My Noelle!

Noelle is 1 yr and 3 weeks old. She’s not walking by herself yet, nor is she talking, quite unlike her older sister who walked and spoke before she turned 1. Even so, I am not worried because she’s just as smart. She communicates by pointing, gesturing or calling at what or who she wants, and by rejecting what she doesn’t. She tells you that she got hurt by pausing and rubbing the hurt part of her body with her hand. She understands quite a few things already. If you ask her, she knows the light, switch, fan, tv, phone, remote, shoes, ball, balloon, dog, banana, etc. She can tell you where her head, ears, nose and belly button are. If you ask who Noelle is, she’ll put her hands on her chest as her way of saying “me!” Of course she’s been able to do the usual tricks since she was 7 months old – close open, clap hands, pat, high five, wave hi or bye. She could also gesture as we’d sing twinkle twinkle and itsy bitsy spider, and clap whenever she hears d happy bday song. And one of the first tricks she did was put her hand, the phone or anything actually, on her ear when she’d hear the word hello. And then she’d make “uh” sounds as if she was talking to someone. It was also automatic for her to respond by looking around when she heard someone or something and when she was asked where anything or anyone was. By 10 or 11 months, she learned to play peek-a-boo, do beautiful eyes, make pa-cute, sleep sleep, kiss and hug. She learned to put her hands together to pray, and she does it when she knows it’s time to eat! When you give her shades or a headband, she knows to put it on, though she cant do it properly yet. Give her a comb or brush, she’ll try to brush her hair with it…her very little hair hehe. Recently, she’s been climbing a lot. When she got tall enough and discovered she can reach ate’s chair when she raised her leg, she would climb and kneel, sit or even stand on it! When she sits, she immediately points to the matching table, telling me to get it. Cute haha! Oh she also makes this face when she’s making drama. Nobody taught her that! But when you say cry, she’ll show you haha.

Noelle just loves Danae. Ever since, when we’d ask her where ate is, she knew where to look. Gosh, when I ask her where mommy is, she ignores me haha! But when it’s ate, she looks, points, smiles and moves toward Danae right away, even when Danae is sleeping. She loves to hug and kiss Danae. Sigh. It’s such a joy to see it. One of our prayers is that they will have an extraordinary bond as sisters. Thank you Lord! 🙂

People keep asking me how different my two girls are. Well, besides color hehe, Noelle seems to be the more humorous one (kengkoy and patawa) though also strong willed. Danae is less patient but is pretty funny and witty too. Danae is also generally the more fearless one, adventurous and unafraid of most things, while Noelle is more easily intimidated I guess by loud sounds (except fireworks for some reason hehe), people, darkness, and being thrown up in the air. Development- wise, everything was generally quicker with Danae. She transitioned from breast to sippie cup in one day when she was 10 months old. She downed her first cup full of milk just like that! And because of the filling milk, she slept through the night already. Noelle is still breast feeding, though much less now, and won’t drink any milk from the bottle, cup or glass. She doesn’t sleep through the night yet either. But I’m still going to try other milk brands and flavors so I can finally wean her completely. We can do this! 🙂

My girls are different from each other, yet they are both beautiful, smart, blessed, and most importantly very much loved. I’m truly grateful for my danaenae and my noellee. King and I are raising two lovely, lovely daughters.

*Can’t wait to see Noelle walking behind me and to hear her talking! I’m so excited! 🙂