Security Breach - Part 2

We signed Noah up for swim lessons at the JCC on Sunday mornings so both the Husband and I can attend.   (Highly recommend them by the way!)  Today the Husband had an all day staff meeting so I was on my own.  No biggie, we were on schedule and doing our thing.  I had to run upstairs to do a little razor maintenance before the lesson and told Noah he needed to stay on his side of the gate to play.  After the March 2012 Security Breach (now dubbed Part 1), Noah can open and close the gate better than any childless adult we've had over (and some adults with kids too). Usually he just makes a break for it when he's bored in the family room, when he hears a "Big Truck" come down the road, or when he thinks Tucker wants to come play with us.   I was doing my thing upstairs this morning when I heard "bing bang!"  The sound of Noah taking Tucker's water bowl and emptying the water into the food bowl and then back into the water bowl.  This is a Time-Out offense that doesn't need a warning in our house.  Yes, it happens that often; apparently the water is just oh so enticing to Noah.  So I start my ineffective yelling, "No!" "Stop!" from the top of the stairs and grab Noah.  

We've got about 8-10 minutes to get out the door and I still need to finish my 'project,' put on Noah's swimsuit, and lube us both up with sunscreen.  No time for a supervised 2 minute Time-Out to ensure his butt is actually sitting in Time-Out and not playing with his toys.  So into the crib Noah goes.  Anyone see where this is going?  Well the crib isn't much of a Time-Out because Noah loves his crib.  So I promptly threw Kermit, Froggie, Puppy, Paci, and Burpie out of the crib and onto the floor.

Burpie? It's hard to find photos of Burpie because he is limited to the crib (along with paci) unless there's a long road trip, flight, or I think he might be necessary. (This particular photo was taken on UNC's campus shortly after Noah fell down some stone steps and busted his lip open this spring.  For some lucky reason I had Burpie in my diaper bag).  At 5 months old, Noah decided he would not sleep without a burp cloth; and he preferred said burp cloth to be covering his face and head.  Well considering this was the ONLY way Noah would sleep, I let him sleep this way.  I picked up a few patterned Gerber burp clothes to distinguish them from formula spit up burp clothes, named him (her? it?) Burpie and since then Burpie has been Noah's everything.

Back to today- I ran back into the bathroom and finished my 'project' quickly.  I love the way our nursery is set up.  From our bedroom I can see straight into Noah's crib if both our doors are open.  Well lucky for me, I only needed two minutes to finish my project.  I walked from the master bath to the bedroom and did not see Noah in the crib.  I walked a bit faster thinking he was laying down.  Nope, no baby! Because I'm crazy I literally thought for a second he might have been kidnapped.  From my locked house with a loud dog in two minutes?  Crazy! I walked into Noah's room and who do I see sitting in a pile of loveys (Kermit, Froggie, and Puppy) sucking away on paci with a death grip on Burpie? Of course, my non-kidnapped but very adventuresome almost two year old toddler/monkey who had some serious red marks on his left rib and in his left arm pit but seemed otherwise unharmed.  Now I am hoping that Breach of Security Part 2 was a statement to show me that no matter what obstacles I put between him and Burpie, their love will prevail and they will be together. 

What do you say? I don't even remember besides, "We have to put on your swimsuit!" You know me, always on task. We went to swim class, where Noah swam with the teacher and with a noddle unassisted.  He also demonstrated his monkey skills by hanging onto the side for 10 seconds (as instructed) and then promptly climbing out of the pool (uninstructed). 

After swim lessons, a bath, and lunch Noah was super tired.  I put him in the crib and then watched the monitor like a hawk for the 20 minutes it took him to fall asleep.  He didn't even stand up!  Deep exhale!

What about when he wakes up? Will he do his normal roll around and call me when he's ready to get up? Or will he climb out himself, open the door, and come downstairs to get me? I'm SO not ready for that!

Focus on the Fun

I've been complaining a bit lately, and while I feel justified in some of my complaints, I decided to focus on some positives.  Even though napping is not going well we still managed to have a bit of fun-in-the-sun this week.  So I'll show off our joyful side a bit and try to remember these are the things that matter- not how many hours, minutes, or seconds Noah is napping on any given day.

Sunday-
Pullen Park Carousel, Train, and Playground

 Monday-
Breakfast baby (& mommy) date at Mad Hatter.

Then a toddler art class at Durham Arts Council.

