More Words

Eema's blogging has definitely not been keeping up with Noam's vocabulary, or with his other achievements. Some recent milestones:

~ Noam speaks Hebrew! He says: "todah!" (thank you). He occasionally thanks Eema for toys or food, and he almost always says it when handing little gifts (trash from the floor, etc) to Eema. Its not clear whether he learned this from his babysitter, or from his friend Ariel (who learned it in his Israeli daycare!)

~ Noam says both "no" and "nonononononono!" He does not say yes, in any way, shape, or form. Hmmm....

~ Noam weighs 9.26 kilo. In American, that's 20.4 pounds. In percentiles, that's 4th percentile. In other words, as Mike pointed out, we probably do not have a future football player on our hands.

~ Noam is also 4th percentile for height, but despite that he has recently started working towards a career in basketball. In an ingenious attempt at defense, Noam carries the hoop with him as well (and Ariel likes this game, too)
Thanks for the great present, Mike!



~ Noam loves his hat. Still. The most. First thing in the morning or last thing at night, Noam will grab his hat, run to get his shoes, and be ready to go outside (sort of).




~ Hot off the presses: Today Noam walked to the bowl where we keep the keys, looked up, and said: Key! Key!
I handed him the keys and he headed over to unlock the door.

~ And finally, here is Noam, carefully dissecting pasta in his highchair while singing to himself. I wish I could post sound effects, because Noam talks to his food!

Start to Finish

Just a quick note to say that Noam has started saying "bye-bye". This means that his conversations have a beginning ("Hi!") and an end, but no middle. Unless you count the extensive babbling both on the phone and off!
His other words are "uh-oh," "cat," and occasionally "more." So conversations with him are limited but exciting. I keep saying, "Noam, use your words!" and I think he's trying!

No Fear

Eema recently took Noam to an Israeli dance session, where he happily squirmed out of my arms, walked all around the room greeting the other dancers, and then sat himself down in the center of the circle. He laughed, babbled, talked on the phone, and was occasionally scooped up and hugged by random women.
"He certainly isn't afraid of new situations!" one woman said to me.

No, he is not. Noam has no fear and few inhibitions. In the house, he climbs whatever stands still. Yesterday at shul, he attempted to go for a little stroll on his own (we were outside at kiddush. When I caught up with him he had made it into the shul and was talking to another child).
In the playground, he makes new friends...(here he is with a little girl also named Noam!)



...that is, when he's not busy cleaning up the park. Noam apparently thinks he works for the city - his first act upon reaching the playground is to slowly and systematically pick up every single piece of trash and bring it to Eema or Daddy.
He is very outgoing with his friends here as well. Yesterday he decided it was time for a playdate with Ariel (his friend next door), so he walked himself over. We think he's a little young for a playdate without one of his parents present, but he seems to disagree.

He's also extremely friendly with his cousin Adina, who came for Shabbat with her friend Rina. We all love having them come visit, but Noam is especially delighted with the extra attention. Noam played with Adina and showed her how he talks on the phone....





On the phone, Noam is loquacious and opinionated (as long as there's no one actually on the line, in which case he clams up). Here he is carrying his "cellphone" in his bag (just like Eema!) and talking on the phone. He loves to do this naked, just as he likes to stand on the mirpeset while naked and scream at the passers-by.






Some other favorite activities:

Head...and Toes (and some other parts in between)

Noam has not yet found his shoulders or knees, but the other night in the tub he did correctly identify his head, mouth, ears, and toes! Nose is still in the works.

All this is very exciting, though he still doesn't speak. His non-verbal communication gets better and better, but it would be really great if he learned some words.

In other news, the other morning Noam patted his head repeatedly, while looking pointedly at Eema. Eventually, his kippah was found. But it kept falling off, so Noam helped Eema locate some bobby pins and we took care of the problem. Here is Noam doing his thing (helping Eema with the laundry, playing on the mirpeset, running around the apartment) while wearing his kippa like a big boy!

