Milestone

Last week of school, just one more day tomorrow of playing in the park with "new preschool" friends, and then a graduation ceremony with "old preschool" friends. Busy day. Last day. Sad day. Happy day! He will then be ready for a New Day. Ok that's enough of that.

Guy has worked like 15 days straight, and has 3 more to go before he has a day off. Wow! Even though he's working overtime, he still took Nico out on Saturday, to the Aquarium! They had a lot of fun and Nico apparently touched a fish! He asked to go back to the Aquarium the next day.

Sunday was Ivy's baptism, so Nico and I went to Jeff & Allicia's church to join them. They go to Beautiful Savior Lutheran church, the same one where Nico has his preschool, so Nico was familiar with it. He asked where Teacher Chris was. He looked for her. He found her! There was no Bible Study that night, so we had time to hang out as a family. To the park we went! Tried to fly a kite, we were successful for a little while, I think the wind kept changing directions so we couldn't keep it up for long.

And so on to the milestone. Nico has learned to ride a bike! I think it was Monday night, Nico was hanging out outside in the backyard like he is oft to do in the evenings lately. Apparently Jeff was in the garage working on some stuff and Nico was showing interest in riding his (Nico's) bike, so Jeff helped him with it and took him out to the alley. And a few minutes later they had gone around the block and showed up at our front door. Jeff knocked. I answered. "Do you want to show your Mommy what you can do?" Huzzah! We went back around the block to the alley and it was incredible! He still couldn't steer very well but he was riding a bike! The next morning we booked it to the park, with Evie, to practice riding his bike in the big basketball court there. A LOT of room to learn how to correct steering and balance issues. He was PRO after only a few minutes on the court. I felt myself bursting with pride that he learned a new skill. I just couldn't believe it. I often forget that he is a child and is still learning things, I expect him most times to just stay the same. SO when he learns something new, when he improves in speech, when he is kind and thoughtful out of the blue, I am taken aback and I just marvel. He has been so much easier to talk to these days about feelings and how to treat people, he is responsive and I have actually been seeing fruit from it.

Anyway, Evelyn didn't bring her bike and so Nico gave her a turn on his. You can see all this in the video below.

We went to the park the next morning. And then this morning as well. Early morning park visits are awesome. I am feeling a tad bummed that the Literacy Academy will take up Nico's mornings for a whole month this summer. It will be harder to play outside in the afternoons when it is sunny and hot, and when bedtime is 7 PM that doesn't leave a lot of time for the air outside to cool down before having to hop into bed.

We have started watching Bill Nye the Science Guy with Nico, and he is very interested in it. There are a few that he is watching over and over again. One about volcanoes and one about digestion. He knows the word "chyme" now. hehe. There is a scene from the volcano one that he rewinds and watches over and over again, laughing every time. He quotes it, too. You can see him do this in the video.

We put a Bill Nye book on hold at the library, as well as a few books about volcanoes. Nico asked this morning "I want a volcano Bill Nye activity book" haha.. well, there is no such thing. Oh well.

Picture below is of Nico doing one of his "challenges". I would never have thought of this if it wasn't for my mom doing this same sort of thing for us when we were little. "Nico, I have a challenge for you. Ride circle-eights in the basketball court 3 times." "Nico, you're next challenge, is to ride your bike over to the park, go down a slide, and then come back, and do that 3 times." I did this for both Evie and Nico when they got tired of just riding in circles on the basketball court. I had to give each of them different challenges because Nico didn't want Evie to have the same ones as him.

Bill Nye the Science Guy

Waiting for the bus. No more bus for this little dude.

May 2015 Snippets

High Fives while Biking

Preschool Program, Cabin

On Friday was Nico's preschool program. Grandma Salisbury and I were there. You can see a video of clips from it at the bottom of this entry!

Then over the weekend we were able to go to the cabin TWICE. Nico and I went up on Saturday to hang out and eat lunch. We saw Grandma on her walk once we got to their subdivision, so we picked her up. The first thing Nico said to her: "Do you have a lego for me at the cabin?" hehe.. turns out, she did! We had a great time there. Nico and Papa spent some time chopping wood, of course! Then I think he helped Papa build a fire. Here's some of the prizes Nico came home with. A glow-stick flag mask, and a hat with a big red spider printed on it. He wanted me to take a picture of him like this.

Then on Sunday we went to the cabin again! Papa picked up Nico after church to take him out there, and then once Guy woke up, him and I headed out there too for a family BBQ. Lots and lots of fun.

Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, don't remember much of those days. Nico had school I guess! Not much more of that left.

Oh, right, on Monday Guy took him to his Summer Literacy Academy testing, to see where he's at with his letters and sounds before the Academy starts in June. Nico was apparently quite uncooperative and didn't respond to any questions after reciting the ABCs.

We've been having what I like to call "limp Nico syndrome" where he takes a big sigh and then just goes limp. That's kind of what happened on Monday.

Now I'm remembering more! On Wednesday I had his parent-teacher conference with Teacher Chris from Beautiful Savior Preschool. She told me that he was right on course for everything, except a little behind emotionally.

The fort Nico built today.

Videos... First one is him playing with a huge puddle outside with a big stick while waiting for the bus. The second one is clips from his preschool program.

Legos, Mother's Day

I felt like we needed to go out and do something last Friday so I asked Nico what he wanted to do and he said Fred Meyer. To get legos. He had saved up about 15 dollars. When we got to Fred Meyer he was very quick about his decision. I wasn't used to this. When picking out a toy car it takes him forever plus changing his mind. Legos I guess are different. He bought an Ice Crawler. We came home and put it together. He is amazing! He opened up the lego booklet and saw all the related pieces for the Ice Crawler set and asked me to buy him all of those sets too. I think for his birthday we will get him a huge lego. Hmm, but then I talked to Guy about that idea and he reminded me that with big lego sets, he loses interest before getting to the end. So I think we'll do lots of small ones for his birthday. Including a lego block separator, since taking pieces apart is hard work if you don't have fingernails.

