An Artist in the Making

I've realized that I have not done a blog post in a while that is completely dedicated to my child. My sweet baby boy. My goodness, I can not even begin to write about how much I love him. He is my absolute world. I now completely understand why my parents were the way they were with me. We were a very "lovey-dovey" family. We always hugged each other (often for no apparent reason) and we never left each other without an "I Love You" and a kiss goodbye. Even when I was in high school and my dad drove my school bus, I would always lean over and whisper a goodbye with a kiss on the cheek. Now I completely understand. I often wonder how I lived my first 27 1/2 years without my sweet boy. What was my life like? Everyone is starting to put pressure on having another baby but it is just getting good with Noah. I know it is possible, but I can't begin to think about loving another little baby as much as I do Noah. Like I said, I know I would - don't start thinking I'm mental or something. Well, ok - so no smart cracks on that comment. But, you know where I am going. My sweet boy can tell me what he wants and he can do things to help me out.

He started 2K week before last at Noah's Park. I can not believe that my baby will officially be 2 1/2 in 2 days. We laugh at how smart we think he is. I know every parent thinks that their child is the smartest child in the world, but let me tell you, this little one is so smart that it scares me. He is definitely going to keep me on my toes in life. He does things that just amaze me - things I don't think he should be able to do yet. Example: we had parent/teacher chat night last week. It was a time for the parents to come to school to talk to the teachers to get to know them and a time for us to ask our questions. It was not a conference to talk individual students but the teachers did a great job to help personalize some questions to individual kids. One of the questions was regarding drinks at school. I send a cup of apple juice/water for Noah but I also send a little bottle of apple juice in his lunch. Noah is just like his Daddy and is a big drinker. Well, during the chat, the teachers talk about how they handle lunch and drinks and she looks at me and says Noah does great with the bottle in his lunch. Um, excuse me? My child is drinking from the extra juice bottle? without making a mess? Talk about impressive for a 2 1/2 year old. I had no idea. They were not using his cup in his bag thinking it was for when Nina picked him up. But, hey, whatever works!

Another thing they talked about was craft/art time. They stressed the fact that the kids do their own work. They are doing all they can to prepare them for 3K where they will have to do a lot of independent things. One thing they do now is glue by themselves. One of the craft projects they have made was a school bus. All of the school buses were lined up around the room on the correct "lily pad" that had the kid's name on it. I looked around the room amazed at the art. I instantly found Noah's - and what did I do? I did what any other parent would do... I compared it to all of the other school buses around me. My mind instantly had questions. Did the teachers help them? If not, did they show them what they would be making? The teachers start telling stories of glue disasters, parents laughing, but I had to ask. So I did ... "If they kids make the crafts on their own, do you show them what they will be doing and explain it to them?" They answered "yes" - which is what I assumed. The school buses were obviously of all different shapes and forms. Not one school bus looked alike. But let me show you our school bus:

It scares me - it really does. But in a good way of course. My baby's bus was the best one up there. Only one other bus actually looked like a bus. Now, I know Noah's is not perfect but it is as close as I would expect a 2 year old to be. I was very proud. Some of the buses had the windows with 2 on top of the others, the nose of the bus was much higher and the wheels were not even half like Noah's are. I think he did an excellent job!

I am so proud of the little man my buddy is becoming. He is growing up before my very eyes.

Here are 2 other pictures from this week. Noah, Joon and I went to dinner with Nina and Papaw Friday night. Daddy was working for Fun Source Friday and Saturday so it was just us. We walked through Kmart after dinner and Noah found his Christmas present. He is asking Santa for a bike for Christmas -

Yes - he looks at that bike every time we are in Kmart. He walked up and said "Nina, here's my bike!" He went and got the helmet himself but he did need a little help to climb on the bike. I do think he needs to start off with a little smaller bike. But it won't be long before we are here at this size!

Here is another picture of Joon doing his homework. Noah had to do his homework too!!

Joon isn't much for having his picture made -- he would not even let me take a picture of him from The Club with Birmingham in the background. I'm really gonna have to get a picture of us with him before he moves to his permanent family!!!

But until then ... Loving my full full life!!

~Randi