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.

Recovering and Playing

Well, Nico didn't have an overnight miraculous recovery form his cold, so we kept him home from school last Friday. He missed picture day, but he'll be able to make it up in November. I caught the cold on Friday night, and Guy followed suit on Saturday. It was a pretty mild cold overall, no fever involved, just sore throats and runny noses.

On Friday, though he missed school, we went out to the dollar store to get him a new Cars puzzle. He was very excited about it. 48 piece puzzle, and after helping him put together the border, he can put the entire inside together on his own. Saturday we pulled out ALL his puzzles, pushed the couch to the edge of the living room and used the living room floor.

We've also been playing a lot of the memory game, which Nico is getting quite good at. Flipping cards over and trying to find their match. We also pull out the board games for older people and take out all the pieces and pretend we're playing the game. He builds fences or towers with the game pieces.

Then on Saturday night Papa and Grandma Salisbury came by to bring us some fruit. Guy had left for work already and so we weren't able to go get some pears, which is what I was wanting. Nico wanted a green apple, and so the Grandparents Salisbury went and got us some fruit since they were in town already. It was just what we needed after feeling icky all day with a cold!

I made some apple butter this week in the crockpot. It turned out REALLY yummy, so I think I'll be making more of it when the apples go on sale. Five pounds of apples made more than a quart of apple butter. No sugar or spices added, and even Guy said it was really good! (G.G., I am bringing you some on Monday!)

Guy worked Saturday night and then he has a total of 9 days off in a row. Wowww! He has worked every night for the past 2 weeks (at least! It may be closer to 3 weeks), and he was ready for a break. We have been having fun so far. Going to parks, and having friends over. On Wednesday, Jeff and Allicia came over. Evie and Nico played in Nico's room while the adults (plus Avery) played a board game - Pandemic - the one that we got Guy for his birthday. It was a lot of fun.

Nico and Evie playing in Nico's bed.

Today I volunteered again at Nico's school, this time cutting out leaves! I got to see Nico this time, too. I went into his classroom to pick up the stuff. He was excited to see me, and showed me what he was playing with. This week they are learning about scarecrows and pumpkins and the colors black, orange and white. They are doing a pumpkin patch activity tomorrow and they have an early release.

Tonight, Guy is out with friends at another Rifftrax event (MST3K spinoff). He was very excited about it and I'm so glad he has some major relaxing and enjoying going on this week.

Nico has been talking a lot about bumpy things lately. The road is bumpy when the car bounces, so he says "Buppy Row" (bumpy road). Bumpy hand (when he's driving one of his cars over his hand) or bumpy _____ depending on what his cars are driving over when he says it. He repeats most everything we say now, using his own words. It is difficult sometimes trying to figure out what he means, but when we do figure it out it's just genius, that he can say that particular thing. Lawn mower, for instance, or Sound, Big, one more piece, too big, nico's turn, fix it, broken bumper, Nico too big bus (Nico is too big to fit into his toy bus), wheels, broken train... he has even started saying "cooo" for Curious George! He has also learned how to scream at the top of his lungs :)

Counting

Not a lot of pictures this week, but I make up for it with a video. Check it out at the bottom, and hear him count!!

Nico has been counting, saying his own name when he wants to do something (point to the slide at the park, then point to himself and say Nico), and saying "Mine" when referring to something that is his.

Both Guy and I have experienced just this past week, for the first time, Nico getting frustrated because he couldn't communicate with us what he wanted to say. Neither of us have seen him frustrated about talking before, but it was obvious to each of us that he was trying to figure out how to say what he was thinking. When I witnessed it, he was trying to say "Greenbelt" (we went to the Greenbelt with the Strider) but he kept saying "Cah"and I kept thinking he was saying Car. He paused often and tried again and again and again but couldn't say it. The look on his face while he was concentrating was definite frustration. I finally figured out what he was trying to say and then coached him through saying "green" and then "belt" and then putting them together.

This week's theme at preschool is learning body parts and about the five senses. Homework was a body parts poem. We also got our very first Scholastic Book Order form. We figured we would wait until Nico is older and able to pick out what books he'd like to get. Both Guy and I remember getting these when we were younger and picking out books to buy.

