Dinosaurs, G.G., Washing Hands, and Snippets Video

Nico brought home a dinosaur egg on Friday with instructions to put it in a warm place overnight. Saturday morning we opened it up and there was a toy dinosaur! The overnight stay in the cupboard was just part of the adventure. I thought it may have been necessary to its survival, if it was a growing dinosaur that you soaked in water before putting in the egg or something of that nature, but it was just a normal dinosaur toy. But it did get a nice rest in the cupboard, and then in the morning we pulled out the large green egg and opened it up. THEN we ate green eggs for breakfast! And Guy read "Green Eggs and Ham" to us. (See video below for the highlights!)

On Monday we went to see Grandma G.G. Nico wanted to bring his car garage that G.G. sewed for him, so we brought that with us. Have I ever shown you what the inside of this garage looks like?

Monday afternoon we met Allicia, Evie and Avery at Old Park. We also ran into another friend of ours while we were there. The day was beautiful and sunny and a perfect afternoon for park time.

This week in school they are learning about hygiene, taking care of their teeth and washing their hands.  Before dinner today Nico was almost to the table when he said "Uh oh! Wash a hands!" and ran to the bathroom. 

Nico has started watching a new cartoon on Netflix - Clifford!

He found Daddy's glasses

 Playing games with Daddy.

Reading "I Broke My Trunk"

This entry is a little shorter today because I spent some time putting together a snippet video. Nico is in a memorizing mode, he recites cartoons while watching them, recites books while we read them, sings songs while they play, you'll get to see a bit of that in the video.

Until next week!

Lexie, Parks, Signs, Stooges

Friday was Valentine's Day and Nico came home with a bunch of Valentines from his friends. It was very fun to open them all. Friday morning I had asked Nico if he wanted to give the bus drivers a Valentine and he said Yes. So we put two of them together. One for Dan, the morning bus driver, and one for Miss Donna, the morning bus attendant. Nico signed his name on both of them! He carried both out to the bus, gave them to Miss Donna as she helped him up the steps, and then stopped when he got to the top so he could take one and give it to Dan. He wanted to communicate something, I could tell, he kind of mumbled and stood there for a bit. They were both so happy and said thank you and Dan shook his hand. Dan and Miss Donna are so friendly and I am so happy Nico has them in the morning! Nico often stops when he gets to the top of the steps so that he can shake Dan's hand.

Then Friday night, we hung out with Lexie while Jonny and Alanna went on a date. Nico had a blast watching Curious George with her late into the night.

Lexie even introduced him to a different cartoon on Netflix about pirates! There is always fun and excitement whenever Lexie is around. 

We had some SUN and warmth this past week! We took full advantage of it and went to the Goose Park two days in a row. I woke up with sore arms after the first day, from pushing Nico on the swing! 

There were also several walks around the block this week. One of note was on Tuesday night. Nico emptied his lego bucket, the one with wheels, put a screwdriver in the bucket, and kept asking to go outside, and kept saying what sounded like "sun". Did he want to go outside into the sun? Guy took him for a walk, and Nico pulled the lego bucket behind him. When they got home Guy told me what the purpose of the walk was. Nico wanted to take his wagon around the neighborhood, not because of the SUN, but to collect SIGNS. An instance of Curious George mimicking! There is an episode of Curious George where he takes his wagon around the town and uses his screwdriver to take down a bunch of signs and put them in his wagon to take them home. Then he goes back out and returns them all. Nico got a good dose of pretend play, they pretended to unscrew signs and put them in his bucket, then pretended to screw them back on.

Other things that Nico wants to do because of Curious George: plant a garden, build a car wash, fly a kite, build a sand castle. I've started making a list of things to do this summer, I mentioned two of them already in a previous entry, but the list is growing, and here it is:

1. Fly a kite

2. Shoot off a rocket

3. Go swimming

4. Go to an apple orchard and pick apples

5. Plant a garden

6. Paddle Boats

7. Feed the ducks

8. Discovery Center

9. Apple Pie

10. Build a sand castle (if possible!)

And a few long term goals (ideas gathered from reading books)

1. Build a car from a kit

2. Fly a plane. Or at least, fly IN a plane.

There is also a ritual that has recently started. It doesn't happen every morning, but perhaps 50% of the time. After breakfast, Nico will get up onto our bed with Guy and watch an episode of Three Stooges before Guy goes to bed. Nico laughs and laughs and laughs and reenacts. We've had to talk to him a few times about not hitting, and Guy is being careful in what episodes they watch (he is, after all, in a mimicking mood these days), but it has been a lot of fun for both of them.

Guy's elimination diet has revealed a sensitivity to lemons and to peanuts! Lemons gave him a migraine and made his trigger finger swell. Peanuts gave him a migraine. We are slowly reintroducing foods, tomorrow we trial grapefruit. And an unexpected outcome: Guy has lost a lot of weight in just the 4 weeks we've been doing this.

