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.

Potty Training Again!

The biggest news this week is that we restarted potty training! We've decided to put him in pull ups at night time, but during the day he is in underwear. We've had one whole day without an accident! Today we ventured to the Co-op and also a quick trip to the library (we had already lost Nico's library card and needed a new one!), where we tried unsuccessfully to use the children's restroom. So, we still have that hoop to jump through: Nico's first use of a public restroom. But we will get there. He didn't have an accident while we were gone.

For the #2s, we've been rewarding him with cars. He has had 2 successes in this area. He can see his next reward whenever he goes into the bathroom. We tape them to the wall or put them on the counter. He always asks for it whenever we go in there. For peeing, we give him one dried raspberry.

The only pic I got of Nico and Guy this week was a bit fuzzy. Nico was hanging out between Guy's legs while he was reclining on the love seat.

Before we started potty training again, we did do some fun things out of the house. We went for a walk! It had been a while since we'd done that, it being so snow filled and cold outside.

We also took a trip to Barnes and Noble, where we hadn't been since before Christmas. Nico got to play with his old pal the train, while I perused all the Mo Willems books that were stashed nearby.

Potty training commenced on Sunday after Nico's nap. We spent the next 4 days hanging out in the kitchen with the kitchen rugs removed. We played a lot of Roll and Play and generally didn't get much else done. Nico loves to go through the blue pile of cards, which have you find something around you of a particular color. "Find something PURPLE!" He loves this, and is getting very good at recognizing colors. We usually do this with a basket of his cars nearby so he can find a certain colored car. And he only has one purple car, so that's the go-to item for finding something purple. Potty training has been a great bonding time for me and Nico!

Nico also helped me make Guy's lunch yesterday. I took a picture of Nico doing this and then printed a small picture out and taped it to the top of the container with a note that said "Made with love by Joanna and Nico." Nico took his own pen and scribbled all over it so that you could barely read the words anymore. The container held a mixture of granola (homemade by Grandma Salisbury), greek yogurt, dried raspberries, and a sprinkling of chocolate chips.

Nico's bloodwork came back fine just fine. Still waiting to hear about Guy's. I just had my blood drawn this morning so it will be a few weeks for that.

And I have another video to share! We finally shot some video outside with our GO camera, and the quality is amazing! Nico doing some jumping over sidewalk cracks. High def!

Potty Training, snow, books

Potty training has regressed back to diapers! You think you know everything until you try to potty train your toddler in 3 days. When we attempt to potty train him again, we will take a much slower approach. When I put him back in diapers it was a sigh of relief, I could finally just snuggle him on the couch in peace instead of accidentally throwing him and the iPad off the couch when he started peeing.

For Christmas we got Nico a game called "Roll and Play". Anyone with a toddler might find this game fun. It comes with a big stuffed die that the child can roll (er.. THROW), and then depending on the color that is rolled, they pick a card. Then you have to do what's on the card. Most of the time when we play this game, after a few rolls of the die, Nico reverts to manually flipping the die onto the side he wants. After a few of those, he then skips the die entirely and chooses a card color pile to mow through. In the picture, Nico picked the yellow "Make an angry face" card. He clenches up his arms and shivers them back and forth really fast.

Garbage day fell on the one day this past week that we were flooded with snow (Tuesday). Nico and I made an adventure of our trip to the curb. It took quite a while to haul the trash can through the snow over the grass, but we were sure to pause often for pictures.

On Wednesday we went to the library and got Nico his very own library card. He chose the card with a fish on it. What he mostly likes doing at the library is climbing up and down the stairs to the second floor. 2nd to that is pulling out all the dinosaurs from the toy bin and putting them on the table. Books, he could probably take or leave. I did pick some picture books out so we could check something out on his new card. And we needed some new books for reading time after dinner. Have I mentioned already that after dinner is book time? We read books at other times, but after dinner is when Nico reads books on his own at the kitchen table while I finish the dishes. Then I grab a book and join him at the table. It's a nice routine to have. I've been able to read through 3 juvenile fiction books in the past few weeks because of this!

His favorite of the library books is one called "Animals Home Alone". No words, just pictures. He likes to find the fish on every page.

Today (Thursday) we went to see Allicia and Evie. They had lent us some toddler underwear and waterproof pads for our potty training, so we were returning them. Nico loves going to see Evie.  I saw Nico actually play WITH Evie today, and interact with her to the point of "asking" her to come into the fort with him so that she could follow him out through the fort's window. They play really well together. Nico got real silly and was letting his personality show, it was fun to see.

Oh, and forgot to mention about docs and things. Guy had his blood work done this week. Still haven't heard anything from Nico's blood work (which usually means that he is just peachy). I get my blood work done tomorrow. Then we will all be done with blood and doctors for a while, hopefully!

Docs and Potty Training

They hired nursery workers at church this past week, and it was fabulous! Both Nico and I had a blast on Sunday. He stayed the whole time in the toddler room and I was able to hear the entire sermon! What a blessing. Nico did great and really likes the teacher. He barely knew that I was missing. What a change from a few months ago!

Also this week, we took Nico to his new pediatrician for the first time. The one he used to have retired when Nico was 1 year old, and now he is 2 1/2. I figured it was about time to find a new one! She is a family doctor as well, so we are ALL seeing her! Guy's first appointment was on Monday and Nico's was on Tuesday. Guy got some nifty nose spray for his sinus inflammation, and everyone has to get blood drawn as a baseline. Nico had his blood drawn on Wednesday morning and he did great! As a precaution, one of the nurses held his arm still, but he didn't try to move it anyway. He watched them prick his arm and he barely flinched at all. As they were taking the blood I kept telling him what was happening: "Cooool look at your blood! They're taking blood out of your arm!" The nurse said that she had never seen a calmer kid. Nico does pretty well for himself.

