2.5 years old!!

Dear Noel,
You are 2.5 years old. You have the most interesting and fascinating personality I've ever known lol. You seem to get offended easily - you don't like when someone tries to help you, giggles because they think you're cute, laughs around you and you don't know why, etc. You get extremely bashful when you're complimented. You look down, smile bashfully, and say thank you. It is the sweetest thing lol.

You are also so so so intelligent. You pick up on things so quickly. You can count to 11 on your own, you pretty much know all your colors even though you mix some up sometimes, you know all the basic shapes, and you are super athletic and high energy lol. Whenever someone calls you a toddler or says you're hungry etc you tell them, "No, I'm Noel." haha. It's adorable.
We went to the beach a couple days ago and you absolutely loved it. They had a small turtle slide that went into the water and you were going down it often. You proudly announced, "I AM SO HAPPY!" lol <3

You are still breastfeeding!! I don't know that you were ever wean lol! You are obsessed with milkies and you tell me and daddy that my boobs are yours haha. You are attached at my breast nearly every single waking moment. It drives me INSANE most of the time haha. I deal with it though because I know that milkies is your comfort, your safety, and your nutrition. You'll wean one day.... in your own time.

You speak extremely well for your age. You are talking in full, easily understood sentences. Everyone that meets you is shocked that you are only 2.5 because you speak so well and your thoughts are so well articulated and thought out.

You get along with your sister extremely well - you both love playing together. The only time you ever argue is when one of you is using the phone for Youtube kids or games because the other always wants to watch or take over. I have recently been trying to put the phone away so that you both can't fight and argue over it. I feel that your relationship is far more important than an electronic.





HAHA oh, and you went through a phase for a few months where you got into EVERYTHING you possibly could.






You would dump every water bottle you could find all over the floor, Parmesan cheese EVERYWHERE, cereal, diaper rash cream HAHA. Oh man, I have to post the photos. We never got mad, we understand that you're curious, learning, and growing. We just help you clean it up. We did teach you that water belongs either in your mouth/belly or in the tub and not all over the floor. Thankfully you caught onto that semi quickly and after a couple weeks you would ask to play with water in the tub instead.

You are TWO!!! Oh how time fliessss!

Dear Noel,
You have turned 2!!!! Sorry that this is a few weeks late... I have been so incredibly busy lately. You keep me on my toes and busy!! LOL

Your personality has blossomed!! You say SO many words now... I can't even count how many you know.. you learn dozens more each and every day. You are currently a little sponge that picks up on and mimics everything!! It is a lot of fun interacting with you and observing you!

You have finally started recognizing that you are your own person a month or two before your 2nd birthday!! You use terms like, me and mine. You also know your name and refer to yourself by it now too!! You no longer get mad at yourself in the mirror lol or seeing yourself on the camera. :p You say, "That's ME!! NOEL!" :D

You are so incredibly intelligent! You know some letters even! You speak better than any children I've ever known or currently know that are your age. In daycare at Mamee's you speak better and more than all of the children your age, even the ones older than you by 6 months!

We have finally hit the World Health Organization recommendation of 2 years of breastfeeding!!! I can't believe that we have made it to two years. You are addicted to your "milkies" lol. When I first gave birth to you and started this journey I had faith we would get to where we are today on our nursing journey - and here we are!! I am so proud of us and that I've been able to give you the nutritionally best start in life.

You LOVE Star Wars so much. LOL You're JUST like your daddy!! You also LOVE Daniel Tiger and Super Why the most out of all the shows you watch. But you happily watch a lot of shows with your sister that she wants to watch :).








You have an incredible personality... you NEED respect. You function SO EXTREMELY well if you are respected and feel understood. You ALWAYS make the right choice if you're allowed to make the choice for yourself on your own with polite encouragement. You hate feeling forced to do something, you hate feeling disrespected, and you hate pressure. Which is completely understandable!!

In the car we play a game where you shout, "Mommy, GOOOO" when I'm at a redlight and I say, "Red light!!" then you reply, "Green light!!!" LOL You love it haha. And you actually once told me, "Mommy GOOOO, HIT CARS!!" lmfao. I tried to explain that we can't just hit the other cars lol but you don't seem to understand or care :p.

