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!

Cousins and Easter

On Friday, Nico's cousins Bruce and Rory came by to hang out for a few hours. Bruce is great at making Nico laugh and they had a blast playing in his room. I made pancakes for dinner and then we all played outside for a bit.

Later that night we FaceTimed with the Grandparents Russell so they could watch us open up the Easter box they sent! Books, stickers, cars, oh my! Nico found the cars first and seemed happy to just play with those, I had to encourage him to help me open the rest of the package. The Curious George puzzle book they sent has been the biggest hit so far. Lots of laughter because the puzzle pieces don't stay put when you turn the page, so lots of redos and lots of cute little Nico "Uh Oh"s.

We had a quiet Easter, we did a small egg hunt for Nico (eggs filled with dried mangoes - one of Nico's favorite treats!) and we also set up a mini sandbox for him so that he could play with all his toy dump trucks and diggers. A big bag of sand was only $5 at Home Depot, so why not?

Nico with his Easter basket, when I asked him to smile

Nico with his sandbox

We went to George's Cycles earlier this week with our bicycle to have the tires repaired. We got so many flats last year due to running over sharp objects, so we replaced them with sealant tires. Guy took Nico out on the first ride of the season, just a quick jaunt around the block. Nico fills up his entire bike seat now, his legs reach all the way to their limit. I didn't get a real close look so I don't know how soon he will find the seat uncomfortable. Perhaps we need to upgrade to a toddler seat, as the one we have is more geared toward 1-2 year olds. 

Nico's first speech therapy appointment got rescheduled for Friday (tomorrow), so I don't have anything to report yet on that. 

Nico helping with some yard work