Noah turned 17 months old just before Christmas, while his grandparents were visiting us in Adelaide, and clearly, this mummy is tardy with the update. Again.
Our little boy is growing cheekier by the day, and gets into all sorts of mischief. C has rearranged the furniture in our serviced apartment, so that Noah has more space to play in, and also to prevent him from getting near the television. Yes, he figured out how to switch the TV on and off, and did it repeatedly, until C shifted the coffee table directly in front of the TV console, so that Noah can no longer reach it.
No more easy access to the TV!
The living room is in a perpetual state of chaos, with books and toys strewn all over it, despite our best attempts to contain the mess. We also moved the playpen out from our bedroom to the living room, and placed most of his toys in it, hoping that he would be happy to play there instead, but he usually spends about five minutes playing quietly by himself, before demanding, “UP! UP!”
Playing in the playpen
Noah is quite obsessed with the fridge, and loves peering into it whenever we open it. Not that he actually eats anything from the fridge. He just likes to look, and C has taught him to identify the essentials (yogurt, biscuits, water, beer, nuts etc) in the fridge. I think he secretly dreams of the day he can send Noah to bring him snacks from the fridge!
Happy to just look in the fridge
These days, whenever we catch Noah doing something naughty, we try to discipline him by using a stern tone when talking to him. Noah’s way of dealing with the change in tone is to tilt his head, smile at us, and say, ‘Hi!’. We can’t figure out if he’s really clueless about us being upset with him, or he’s trying to butter us up, though we strongly suspect that it’s the latter. The naughtier he’s been, the more charming he becomes. He will come right up to me, use both hands to hold my face, and plant kiss after kiss on my lips and cheeks. How can I possibly stay angry with him after that? Someone needs to teach me how to toughen up when dealing with this boy.
Noah has gone from eating porridge last month, to rejecting it completely, and he now only eats pasta. PLAIN pasta. No sauce at all, thank you very much. He also eats plain rice, and most biscuits, but doesn’t seem to like chocolate. Which kid doesn’t like chocolate? Sigh. We’ve been offering him almost anything and everything off our plates when we eat, out of sheer desperation to get him to eat more, but he peers at the food suspiciously and if it passes the ‘eyeball test’, he nibbles at it carefully, and more often than not, he spits it out with great gusto. He likes most types of noodles, but hardly eats more than a few strands of it at a time. I also have to feed him by hand, as he pushes away anything in a spoon. Thankfully, he allows me to feed him yogurt every now and then with a spoon, but only if he can hold another spoon by himself, dip his hands into the yogurt, and smear yogurt all over his face (and mine at times). He still doesn’t want any other types of milk other than my breast milk, and I still nurse him to sleep. He also wakes up frequently for milk, and I think that until he eats more and drinks some other form of milk, I have to resign myself to being woken up by him a few times each night. I’ve been meaning to write a post dedicated to his poor eating habits, and hopefully, I’ll get around to writing it soon.
Eating pasta
Messy yogurt eater
Noah also got to play in a ball pit for the very first time, and was a little apprehensive about it. He spent a lot of time watching the other kids playing, and kept passing me all the dented balls he could find. I hope that’s not a sign of OCD! He also finally plucked up the courage to climb up and go down the slide all by himself, although he prefers to slide down on his belly, rather than the conventional way.
Examining the balls in the ball pit
Not thrilled about going down the slide on his back
Noah’s vocabulary is still pretty limited, and I think his only additions to it this month are ‘Daddy’ and ‘Mummy’, although he prefers to call us ‘Papa’ and ‘Mama’ most of the time. Once, however, when I was alone with him in the supermarket, he started yelling, “DADDY! DADDY!” really loudly, and refused to stop, even after I explained to him that daddy was at work. I looked like I was kidnapping him, I tell you. His sound effects are also quite limited. He makes the same trumpeting sound for elephants and fire engines, and barks whenever he sees most other animals, such as dogs, birds, koalas, horses, and sometimes, cats. We keep telling him that only dogs bark, but he either doesn’t get it, or doesn’t care. He does like going ‘vroom vroom’ when playing with cars though.
Although he doesn’t speak much, Noah can point to his eyes, ears, hair/head, nose, mouth, cheeks, toes, penis, belly button, and sometimes, chin, whenever we ask him to. He is also able to follow simple instructions, though he gets easily distracted along the way. I’ve found his socks and shoes in the oddest places, where he ditched them en route to the designated shoes area, in favour of something more interesting, like a tiny piece of rubbish on the floor. He picks up minute bits of rubbish all the time, and brings them to me like they are some kind of treasure. Sometimes, it seems as though he’s giving me nothing at all, but he looks so proud of himself that I just thank him for it anyway.
Like most babies, Noah loves music, and will clap his hands whenever he hears music being played. He also recently started ‘dancing’, or at least, that’s what I think he’s doing. He used to bounce up and down when he hears music while he’s seated, and now that he’s standing and walking a lot more, he bounces on the spot quite vigorously, and claps along too.
Dancing at the Adelaide Night Market
Noah has been walking around more, and loves climbing. He has managed to climb onto the sofa and even the bed this month, going ‘up up up!’ as he pulls himself up, and chuckling happily to himself once he makes it onto the sofa or bed. C bought him a rocking cow for Christmas, and Noah loves rocking on it. He hasn’t been able to climb up onto it by himself, but has no problems dismounting from it when he’s done rocking.
Trying to climb onto the sofa
Rocking on his cow
I’ve been a little worried about his fine motor skills, and I’ve been teaching him to put pom-pom balls into a bottle. He also scored a Fisher-Price Laugh & Learn: Learning Piggy Bank
as a Christmas gift from my godsis, and has been playing with it. However, when I tell him to put the coins into the piggy bank, he opens up the door, and puts the coins in there directly, instead of via the slot on top. He doesn’t have a lot of patience with both these activities, and on the rare occasions that he humours me, he seems to be able to do better with his right hand than his left at the moment.
Practising his fine motor skills by playing with his new toy
He still enjoys books, and I’m so glad that I managed to get our Adelaide library cards upgraded from temporary ones to ordinary memberships, which allows us to borrow up to 100 (!!!) items. He loves lift-the-flap books, touch-and-feel books, sound books, as well as books about vehicles and animals. He’s rather rough with the books, and I only give him board books these days, after he tore some pages off the Chinese books I brought for him from Singapore.
Reading at the library
The cheeky baby loves imitating us, and when C raises his hand to ask for the bill at restaurants, Noah would do the same too. When he sees us holding hands, he MUST hold our hands too, and the same thing happens when we hug or kiss. He also squeezes his way between us when we are seated on the sofa or lying on the bed, and looks very pleased with himself once he is seated comfortably in the middle.
Asking for the bill
Cheeky baby saying hi
Happy 17 months, cheeky baby! We love you more than you can ever imagine.
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