Our Growing-Up Girl

Yesterday I was playing with Noa when I realized she’s as tall as our table!! Can you believe it?!? She is getting so big and so I thought I’d take a minute to let you all know what she’s up to… especially for Grammy and Grandpa, and all her Aunts and Uncles across the ocean.

What she says in sign language: Please, More, All done, Drink, Hot, Down.

What she says verbally: Dada, Mama, Baba (for Ba-chan, which means Grandma in Japanese), Uh-oh, Wow, Shax (meaning thanks), Yes, Ball, Nana (for banana or any food that she wants to eat), Aaaah (for Amen after a prayer).

What she does: Hi and Bye-bye and night-night (all waves), kisses and hugs, blows kisses, raises her hands to say “Halleluiah”, barks like a dog, walks with her pushcart and cruises along furniture,
climbs almost anything and can get to pretty much anything she wants badly enough, does signs for “the eency weency spider” to most childrens songs, dances when music comes one, sings after the music stops, gets a diaper when she needs a new one, holds up one finger when asked “how old are you?”, pats her belly or mama’s belly when asked, “where’s the baby?”, blows on her food to cool it down… even when its not hot, click-clucks her tongue, folds her hands when its time to pray, cleans up her toys (or anything that she can put into a bin or box… and then take out again, and then put in again, etc.) plays hide and seek with her toys and/or passy, throws/rolls her balls to people and then “catches” them when they are rolled back – this is one of her favorite games.

These days, Noa especially loves to hold a pen or marker and pretend to “write” things, especially if Mom or Dad are doing just that. She gets very attached to her pens. She also loves to get into the kitchen cupboards and take out pots, pans, and tupperware, and use her pens to drum on them. She still loves to read books, especially ones that have textures or hidden pictures. Her favorite time of day is after dinner when Daddy and she spend time together playing all kinds of fun games that they make up as they go along. She’s still quite a cuddler and we three have been known to spend a good bit of time in bed on a quiet morning together, just playing and snuggling and laughing. Noa also loves to tell jokes. After she hears other people say things that are laughed at, she starts “talking” and then laughing. Its hilarious to watch.

Noa is also learning a lot about obeying. She is learning to not throw food on the floor, to not touch the oven, to not pull cords or wires, to not put her fingers in sockets, to come and when Daddy or Mommy ask her to, to not go somewhere that we tell her not to, and to be gentle when touching other people, especially other kids. She is learning and definitely has an understanding of when she does right and wrong. We were having a hard time at the dinner table, getting her to not throw her food, and so we started praising her when she would eat it instead of throw it. Now, whenever she does something that she knows is obedient, she claps for herself and smiles so big. How I pray that she will come to understand, as I still need to learn over and over again, that rules are for our good and there is great reward in obedience, a reward even better than the approval of her dad and mom. We can tell we are getting into a tougher stage of parenting and would covet your prayers. We long to be, more than anything, an example of Christ and his grace to Noa. However, we also desperately want to be good stewards of our role and responsibility as her parents to “train her up in the way she should go” as the Proverb says. Most of all, we need the grace of God to permeate our hearts and minds and overflow into our parenting of this precious little girl.

So there you have it. Our little girl is just growing so fast, and I am constantly thinking, I need to write this down so that I don’t forget when she learned this, and so that I can tell her grandparents back home all about it. It breaks my heart that those who love her so much can’t be here to witness the little things that she does as she changes and grows. I will try to do better about getting videos of her up and doing more regular updates on her small progressions. For now, hope you like these few pictures of her silliness and smiles.

Tags: milestone, Noa