Strider Strides

It turns out that it's a hit and miss with dried apples at one or the other market. They switch back and forth! We were out of luck in choosing the right market last Saturday, but thankfully there was another vendor selling dried apples that we were able to buy from. Nico also got a balloon snake made for him. And then we actually ended up going to BOTH markets since we were able to easily find a parking spot for the other one. We bought some bok choy and radishes.

Stopping at some benches to eat some dried apples before walking back to our car.

Lots of parks this week. We've discovered which ones are best as morning parks and which are best as afternoon parks. The best of the best afternoon park is Memorial Park.

At Memorial Park

In the afternoon the entire park is covered in shade! So if it's a hot day, this is the only acceptable park to go to in the afternoon. The Fish Park would be 2nd, but a lot of it is still in the sun. At Memorial Park last week, we started a new thing - Nico gives me a high five on the way down the slide. He enjoyed this so much that the other kid at the park wanted to do it, too. So for a while, Nico and this little girl went up and down the slide, each giving me a high five as they passed. And when I say they went UP the slide, I mean it literally! They would both give me high fives on the way up, too.

Nico's fever seemed to return on Monday, so I went back to  using the essential oils and humidifier in his room. I've been running his humidifier every night since then. I figured tonight would be the last night, since he hasn't had a smidge of a temperature since Monday and his runny nose is all gone. I may have decided to run it tonight only because I preferred filling it back up with water over dismantling it and putting it away.

On Tuesday we had an appointment to get our vents cleaned out, but when the technician was down in our crawl space setting things up, he found that the top part of a section of our vent had been replaced with a strip of fiberglass insulation, and it had caved in. The picture he took showed us that the insulation had caved in and was almost blocking the entire airway. We told our landlord and he will be sending someone out to take a look at it.

We went to the aquarium on Wednesday, and met a friend and her two small sons there. Nico also had another speech therapy appointment on Wednesday. She brought a whole bunch of new toys and new strategies. She gave me a handout and left some activities for us to do during the week. She encouraged me to spend time helping him make sounds. So I added it to our morning routine. Right after chores we'll be spending some time focusing on sounds. Marcia makes it look so easy!!

A typical evening

Nico likes to "tighten" the bolts on his Strider. And hook up the pump to the fake air intake valves on his tires. I love this picture because you can see how excited he was that he got the pump hooked up. He puts his hands on the back of his hips and smiles.

Testing out the spinning wheel

And a Nico Snippets VIDEO is coming up!! It is still uploading to youtube (40 minutes left) but will be posted soon! Nico has really started to catch on to riding the Strider - you will see some of his smooth moves in the video!

Bonfire!

Saturday we went to the Farmer's Market. Apparently both the new and the old market have the same dried apple vendor, so now we just choose whichever one is easiest to park at. It turns out the old market is the easiest. We park in the parking garage and the first hour is free. We never stay more than an hour anyway! We went to the fountain in the middle of the market and Nico wasn't bashful at all like last year. He walked right into the middle of it and got soaked!

On Sunday all of us went up to the cabin for a bonfire with the family. Once the flames died down we were able to roast marshmallows on the coals.

Nico had a great time throwing rocks off the mountain with his cousin Lexie. He got good and dirty!

Holding an ax with Papa.

Eating the yummy food. Strawberries and grapes and lara bars, oh my! (with a little meat/veggie/garlic omelet on the side)

The whole crew.

Nico helping me out with the dishes.

More chores! One of Nico's favorite things to do is refill the steam mop. He is pretty good at not spilling any water.

A bike ride with Daddy. You can see that he is very nearly too tall for the bike seat!

Nico had another speech therapy appointment on Wednesday, but he was NOT in a talking mood. He sat on my lap and hid his face in my chest the whole time, which is very unlike him! Marcia could barely get him to say anything. We tried to work on chewing by putting some nut butter on the end of a celery stalk and having him chew on it, but he just sucked on the celery and had no desire to chew. Marcia said that sometimes kids just don't want to talk! So we ended the session early. She'll be back in 2 weeks. 

What we enforce with him at home is very important to Nico's success in speech therapy, so I will be working hard to encourage talking. Today I started enforcing his use of the word "banana", which he calls "nana". He caught on quickly and asked for a "nana" several times today without signing. 

Also today he randomly assigned the name "mommy" to one of the tires on his truck. He then assigned "daddy" to one of the other wheels. When I asked him where the baby was, he pointed to another wheel. I pointed to the fourth wheel and said "who is that?" and he said "baby".

Another thing that kind of blew my mind this week was his drawings. He spends a lot of time drawing the same sort of things over and over again, like he's being purposeful in what he's trying to draw. At one point Guy asked Nico what he was drawing and he responded by saying that he was drawing Mommy! Sure enough, he was drawing circles within circles like he was trying to draw a face.

Another one of my favorites was where it looked like he was trying to write words, because all of his small scribbles were in a perfect line.

That's all I can remember from last week!

OH, I forgot an important note - Nico had his hearing tested on Tuesday morning and it was perfect! It will be retested in 6 months just to make sure.

Crowned with Good Things

Saturday was opening day of the Boise Farmer's Market. This is a different market than the one we went to all last year. The Boise Farmer's Market is a bunch of vendors that have split off from the Capital City Public Market (the one we went to last year)... so every Saturday there will be TWO markets! We will pick the one that has dried apples. Which happens to be the Boise Farmer's Market! We bought some on Saturday and Nico was so happy to have those to eat again.

