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!