You recognize where we are often... you know when we are at Mamee's house or our house - although you call our home "Lailah's house" LOL.
Unlike most toddlers you LOVE naps, bedtime, showers, and vegetables!!! You get extremely excited over all of those things. "night night time." "sleepies". "yayyyy bath!!". and "cahits and broccoli!" You actually can say broccoli but carrots sounds like cats sort of haha.







For Christmas we got you and your sissy a big tool table complete with tools and fake wood etc to build with. You love it!! We also got a big kitchen set complete with food and plates etc. You love that as well!! For smaller things we got you dinosaurs, and a road play mat. :) You had so much fun this Christmas and had a blast!!

20 Month update!!!

Dear Noel,
You've just reached 20 months!! You're getting tall! Although, Idk how tall lol and you're around 2 lbs. You are getting so big and your personality is blossoming incredibly. You are talking so much and saying far too many words to count. You are so smart and you know how to figure nearly everything out. You LOVE to jump as you sing, "hop hop hop!". You play pretend with your dinosaurs, blocks, pretending to eat fake food, and you can draw circles (sort of ish lol)!! You love your sister and you plays and learn with her every day. You still love mother goose club songs, you watch dinosaur music videos, your favorite shows include Sesame Street and Daniel Tiger, and you love singing along to the radio.

You are not a huge fan of other children, you rather play alone or with your sister though. You tend to hit or push other children if you feel they're invading your personal space or overstepping boundaries such as coming up to your dad or I, or trying to take a toy you're playing with. You get worked up very quickly but I'm pretty sure that's just your age - it's part of being a toddler. :)
You demand respect from everyone you are around. If people respect you you are more likely to obey to rules set or boundaries that have been set. You show understanding and patience - but ONLY if you feel respected. The moment you feel disrespected you sort of explode. You shout words like, "NO!, STOP, DON'T, LISTEN, and WON'T!" And you physically react very quickly: hitting, throwing something, knocking something down, etc. But again - that's because your prefrontal cortex hasn't began developing yet and that's necessary for emotional regulation and impulse control. You're just being a toddler and expressing your emotions in the only ways that you know how.

You are still BREASTFEEDING!!! <3 We share an incredible bond and I am so proud to know that you are getting the most amazing start in life directly from my body. All the vitamins, nutrients, calcium, antibodies, etc.... it's truly a miracle what the human body can do to support it's young. Although, we have started limiting the amount you nurse at night - mommy was losing a lot of sleep as you would wake up 6/7 times a night for milkies. I just couldn't deal. So lately before bed I've been gently explaining, "Okay so you're going to have milkies right now before bed, when you're done you are going to roll over and go to sleep okay? Then no more milkies until morning time." I should start saying "until it's light out." because I'm pretty sure you haven't been understanding what "morning" is. It's all new to me and we're working on it together. You've been doing pretty well at handling it - only waking up once or twice now to nurse, which is more tolerable for me. I can't imagine us fully weaning any time soon though.



You love swimming - as long as someone is in the pool with you. It took a while for you to warm up to the whole pool idea at all but once you did you loved it!! You started jumping into the pool for others to catch you (papa and I) and you even went down a slide into the pool all on your own a few times! LOL You weren't too fond of it yet you still went down it for some reason a few times until deciding it wasn't a good idea anymore hahaa. And you love the park. The slide is your favorite!! You also really love climbing! You are a dare devil!

18 months has flown by!

Dear Noel,
Goodness gracious child!!! You have turned 18 months and you have surely blossomed !! You speak over 35 words! You know mama, mommy, dada, daddy, Moe, Mamee, Lailah, Sissy, Qetsi (dog), up, go, home, stuck, apple, eat, eye, play, shoes, no, car, truck, zoo, ball, hat, bite, mine, baby, eww, bath, weeee, bye bye, birdy, hi, you ask "what's that?" and "where's -- (insert name or object)", and say "let's go".
(Added on 7/3/15 - doggy, cat, why, juice, outside, please, more, Brian, RAWR, yuck, yay, sock, why, rain, water, wet, hot, nanner (banana), out, and keys) These are all the ones I remember at least :p. Within the past 3 weeks your speech has expanded insanely. :D It's so amazing listening to you talk. Although, HAHA - you say a word that sound just like "cock" and we have NO idea what it is you're trying to say. You say every other word when you see it or when you need to tell us something you want or or want to do - but this word you just say it all the time. We have NO idea what it is besides hilarious lmao. <3




You can jump REALLY well now, you can climb and go down slides all on your own as well, and you make this gargling sound when you're attempting to tickle someone lol it's adorable "igle igle igle igle igle". LOL too cute.

