dog days of summer

 there has been way too much going on around here for me to even attempt to get it all into one blog entry... but i will try!  fortunately, some of the happenings around here have already been covered in my previous entries.  obviously, the biggest news is that we welcomed our sweet little girl to the family on august 10th!  then, to make the month really interesting, we closed on our house on the 23rd.  i know it's "just" two events, but those are two of the biggest life events out there (thank goodness we've already done the marriage thing nearly 5 years ago)!

the rest of the month was littered with work schedules, then scheduling maternity leave for me, preparing noah for a new baby sister, packing up the house, and OB appointments, then pediatrician and follow-up appointments.  throw in some soccer games for matt and the start of football season (= more TV watching than any other time of the year) and you can see why we've been so busy! :)
and all that is without having moved yet!  because of the date we closed and matt's (and everyone else's) work schedule we won't actually be able to move into the house until friday of next week.  this does give me an extra week to pack and organize the move (with a newborn and 18 month old in tow, no less), but it also means that we will own the house for a whole week before i get to start enjoying it.  madness! it's a short period of time all things considered -- we shopped for this house for more than 2 years -- but it still seems like such a long wait right now.  of course, there are pros and cons, so i keep reminding myself that it will be harder to keep track of noah in a bigger house and that it will probably be much harder to keep clean.  those arguments only work for a while, though ;)
in other news, noah has grown so much!  every day he is more and more his own person and seems to understand so much about this world around him.  this month he seems to have grown tremendously, and already didn't seem like "my baby" even before we brought sam home.  this is probably largely due to the fact that on july 27th we took apart the crib and transitioned noah to a regular bed (our old queen size bed).  he took his last nap in the crib that day, then we set up the new bed in time for bedtime that night.  while we don't need the crib for sam anytime soon, we wanted to make sure noah had time to adjust to having a different bed before we moved and before we introduced him to a new family member.  i figured one adjustment at a time was plenty.  i was a little fearful that we would have big problems, but noah *loved* his new bed right from the start!  as soon as we had the mattress in the room he asked to get "up, up" on his new bed and he snuggled with lovey.  that night he did pretty well -- he cried for about 5 minutes, most likely because it wasn't his familiar crib, before falling asleep and sleeping soundly all night.

it took a couple weeks before noah figured out he could actually get out of bed (we made no attempts to show him), and it didn't happen until after we brought sam home.  in fact, i'm not sure he would have tried at all if it weren't for samantha, because he got out of bed and attempted to open the door one night when he heard her crying just after i had put him to bed.  i heard him say "baby..... baby?!"  repeatedly, then heard him attempt to open the door.  when he couldn't open it, he started crying and continued to call out "baby?" as if he were concerned about his little sister (although her crying had stopped nearly right away).  by the time i was done feeding sam, noah had fallen asleep... directly in front of his door, with lovey snuggled up beneath him.  sweet boy :)
this week, noah figured out how to open the door(s), so now we've had issues with not just him getting out of bed, but him getting out of his room.  i've only had one day where this was really a problem so far, but it was quite a headache!  it also means that in the mornings we are now greeted by a smiling little face peeking over the side of the mattress.  this morning i actually awoke to find noah "sorting" the laundry from our closet, after which he promptly told me to get "up" so he could "eat, eat, eat!"
noah continues to be helpful around the house, picking up his toys and wanting to help feed lexi.  this month he's also wanted to help unload the dishwasher and will hand the clean dishes to matt or me so we can put them away.  i didn't realize he even knew where things went until i opened up the dishwasher one day and told him i was going to put the dishes away.  he grabbed a handful of silverware, walked to the correct drawer, pulled it out and dumped the handful in.  i'm not gonna lie, it was adorable.  it only got better when he handed me a plate and pointed to the cabinet it was supposed to go in and told me, "back!" (which is what he says when something needs to be put back where it goes).

and finally, noah has been a great big brother.  he has been fascinated by samantha and rushes to her when she cries.  he loves to give her kisses on the head and rock her in her bassinet.  the other night he got dressed after his bath and ran to the bassinet where she was sleeping.  i went to find him and he looked at me and said, "kiss, kiss!" meaning he was ready for me to pick him up so he could give her a kiss goodnight (i had forgotten).  aww!
he is at such a fun age, where i could fill pages and pages with cute stories about him, but i'll only include a few more:  i found him one morning in the kitchen with a spatula and the carton of eggs on the floor.  he told me he was going to "cook" the "eggs" which would be "hot."  he also likes to pick up anything with a handle (like a brief case) and tell me he is going to work (which sounds something like "gung work!") then he says "bye bye" and walks away.  he'll do this several times before he finds a new game :)
so, that's been our month so far! lots and lots of new things: a daughter, a house, new skills for noah!  and we don't even move until next week!  hopefully next month will be a little less eventful, and we'll have a little more routine for the kids sake... and mine!
happy august!

august 2012