Tuesday- 

Hope Valley Baptist Church Park

Wednesday- 

RDU Observation Park and a fish taco dinner eaten out on the deck 

 

Thursday-
Homestead Aquatic Center Swim Class

Friday-
Zoo

We had a lot of fun with our friends this week and made some great memories.  More fun-in-the-sun to come, I'm sure.   Positive focus accomplished by the end of the week.  (And even though Noah has a stunned, unsure-of-what-is-happening look in most of the photos, he did have a fun week with his friends).

Highs and Lows

I planned on linking up with Shannon from L.A.I.D. again for So What Wednesday today but after thinking through what my 'So Whats' would be I decided against it.  In my head they sounded pretty depressing.  I don't feel the need to only write about the good things, but I didn't want a Woe Is Me post either.  Instead I thought about some highlights, low-lights, and Pintrials of the week and that sounded better.

Noah and I started swim lessons on Tuesday at the Homestead Aquatics Center.  We are doing a bi-weekly class for 3 weeks and it was pretty inexpensive, even for non-CH residents.  I love to swim, love it; so I was pretty excited to start the class.  Though I was a bit schedule-anxious; the class starts at 9 about 30 minutes from home and Noah usually gets up around 8.  But guess what, he woke up around 7:15 for our first class.  This is kinda a low-light in the grand scheme of things though, especially with daylights savings Spring Ahead coming (and the fact that this morning it was 6:35!).  When the instructor said she had been doing this for 56yrs I got a little worried, but it was fun.  It was the first class, but she did a lot of talking in the beginning and Noah was ready to go.  The facility is really nice and had a big zero-entry side for lessons separate from the lap lanes.  The pool was pretty warm.  So far no complaints and we did get a picture together too, but the instructor hasn't emailed it.  I'm looking forward to our next class and am a little sad the class is only 3 weeks long, though bi-weekly with a 30minutes commute would get old quick.

I'm working on my discipline techniques with Noah (well... all of us are- this is a family activity) because he's starting to test us and I need some tools to use.  One of the first issues we wanted to work on is Noah throwing [insert any noun] from his highchair.  Thankfully the book I just read had a section dedicated to this very problem.  He does do it in restaurants but not as readily and frequently as at home.  So the advice given in this book is to warn once, "We don't throw food on the floor."  Next time it happens give the threat, "If you throw anything on the floor again your meal is over and you are getting out of your chair."  Third offense and he's outta there; he can go play while we finish our meal and he can eat again at his next snack/meal time.  I've been doing this, which means Noah has been eating a little less than usual.  I have two problems with this plan: 1) I thought we would only need to go through this a few times to get the behavior to stop because it feels a bit drastic but instead he is doing it more!  I'm guessing he's trying to break me and see if I really mean business every.single.time.  2) He usually starts throwing his food when he's not that interested in food any longer so he could care less that he doesn't get to eat anymore.  He does care that he can't sit with us though.  Cleaning up food off the floor all.week.long has been a low point for me this week.



Noah and the Husband both like yogurt and the Husband was told to get a little more probiotics this week. I swear I saw on Pinterest Frozen Yogurt Bites; but I didn't pin it myself because I don't like yogurt and I just figured if I wanted to make it I'd find it later.  But I can't find the original pin, so I apologize to whoever the original source is.

I made Frozen Yogurt Bites anyway making up my own recipe using Yoplait Strawberry Lemonade yogurt because I thought it might be a bit more interesting than just plain strawberry but I didn't want it to be too crazy of a flavor.  I also used an icing tube to make the bites, hoping they would be cute little shapes.  This didn't work out too well, especially when fruit got stuck in the tip.  It was pretty messy actually. But on my second batch I just used a plastic baggie (tip cut off) and it worked really well.  Chobani yogurt actually worked better too but the flavors aren't as exciting. I used strawberry Chobani for the second batch and it's much thicker than the Yoplait. Yes, I've already made a second batch; Noah & Ben both really liked them.   Bonus is this takes minutes to make.

Pre-Freezer

Post-Freezer

To make Frozen Yogurt Bites:

• Line a baking tray with parchment paper.
• Put your yogurt of choice into a plastic baggie and cut off the tip to make a piping bag.
• Squeeze the yogurt out onto the paper - whatever size you want, nickel size worked well.
• Put the tray into the freezer until firm- anything over two hours depending on the consistency of the yogurt.
• Pop (or scrape) the yogurt off the paper and they are ready.
• I've been storing our bites in a Gladware in the freezer and just shake the container a bit before opening to free them up.