We are still breastfeeding! We've made it to 18 months. :) You are getting an incredible amount of nutrients and antibodies from my breastmilk which is helping to develop your brain more and faster than other non breastfed babies and keep you healthy and strong! I am so proud of our journey and I'm going to be sad when it one day ends. But for now I will savor you being my little baby and our bonding and closeness that nursing brings to us.

You are quite the explorer!! You LOVE to be independent and walk around by yourself - at the zoo I let you lead us around and we follow closely behind. You run over to the next animal exhibit and you even climb up onto the fence and look into the animal exhibit and exclaim your "ohhhs" and "ahhhs" lol. You are not a child of fear at all. And at the mall you loveeeee the escalators and you proudly step on them as you hold either daddy or my hand. You are so courageous and curious. Not quite to a fault and hopefully it'll never come to that, but to a deeper level than I believe other children your age are.


Oh and a couple weekends ago we went to this event in Providence called "Discover the Dinosaurs", they had lifelike robotic dinosaurs and plastic dinosaurs, and a sand pit where you could uncover dinosaur bones.

 You had a BLAST! !! You absolutely loved it. You ran back and forth from dinosaur to dinosaur rawring! And you played in the sand pit for at least an hour!! You were running around in circles pointing, giggling, and giving your best rawrs!!!! You had so much fun. It was definitely an amazing weekend for our whole family.

You recently had your first dentist appointment too! So many new things. You have 16 teeth!!!! You did so well. You were very curious and didn't want to wear the bib they put on you but you did well with the dentist and you didn't cry or seem afraid at all. :)

You have definitely started experiencing very large emotions and you definitely express them. You've started tantruming and getting all those very big emotions out. Sometimes you hit but daddy and I set firm limits on hitting - we don't let you hit us. Otherwise you accept hugs and mommy milkies if you're having a really hard time. Already, I've noticed that you have a very strong personality and you really like for daddy or I to reach out to you - rather than for you to come to us. We will do our best to always reach out and be here for you - to be your rock through every single tough or difficult time that you have. Please always let us in and be there for you. <3 You are so important to us and you always will be.

I love you Noel <3 Love, mommy :)

15 months!

Dear Noel,
You have turned 15 months and I feel that an update is due! Why? Well, you have just grown so much and I need to document it. :D
Goodness gracious child LOL the faces you make! You have SO many faces; you're certainly animated. You make us laugh so much with just the faces you make.
You currently know 9 signs!! You know milk, please, more, food, eat, all done, bath, shows, and potty! You don't go potty yet but when I go potty you sign it and when I sit you on it just to get you used to the idea you sign it lol.
Your hair has gotten massively curly! I actually trimmed it for the very first time the other day because the back of your hair kept getting knotted because it was so dry and brittle from you laying on it, but since I've trimmed it it's been healthy and curly again! It's beautiful. :D

You also do the try to sing  songs and use signs for the songs the itsy bitsy spider, the wheels on the bus, and you know where your head, shoulders, toes, eyes, and nose are from the song head shoulders knees and toes. :p

You are SO smart and so helpful too! You help us clean up, you know where trash goes and you put it there, you know where toys go and you put them in the toybox, and you also know where the recycling bin is and when we hand you bottles you run into the other room to recycle them! At Mammy's house she has this little toy kitchen and when you were playing with it you were pretending to turn it on then you pretended to wash your hands, your face, and then your hair! haha, freaking adorable.
You and your sister as SO close and you love each other soo so much. <3 I hope the relationship and bond between you two never breaks.

