Noah skates with Lizzy

Had to include a couple of these pictures - Noah wasn't in the mood to get out of his pajamas on Saturday morning to skate...until he heard that Lizzy would be there!  Lizzy Colannino is my friend Becky's daughter and an experienced hockey player.  She's known Noah since he was a little little bean and seemed excited to help him out on the ice.

All smiles and ready to go!

Noah loves this photo.  Big time.  Cracks him up.  

So when he got the word that Lizzy would be there he frantically ran around the house like a crazy man demanding that we get him suited up and ready to skate.  He even abandoned the iPad and a newly opened tootsie pop.

He did a great job - my gosh, by 45 minutes this little kid is sweaty and tired.  Asking to go to Starbucks for a vanilla steamer.   Like father, like son :)

Speaking of Gene: poor guy was sent right down to the ER from his floor on Saturday night.  They did a chest x-ray, found pneumonia and sent him home for three days.  He's laying low at home (or as low as he could be with the kids home all weekend!)


We are looking forward to a fun-filled pre-Halloween week!  Wait until you see the spooky bushes in front of the house.  It was such a nice weekend - warmish, sunny, leaves falling - the boys and I hung out doing a little cleaning up and decorating on Sunday.  Emmy came over and played zombies with Noah a little while - for some reason, he loves the idea of being chased by hungry zombies.  Who am I kidding?  He likes being chased by ANYONE - live or undead.  

Skater Noah

Say hello to Noah the skater.  Despite being dog-tired at the end of a school day, Noah does not fail to get excited to go skating.  We signed him up for the Learn-to-Skate session a few weeks ago after a little bit of discussion: "You know what this means, Faith," my husband said, "they are grooming little hockey players over there."  Gene played basketball and we've been joking for some time about hanging -basketballs over Noah's bed in order to ward off hockey fever.  

Note to those that do not live in hockey states:  In Maine, little kids love to play hockey.  We get sort of crazy in the winter over our hockey teams: UMaine Black Bears and of course the Boston Bruins.  I sort of get it - but Mark and Lisa are big fans of the Bruins (remember their Bruins contest win last season?) and the Bruins won the Stanley Cup last year.  So there's lots of hockey goin' on here in Maine. 

I have always been nervous at the thought of my kid playing hockey.  There are several factors that make it challenging.  1) Sitting in cold ice arenas (you know me - I wear fleece socks to bed.) 2) Cost.  Oh my gosh.  Skates are around $100, all the pads, equipment, fees for ice time - yikes.  And then if your kid is on a team that travels you can count on spending a night or two in a hotel anywhere in New England or Canada.  I'm not exaggerating!  My friend Becky and her family live it.  

At Alfond and ready to go but an elbow pad already fell off!

But here's the deal.  My darling Noah has a lot of energy.  He needs to be active and when there is no lawn to mow and the plowing has been done -- it's just harder to find fun things to do when it's really cold outside...so we are learning to skate.  That's it.  Learning to skate.  And if he loves hockey - well, we will cross that bridge when we get there.

So we start to get ready about 1/2 hour before we go to Alfond Arena.  I get Noah in his Under Armour and pads, etc and then sort of shove him in his car seat.  He's considerably bigger in his gear.  We skated without the gear the first night and it was not fun - Noah was cold damp; had sore knees and butt from all the falling.  It makes me more confortable watching when Noah has the gear on.  We were able to rent it for $25 a season.  A bargain.  

Then we take the skate guards off and Noah sort of scoots around the ice.  The hockey parents told me not to make eye contact with him and not to let him off the ice.  The first lesson Noah alternated between crawling on the ice on all fours and crying for me to get him out of there.  

Noah stepping on to the ice

A little wipe out.  I'm trying not to make eye contact but the camera is obvious. 

Noah in the same hallway that the Maine Black Bears use to get from the locker room to the ice!

The next lesson, though, Noah couldn't wait to get back on the ice. He's doing great - sometimes listening to the instructors and following directions, and other times just skating in another direction with short breaks to make a snow angel on the ice.  

Side note:  just got a call from Joanne at Montessori.  She said that they had wonderful news - Noah had just completed the 100's board!  Noah has been avoiding the math/numbers in the room for quite a while - the 100's board requires a lot of time to sit and focus and trace ALL the numbers from 1 to 100. Quite a task for a 4 1/2 year old!  Noah completed it proudly this morning and it was cool to get the phone call and hear him so proud of his accomplishment.  

Later that afternoon, Joanne said he wanted to do it again.

r.i.p. broken blankie, chewing and TEETH

Got some catching up to do.  I've been jotting things the kids are doing on a post-it note!  Time to share.  I'll start the with

1.  86 Broken blankie.  I still can't believe it.  We had been talking to Noah about broken blankie and letting him know that the end was near.  I certainly am not in the business of taking away a kid's blankie, but it had traveled through several dangerous stages (last year I was afraid that it would strangle Noah during the night because it had gotten so stringy.  Looked like a bunch of little noose knots to me.)  The last stage was bacterial.  I had knotted the blanket (well, a stretch to call it a blanket, really.  I'd say it was several odd lengths of yarn knotted together.  Any pattern/knit was long gone.) and Noah would suck and chew on the knots making them smelly and wet.  Perfect breeding ground for oh so many icky things.  I couldn't stand to snuggle with him at night because all I could smell was that blanket.  It had to go.  More about broken blankie here and here.

Noah with his new blankie

And it did go.  Nana Paula sent a beautiful new blanket in the mail and Gene didn't hesitate.  "You know what this means!" he said, and boom.  Noah tossed broken blankie in the trash.  I had thought about saving it for.....well, I don't know - posterity?  A time capsule?  His baby book that I haven't written in for 3 years?  We didn't.  All we have are memories.

2.  Speaking of chewing on broken blankie, the chewing continues.  Noah is a chewer.  When he doesn't have blankie, he chews on the necks or sleeves of his shirts.  He doesn't seem too anxious, just loves it for the comfort.  It's very destructive - he chews holes right through the shirt, and the shirts come home from school stretched, wet and mangled.  It's October and we've already said goodbye to two pairs of mittens - he's chewed through the thumbs.

We've got a new plan - I've ordered a chewy necklace in the mail for Noah to chew on instead of the shirts.  He seems excited about it - picked out the one that is yellow with a pineapple scent.  I hope this does the trick!  Auntie Lisa got him some beautiful new school shirts that I am not going to put on him until his gets this licked.  Chewed.  Whatever.

Check out those new Halloween PJs from Auntie Lisa & Uncle Mark!

3.  TEETH!  Check out Mr. Eli.  No teeth for 10 months and then 4 all at once.  The first was on the bottom and then it's partner right beside.  A couple of days later one on top came out and then it's partner.  We had a feeling that they might come all together.  Of course he's just getting used to the idea of teeth, but I think he likes them.  He's not really interested in being spoon fed anymore.  LOVES to feed himself.  These days his favorite items are bananas, waffles, green beans, pasta (especially tortellini) and french toast.  He goes crazy over cheesy breadsticks.  I've never seen anything like it.  He ate 3 one night.

He's walking like a drunken sailor.  Wobbling around and now can climb up all of the stairs.  Of course he can't get down (well, he's taken the fast route a couple of times down a few stairs and landed on his head) but he loves to climb and goes nuts when he gets to the top just like he summited Everest.