Burgdorf

For those of you who haven't had the pleasure of visiting McCall, Idaho, I thought I'd include this video which gives you a bit of the grand scenery that surrounds Noa up here. This is Burgdorf Hot Springs - one of two hot springs that we frequent up here. The water this day was particularly hot. It's probably around 99 or 100 degrees in the water and in the mid-50's outside at this point - which is about 7:30 in the evening.

Noa and Jes are in the kiddie part of the pool which is shallow enough that Noa can stand. She had a great time, eventually ended up just sitting in a floaty by the end of the visit because the water was too warm to stay in for too long (see video below).

Yummy

After all the excitement of Trampolines and such, a girl needs a good meal, so here is a video of Noa feeding herself. She is doing a great job of finding the spoon and returning the spoon to the bowl (which is really the tough part). While this may seem like a simple bit of stuff after all the excitement of her other new skills... this one is particularly special for Mommy who has wondered if the time would ever come when she could sit down and have a meal with Noa that didn't involve feeding her as if she were still an infant!

With both the feeding and the potty training, Noa seems to be taking the lead. She knows she is doing something good, so she likes doing it. She also loves saying Thank You - I'll get that on video - I know I should really enjoy this moment of enjoying being polite!

By the way, as you're watching this video - you may notice the lag time between when I ask Noa to take the bite and when she actually does. You may also be able to see her sort of looking for the bowl. She really seems to be taking the time to figure out where things are.

Lady Loves A Tramp

So just in case you're asking yourself: what kind of fun is Noa having in Idaho? Well here is just one example... Noa's first time on a trampoline adventure thanks to our fabulously generous neighbor Kathy Borkoski. Kathy's place is across the street from us (which, being McCall is still about a 5-8 minute walk) - they also have a great swing-set that Noa loves too. But this was the really big fun yesterday.

In other fun - Noa has been a walking machine since arriving in McCall. About the only thing she will sit for is a bag of foam blocks that I got for her at the local Thrift store. They don't make big noise like the blocks by home, but she can throw them at herself which is nearly as much fun. She has also enjoyed standing and feeling the wind, rocking out the Hot Springs, and the rocking chair on the porch with Daddy, and just being the in the car with windows down so the wind blows in her face. Noa is a study in the simple pleasures.

Jet-Lag Lady

Okay, so if you haven't watched the previous video (Mother and Noa Reunion), you might want to look at that one first. The enormous enthusiasm Noa showed when we first arrived on our porch was followed pretty quickly by this: serious done-in jet lag. She'd been up since 4am New York time, taken two exciting plane rides, had one screamy meltdown, dozed off for a moment, then the excitement of meeting up with Jes at the airport in Boise, the drive up to McCall and Mommy... so yeah, a full day.

One big piece of news about the trip: on the plane Noa told Daddy twice that she had to use the potty and Ben (saint that he is) actually carried Ms. Gy-normous down the aisle to the airplane potty where she dutifully made the trip worth his while!

Anyway, as you can see here she is practically asleep already. She made it to 6:30 mountain time, which would have been past her bedtime in NYC by half and hour, so can't complain.

Mother and Child Reunion

Took me a few days to figure out how to post it (and I'm still not sure if it works, but if not I'll continue to work on it), but here's a video of Noa and Mommy reuniting after three big weeks apart! Daddy did the flight out to Idaho with Noa all on his own (I don't know who to be more proud of!)

Noa only slept for a few minutes on this trip, just as they were landing in Salt Lake. Nearly dozed off here and there, but she is the kid who doesn't want to miss a minute of the journey so she fought it off. By the time this video was taken (4:30pm Mountain Time), she'd been up since about 4am Eastern Time. I don't know where she finds the energy!

We actually have a number of videos of this happy dance - it went on for quite a while. And then she crashed pretty quickly. We have a video of that which I'll post later. It was a BIG day. Not only all the travel - but also meeting up with Jes at the airport in Boise.

Fun with Eddie

Finally a video of Noa swimming with her new friend Eddie. We were matched with this great program through Rusk Institute where Noa does physical therapy - the program, at Asphalt Green (around 90th and York), offers private swim lessons for kids with disabilities. We really lucked out with Eddie. The first session with him, Noa was a bit shy and we could see that Eddie was a bit stumped by a kid who can't see or talk (and who communicates with sign language, which he doesn't understand). But week two it was clear that he'd thought about solutions and/or talked to people or something - and he came in prepared and open to following Noa's lead (which always works for Noa).

This is lesson number 5, and Ben doesn't even get in the pool with them any more. Noa loves Eddie and they've found a level of communication. You can see, he's working with Noa on some swim moves, but in the middle lets her do a jump into the pool - which makes her happy. The sign she is doing on the side of the pool is: Daddy Play. I think she just calls him Daddy because he's a strong guy. She likes strong guys because they can throw her in the air, so yeah, she likes Eddie a lot.

As I'm sure it quite apparent from this video, Noa loves to be in the water. Its really one of her favorite things to do.

In other news - I leave for Ohio on Wednesday, then come back Sunday only to fly off again on Tuesday to Idaho. So this may be my last post for a bit. I'm totally in denial about being away from Noa for so long, but I feel like we're both as ready for this as we'll get (Ben... I don't know if he's ready yet but I know he'll do fine).

Swim Time!

This video is a great demonstration of what Noa can do when motivated! In this example - swimming is the motivation. It takes her some time to get the pants off, but she does it, and as you can see she is really proud of herself too.

Noa has been doing so many great new things - I hate that I haven't been able to keep up with all of them here, but really it's leaps and bounds. It's not just skills, though there have been a lot of those, it also seems to be a conceptual understanding of the world that is really expanding. For example, last weekend we started working on doing her "ears, eyes, nose, chin, mouth - that's Noa!" song with Mommy. At first, even when she found the parts on mommy the song still ended with "that's Noa!" But now she gets "that's Mommy!" or Daddy or Lissa - and she really gets the idea that these are the same parts that she has but on different people - which for someone who can't see is a big realization!

She also seems to understand more and understand more quickly. Yesterday all we had to do is tell her we were going to swim and she sat straight up from naptime and cheered and started to scoot out of bed.