The Florida Gatchel Daily: Hooray!!!

Yesterday we tackled the last of the cranky Noah hurdles and he actually took an afternoon nap!!! It wasn't a very long nap - but it counts! I know I've been going on and on about him being cranky all week, so I'm hoping that this is the end of my whining about it for now...

Yesterday the kiddo and I had the whole day to ourselves. Grant joined up with the gang at A Taste of India for dinner, and since it's not one of my favorites I opted to spend some extra time with just Noah and I. As I was giving him his bath last night (which lasted 40 minutes, with two water warm-ups because he was having such a good time and I couldn't bring to take him out) it really hit me that he's still little, but he's really not such a baby anymore. The baby that came home hated the bath at first and constantly needed attention. Now the kiddo has his own independent streak at times, carries on conversations with himself and Grant and I (and I think he and Bella speak in some language between babble and howling), he finds things funny and laughs about them, he has favorite toys (Cookie Monster), favorite people (he lights up every time he sees his Daddy), is still trying to crawl and definitely has his own personality. Nearly every day when Grant comes home he says "Did you get bigger today" and it makes me a little sad. Don't get me wrong, I love that he's getting bigger and he's able to do more things and that our lives are finally starting to settle into a more normal schedule, but it also makes me a bit sad. I've been so cranky about him wanting to be picked up and held all the time that I've forgotten to stop and think that eventually he's going to not want to be held at all and then he'll be too big. It may be difficult to adopt this attitude after endless hours of screaming, but I think my extra play time last night was a reminder about keeping it all in perspective.

Okay Grant and Bella are up too, and it's about time to get started on the house cleaning and taking down all the Christmas stuff (oh joy). I'll try to blog tonight, but if not it'll be up first thing tomorrow in my resolution to truly make this a DAILY blog as so many of you have reminded me ;-) Enjoy the pictures!