Butterflies, Rockets, and Potty Training Revisited

Friday was the zoo. Nico let me hold him as we passed by the "Mommy and baby" triceratops so we could get to see the penguins. I told him nothing would happen to him and that the Mommy triceratops was with her baby just like I was with him. He was afraid when we had to pass them again to leave the penguin area, but we got through. We went to see the butterflies, they had just got a large shipment of butterflies there and they were everywhere! Flying all over the place and landing on everyone and everything. Nico had several land on him throughout our time there, including one on his thumb.

He also sat on the dinosaur again. I think he's fine with this one because it doesn't move!

On Saturday he didn't want to go to the market, and I didn't have to, so we skipped it and just went to Trader Joe's, then to Old Park to shoot off foam rockets. I bought this to do at his birthday party so we were trying it out. Good thing, too, because it turns out I needed to tape it together because it very easily falls apart. 

 Setting the rocket to shoot sideways

Every time he'd shoot a rocket off, he wouldn't look up, he would stare straight ahead and wait for the rocket to fall, hear it, then look in that direction to find it on the ground. So I told him I was going to shoot the rocket off and that instead of looking at it being shot off, he should look into the sky and wait for it to come into his view. He did this and when he saw the rocket he was so very excited. This was his expression when he saw it.

Then we went home and I set up the rocket launcher in his room so he could shoot the ceiling, the window, down the hall, which he did happily.

On Sunday my parents had another family get together. Guy had to work overtime that night and really needed sleep, so he slept in while Nico and I went up there. It turned out to be a great thing, because Guy was able to FaceTime with his parents, grandma, and brother. He was Facetiming for a few hours. I was so happy to hear that!

Rory, Nico, Lexie, watching Curious George

Nico took Papa's iPad to the very corner of the porch. A nice quiet spot to sit.

 On the way home I had to pull over to find Nico's water bottle and I asked him if he'd like to see the lake, he said YES, so, we got out of the car and took a gander. The mountains are so green this time of year, it was very beautiful.

On Tuesday we went to visit Evie, twice! Once in the morning to play, and once in the afternoon to watch Evie and Avery while Allicia ran errands. When we arrived, Evie was weeding their container garden. Nico was so excited about the plants! 

Nico harvesting chicken eggs. We got to take home all of the ones he gathered, and he chose the two of them he wanted scrambled for lunch. 

Working together to fill up Evie's tricycle container with rocks.

Nico was very sweet with Avery while we were watching them in the afternoon. I suggested that Nico show Avery the book he was looking at, so he kept saying "Look Avery" (Ay-vuh-E), and telling him about the octopus and all the other things in the book. Then he said to Evie "Story time, Evie, come on the couch. Story time Evie!"

Nico has been having some potty accidents in the last few weeks, #2. He doesn't seem to like to sit on the toilet. We were going through 10 pairs of underwear every day. We weren't sure what to do so we had started giving him timeouts whenever he'd do it. This didn't work so we turned to rewards. We went to Fred Meyer this morning and picked out 4 Hot Wheels cars and one large monster truck in a box the size of a loaf of bread. We came home and I drew him a chart. After one successful bathroom trip, he got one car. After two more, he got another. After a total of 15 times, he gets the monster truck. We also bought stickers to fill in the boxes.

So, there's a few things to note here:

1.) He went to the bathroom successfully today SEVEN TIMES. Not a whole lot each time, but he was persistent, going to the bathroom every 15-30 minutes for the entire day. He wants that monster truck so bad, he cried off and on the entire evening because he wanted it so badly and there was nothing more he could do until he had to poop again. I have realized how much he's not used to delayed gratification! He did really enjoy getting THREE Hot Wheels cars though!

2.) The boxes for the stickers are BIG because I bought a sticker sheet with BIG stickers on it. But he is choosing the tiny traffic signs and traffic cones, putting them right in the middle of the boxes. The one big sticker you see on the page was one that I picked.

After I hung up the chart, he stood in front of it for 5 minutes, repeating what I had told him about it. "Poop one, then a car. Poop one, two, then a car." He spent time counting all the boxes, counting all the cars on the chart, counting the numbers on the chart, and saying "monster truck" a lot. He says "monter".