Saturday we went to the market for 3 pounds of ground beef. Nico decided to spend his 2 coins from the market's Sprouts Club to buy some asparagus. You have to buy fresh fruit or veggies with it, and no fresh fruit was available. (apparently fruit is for boys and vegetables are for girls?) When I made him the asparagus later he was not happy. ha ha. He didn't even want to try it. 

About a month back he started saying "EWWW YUCKY!!!" to every dinner I put in front of him, so we told him about a nicer thing to say: "This is not my favorite." Sorry if I have already posted about that, I forget what I have already written sometimes :)

We got this cute poem and handprints from his preschool. Oh man, the poem made me imagine what it will be like someday when Nico no longer crawls into bed with me at night and no longer enjoys snuggling and no longer asks me to play cars with him or rough house. I was definitely feeling grateful this past week that for right now I do have a little buddy that is snuggly and wants to spend all of his time with me.

This next one was a nice Mother's Day Gift, except I don't think Nico understood about it. He showed it to me and I asked him what it was and he said it was a flower. I asked him who it was for and he told me it was for himself. Oh well! I did get quite a treasure of things from Guy - a whole stack of coupons he wrote himself!!! It was fabulous. I am already making a mental list of things for him to do when I cash in his "One weekend of complaint free and instant 'honey-doing'"

And here's the envelope that the first one with the double handprints came in. Nico thanked us for his chocolate yogurts from Trader Joe's.

I saw my Mommy on Mother's Day and Guy called his Mommy on Mother's Day, it was a pretty complete day. No Bible Study that night but we did go out as a family to the Co-op and WinCo. Running errands is fun together, we don't do that very often.

Guy started a long stretch of work days on Wednesday. He is working for about 15 days, though some nights he will be going in at 9 PM instead of 5 PM, which gives us more time with him.

Nico brought home the flower on the left today from school. The flowers on the right are ones that Nico has found growing wild on his adventures outside with Evelyn. He comes running to the front door yelling "JOANNA! JOANNA!" I open the door and he says "I have a flower for you!" The stem on the yellow one was about 2 feet long so I trimmed that one before putting in this jar.

Here is Nico's recipe for lemonade. You can see he numbered the steps 1-3. 

1 - 8 lemons

2 - 1 cup of sugar

3 - 4 cups of water

He was watching Leap Frog this morning on his iPad, and a character in there called Burfder really likes lemons and wanted to make lemonade. Nico was inspired and asked me to pour him some lemon juice in his cup so he could drink it. I explained that it was going to be sour and he said "I want sour lemon juice!" So I poured him about 2 tablespoons and he drank it all. 

He's been drinking from his "baby cup" lately, which is actually a shot glass. He likes having a tall glass full of water next to his baby cup so that when the baby cup runs out, he can refill it.

He is in bed right now singing songs. He stopped for a minute and whined and said "Mommmmmmy, I need some tea."

Me: You need some tea?

Nico: Yes

Me: Why do you need tea?

Nico: Because I want to go to the cabin and have tea

Me: When we go to the cabin on Saturday we can have some tea

Nico: Ok

I think that's it for now. Nico has had no more tummy aches, thank you for the prayers!

Park, Movie, Dentist

Fun times this week. Took Nico and Evelyn for a trip to the Co-op. Allicia provided some money to buy them treats, so I got them each a fruit leather, and then they were enamored by those single serving containers of cream cheese, so I bought them each one. Then we stopped at home to pick up some bread, and we went to the park and they ate cream cheese sandwiches and then played for a little while.  Evelyn picked off all the cream cheese from her sandwich with her finger and left the bread behind. She is a cream cheese lover, just like myself.

On Saturday we went to another sensory friendly movie, this time they played SpongeBob Squarepants. I had never seen the cartoon before, and it really wasn't a very good movie, but Nico really enjoyed it! There was a rap battle at the end of the movie that made me smile though.

We had a few hot days there. We went to the park with Evelyn again one night and came home and Nico was so hot, so we did something we used to do at our old house. I took his socks off and washed his feet in cold water and then let him sit with the water running over his feet.

On Monday Nico had a dentist appointment. He let the hygienist polish all of his teeth this time! I think once he discovered that it tasted good, he was fine with it. His teeth look great, they complimented the wide gaps between his teeth.

One day last week when I took Nico to preschool, we showed up at the same time as someone else so we walked in with them. This has been happening a lot, actually! And Nico is always so excited to see her, her name is Sydney. While we were walking with them he asked her "What did you do last night?" heehee. She told him and then asked him the same question. Sydney's mom commented and said that Nico is the happiest kid she's ever seen.

I've been trying to make more Nico-friendly dinners. For some reason he has lost his taste for chicken!! All he wants now are cheese sandwiches. I am trying to branch out our breakfast, too. I am going to try some breakfast cookies tomorrow instead of making him a chocolate chip pancake. The cookies are made with almond flour, with pecans and dried fruit in them, and maple syrup to sweeten. They are in the freezer right now and tomorrow morning I'll cut them into rounds and bake them. I hope they turn out!

Please pray for: Nico's summer literacy program, that he's able to adapt to the large classroom easily. And for his tummy aches.

That's it! I leave you with a picture of a ladybug that Nico found on the tree out front while we were waiting for the bus on Tuesday.