If we left it up to natural selection...

...Noel would be a goner.

Seriously, the child has ZERO survival instincts.

When taking a bath, he begins flopping and flailing around--gulping mouthfuls (and lungfuls) of water all the while--as soon as his backside hits the bottom of the tub.  This attempted drowning is apparently super fun for him, as evidenced by the huge grin he has on his face as he is coughing-up bath water and gasping for air.

Also, hundreds of times per day I have to rescue my boy after being summoned by his simple, staccato utterance of "stuck!"  Sometimes (usually if he thinks I didn't hear his first call for help) he follows that up with "nnnnnnnnn stuck!"  The "nnnnnnnnn" is the vocal representation of him trying to free himself from whatever has him "stuck!"

He gets his finger "stuck!" in our VCR.  He gets his hand "stuck!" in our front door's mail slot.  He gets his head "stuck!" between a chair and a wall (after trying to walk behind the chair, attempting to squeeze his XL noggin' through a space obviously too small for his cranium's girth).  And, most worrisome, he gets his chubby leg "stuck!" between the slats of his crib.  He used to immediately freak out about this one, but after spending too much time frantically protesting this predicament one night (we thought he had just woken-up and were giving him a few minutes to see if he would fall back asleep on his own before we intervened) and allowing himself to become completely frazzled, he has decided to deal with this situation in a calmer fashion.  He lets out his occasional yelps of "stuck!" until we finally hear him and come to save him.   Then, once we have entered the room and he knows he will soon be free, he begins his freak-out (which makes the freeing process infinitely more difficult, of course).  Jeff and I have decided that he handles the situation in this manner in an attempt to reserve energy incase he is in that position for the long haul.  That approach suggests he has a glimmer of a survival instinct, I suppose.  Or perhaps he is really just too instinct-less to know to call for help until help arrives...

Good thing he's super cute...