On Sunday, Guy and Nico and I all went to a Bible Study. Since Guy isn't able to go to church Sunday morning because of work, going to a Bible Study on Sunday night may become a common thing for us. It was fun to be out and about together, and though we couldn't stay long because Nico started melting, we will go back next week!

Nico had his first speech therapy appointment today (Thursday). If you remember, it was supposed to be last Friday, but it was moved to this Wednesday and then moved again to today. But it finally happened! Last Thursday I fed Nico a lot of a tasty food called pemmican. It is 70% beef tallow (FAT) and I think I gave him too much, so he got sick in the middle of the night. He was fine just fine afterward, went right back to sleep, and was his old self in the morning. But I called Marcia anyway (the speech therapist) to tell her. She said that since she works with a lot of medically fragile kids, that she didn't want to risk coming over and exposing herself and then possibly one of them. I agreed, and so we rescheduled for Wednesday. Marcia then had to reschedule that appointment for Thursday.

The first part of the appointment was her doing an evaluation of Nico's current speech skills so that she could report it to the school district for Nico's transition appointment which happens next Wednesday. I'm not sure exactly what this appointment will entail, but they need all the information they can get before they decide whether to accept Nico into the program. I will know more next week!

The rest of the appointment was Marcia and Nico playing with wind up toys. Whenever Nico wanted the wind up toy to go, he had to say something. She focused on the word "More" and "Car", since he has strong M and C sounds already.  He says "Mo" and "Ka" for More and Car. So from here on out we are supposed to have him say Mo or Ka instead of signing the words. He can still sign them, but he will have to say them, too. She was good, and it was cool to see Nico get into the habit of saying "Mo" even after just a little bit.

We took our first trip to the Fish Park this week, in fact we went twice! We spend most of our time in the lobby playing with the stream bed simulator.

This past week I won a contest. My friend Shaylen owns Custom Pop Art Portraits and she has a giveaway every week. I won this past week! I sent her a picture of Nico that Grandpa Russell had taken during Christmas. It is one of my favorite pictures of Nico (if not my favorite). You can see the pic I sent along with her pop art interpretation of it!

I love that it's black and white but his eyes are blue! And the morning after I got this picture from her, I read Psalm 8:5 and Joyce Meyer's commentary on it. Joyce says:

"You have been singled out by God, Who has placed His crown of glory and honor, or favor and excellence, upon your head, according to Psalm 8:5."

Psalm 8:5 says "You have made them [human beings] a little lower than angels and crowned them with glory and honor."

I thought this was pretty timely, considering Nico's crown in the picture. Nico has been singled out by God, and He has placed a crown of glory and honor, favor and excellence on his head. I am overjoyed to be his mom and I can't wait to see his life continue to unfold!

Tonight we went on a walk with the Strider. I adjusted his seat to a good level and Nico moved himself onto the seat instead of walking scooted in front and off the seat. While he's not "riding" it yet, he has started running with it. Soon I think he'll start actually sitting on the seat.

Oh and I can't forget to mention some exciting news about the near future - we will be taking a trip to Arlington! Nico's Great Grandma Gohl is turning 90 years old, and we will get to be there for her birthday. We are all very excited about this! This will be at the end of May.

Love Those Dried Apples

Went to the market this morning to get two bags of dried apples. It wasn't too cold outside, which was nice. We also got some beef liver. We sat on a bench for a while (two benches, facing each other) munching on our apples before heading home.

Also went to the Fish Park. We've been going for walks shortly after Guy leaves for work every evening. Just a quick one around the block. Nico grabs a few rocks every time and when we come home we put them in a tiny jar. This morning I found the jar in the fridge!

Delivery

We got a delivery of diapers and wipes today, 3 different boxes since they were both packed into a larger one. Nico had fun playing with all 3 of them!

Saturday market this morning. Our normal dried apple purveyor is not at the market any more this year, so we stopped by the market booth and asked if there was any other place that sold dried fruit. Yes, one other place! We stopped by and bought dried apples from them. They are different than what we're used to, but they are still very tasty. We also picked up our holiday turkey.

To Market To Market

This morning at the market.

We've been buying dried apples with cinnamon. I gave Nico the choice of which ones he wanted and he chose cinnamon. They are delicious!

This evening we went on a family trip to the Co-op. Nico doesn't like being in grocery carts, so having a wing-man is quite handy! Guy can always carry Nico on his shoulders if he gets unruly.

Market Apples

Trip to the Saturday Market this morning. Dried apples, strawberries, and a whole chicken were among our purchases. I bring the stroller so that I have a place to put the stuff. Nico likes to be held at first, but after we buy the dried apples (our first stop), I put him in the stroller and he is happy to munch on the apples while I push him around.

In the late afternoon we did FaceTime with the Grandparents Russell and with Great Grandma Gohl! It was Grandpa's birthday today.

Russell Reunion

Nico had a lot of fun at the Russell reunion. He played in the water, played with the dogs, and ate a lot of dried apples.

Dried Apples

We picked up a small bag of dried apples from the Saturday Market on Saturday. Nico loves them!