GYMBOREE

Yesterday we went to Gymboree - its a sort of giant padded room with padded obstacles for kids to climb on, over, fall off of, and really just go hog wild crazy. It was SO loud and I was constantly in fear of being trampled or drawn on, but Noah LOVED IT! Oh my gosh you should have seen him - he never stopped smiling and he was climbing all over things - even pulling himself to standing without help from me!! The 'instructors' would clap their hands and start singing some catchy song and Noah would stop and stare and smile so big - it was so cool to see him actually playing that I had to join a membership to Gymboree - its a whopping $40 a month but I just don't have those sort of things for him to exercise and 'practice' on so I thought it would be really good for him. And I have to admit, I had fun too!
The owner there is a friend of a friend and she came over to say 'Hi' - she saw how active Noah was at such an early age already - she laughed and said that I better get ready, I will have a tornado on my hands in about a year! HA!...I'm frightened.

7 Months and TEETHING...

Noah past his 7 month birthday last week and the poor baby didnt have a great celebration - and neither did we! For the first time - he was sick ....very sick :0(
He spent the day throwing up all over himself and pooping all over everything else - yes, we lost a few good PJ's but they will be well remembered.
We took him to the Dr. and we just had to give him lots of pedialyte and let it run its course - so it did and he got over it. And as a 'thank you' to Mommy for taking care of him during his worst of times so far, he gave me whatever he had and it was my turn! Not Fun!
BUT - we are all healthy, happy, and vomit free again so life is good.
That is, until Noah started cutting his other bottom tooth. Who knew that a tiny little tooth could make a baby's head spin all the way around and start speaking in tongues?? The poor thing has had such a hard time with this one - and we have tried everything to help soothe him, frozen waffles, frozen teethers, cool wet rags, warm wet rags, baby oragel (I will never again use this, I think it made his whole mouth numb and he completely freaked out! This was when I thought his head was about to spin!), tylenol, motrin, humphryes drops AND tablets, and Im sure Im forgetting some other magical teething treatment that others have told me to try. In short, none of it worked all that well - the teething tablets I have to say were the most effective...but the real secret is just to ride it out. For us anyway. It only lasted a little more than a week and then POOF!! there is a tiny little tooth top poking out and we are back to sleeping through the night. WHEW! And just in time too - I wasnt sure how long I could endure that shrieking cry of pain - it was heartbreaking....and I have to admit a tad irrating at 3 am.
But like I said we are all better now - until the next tooth decides to pop out!
I feel like there should be a sash for Motherhood. You know, like the one we used to get in the Girl Scouts. We could get little patches that we would have to iron on after we conquer the little (and not so little!) challenges of parenting. There would be a HUGE one for labor - and then one for functioning with no sleep - a little green cloud for baby gas - a little iron-on tooth with a big smiley face on it for getting through teething - the list is endless. Come to think of it, I dont think a little sash would be big enough to hold all the patches! But I would proudly wear mine everywhere! hehe

WE HAVE A TOOTH!!!

(you may have to open the picture to enlarge enough to see the tooth)

BOY - what a way to start the new year! We are 'crawling' and we have teeth! Noah has one bottom tooth that has come through already and the other bottom one next to it coming up right now...so our nights are, once again and literally, painfully long. BUT I found a great herbal remedy that seems to work (so far) better than Tylenol. They are Homeopathic Teething Drops or pellets - like Humphrey's or Hylands. I just felt terrible giving him Tylenol all the time - I suppose I felt guilty giving him drugs to help him fall asleep - I couldn't decide if it was for his benifit or my own (HA!) so Im sticking to the herbal stuff so I wont feel so bad...and it seems to work better anyway so thats perfect!

But he sure is CUTE with that little tooth! You can barely see it here in this picture but he seems to be 'tooth shy' - he doesnt like to show it off and this is the only picture we have been able to take of it!

Let the Childproofing begin!

Here is a short video of Noah learning how to crawl!