred, plus infinity.
I love you higher than Jesus' head. (That one made me pause for a sec...what?!)
I love you more than VIDEOS! (That actually melts my heart because the kid LOVES his videos.)
And the one that always stumps me--I love you more than you love me!
It turns out, it's really hard to explain to a 3 year old why that is kind of impossible.

I try to reason with him a little--No Judah, that's impossible because Mommy is a grown up and, and, and...I gave birth to you!  Yeah, not a convincing argument to him either.

And while Judah is very generous with his kisses, his brother is the miser-liest miser there ever was.  I beg Noah for kisses 50 times a day and although he clearly knows how to give them, he seems to take special joy in denying me each and every time.

And then Judah always chimes in to take away the sting of each rebuff--I'll kiss you Mommy!

Thank goodness for at least one kissy cuddly guy!