One of the funniest things you do is "shush!" people hahahaha, it's so funny. When someone tries to talk or sing when you're focusing on something or upset then you shush them LOL Another funny thing is that you don't yet acknowledge that it's you on the camera when I'm taking a video or you in the mirror. So you tend to get very angry at the baby because you seem to feel mocked hhaha. You start yelling and getting hostile towards the image of yourself LOL
You also seem to not have much stranger danger. You love walking up to people and hugging people lol you are so social and the most loveable baby ever. You literally wake daddy and I up with kisses in the morning!! It's the sweetest thing.
Oh and you love your blankey. You sometimes drag it around the house. :P It's so cute. You remind me a lot of me when I was a little baby. :)




Today you accidentally got locked in the car :(. Thankfully a man came and jimmied the lock open so I could get you out. You were trapped in there for about 10-15 mins! But you were so brave. You didn't cry. At one point you did get unsettled and put your arms up and reached for me like, "why aren't you getting me out!?" But you did so well and you calmed down and I was able to get you out. We were at Don's lunch and afterwards we went inside and had some breakfast. You ate some french toast, eggs, toast, and homefries. :)











OH!! ANDDDDDD We are still nursing strong!!!!! :D 15 months!

1 YEAR OLD!

Dear Noel,
You have just turned ONE!!!!! HAPPY BIRTHDAY!! I love you so much ! <3 This is so insane to me. I don't feel like a year has gone by, but it has and it's been incredible watching you learn and grow this past year. You've turned into such an active, intelligent, fearless, and amazing little boy!!

You know so many words! Mama, dada, daddy, cat, kitty, dog, that, Lailah, sissy, no, yeah, rawr and hi!
You also know 3 signs - Please, Milk, and food (which is actually cookie but you use it for food lol). You are so bright!



You're now running and climbing like a pro; although, you have fallen a lot lol. That's okay though, you just get back up and go again! We officially can not put you in the jumper anymore because you know how to climb yourself out! Oh! And you LOVE dancing and trying to sing along to music! You know how to use a kazoo, you can hum, you can make clicking noises with your tongue, you blow kisses, you clap, you can walk backwards, you high five, and you attempt to sing "lalala" lol it's adorable. When you're really excited about something you make like a long gasping sound! hahhaa.
You love being tickled, tossed around upside down, and chased lol! You're a crazy kid!
You're also not very picky with foods, you'll eat just about anything! You love trying new foods!
You've started hitting and pinching when you get frustrated or you want someone's attention. It's normal for your age - you're right on track! LOL. You're so gentle and loving so I have no worries about that at all! When we act sad or we say ow or ask you to do nice you give hugs and kisses. <3

You've been on the go so much that it's been difficult to get many pictures of you recently. But I've got a few. :P

We've hit our 1 yr nursing goal!!! So proud of us! You are super attached to me and your numnumns /milkies lol. You climb up on my lap and sign milkies over and over with a huge smile on your face! And it is the SWEETEST thing ever when you are nursing and you stop to give me kisses and then smile really big and latch back on. <3 awhh, you are such a huge love bug!

You really are. A love bug that is. You love hugging everyone and blowing kisses all the time. You've already learned how to blow kisses with your lips pouted and making the smacking sound lol it is freaking adorable!!




I've made this dino cake for you for your birthday. We held your party a couple weeks before your birthday to avoid all the holiday parties. You had a blast and you loved eating all the frosting off your cake lol!

Mammy, papa, Uncle Brian, Auntie Moe, Lailah, daddy, myself, Sara and her daughter Lucy, Cassidy and her daughter Sienna, Chelsea, and mammy's step kids Elijah, Isaiah, and Nick were all at your party. :) You didn't really know what was going on but you did really really enjoy that cake !!







You and Lailah have such a close and amazing relationship so far. You both love each other so much. When you see her you yell, "SISSY!!!" Or you go, "Lailah!", it's amazing that you know exactly who she is. You just adore her. You and her grab my laptop and she puts on a kids show called Daniel Tiger and you both just lie together watching the show. I've never known a baby before that can just sit quietly and watch a show, but you do!






