some nice pictures from shira

aunt shira and aunt sherra

my sister shira visited! we had a good time! we took a bus to the farmers market, went to the library, and did a bunch of other little things... it was very exciting.

and josh's brother daniel and girlfriend sherra visited! and that was fun too. we went to the lawrence hall of science museum, and the grand lake farmers market, and had a passover seder. i'll attach pictures from them also!

wagon

so we got this radio flyer wagon that aviva can push, or they can sit in. it's great b/c she happily walks with it, and he happily pushes her. and she likes to climb in and get out and climb in again.

noah the artist

Noah's school had an art show and these were his pieces. We don't know what "Copia" means. Any ideas?

Also, the other day, he asked what a building is. What is the definition of a building, in words for an almost 3 year old? Ideas?

BAKE A CAKE!!!!

noah is very defiant. adamant. stubborn. he knows what he wants and what he doesn't want. and if, in the middle of the night, he wants to bake a cake, then he REALLY wants to bake a cake. that's what he insisted the other night. 

and if you say "good morning," he'll insist it's not morning, but it's night and it's not good. 

he's also motivated, sometimes. he hasn't pooped or peed in the potty since aviva was born. he sits on the potty every day, often twice a day, but he just sits. nothing comes out. then last week, josh told him that if he pees or poops in the potty, we'll celebrate by having a cupcake party. the next day, he pooped in the potty. and they went out and celebrated with a cupcake. but since then, i guess he hasn't wanted another cupcake. because he has lost interest or willingness, and he's just sitting. we've tried promising m&m's. and icecream. nope. any ideas?

a nice thing about his age (that josh and i need to be careful to not abuse) is his gullibility/willingness to accept what we say. he was using a stapler in josh's office while he worked, and josh had some yellow paper to give him. noah wanted white, but since josh didn't have white paper to give him, he said that the stapler works best on yellow paper. and noah was cool with that. and the other day, i was buying chocolate chips at the grocery store for a recipe, and noah wanted some. but i said they weren't ready to eat. noah asked, "not ripe yet?" and i said that was right. they weren't ripe yet. 

little girl

she's very little. she's smart and active and doing the right things for her age, mostly, but she's really little. petite, i guess is the right word. her weight is in the 1% of babies her age. her clothes have labels that say "3-6 months" or "0-3 months" and people on the street ask if she's 4 months old or 5... they're surprised when i say she's 14. oh well.

at studio grow (which is like an indoor playground park kind of thing), they charge admission fee for kids 1 year and older. she has gotten in free the last few times, because the person working the desk always assumes she's younger than 1. i don't correct them. 

she's been playing peekaboo with herself, pulling the scarf down and saying "hi." and she likes to give high fives and fist bumps and she touches her pointer finger to josh's when he says "ET phone home?" 

she likes to get into small places, like under the chair and under the table. also she was getting into the basket of noah's socks and shoes, and she seemed to like that. also, she was pushing the stroller today. she is very close to walking.

processing, belly buttons, and shouting

noah's been waking up in the middle of the night. it's been every night, sometimes 2 or 3 times, for the last month or something. it doesn't seem to be nightmares - it's more like he wakes up and can't fall back asleep on his own. so one of us puts him back to sleep, either with pets or some comforting or whatever. i mentioned it to his teacher and she thought he's processing the day. and she suggested doing more processing before bedtime about his day at school. who knows.

he has also been carrying around his basket of rocks and offering them to us like this, "care for one of these, mama?" "would you care for a rock, daddy?" apparently at school, snack is offered in that way.

yesterday he was wearing a striped shirt and i was wearing a shirt that had dots on it; kind of like irregular polkadots. i asked him about his shirt and he said there were stripes on it. i asked him about my shirt and he said there were belly buttons on it. lots of belly buttons.

we tell noah he can shout outside and not inside, and when we were walking the other day around downtown berkeley, he wanted so sing. he was singing the abc song, and he felt like shouting. okay, since we're outside. so we were walking around downtown and he's shouting "A B C D emmanemmapee."

noah's a friend of mine

there is a song that noah sings at school where they sing,
sadie, sadie, sadie's a friend of mine
orion, orion, orion's a friend of mine
          (all the kids' names are inserted)
and the last line is:
all the kids at benvenue, all are friends of mine
          (the name of the school is benvenue children's house)

when we put noah to bed, he's often up and singing to himself for a long time. he sings and talks and sings and talks. the other night he was singing this song, and repeating a lot of the names. i got a kick out of how he includes his own name.

noah, noah, noah's a friend of mine.

and then
aviva, aviva, aviva's a friend of mine
mama, mama, mama's a friend of mine
daddy, daddy, daddy's a friend of mine.

waking each other up

so in the mornings, at 6 am, a timer on a nightlight in noah's room goes off. after that time, whenever he wakes up, he's allowed to come to our bed. he has a sippy cup of milk, tells us when it's all gone, and goes back to sleep, with us. he sleeps until 7:30 or 8, in our bed.

aviva's crib is in the closet and she wakes up anywhere from 6:00-7:30, and starts talking. at some point, josh or i will open the closet door and take her out and hold her, and she'll eventually point to things and want to play with stuff.

for the last few mornings, she's been awake before him, and it's gotten to be the time to wake him up (he usually wakes up on his own, but it's been getting late, lately). i've brought her in to our bed and put her down next to him, and she's been poking him and saying "dah" and "zah" and "hi." and he slowly wakes up and says those words/non-words back, and we roll around and squish each other and snuggle and stuff and it's nice. so she's been waking him up in the mornings.

the other night, josh took noah to the grocery store after dinner, and they returned late, around 7:30 or 7:45. i had just put aviva to bed and finally she was asleep. when we put her to bed, we change her and put on her pajamas, read to her and sing, and she'll eventually point to her crib. we put her in and close the door, and sometimes that's it. other times, she's quiet and then starts crying, and we take her out, do more talking and reading and singing, and put her back. it sometimes takes awhile.

so she was finally quiet, and noah and josh came back. i told noah that i wanted him to be very quiet, because aviva was asleep. he agreed, but then ran up to the closet and opened the door. i was so mad! i was quick to reprimand him and push him away from her closet and close the door again, and i was so frustrated.

i told josh later and he saw it totally differently. josh thought noah just wanted to see her. he missed her, and wanted to see her. i had told noah to be quiet, but i didn't tell him to keep her door closed or let her sleep. and wasn't that sweet of him, that he wanted to see his sister.

fine. yes, i guess it's sweet. and i guess i need to be more clear about what exactly i mean.