The bus attendant this morning told me that once last week, Nico started fussing and crying a bit and asking for me, and it turned out that he had wet pants. I felt so bad! Nico is still having the occasional accident, but we're dealing with those. The biggest issue now is teaching him how to aim. He often comes home from school wearing different pants than what he wore to school. Sometimes he comes home in someone else's pants because he ran out of spare clothes.

He has skipped his nap the past 3 days. I think we might be done with naps entirely. But he makes up for it in the evening by going to bed by 8 PM.

On Tuesday this week, as he was getting on the bus, for the first time he said "No buh" and turned around and started getting off the bus. I turned him back around and said "Yep, we're gonna ride the bus today, you'll be okay!" but what was really going on in my head was "Ok, Nico! You don't have to get on the bus any more, let's get off this icky bus and I will drive you to school today and forever." I'm glad I didn't actually say that :)

But, I must say, in general Nico is a happy and chipper bus rider. The bus driver in the morning always makes comments about how happy Nico is! I think the morning he turned around to get off the bus, he was just asserting his decision making skills. And when he comes home in the afternoon, after he gets down off the bus, I pick him up and carry him into the house and he hugs me the whole way, saying "Mommy!" Then I ask him how his day was and he says "Nnnduh!"

Buses, Friends, and Candles

We had some extended family in town this past week for a wedding, and Nico and I got to see some Aunts and Uncles briefly on Sunday after church. On Monday, my Aunt Mary came over with my Mom to say hello for a little while. It was great to see everyone!

On Tuesday we went to see G.G. in Nampa. She gave us more bounty from her garden. Yum! The next time we go to Nampa to see her it will be a Monday because Nico will be in preschool Tuesday through Friday. PRESCHOOL!

Preschool starts next Wednesday, 6 more days! I can't believe it. We got Nico's bus schedule in the mail yesterday. On Monday while my Mom and Aunt were over, we saw the school bus drive by and stop in front of our house for half a minute or so. I knew she would be doing this to get her route down, but it was neat to see it. It made it all the more real! And then of course, getting his official pickup/dropoff times in the mail made it even MORE real. He will be picked up at 8:35 AM and dropped off at 12:29 PM. Four whole hours he will be gone! It is hard to believe. He won't be taking the bus his first day, we are going to ease into that. I think my Mom and I are going to drop him off in the morning and head over to Target to do some shopping, to distract me from the fact that Nico won't be with me :) Shopping is a great distraction technique!

Next Tuesday is the open house where he will meet his teacher and get to show him around the school. I am looking forward to that.

We got a package today with a backpack in it for Nico - a gift from the Grandparents Salisbury! He chose one that had a car on it. While Guy was leaving for work, Nico noticed he had his bag around his shoulder, which Nico called a backpack (buckabuh). He said "Two buckabuh! Cah buckabuh. Daddy buckabuh." A nice story from Nico - he saw two backpacks. His own car backpack and Daddy's backpack. On our walk tonight he also was talking about puddles (putteh), and told me that the pickup went through a puddle (puckabuh putteh).

Nico wearing his new backpack.

We spent this morning with Evie. We went to see the little family and then took Evie with us for another lunch date. We went to Memorial park and then to the Co-op. A good lesson in handling two kids in a grocery store! It wasn't that bad, as they are both very well behaved. We even went potty in the Co-op. Then we went back home and ate lunch. Evie told me "I'm ready to go home now." after playing for a while after lunch. It was the exact time we were going to leave anyway, so I said "Ok, let's go!" Nico then took a two hour nap. In the video you can see how they typically interact when together. Evie is good at picking up the words Nico says and repeating them back to him. When Nico would say "tickie" for train, Evie would say "Where is the tickie? Where do you see it?"