This week in school Nico is learning about Dinosaurs. For homework, we had to ask Nico how to cook a dinosaur, with some leading questions, and then write down what he said. Nico agreed that the dinosaur had to have a bath first, and that he had to be boiled. I asked him if he needed to be cooked with vegetables and Nico said broccoli. When I asked him again later how to cook a dinosaur, he pointed to the oven and said "Rrraaaaarrrr!!" I wrote all that down on the paper and sent it back to school with him today.

This morning I taught another essential oils class for pregnancy/birth/babies. It was so much fun! I love teaching that class. I have one more planned for March.

Guy got up to go to the bathroom and when he came back, Nico had grabbed his computer. Multitasking with the iPad!

Watching Curious George on the BIG BIG computer while playing with cars.

 He fell asleep at 6 PM tonight while I was reading him a book about cars. Zonk.

Valentines and a Muddy Park

Nico had his very first snow day on Friday! We were still struggling with illness at the time, so weren't able to take advantage of it by going outside much, though we did take a trip to the Co-op. We needed to buy some walnuts because we just got a nutcracker and we needed to try it out. We cracked some walnuts and talked about squirrels.

On Saturday we had a special dinner. I had asked on Facebook if anyone had the Cars movie that we could borrow, and someone told me she had two copies and that we could have one. Yay! So on Saturday we picked up the movie, and then for dinner I made buffalo burgers (hamburgers made from ground buffalo) and we watched Cars while eating. For dessert we had freshly made cashew butter with molasses (Nico's current favorite treat). I know, molasses, right? It actually tastes pretty darn good, though :)

Saturday is also when Nico's fever started coming back and I started getting sick again too. We hadn't quite gotten over the last cold before this new one hit us. Guy caught it just yesterday, so he's going through it right now. We stayed home from church on Sunday because Nico still had his fever. But we had fun building parking lots with memory game cards.

Monday it was so sunny! Almost 50 degrees outside. We still had the sniffles, but we ventured out to go to the Co-op, and once that fresh air hit me I KNEW we had to stay outside much longer than the few minutes we were planning. So we went to the Fish Park after the Co-op. Snowy and muddy there still, but fun. We also crossed the big stretch of grass to get over to Municipal Park for a brief stint on the playground. The grass was covered in goose poop and mud holes, and we did NOT make it out unscathed. Nico had a bath when we got home and the shoes stayed outside.

This week in school he is learning about Valentine's Day and the post office. They are having a Valentine's party tomorrow, decorating cookies and handing out Valentines. We got Nico some Cars valentines that we put together on Wednesday. The school provided us with a list of names that we cut out (Nico is so good at cutting straight lines, wow!!) and then glued on.

Nico asked me to take a picture of him with this white clippy thing on his nose. He brought me the camera and said "take-a picka Mommy". 

He's been experimenting with saying "Mom" instead of "Mommy", and still says "Guy" sometimes because he knows we think it's funny. He enjoys telling us what he learns in school, and has started singing along to the songs in the car. My favorite one is the Tom T Hall song where he says "and I love you too".  Hearing Nico say that out loud along with the song is just so sweet. He also quotes long sections of Curious George cartoons, in action and in sound effects and in speech. He has a lot of them memorized. One of his favorite things to do is eat his bowl of cashew butter and molasses while lying on the floor watching Curious George and lining up his cars along the edge of the iPad.

Teddy Bear

Nico and I are still holding onto our illnesses. We've got stuffy noses and coughs over here.

We've had the opportunity to snuggle on the couch and take naps in the afternoon, though, which has been so nice!

On Monday we went to see Allicia, Evie and Avery in the morning. They were just starting to get colds over there, and I'm hoping it doesn't last very long for them! They had a teepee set up that Evie and Nico played in.

On Monday night we drove to Nampa to a going-away party for our friend Josh. He left to go back to Korea yesterday, to resume working as an English teacher. We will miss him!

This week for school, Nico had to bring in a teddy bear. He had 3 to choose from, and he chose Bud, his black bear. They took a picture of him with his bear and sent it home so that we could write a note about the bear on the page, and send it back. The teacher said to try to write down in the child's own words what they have to say about the bear. When I asked Nico about his bear and showed him the picture of him and his bear, the only thing he relayed to me was "Picture of Nico!".  When I asked him to tell me more about his bear, all he said was his traditional "a dah". Tomorrow we return the picture with the note, and also the bear, so that he can show his whole class his bear and what he had to say about it. I added some stuff in my own words. The picture will go into his "About Me" book.

Also this past week we've been working on words that the speech therapist sent him home with to work on. After filling out the sheet, we return it and then he gets a prize. So this morning after breakfast, we finished up the last day of word practice and marked it on his sheet. He did such a great job, that I figured I would record him saying all his words. So, here's the video!

If you notice at the end, he wanted me to take a picture of him. He has just recently started asking for pictures to be taken of him. And this time I got some good ones, but only because he POSED FOR EVERY ONE OF THEM! Each and every one of these pictures was planned by him. I kept pushing the capture button, but he knew when the picture would be taken because it counts down for us.

And then I snuck a hug in there.

And I'll leave you with one more picture - Nico covering his micro machines in play-dough. He spent almost an hour doing this after dinner last night.