The Finish Line!

Having walked all the way across St. Vartan's Park, Noa arrives at the finish line. The prize: ANOTHER SWING!!! We let her find it herself (with her head) and the sign she is making at the end is her telling us "more swing."

Doggie!

Since it's hard to put two videos in the same posting I'm doing this one by itself, but if you haven't already read the post previous to this one... that's where most of the recent info is. I just had two great videos and I wanted to share them both.

The video above shows her using one of her new signs - Doggie - which we are using for a family of stuffed animals that includes dogs, ducks and a horse. They are her favorites and I've been wanting to find a way for her to ask for some of her toys specifically. Often it's just kind of a guessing game: she asks for a toy,then just keeps pushing them away until you hand her the one she wants. As you can see, she is very excited about being able to ask for the Doggie. But as often happens with signs that make her happy, she has already started generalizing it - using it for nearly every toy, then adding "different" to the end. So... we'll have to work on that.

Luckily we also worked this weekend on "more toy zuzee" (which is basically an electric toothbrush she likes to stick behind her ear) so hopefully I'll be able to use that to help her get the idea that she doesn't have to sign different or doggie every time she asks for a toy. But it's difficult. She REALLY loves to sign - I think she just enjoys stringing words together and building long sentences and who can blame her?

Lunch!

Wow! It has been a busy few weeks - school starting up (for both me and Noa), the G20 Summit and the U.N. (both messing up Noa's commute to/from school) and the general poor condition of her school bus which broke down twice last week. But in the midst of it all, Noa has been making some terrific progress!

The video above shows something really amazing - this weekend when I asked her if she wanted lunch, she did the sign for food and said something like "unch." We were both very excited and she realized that I understood he and since then she has really loved trying to say it along with the sign. She has been doing a TON of vocalizing, most of it just kind of experimenting and babbling like an infant might do -- but this is totally new for her. Sometimes she will try to repeat something back, but usually it is something that goes with a sign she already has. We had noticed this tendency before and it is part of the reason we were pushing so hard for the sign language because we knew that for her sounds came with signs. But gee, Board of Ed, why listen to us - we're just the parents!

You can also see the nodding at the beginning of the video. She seems to be starting to get the connection between shaking her head and "no" but I'm not sure she totally gets nodding for "yes." Here I'm working on this by just saying "yes" every time she nods - sort of re-enforcing the idea for her.

She also does another great thing at the very end of this video - my fav new trick - she screams really loud and then Shhhhh's herself. It's pretty cute.

In other news, Noa also discovered spitting yesterday which - needless to say - is great fun and it's all I can to not laugh at her when she spits a mouthful of water at me (luckily she hasn't done this at the table yet with Pediasure which is sticky and stinks). I don't want to just shut down the spitting because I think its important that she knows how to (it's something she really had to discover by herself and beng able to spit something out is a good skill to have when you need it!)

Noa is growing by leaps and bounds. It is really now not possible for me to just carry her on my hip while I get her lunch ready... in fact I tried to do this the other day and my arm was so lacking for blood flow that it fell asleep! We continue to work on standing and walking - and she does quite well with her walker (when she is in the mood), but standing is just really tough. She has devised a new game in which is stands for a moment or two and then falls into your arms, which is just loves - and she likes that moment of standing... but the ultimate goal is the falling into your arms part so it doesn't last too long. Still, I'm trying to use the opportunity to help her find her center and get some bounce in the hip and knees (thank God for all my movement classes!)

Nature... and the Call of Nature

Well, is there anything more fun than discovering a roll of toilet paper? Apparently not for Noa! In fact, she loved the toilet paper SO much that she insisted on kissing it good-bye.

But our stay in Windham offered other wonderful adventures as well (though sadly it did not offer internet access). The zip-line the back yard was a bit of a stretch for Noa, but she made it work. Noa also enjoyed pushing a wheel barrel across the lawn with Daddy, the reward (for both of them) being a long ride in the hammock. In short, Noa wore us out!

Noa did a ton of walking around in Windham. The house we were in had a sunken living room so there were some great stair opportunities. We were only in Windham for a short time, but after the grueling pace of the Zoom Flume, it was a nice change of pace. On the way back to NYC we stopped a giagantic Wal-Mart where Noa enjoyed another favorite ride: the shopping cart!

All-in-all, this was a great trip for Noa. She really enjoyed all the new adventures: the amusement park rides, zoom flume, hayride, zip-line - while she has always liked things that move she hasn't always been keen to touch new things, but we didn't see any of that on this trip. She really reached out for new things, and when she was walking was always interested in exploring the world around her.

