noah benjamin thompson: happy fall!

Noah has mastered the art of crawling backwards and is making small steps (figuratively) towards crawling forwards. When he isn't up for trying to crawl, he just rolls towards whatever he wants. Generally the rolling combined with the backwards crawling means he ends up stuck in a corner or backed up against furniture. It's pretty fun to watch, but he will let you know just how frustrated he is by not going where he wants to go. By far his favorite position is standing, and he is itching to be able to stand/walk on his own. When I pick him up from school he can almost always be found holding the fence in the playground waiting for me (ok, not waiting for me, but I happen to walk by on my way in so it feels that way). His other favorite activity is hitting 2 things together (blocks, crackers, whatever works).

Other than starting to move, Noah has expanded his vocabulary to including "more", "bubu" (bubby) and "bye bye". I claim temporary insanity for teaching him to say and sign "more" because he learned to abuse it day 1. He pretty much only knows how to apply it towards food and forever wants more. Next on my list is "all done", so we'll see how fast he picks that up (hopefully very soon). Another adorable trick he learned is to clap his hands when he hears "good job!". He is clearly constantly proud of his accomplishments.

Bubby and Nibby are his preferred company these days, so he loves to say "bubu" whenever bubby walks in the room (Nibby is just too hard to say I think). Bubby is becoming more and more attached to Noah, and it is completely related to the fact that at every meal Noah "shares" about half his food with bubby. This is unfortunate because the vet just told us bubby needs to drop some lbs...maybe next year? After the holidays?

Noah has continued his travels. I calculated that over 12 weeks we'll be in Atlanta for 2 weekends and he'll have taken about 24 flights by the time he is a year. At the end of September, we went back to Chapel Hill for Anna and Kim's wedding. My parents had the pleasure of more babysitting and Ben and I had a great time at all the wedding festivities. We then spent a weekend in Highlands, NC with Kelly and Stark that involved a day and a half of fly fishing school for the boys. Kelly, Noah and I took it easy and spent Saturday in the cute downtown having lunch (with wine of course) and then went to a happy hour. Noah was very well behaved at both and easily entertained by eating, people watching and the music during happy hour.

happy hour!

bubby mid-breakfast

We were fortunately in town last weekend, which gave us time to see friends here and get pumpkins! Noah loved the pumpkin patch and his ride in the radio flyer (Christmas list updated accordingly). He also got to have a sleepover at Mads' house and play with Mads and Henry, go to Fitz and Rhodes' first birthday party and have a dinner date with Swift. He was a huge fan of the ball pit at the party so we'll be getting one of those soon too.

Highlights of the last few weeks:
- Saying/signing "more" (meaning food)
- Saying "bubu" and "bye bye"
- Clapping hands
- Drinking water out of mommy's water bottle
- Standing up
- Playing with Audra and Ben, Mads and Henry, Swift and all the kids at Fitz and Rhodes' birthday party
- the ball pit
- pumpkin patch

And now pictures and videos!