Tonight we had a flash thunderstorm. We didn't lose our electricity, but I had a sudden urge to do a "candle factory". We used to do these when we were little whenever the lights would go out due to a thunderstorm. Pull all your candles out and light them, then play with the wax on aluminum foil spread over the kitchen table. Playing safely with fire is a good skill to have :) Nico is likely a little too young for this, so we did a slightly modified version of it. We just lit the candles and held them and then blowed them out, and poured some wax onto the foil. Nico loved blowing out the candles. Blowing is an excellent skill to have for speech development. I also had an urge to make some hot chocolate, but we weren't able to do that. An hour later the sun was back out, so we went for a Strider ride. When we came home, our landlord was on our roof cleaning up all the dead and broken branches. Wind storms can really tear up the trees!

Candle Factory. Yes, this is exactly where Nico burnt his finger.

VIDEO: Evie and Nico Snippets

State Capitol and Tomatoes

I've been trying to think of things I'd like to do with Nico before preschool starts. Just 3 short weeks before it's time! One of the things I wanted to do was take him to the State Capitol. I have taken him before, but never with a camera, and never armed with pocket change so we could buy a postcard. So on Wednesday I took him to the Capitol with these two things in hand. His favorite part of the Capitol building is the stars that they have painted on the very tippy top of the dome. The postcard we bought has a picture of the stars on it.

After climbing the steps.

Looking up at the stars, comparing it to his postcard.

Another thing I wanted to do was take Nico on a bus ride. Guy showed some interest in this one, so I think Guy and Nico will be going on a bus ride in the next few weeks.

A drawing Nico made today. He's drawing faces now!

The backside. He drew an "E". A SUPER E! :) He was very proud of it.

We also harvested our first tomatoes from the garden. Nico is showing great interest in plucking tomatoes and we've gone out there every day for the past 3 days so that he can pick a tomato. Then we go inside and wash it off and I cut it up for him. He loves them! Seeing the bounty from the garden got me a little more motivated, so I cleaned the garden bed up, soaked some seeds, and planted them today for a fall harvest of lettuce, beans, chard and basil.

I've stopped keeping track of Nico's new words, because he tries to repeat a lot of what we say and is adding new words daily. But a phrase he has started saying is "Byebye Mommy!" He practiced saying "Byebye Van" the whole way to church on Sunday. He got it right some of the time, but kept trying and kept trying, often falling into the habit of saying Mommy instead of Van. Whenever he'd say Byebye, he would also wave his hand. It was interesting to hear him practice over and over and over again. So proud of him!

I figured it was about time for a video. A video from Nico's birthday party of us singing Happy Birthday to him, and then a Summer Snippet video.

Sprinkler

Jumping right into pictures here..

We harvested from our garden for the first time - broccoli!

Playing

 At the Aquarium

He read his tractor books and decided to attach some floss to the hitch on the back of his tractors. You can kind of see the floss at the bottom of the picture.

Nico wasn't feeling well on Saturday, woke up with some stomach problems. But we have finally reached the milestone of Nico knowing when he is going to throw up! He asked for his bucket several times, and hung his head in there to wait for it. I don't think it was viral, as he made up for missing breakfast and more after his nap. I think we're dealing with some food intolerances.

We skipped church on Sunday to make sure he was fully recovered.

Nico seems to be a lot more interested in repeating sounds and words this week without being asked. I've stopped recording individual words that he says, because he now repeats too many things to keep track.

Short and sweet today. Leaving you with a sprinkler shot!

Ten-tee

Nico said a sentencey phrase on Monday! I went to the dentist and when I came home, Nico said "Mommy. Ten-tee. Car. Daddy." Interpretation: Mommy went to the dentist in the car, and Daddy stayed home with me! I told the speech therapist about this on Tuesday and she was excited. Also, Nico was really cooperative on Tuesday and Marcia was able to move on to more advanced techniques, like trying to say a word with a consonant on the end, like BED. He's not able to copy the sounds just yet on those. She also worked on repeating sounds a certain number of times, or alternating sounds. Like "buh buh buh" or "buh ba buh ba". Nico caught on to the repetition, but not the alternating. On Thursday (Marcia came over twice this week!) Nico initiated his own ABC app on his iPad and took Marcia through it, repeating everything in it, just like she would have asked him to do. He seems more eager these days to repeat words.