Noa picked up some new signs on the trip (I'll post photos of those soon). She quickly learned the sign for "shush" - otherwise known in the parenting world as "inside voice, please." She liked it so much that she would make a big noise, and then cut herself off by signing "shush."

She also learned the sign for "same" - as in, Mommy can only hold one food at a time in the car, so even though you asked for different food, I'm giving you the SAME food."

For all the fun we had on our journeys, Noa was also very glad to be home: her own bed, her regular toys, the swing the garden, all big thrills.

Weeding and Riding

Another busy day in the Land of Noa. We noticed today that there were a number of other special needs kids at the Waterpark, and a whole group of special needs adults staying at the resort - guess it is true what they say: Water Good.

I got a water proof camera today but in charming old timely Catskill fashion, it takes photos on FILM of all things! So we'll have to wait and see what, if anything come out. We had a great water park morning - and the afternoon went okay... until she got overly cold and couldn't warm up and hadn't had her snack and well, it was totally tragic meltdown time, which was too bad because until then it had been really really great. The water was freezing though and Noa just keeps going until she can't anymore - she just loves it that much. And, because she doesn't walk, she doesn't move her feet much and so they get icey cold and it can be hard to warm them up.

So until I get more waterpark photos... here are some photos of Noa, including one of her weeding the front entry way to the resort: picking the top off a tall piece of grass and then handing it to Daddy. She loves handing things to us (usually invisible things, or when she has a bug bite, she'll try to hand the itchy part to us). Noa is hanging out here waiting for a Hay Ride which was the event of the night here at the resort. Noa went on the Hay Ride with Daddy and I followed in the car so I could bring them back. The ride didn't start until after 7pm (which is late for Noa) and we didn't think she'd have patience for the part where the Farmer takes everyone into the field to feed the cows and then talks to them about cows and farming and does some demos. It was kind of hard to explain to them that at this point in the day she really wouldn't even want to touch a cow's nose. That kind of new thing is just too overwhelming when she is tired - it's far better to do the ride and leave it at that --- and she LOVED the ride!

We're gonna Zooma Zooma Zooma Flume!

Well in spite of the fact that Noa was up half the night (passing gas and then laughing at herself mostly) and didn't take a nap (a car ride is too much fun to miss) she had a great time in our first trip to the Zoom Flume, and even made it through dinner afterward without a major meltdown. I'm sorry we don't have more photos from the waterpark - trying to figure out how to manage, what with all the water. But if you're curious about the zoom flume water park you can check it out at: http://zoomflume.com/ It really looks like the photos. And we're staying The Country Place which is attached to the water park so we can come an go all day just by crossing a cool bridge across a gorge.

From the moment we arrived Noa realized that there was fun and water in the works. She could hear the water splashing and was signing over and over for "bath" and "drink."

Our first stop was the Wild River Ride: a giant inner tube flume - very much like a roller coaster (except that you're sitting in ice-cold water). Noa loved it and screamed happily all the way down. Then we moved onto the giant pool with all kinds of fountains and waterfalls to splash in, and wrapped up visit number one with the Lazy River Ride (pictured) and a short splash in the kiddie pool with it's in-pool water slide that shoots water in your face on the ride down.

We had about an hour to wait before dinner and so took a paddle boat out in the pond. Noa nearly fell asleep and I thought we wouldn't make it through dinner, but she managed to pull it together.

Below are couple of photos from dinner (and pre-dinner on the porch). In one of the photos you can see Noa doing the sign for "I Love You" for Daddy. Noa of course ate all her own food at dinner. It was pretty funny - they asked if she wanted any desert (ice cream) but of course she didn't. She tried a bit, but didn't like it, so while every other kid was happily eating ice cream, Noa was having her favorite desert: Beef Baby-food. Yum.

The Big Swing

Today we took Noa to what is billed as "the biggest swing" in the world, and though in many ways it falls comically short - it was a great swing and probably provided the longest horizonital swing time that Noa has experienced. She loved it so why split hairs. And it really did go high - at it's highest point it was above Ben's head! And Noa, as you can see is a real champ on this big girl swing set up - holding on and steadying herself (which is some work - the thing was bit wobbly).

The other big draw - for Mommy and Daddy's entertainment - it was located at the nearby Moonie compound which which looked a bit like the setting for a horror movie about an abandoned seminary. So, that's fun.

Also included is Noa swinging out at the keyboard. Melissa took this photo - she popped up for a few days for the Rhinebeck stretch and Noa has really been keeping busy with her BFF along for the fun!