N is for...

Noah, yes, but also for many other words Noah has been saying lately.

For example, this morning Adam was clipping Noah's toenails, and Noah gets an anxious look on his face. When Adam finishes, Noah says, "You were clipping my toenails, and I was nervous, but now you are done and I feel better."

Last night we were putting him to bed, and when we closed his door he started to cry. We opened the door and immediately realized his nightlight wasn't on, thus the cause of his minor hysteria. "I did not notice my nightlight was off, and it was dark!" he says frantically.

And a few nights earlier, also as we were putting him to bed, he was about to ask us to pull one of his musical toys (listening to them calms him down before bed). Anticipating his request, I pull the bear and "Rockabye baby" begins to play. Just as I'm pulling it, Noah says, "Will you please pull... nevermind, you already pulled the bear."

Nervous, notice, and nevermind? What a vocabulary!

Kitsch-en shopping

Next Sunday is Noah's birthday, so yesterday I went out to Toys "R" Us to buy him som presents. His grandparents had asked me to be their surrogate and find a play kitchen, so I did the requisite online product comparisons and found a couple of reasonable (read: not too expensive, and not pink) options.

My first clue that this would not be the best shopping expedition came when I got to the Toys "R" Us and couldn't find toy kitchens. I finally asked at the Customer Service desk and was told they were in the first aisle on the left, in the girls toys section. Ugh. So much for "not pink."

Luckily, the store did have the particular Little Tikes item I'd been considering in my online comparison shopping, and it looked like it would do the trick. Pastel, yes, but green and blue pastel, not pink and lavendar. Sold.

Then came the accessories. Even for a Franklin, the toy comes with a limited number of kitchen gear. So I look around to see what else the kitchen toy aisle has to offer. I decided against the plates, cups, utensils, and other "dinner table" items because -- you guessed it. Pink and lavendar. But there was a nice baking toys set with a two-speed toy mixer, a scale, spatula, pan, and other such items, most in semi-neutral shades of mint green and sky blue. Sold.

OK, how about some toy food? Here's where the real fun began. Immediately beneath the display kitchens was a bag of picnic food, complete with basket and red-and-white checkered blanket. The hot dogs were day-glo red and the burgers looked olive. Let me think about it... no.

A large set of miscellaneous food (like all the rest, made in China) looked more like it was made in North Korea by people who had never seen food (sorry -- that comment may be politically incorrect, but so was the food). No sale.

Then I turn around and see lots of nice looking food options. Except... Except I couldn't imagine subjecting my son, who doesn't watch TV and probably doesn't even know from advertising, to a toy DQ Sundae Bar or a toy Pizza Hut dinner for four. I vaguely considered getting the non-branded "take out meals" toy, complete with Chinese food, pizza, and fried chicken, and of course take-out menus (the toy kitchen does come with a microwave, after all), but other than the once-in-a-blue-moon trip to the Boston Market drive-thru, we don't even eat take-out food, let alone play with it. No sale.

So, Noah will have to survive on plastic chocolate chip cookies and ketchup (as far as I can tell, the only "food" to come with his toy kitchen) and use his imagination when mixing his baked goods. But really, is that such a bad thing? I didn't think so.

Hungry, hungry hippo

Apparently my 18-plus-pound 5 month old thinks we've been starving him. Either that or Jonah's going through a major growth spurt.

Now that he's finally used to having a bottle at daycare (he seemed to get the hang of it in earnest last week), I figured I'd bring in a little extra breastmilk. Up until this week, I'd bring in a 7 oz. bottle and then visit the daycare in the afternoon after the bottle ran out, to feed him in person (the daycare is only 3 blocks away from my office, which is wonderfully convenient).

On Monday, I brought in 9 oz., but at lunch he refused his bottle and... OK, I'm not supposed to cry over spilt milk, but they had to throw away 3 oz.! It was rather distressing, to say the least. As I said to Adam, that's like throwing away 2 or 3 hours of work (I figure I produce 1 to 1.5 oz. per hour on average). *Sigh*

That evening, however, I made a tragic discovery as I was washing out his bottle nipples. One of the three nipples he'd used at daycare was a "slow-flow" nipple that's supposed to be used for newborns; the others were "medium-flow" nipples for 6+ month olds. Could it be that he wasn't really refusing the milk, he just wasn't able to suck it fast enough and he just gave up? My poor lazy child!

To test my hypothesis, the next day I sent him to school with 8 oz. of milk and three medium-flow nipples. At 1 p.m. I got the call that he had only 1 oz. of milk left. I said they should call me when he was hungry and I'd come over and "top him off" (so to speak). Got that call at 3 p.m.

Wednesday, I figured I'd bring in a larger bottle -- 10 oz. Got a call at 2 p.m. that he'd finished the bottle, so I went over to visit. I hadn't pumped since 10 a.m., but he still drank all I could provide. Wow.

So today, knowing I wouldn't be able to go over there in the afternoon (meetings and such), I brought two bottles -- 15 oz. total.

By 2 p.m. he had only 3 oz. left.

What you have to understand is that he is also eating two bowls of cereal (2 or 3 oz. each) and a bowl of vegetables (another 2 oz.) on top of all that milk. And he's only turning 5 months old tomorrow!

I suppose the funniest thing about this is that, back when Noah was 6 months old, I wrote in his journal that he was a cute little chunk, and I remember that everyone joked that he'd one day be a linebacker. I also happened to note in the journal how much Noah weighed at his 6-month appointment: about 16 1/2 pounds.

Need I reiterate, Jonah is 5 months old and weighs upwards of 18 pounds. Perhaps we should call him a cute little superchunk...