Nico has also been doing a lot of two syllable words all on his own. He said "meatball" by saying "Ha (the Hhh sound that an H makes) bah". The "Ha" means that it was hot. So, he said hot ball! He strung two words together to describe something else! This is definitely a milestone for him. Also, cocoon, and various other random ones.

On Sunday we went to the cabin to hang with family. Nico got to see his cousin Alexis, they have a lot of fun together!

We also saw Sarah, and Allicia and Evie this week. The speech therapist also was here twice, trying to get more appointments in before Nico turns 3 in a few weeks.

Nico got a black eye this week from falling into his bed after trying to swing his leg over the last step without holding onto anything. Ouch!

Now for some pictures..

Playing with the sandbox.

 Helping me sort foam shapes for an activity we are doing at his birthday party. He was getting really fast at this near the end. He would hold two different colors, one in each hand, then scope out where they went, and then ... paused... and said GO! And then would put each color away at the same time.

 Our broccoli is almost ready to harvest!

An interesting seed pod on our walk tonight.

And one last note - on a walk earlier this week, Nico spotted a MINI on the street, and pointed to it and said "MINI!" So impressed with his car recognition!

Garden

I forgot it was blog day until just a few hours ago! I have been busy preparing for our trip. We leave on Saturday for Washington! I've been prepping meals and making lists and shopping and planning and thinking. But I will take a break right now and recall our past week.

Last Friday we went to Nampa to visit G.G. Loved seeing her again, she sent Nico home with a little wooden box that he plays with every day now. It's a different one than is shown in the picture. He especially loves to put his micro machines in the box, since they fit perfectly.

Playing at G.G.'s house.

On Sunday my Dad (aka Papa) dropped off a garden box that he built for me (us). 4' x 4', with posts that go into the ground. He also brought us some plants and some organic dirt!! So Monday afternoon we all went outside and finished digging the post holes (well, Guy did that). It was too hot for much else. Nico and I went back out there Monday night (when the box was shaded) and filled the box with dirt after laying down weed cloth. Then on Tuesday we planted. Tomatoes, cauliflower and broccoli. I picked up some more seeds from the Co-op and we'll be planting those soon.

Nico striking a pose, wearing my gloves.

Watering the plants.

We are so excited to be growing vegetables! Thank you so much Papa!!

On Sunday night we headed over to Bible Study but when we got there, no one else was there. Nico was so incredibly sad about this and kept saying "Bubby" (Bible) over and over again and pointing to the house, whining and carrying on. We apologized to Nico and told him he could choose where we would go instead. He chose Camel's Back Park. So, we went! We stopped off at Red Robin beforehand and spent the rest of a gift certificate there to get Guy a milkshake. Then at Camel's Back, instead of going for the park, Nico chose to walk over to the foothill that is right next to the park. He intended to climb it, and climb he did! Guy was right behind him the whole way while I stayed behind. They made it all the way to the top and then came back down. As soon as they came back down, Nico turned right around and said he wanted to climb it again. Wow, the energy! But it was time for home and bath and snack and bed, so we trucked home.

Cell phone picture of the boys almost back at the bottom.

Wednesday was a busy day for us. Nico had another speech therapy appointment. New words this week: icky, potato (day-doh), coffee (kah-pee), and apple (ah-buh). Icky, potato and coffee were totally random and not prompted, he just said them out of the blue. Guy and I were just flabbergasted when we both heard him say Coffee for the first time. Apple was prompted by the speech therapist. He said icky in reference to his wet underwear, without being prompted. Oh - one I forgot about was knife "ffff", which he said unprompted because I didn't understand what he wanted when he was pointing to the silverware drawer. He wanted his knife so he could "cut" his steak like I always do. 

Shortly after speech therapy on Wednesady, my Mom arrived to watch Nico while I went to my appointment with the school district regarding Nico's preschool this fall. I was so incredibly impressed with everyone there. I was blown away by how nice and joyful everyone was. Nico's teacher was the sweetest lady. She has a daughter with a lot of the same food allergies that Nico has, and so I felt a little more at ease knowing that she is tuned in to that kind of thing. I'll just be providing Nico's snack instead of the school providing it. Nico will be going to school in the mornings, bussed to and from school only after the first few weeks of me driving him. I am very excited for him!

