Pinewood Derby!

Last Friday was the Pinewood Derby. Out of 30+ cars, Nico came in 18th. He was very excited. Each car races 4 times and then the scores are tallied up to determine the winners. Since him and Guy had spent so much time working on the car, I think Nico was expecting a bit more winning. His very first of 4 races he came in last place against 3 other cars. The look on his face was sad (checkout video at end of blog), but then in the next race he got 3rd place out of 4 cars and he was SUPER excited! At the end, each person was given an award, Nico got the Lean Green Racing Machine Award. He was very happy about that.

When we first got there, it was imperative to have a little play time first. The other kids were crawling through the chairs and Nico joined right in.

The MC was joking at first about how we'd be there until midnight because Pinewood Derby races take a long time, especially with a whole bunch of kids. But, she explained the rules and the kids generally followed through. We were done in about an hour and a half. When it's time to pay attention, you put two fingers up in the air.

 3rd place in one of the races

 Afterward. Digging the baby interaction in the background.

On Saturday we tackled the huge task of cleaning out under Nico's bed and organizing his toys.

Organization central. We got rid of a trash bag full of stuff.

Afterward.

For pizza that night, Guy chose The Fuller Brush Man to watch, prompted in his desire by a nostalgic text from Grandma Russell about the movie. "Wanna buy a brush?" It's a black and white comedy/murder mystery, and Nico and I both really enjoyed it! I am delighted the way that Nico has been interested in a variety of movies. We were able to watch the movie downstairs, as Jeff and Allicia and the kiddos were out of town for the weekend.

Nico loves the vest that GG got him for Christmas. He wears it almost every day and he says it's his "Lucky Vest" because GG got it for him. He wore it to church on Sunday.

On Sunday afternoon, Nico went over to "the boys' house", and soon came back over with 2 of the boys. Since Jeff and Allicia were out of town, Guy and I retreated to the basement so they could play in the Clubhouse as loud as they wanted. 

On Monday, Nico didn't have school, so he came with me to my parents' house where my mom and I were going to do some work together. After lunch Papa took Nico to the park. They batted for a little bit and then Nico played on the playground. It was windy! Papa said they both stopped for a minute to listen to the wind in the trees.

Nico's been on a kick with taking things apart. He has been searching for things to take apart and then put back together. He took apart his remote control car and the remote, some of his game and some of his cars. When Rylan came over on Wednesday, he helped Nico with one of them. Then they went outside with Guy to try to fix the turn signal on the car, as part of the "taking things apart" campaign.

Wednesday morning we had Nico's yearly IEP meeting for speech (Individualized Education Program). In a few weeks we are having his 3 year review. They re-evaluate his need for speech services every 3 years, so he is going to be going through some testing in the next few weeks to determine needs. I love talking about Nico with other adults that know him. We had to list strengths, Guy and I came up with a list, but then hearing a list of strengths from his teacher was very nice. Nico's strengths:

He is very outgoing, makes friends easily, is not scared to be the center of attention when speaking in front of the class, is funny, gentle, interested in a lot of things, loves organizing things and loves science and understanding how things works. 

Nico is reading the next Tom Gates book, and is enjoying Press Start books, he checked out three of those from the library today.

That's is for this week, enjoy the video!

Pocket Knife, and New Friends

Nico saw that I was starting the blog and he wanted to tell everyone a story about something that happened today:

Mr. Bunn, my music teacher was looking around the room to see if anybody could get switched. (What does it mean to get switched?) Like switch places with someone else. (Why would someone get switched?) Some people like to chat while we're in music class. They talk too much and so they get switched so they don't talk to that person. Mr. Bunn told us to stand up so he can look around and see if anyone could get switched. And while he was looking around, I picked up my hand, and started picking my nose.

Then he demonstrated.

Last Friday I picked Nico up from the Grandparents Salisbury house, it was the last day of Grandma Camp and the Grandparents had dinner for all the kids and parents that night before we took our kids home. They ordered Chick-fil-A chicken nuggets, and Grandma made a pasta dish for a side. She made special gluten free chicken nuggets for Nico.

Nico showed me the race track they had set up that day, with a glow in the dark track.

After dinner, we headed home.

Once home, Nico opened a package from Grandpa Russell - a pocket knife for Cub Scouts! He opened up each of the things on the knife, and when he came to the bottle opener he said "I can open Izze Pops with this!"

We were able to test that out on Saturday night. Izze Pops come with a screw-top lid, so after much trying and no success, we decided to just twist the top off.

Nico chose Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul for the movie that night. We all enjoyed that one. 

Earlier in the day we had assembled our cabinet that had been waiting in the garage for us until after Christmas. We needed to wait until after we put Christmas away before we could put it together, because it was to sit right where we had our Christmas tree. Nico had a lot of opportunities to practice using his pocket knife while putting the cabinet together. He keeps it in its case and carefully opens it every time it's needed. 

Guy and Nico also got a lot of work done on Nico's Pinewood Derby car on Saturday morning. They added weights and sanded it. They just need to paint it and then it will be ready to go! The race is next Tuesday, the 15th.

Nico has been hanging out with some new neighbor boys that moved in on the corner. They have 6 kids? 4 boys, 2 girls. I think. The boy he is closest to is in 5th grade. The first time he hung out with them was when it had snowed a while ago, one of the boys invited him over to his yard to build a snow fort. Then a few weeks ago Nico asked if he could go knock on their door and see if they wanted to play. So Guy went over with him, introduced himself to the mom, and Nico hung out there playing board games (Risk) with 3 of the boys. Both Guy and I went over there to pick him up, and then I was able to meet the mom, too. They are a super nice family, "down to earth".  He's been over there several times since. Yesterday, after he was done with his homework, he went and knocked on their door. I told him to be home at 5:30. He came home about 5:20 with the 5th grade boy (Rylan) and Nico asked me if he could stay for dinner. I said... Yes! 

He was very polite.

After dinner, Nico pulled out his microscope for them to look at. They hooked up a webcam and took pictures through the microscope.

They invited Nico to go to Urban Air after school tomorrow. I said... Yes! Everyone at school received a free Urban Air pass from the library. 

And Nico is working on reading 600 minutes to receive a free Roaring Springs Water Park pass. He is at 450-ish minutes so far. On Monday he read 3 hours! He is reading and rereading all his Dogman books. I'd say they are definitely his favorites. Guy reads them to Nico at night and he uses a different voice for each character. It's fun to listen to. 

Now a video with some snippets!