And We're Walking...

Hard to believe that summer is over and Noa is already back in school. Wow, that went fast!

Noa's had a great summer. As you can see, she continues to make progress with walking. Notice how she is really just holding on to one of Ben's pockets! It's a great strategy - and saves Mommy and Daddy from having their arms ripped out of their sockets though unless she has one of us on either she tends to do go off course and crash into us (which, to be honest, I think she rather enjoys). 

One of the things I really love about this video is the woman with the walker who just zooms right past us! Really gives you an idea of how slow a go it is when we're out walking together. It's great fun and it's really nice to be able to take a walk that exhausts Noa more than it exhausts us, but we're certainly not walking with her to the store to do some grocery shopping - we just don't have that kind of time!

The other great thing in this video: if you turn up the volume you can hear that the woman, as she passes, says something about how great Noa is doing and I say thank you - and then Noa, having heard this, also says thank you. And then she signs thank you, thank you. It's pretty cute.

Last week we walked like this with Noa to St. Vartan's Park which is 5 blocks away (a long haul!!!) and the bagel place is on the way back. It wasn't too crowded so we decided to see if she could stay sane while Ben got our bagels. Noa and I stood near the door where they have a few bar stools. Noa was kind of fidgety, but then her hand found a barstool and she began spinning it.  I asked her if she wanted to sit on it and she said yes (she's getting very good at actually saying the word yes), so I picked her up and put her on the stool and she figured out how to spin herself around. She ended up having a great time. Sure, she didn't stand still or stand in line, but she found something to entertain herself which was a huge step forward for her.

Other fun - we took a quick hop up to Boston for a couple of days. I'll post more about that later. All in all, I think Noa really enjoyed her short break between summer school and the start of Fall but when I told her she was going back to school, I have to say she was very happy - and has been happy to be back at school. And so we're all off and running. Hopefully the more regular schedule that comes with the Fall will offer me the opportunity to catch up with posting here!