Today (Thursday), we had the vent cleaners come back out to clean the vents, after having our ductwork fixed on Tuesday. He said that the vents were incredibly dirty. I'm glad we got them cleaned!

Our car had trouble starting today. It tried and tried but wouldn't turn over.  When I pumped the gas it finally started. We made an appointment with the car fixer tomorrow. We don't want anything going wrong on our trip, so we're getting the problem diagnosed and fixed if needed.

Me and my buddy, before going on a long walk, followed by a Strider ride.

That's it for this week! Stay tuned next week for pictures from our trip!

Cousins, Sniffles and Storms

On Saturday morning, Nico and I met Lizzie and Bruce and Rory at Municipal Park to plaaay! It was great to see all of them. Bruce is so attentive to Nico and loves to help him do things and make sure that he is being safe on the playground. He also really likes to make Nico laugh. What a great cousin!

On Sundays we are continuing to go to a Bible Study hosted by people from our church. They are very welcoming of us and of Nico. We bring cars for Nico to play with and they also have a bag of cars for him to play with. He lies on the floor and plays with the cars, or gets up and walks around showing the cars to the people. About halfway through he'll wander over to where we are to get a snack. I bring him a banana or a baggie full of cut up dried apricots and nuts. It has been very nice to be a part of the group. There are about 6 regular attenders other than us, all of them older, and they refer to themselves as "grandparents" to Nico. 

Sunday morning Nico had started randomly sneezing, and Monday morning he woke up with a slight fever and a case of the sniffles. Grandma Salisbury came over for a visit and brought with her some essential oils since I had run out of Melaleuca (the one I use to ward off ear infections). It was great to have her for a visit!

The next day, Nico was really itching to get outside. Even though he still had a bit of a heightened temp, we went out to go for a walk. WHO can resist the mild temperatures and the sun and the birds singing and the fresh air?? I was pretty sure it would be good for us! When we got outside, Nico literally RAN around the block with me. Then we walked a second time around. He had a lot of built up energy!

We have had mild weather days, but we've also had a few storms. We had thunder so loud Monday night that I about jumped through the roof. Guy also mentioned that it was the loudest thunder he had ever heard. It shook the whole house and continued shaking it and rumbling for about 15 seconds. Nico wasn't fazed by it at all. We also had quite a wind storm last night that was pretty incredible. When I went to bed in the evening there were leaves all over our bed that had flown in through the window.

On Wednesday both Guy and I woke up with sore throats. Looks like the cold has become a family affair! I had to reschedule our monthly visit to G.G. for next Friday instead of tomorrow. I don't want to spread it around!

I got a call from the school district today and we set up our next meeting to talk about preschool. It looks like Nico is officially set to go to preschool in the fall - August 28th is the first day of school, a mere month after he turns 3 years old. At the meeting we will talk about logistics and I will likely know at that time which part of the day he will be going, and how many days per week. The meeting is Wednesday May 22nd, so a few weeks away. I am looking forward to it!

The nightly ritual of playing on our bed

Running some errands - Nico has his harmonica

Running up the stairs at the library

No speech therapy this week, but Nico has added a few words to his vocabulary. Grandma is "nama", Banana is "nana", iPad is "O-bah". We've been trying to remember to enforce all of them! Guy remarked that he has noticed Nico has been babbling a lot more and trying out a lot of new sounds.

Trip to the Fish Park

Preschool?

We were able to go see G.G. again on Friday. She had a brand new toy truck waiting for Nico to play with (and to take home!) He loves it! On our way home I stopped at a park in Nampa that we had never been to before to let Nico play a little bit. New parks are always fun!

On Wednesday we had Nico's transition appointment with the Boise School District. The meeting took place at the Madison Early Learning Center. It used to be an elementary school, but now it just houses preschool types. Nico came with me so they could interact with him and watch him while playing with toys. They said that based on his expressive language skill scores that he qualifies for the program, but he won't be "officially" accepted until all the paperwork is gone over. They told me that the classrooms have 10 kids to one teacher, one assistant, and then a speech pathologist and occupational therapist are also on staff. They even offer door-to-door bussing if we want to take advantage of that. There is an AM and a PM session, Nico would go to one or the other, and it is Tuesday-Friday, though he would only go however many days a week the speech pathologist recommends.