Well, I'm wrapping this up. Daddy, Lailah, and I love you so entirely much and I can not wait to watch you grow even more this next upcoming year! Now that you've hit all your big and quick milestones the next update probably won't be until you're 18 months old. :) I'm going to be very busy chasing after you and trying to keep up with you now!! <3

11 months old!

Dear Noel,

We've been busy! I am late.. and I've missed a monthly update but... that's because you are now up and running !! Not JUST running either; you also climb! You have officially learned to climb up on the bed all on your own with absolutely no assistance You are so intelligent and you know how to get into everything and anything. :p



You are mommy's little mischievous boy! But boy do I love you... and so does your daddy and sissy. :)


I also want to add here that you have grown the most beautiful curly hair!

You are talking! Oh man, are you talking!! You say Mama, Dada, up, Kitty, Dog, Sissy, hi, bye bye, and yeah!
You also still sign please and you've seemed to have started using the sign 'cookie' for 'food' lol! You wave hi and bye, shake your head no, nod yes, and you blow kisses. You've figured out how to drink from a straw sippy cup and you can hang off the table by your hands and arms with your little legs up in the air! haha.

You have so much personality in such a little body lol.
Oh and you've FINALLY stopped screaming ALL THE TIME in the car lol, you still cry sometimes but most of the time you're pretty calm and just handle it well.


You are an extremely good eater - practically a pro; you love food so much - you will eat just about anything.


Oh yeah!!! This is so exciting! You understand how to color ! I gave you some crayons last week or so with a notebook and you made a beautiful art piece ! <3 I love it so much. :) I read that babies/toddlers typically don't have the hand dexterity to color until they're between the ages of 14-16 months old and you are only just turned 11, my smart little man!!

You have become very active at the park now that you can walk... although, now we can't go until spring time because it's just become far too cold to be outside for any period of time. You've gone down the slides and you climb up the activity things. I also put you on one of the little rockers and you knew exactly how to get it to rock - all on your own!! :D

With Piper <3

With Sophie <3

You have such a strong friendship with Sophie - papa's cat. You love her so much. You kiss her, cuddle her, hug her, lay on her, and she just lets you. It's the sweetest little thing. You're so kind and gentle to her - I've never known a baby to be so gentle with animals but you're a natural. <3







We're now 11 months into breastfeeding and we're nursing strong!! <3 Almost 1 full year of breastfeeding! I am so proud of us and I'm so proud of my body for being able to give you this incredible nourishment and comfort! <3



We have remained in contact with Lucy and her mom Sara who we met at the babywearing meet ups. :) We meet up with them from time to time - this past month we met up at the library and at the park. You two together are just adorable. Especially since recently you've picked up a habit of hugging other children that you meet haha, it's SO CUTEE!!! Aside from Lucy you've also hugged Lailah's cousin Ava. You walked up to her at the park and you hugged her and just wouldn't let go lol. And you also tried to hug a little boy in Lailah's school yard while we were waiting to pick her up from school. You are just such a love bug!



Let's NOT FORGET!! YOUR VERY FIRST HALLOWEEN!!!! :D You were adorable. I crocheted your costume. :) You were Superman! Or Superbaby :p Whatever. :p It was so cute. We went trick or treating with your sissy, Mammy, Papa Doug, Mammy's step kids, Uncle Brian, and Daddy. :) I carried you in our Mai Tei Carrier.

Oh my goodness.. your relationship with your big sister. <3 I've never seen anything like it. You both love each other so much! I'm not even exaggerating. She comes home from school and you yell SISSY!! And you reach out to her and sit on her lap, hug her, and kiss her. I'm positive it's how you tell her you miss her. It's just so amazing. I've never seen siblings so extremely close before as you both are to each other.

To wrap this up... you have come SUCH A LONG WAY. You have hit many milestone and you are on your way to becoming a toddler! :*) It makes me tear up!! This year has flown by and I am so sad to acknowledge the fact that you won't be my little infant anymore! But I am so excited to watch you continue to grow and learn each day. Next time I make a post you will be ONE. A whole year old. Time flies. I want you to know I love you more than words can describe. I am proud to be your mommy. <3