I found out some sad news this week! We are not allowed to shoot off rockets in the parks, so Nico's rocket-launching party is not going to be what we thought it would be. I already reserved the spot, so we will still have the party and shoot off foam rockets and eat cupcakes. Unfortunately we had already purchased the rockets, too. I will need to find out where we can go to shoot those off.

I think that's it for this week! I have a nagging feeling I forgot something, but I'm not going to stress it. Until next time! 

(I remembered what I had forgotten - Guy's FaceTime! Just added it to the entry.)

Potty Train'd!

It looks like we have a potty trained toddler on our hands! We still have him in diapers at night time, but this morning his diaper was DRY, so we may be cutting out the diapers all together very soon! The first time Nico told me that he had to go potty and then actually WENT potty, it was incredible! The transition from taking him potty every few hours to just letting him tell me when he had to go was a smooth one. He has been wearing pants during the day now instead of just underwear.

So, this past week, we went to visit G.G. in Nampa. It was great to see her. She let Nico play with all the cars that she could find and also a little handheld card game that beeps when buttons are pressed. He enjoyed that! He also had his first away-from-home potty success while we were there! We'll be going back for our next visit in March.

In church on Sunday, I stayed with Nico in the nursery for about half the time, to make sure that he felt comfortable going to the potty if he needed to. I took him to the potty several times, but he never went. Indeed, he didn't go once while we were there, and we even made it home with no accidents to report!

I hadn't hung out with Nico in the nursery for a while, so it was neat to see how his interactions with other children has changed. He approaches the kids now, and tries to "talk" to them using signs. He signed "car" a lot. He also uses his "DAH, DAH" noise to talk to the kids, and increases in volume until he gets a response. The other kids were talking to Nico by saying "DAH DAH" back to him!

We've had a few warmer days this past week, and sunny ones, we've gone for a few walks in the afternoons. We usually bring home the prizes that he finds. Sticks. Or a pine cone. 

Every Wednesday I roast up a whole chicken. Nico can pack away the chicken when it's fresh from the oven. Reheated leftovers don't go as quickly. I don't blame him, though. A fresh chicken right from the oven is heavenly. I pour him some "chicken juice" (the drippings) into a tiny mug for him to sip on. When he gets tired of that, I use a spoon to scoop up the drippings straight from the pan and between Nico and myself we consume most of it. Then we have a bit of the drippings leftover to heat up on other days.

Nico's least favorite part of chicken night is the fact that he has to eat his vegetables FIRST. Otherwise he just wouldn't eat them.

In the picture below, I'm not sure if you can tell, but he has chicken grease ALL over himself. One thing Nico loves to do is wipe his hands off on his hair, and chicken grease is no exception. He had it on his hair, his face, his hands and arms and all over his shirt. 

We headed to the library today to reset our book collection. On the way back to the car, we were walking down the ramp instead of taking the stairs, and Nico stopped and sat down on the ramp and tried to scoot himself forward. He was sure it was a slide.

Nico has learned a lot of the letters of the alphabet on his own by playing different apps on the iPad. He can say D, P, B, O, R, M, T, E, V, and F. He tries to say a lot of the other ones, too.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!! This morning was like any other morning except we read the Christmas story over breakfast and then opened a bunch of presents! Nico loved all his new things, but may have been a bit too overwhelmed by all of it because he had some crabby parts throughout the day. He watched his hour-long Curious George movie a few times, we ate a nice roast chicken dinner, played with his new train set with Daddy in the evening, and then we finished watching Totoro. A very nice day indeed.

We took the picture with our new camera (stay tuned for high def videos, I'm sure I'll be posting some!) We sat in front of the tree for a while, not sure when the self timer would go off, then we realized that it was taking a picture every 5 seconds until we turned it off. Cool feature, because we have a nice collection of about 10 pictures and we actually got a good one!

Chicken Sandwich

Eating a chicken sandwich, made with chicken pancakes as the bread (chicken and eggs mixed in a food processor, then fried into pancakes) and avocado, cheese, and mustard inside. Yum! He approved.

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.