Guy and I still have to talk about whether we want Nico to do this, but I think we are leaning toward YES. School would start August 28th for him. Wow.. school! Already?? I can't believe he's nearly three years old! Where did the time go?

As a result of the meeting, we are going to have Nico's hearing tested. I don't think there will be a problem with it, but with such a speech delay, the speech pathologist at the meeting was concerned. And because of his perforated ear drum a few months ago, it would be a good idea to get it checked anyway.

Also on Wednesday, Nico had his second speech therapy appointment. Since he was eating a snack when Marcia arrived, she had a good look at his chewing. She said that he is still doing the chipmunk chew and isn't using his back molars to grind the food like he should be doing. Next time she comes over (2 weeks from now), we're going to work on that by putting nut butter onto a thin cut celery stalk and having him chew on one side and then the other. She can also put nut butter on the inside of his cheek to require him to use his tongue to remove it. Chewing and speaking are related, so strengthening his tongue and teaching him to chew correctly will help him to make better sounds.

We went to the Toddler Open Gym on both Tuesday and Thursday. We hadn't been there in a while. Nico always remembers the road we turn on to go to the Gym, because nearly every time we pass it, he asks to go down it. Nico spends a lot of time while in the car asking to go places. "Da da!" And when I turn around to look at what he's signing, it's one or another park, or the library, or church. Even if we are on our way to a park already, he asks to go to all the other parks in addition.

Nico playing at the Toddler Open Gym

Nico at the Co-op

A video from this week - at the end you'll hear some of Nico's current words

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.

Hair Cut!

Milestone among children: The First Haircut. Nico has had his first hair cut! On Tuesday Guy got out the hair scissors and we set him up in the dining room.

Before

During

After

Guy was concerned that he didn't do a good job, but I think he did a fantastic job, especially considering that Nico was a wiggle baby! I kept a lock of his hair and will be printing some pictures to put in his baby album. 

On Wednesday we went to the zoo for the first time this year. We were there for 45 minutes but didn't get much further than a few 100 feet and only saw goats and a red panda. There was the giraffe slide we had to play on, and oh my, the sandbox! And the lion/seal/elephant statues we had to climb on, and the prairie dog tunnel we had to go through. I let him do whatever his little heart desired and those are the things he chose. I was so pleased that he was having such a good time! We also went to the gift shop and I got him a small toy helicopter and a few small rubbery animal figurines to add to our collection. We will be going back soon to see the rest of the zoo. He asked to go back later that day, and we were actually on our way back there when he decided he'd rather go to the "Goose" Park. He says "Gheee!" when he wants to go to that park. 

Another milestone: successfully climbing up a slide for the first time! (this actually happened at Memorial Park earlier this week, not at the park in the picture)

This morning at the Co-op I was marveling how he recited every letter in the name "Boise Co-op" which was printed on the cart (and upside down, at that!) When he got to the dash he said "dubaduh". He has also started telling us stories, which is awesome to see. In the past the only time he has communicated something solid was when he wanted something (water, potty, chicken, banana). But now, for example, holding up one of his trucks he will say "Pah" (for potty). He's telling us that he got that truck as a reward for going potty. This is a new step in communication! And on Monday morning when we went over to see Allicia and Evie, Nico said "Noooo" while signing Old Park, and then he signed "Evie".  He did this over and over again, he was telling me that we are NOT going to Old Park, we are going to see Evie! Evie lives right near Old Park, so I think he was clarifying. How cool to see him start to communicate like this. I'm excited to see it progress!

Nico's first speech therapy appointment is next Wednesday at 2:15. She'll be coming over every Wednesday after that, at 2:15, for 15 weeks. Also coming up in the next few weeks is Nico's transition appointment with the public school district, to see if he qualifies for transferring to a free preschool this fall that will offer him speech therapy. The program is there to help kids transition into kindergarten from the Infant/Toddler Program. So excited for the possibilities!

From tonight's walk. Nico dragging his tricycle home.