All About Shoes

Dear All,

Since I know that Eema has been bragging about my walking skills, I thought I would tell you all a little bit about the role that shoes have come to play in my life.
I love shoes! (in this I know I take after my Eema). They are so much fun. Until I got good at walking, they really weren't all that exciting. It was mostly just annoying that Daddy and Eema would try to cram my feet into them, but I put up with it cause I love to go outside. But now everything is different - I walk everywhere, and my parents are so impressed with my toddler-ness that it's easy to trick them into taking me outside: I just go into my room and get my shoes and socks, and bring them out to Eema or Daddy. If that doesn't work, I sit down and try to put them on by myself.



That usually gets them. They say, "look how cute!" and they help me put them on and take me out for a stroll.



But actually, its not just my own shoes that are fun. Other people's shoes are really fun too, and it's easier to get them on, even though it's sometimes hard to walk in them. For example, Mike has really great shoes...






...and Daddy does too, with laces...and Eema's flip flops are kind of hard to figure out, but her sneakers are just right!




No matter where I am or what I am doing, if Daddy or Eema asks me to bring over my shoes, I hurry off to get them. Then Eema and I put my socks on together, very carefully, and I wiggle my toes a little. Then we put the shoes on. It helps to scrunch up your face a little and make grunting sounds - that helps push my feet into my shoes. Then we close up the velcro and off we go!

Off course, shoeless and naked is still a good option when my parents insist on keeping me indoors. In fact, our mirpeset (balcony) is a great compromise - I can hang around naked, yell at the people on the street below....




...and then when I'm thoroughly grimy, I get dunked in the tub!




More soon.

Love,

Noam

Moadim L'Simcha - Enjoying Sukkot!

For Noam, Sukkot thus far is the holiday of cousins (its also the holiday of dirt, but more on that later). On Shabbat, Adina Wolkenfeld and her friend stayed over. Needless to say, Noam enjoyed the extra attention, though he did want to make sure that Eema wasn't going to run off and leave him with these girls. On Sunday, we drove to Moshav Massuot Yitzchak, to visit with a whole bunch of the Lauenger cousins - Moshe, Devorah, their daughters-in-law and grandchildren, their son Ophir, and Henry's daughter Yael and her family.

Noam's first act upon encountering his Israeli cousins was to eat an entire bag of Bamba...



while Eema and Daddy looked on in shock and horror. For the unititiated, Bamba is a singularly Israeli form of junk food. Picture cheese puffs, but instead of being coated with cheese dust, these are covered in powdered peanut butter. Israelis love 'em. We cannot figure it out, but Noam took the bag Devorah offered him and toddled off with it, cramming them into his mouth just as fast as he could.

When the rest of the cousins arrived (the children ranged in age from four months to around ten or so) Noam was briefly overwhelmed, but pretty soon he got into the swing of things. He took off down the path, determined to explore the rest of the moshav (he was pretty angry when we didn't let him go visit the neighbors). He played with the hose (and got a little wet) rolled in the garden (and got muddy) and crawled around the floor of the sukkah (hence the holiday of dirt).





Here he is with his (third) cousin Uri...



...and with Ophir...



and the rest of the gang!



The great thing about Sukkot, if you're Noam, is that you're basically always eating outside. And outside, there is dirt. And rocks. And sometimes old crumbs on the ground. Some of his clothing may never recover from this holiday.

On the plus side, Noam does like to sit in the Sukkah and eat granola with his Daddy. Conveniently, we keep both stools and chairs in the Sukkah, for Noam's climbing convenience....







He also got to eat some ice cream in our neighbors' sukkah, where we celebrated Ariel's first birthday. Quite unlike Noam, Ariel ate loads of cake and enjoyed every minute of it. Noam seemed to like watching Ariel eat cake, and he did go for the ice cream. He also helped Ariel play with some of his new toys!




~ THANKS BUBBE!

Noam got his new hat today in the mail. After we woke him from his two and a half hour nap (yeah, we really don't know what was up with that, or how to get him to do it again!) he tried it on for a while. For those who want to keep up to date on his achievements, his walking gets stronger every day (as do his temper tantrums...)!