Noah's early music

I've started teaching Noah about the related major and minor keys. A few weeks ago, he didn't understand my explanation of the circle of fifths, but I can see he'll be ready for it in a few more days. I'm going to run out of music theory to teach him pretty soon. He's started singing little songs. His first one went, "If you take me away from my home, I'll be very very sad. Please don't take me away from home."

A couple of days ago, I took him to a concert by a bluegrass trio at the library. At the end of one of the songs, he said to me, "That was in the key of G." I knew this was right because I had heard one of the musicians calling out the key to another at the beginning. Noah observed that he can tell the key of a song by listening to the last note, because that's the Do. I found that to be pretty astonishing.

I checked the tuning of Noah's keyboard against Yoni's piano over the phone. It's a half step sharp, which doesn't matter to anyone without absolute pitch. Noah heard Julia say she was going to play a C. Then I played a B on the keyboard to match the pitch, and Noah said, "Mommy, that's a B. You played a B. MOMMY, THAT'S A B!" I distracted him, but later, all of us went to Sam Ash to look at digital pianos. Noah started playing one and immediately told David that it was off from his keyboard and that a B on the piano was a C on his keyboard. David told him he'd have to relearn the names of the notes when we got our new piano. Poor Noah.

We watched parts of the Wizard of Oz today. Noah resisted at first, because he knows there are scary parts in it, but I promised to sit with him and only show him the non-scary parts. I can let Mary Poppins and The Sound of Music run, but God forbid Noah see the Wicked Witch or, even worse, those horrible monkeys. He (and therefore all of us) won't sleep for days.

Noah transposing; Evan really wants to crawl

In February, I bought Noah a $15 keyboard as a reward for "finishing" potty training. He has played that keyboard every day since getting it, and can now pick out songs and transpose them into any key (major keys only, so far). His ear is getting so good. Today, I was singing something, and he asked, "Mommy, why are you singing in C#?" I checked on the keyboard, and it was either C# or C. Later, when we were having lunch, my fork tapped against my bowl, and he said, "That's a C." And it was.

He's also starting to read. I bought him some easy readers about the planets and solar system, and he could read all of the planet-related words (learned from the Planet 10 website and other reading with us) right away. Today was our second pass through the books, and he can read them pretty well now. Tomorrow, he'll be exactly three and a half years old.

His precociousness is fun for me, because he learns as fast as I can teach, but it's also unsettling. I just want him to have a happy, fun childhood, and I think that getting labeled as gifted is not the way to go about that. I want him to see himself and be seen as normal, for as long as possible in his development. So when he does something amazing, I try to be supportive and enthusiastic, but not overwhelmed (though it's hard sometimes). I'm putting a lot of thought into how to help him develop, with the hope of ending up with a happy, stable, successful man. If he's super smart, that's icing on the cake.

It's worth noting that socially he is not advanced. Au contraire. At school this week, he was reprimanded for hitting his friend Matthew, many times. I told him not to do it anymore. The next day, I asked if there was any hitting, and he said, "No. No hitting. Well, a tiny bit of hitting." (He still says, "I hitted.") More on Noah's social contrariness later.

Evan is a much more active baby than I remember Noah being at his age. He can get on all fours pretty well, as of today. When he does, he rocks back and forth, like he's trying really hard for a big launch. I marvel at the imperative to push the boundaries of his physical abilities that he clearly feels. When he's on the verge of mastering a new skill, he practices relentlessly until he gets there. If he had an adult brain, he'd probably just keep lying there. It's not so bad, lying around all day. He is still such a happy baby - so smiley. And his goofy laugh is the most beautiful sound. He is still spitting. And now that he's eating food, it's even less appealing than before. Green bean spit-up is really gross. It's completely unfair that he should start crawling before he stops spitting. I wonder if I can find a bucket to hang around his neck. Much more than I remember with Noah as a baby, I have the sense with Evan that he is fully fledged human being. Every day with him is precious because he is growing so fast.

Noah in space

Noah is still obsessed with the solar system. David was going through a book on space with him, and pointed to a picture and said, "Wow, look at that. Is that a satellite?" Noah said, "No, Daddy. It's the Hubble Space Telescope."

At Mother's Night at Noah's school, he showed me a set of triangular tiles that could be arranged to form different types of triangles. One of his teachers stopped by and said, "Tell your mommy what kind of triangle this is." Noah said, "Isosceles." Then she said, "What about this one?" And Noah said, "Scalene." She gave me the same look I give my sisters when I make Noah do a trick and said, "He's a sponge!" Another teacher said she assumed that he came to school with all his knowledge, but she realized that he remembers everything after hearing it once. (He certainly never heard "scalene" from me. And I don't know if I spelled "isosceles" right.)

Noah has recently discovered hide and seek. Except he doesn't like to stay hidden for very long, he gets the giggles when hiding, and when we say, "Where's Noah?", he answers, truthfully, repeatedly and loudly. Last night, we played team hide and seek, with Evan and me helping Noah find and hide from David. At one point we hid in the tub behind the shower curtain. The 5 month old baby was quieter than Noah. Which I guess goes to show that despite the above, he may not be a genius.

Noah's been home with a bad cold for two weeks, more or less. It's been a long stretch. Lots of chasing (Gruffalo, Pac Man). I'm wiped out from being chased while holding Evan, which is like going for a jog with a sack of rice.

Evan gets cuter every day, but there's been no respite from the spitting. I think his first word is going to be "spit", because that's what he hears - "More spit?" "Did you spit again?" "He's Spitty in the City." Today we had a little communication. He stuck out his tongue and then sucked it back in, making a little click. Noah and I did it back to him, and he laughed and did it again.

The Solar System

Noah has been learning about the solar system at school and is now obsessed. He can name all the planets in order of location and in order of size and even the major moons. Two days ago, he showed me a picture he had drawn. I said, "How pretty! Is that a rainbow?" And he said, "No. It's a cloud of hydrogen gas." He's also been playing with some solar system websites, so he can use a mouse and a track pad pretty well. I think he broke our laptop by drooling onto the keyboard.

Last week, we were at a playdate and Noah came up to me with a Thomas-type train. He said, "Mommy, which one is this?" I said I didn't know and said to turn it over so we could see the name on the bottom. He turned it over and said, "Trevor." I said, "Did you read that?" And he said, "Yeah. Here's a 'v'." So he didn't exactly read the name, but he read enough of the letters and remembered there was a train named Trevor. Today, we watched "Where the Wild Things Are", and as Max's boat sailed into view, Noah said, "Hey, that says 'Max'!" I asked him if he could read, and he said, "Yeah. I can read a little. Like the planets, Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars."

Evan has mastered the back to stomach flip. The only problem is that he can't yet flip the other way, so in the middle of the night, he yowls until someone (me) comes and flips him back. I've heard there's a product to prevent babies from flipping when they sleep. It was described to me as a baby sandwich board. I need to look into this.

Evan the mega-baby (16 pounds at 4 months) is also desperate to start eating. He's been watching us eat ever since he could focus, and now it's just sad when we eat in front of him. Yesterday, I nuzzled his face after eating some chocolate, and he sniffed wildly at me and licked the air. But he's not even five months yet!

Noah about to read, Evan about to roll over

Noah has gone from being totally unable to sound out words to trying to sound everything out in a matter of days. Yesterday, I gave him a set of magnetic letters and a board, and we played around with two and three letter words, experimenting with changing one letter at a time. "Box" to "fox" is high entertainment. Two days ago, he wanted David to read him the Mother Goose book. David told him to bring it and told him what color it was. Noah said, "No, that's not it. Wait. Oh yeah, that's it. M-O-T-H-E-R spells "Mother"."

Evan is almost four months and really wants to roll over. When he was lying on his blanket today, I put Noah's Thomas flashlight that also makes "choo-choo" noises beside him and he was quite intrigued. He kept arching his back and kicking his hammy little legs and almost got onto his side. He continues to be The Big Easy - totally lovable.

This stay-at-home mom thing is getting harder. My world has shrunk to be just this house, my two kids and, what seems like occasionally, my husband. I still feel like I don't have friends here. I get no outside validation of what I do (my three year old is not going to come out with, "Good job raising me today, Mom"). So anything that rocks the boat, like Noah having a cranky, bratty day (like today), sets me off. Then I lose my temper, and I feel guilty because my only job now is to care for my kids and I'm not even very good at that sometimes. And I panic because I feel my productive time slipping away as I change diapers and cook dinner and collapse in front of the TV, and there's nothing to be done about it.