Wednesday is when we started potty training. As soon as we got home from the blood draw in the morning, we started. We are doing the 3-day potty training via 3daypottytraining.com. We bought the ebook, bought tons of underwear, a new potty seat for our toilet, and threw away all the diapers. No looking back! I had Nico throw the diapers away, and then we put some underwear on one of his stuffed bears after putting some on him. He will be running around in underwear for at least 3 days. Near the end of Wednesday, Nico learned how to hold it in, so the number of accidents slowed down considerably. Thursday was a mix of accidents and successes. He has stayed dry during naps, but night time he has been wet. The plan tonight is to wake him an hour after having put him down to take him to the potty. There are other tricks to help with night time peeing, but we will start with that.

I'm unsure if we will make it to church on Sunday! I'm hoping we'll be able to. Staying cooped up without pants on is probably not Nico's idea of fun.

Now for some pictures! (And a video!)

Nico and Guy watching a video on the iPad

And this here is how we broke the crib :)

A normal afternoon in the living room, listening to music and coloring.

And now for a video! I won't be doing these every week, but it's fun to put these together on occasion. 

Bed

This week is notable because we successfully transferred Nico to his big boy bed. Guy asked him which bed he wanted to sleep in on Monday night, and Nico wanted the big boy bed, so off he went. No trouble, went right to sleep, and slept on a pillow for the first time ever.

On Tuesday he had his first nap in his new bed. About an hour after putting him down, I hear his door knob start to turn. The door is hard to open, so he wasn't able to pull it open, but he was certainly trying. Then he started knocking on the door. So I answered it. I went in and told him that he needed to stay in his bed until nap time was over. He went right back up into his bed. At 2:00 I went in to wake him up and he was already awake, lying on his back with his feet on the wall.

No nap time wakings since then!

We dismantled his crib and for now we'll be keeping the crib mattress in his room because it is so fun to jump on! The crib itself will be going in the garbage. We let Nico climb up the side of it and it broke. But, at least we were having fun when it happened. We've been having fun with all parts of the dismantled crib.

Today was a notable day in itself, because Nico had a case of Nursemaid's Elbow (from wikipedia: Nursemaid's elbow, babysitter's elbow, or pulled elbow is a dislocation of the elbow joint caused by a sudden pull on the extended pronated arm, such as by an adult tugging on an uncooperative child or by swinging the child by the arms during play.) We were walking into WinCo, and when Nico realized that he was going to have to get into a cart, he pulled on my hand, twisted himself and sat down on the floor. I pulled him up by his hand, and that's when it happened. He all of a sudden couldn't use his arm any more and he started crying. I thought we were going to need to take him to the emergency room, but then I remembered that we have a chiropractor. I called him up and he let us come right in. When we got to his office, I took Nico's coat off and he walked around the office, whimpering, he could use his right arm just fine but couldn't lift his left arm. It was so sad to see it! The doc fixed him right up. He was afraid to use his arm for a while after that, but after he realized that it didn't hurt anymore, he was fine just fine.

Weekly!

This blog will be officially changing over to a weekly schedule, instead of daily. More pictures, more text, but just one day a week. And I think Thursday will be that day, to follow in the footsteps of "Nico Thursdays" when he was younger. So.. stay tuned for an update tomorrow!

Hat

Church this morning. Nico sat through the whole service!

We found a hat with ears in the closet, not sure where it came from, but Nico loves it and wears it around the house whenever he finds it.

New Bed

We set up Nico's new bed and here is the little buddy trying it out for the first time! He still needs some practice getting in and out of it, but with the mattress in there it should be easier.

Icicle

We went outside this morning to bring the trash can back from the curb, and we saw lots of icicles. There were a few on his tricycle, so I broke one off and after handing it to Nico he instantly put it into his mouth.

Colors and Phone

Two pictures today! perhaps to make up for the lack of posts lately.

First one is of Nico at the table having stacked the lids of his do-a-dot paints onto one of the markers. He was very proud. After this he would bump the tower with his head and then rebuild.

Next picture.. We found a phone in a box in Nico's closet, so I pulled it out and it's now his play phone. He likes to put it next to the iPad and randomly answer it while he's playing.

Snow

We got a few inches of snow today. Guy and Nico went out in it for a while.
First picture is the preparatory work.

Crib book

This is what Nico was up to when I went in to wake him up from his nap: already awake and reading a book.

Mall

Went to the mall this morning with Grandma Salisbury, also got to see my brother and his family, lots of Nico's cousins! It was great to see everyone. Nico ate an entire breadless sandwich again today, this time from Great Steak and Potato. He loves meat and cheese, and he seems to be quite fond of tomatoes, too.

Swim

Nico and I went swimming today at the hotel that Grandma Salisbury is staying at. Nico's cousin Lexie was also there. Nico enjoyed the water a lot this time, but came out shivering. We gave him a warm bath afterward and that perked him up.

We got Jimmy Johns for dinner and Nico ate his entire sandwich. Breadless, but still mighty big!

Coffee

Grinding the coffee and waiting for Daddy to count to 20.

Cupcake

Nico, modeling the new pumpkin cupcake.

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!

Christmas Eve

Grandparents Russell stopped by this morning for one last visit before they headed to the airport. We hung out at the table talking and playing with Nico and his cars.

This evening we watched the first half of the movie My Neighbor Totoro. It is so cute! Nico loved it the first time he saw the tiny totoro appear. When he disappears in the movie, Nico signed "MORE MORE MORE MORE" and then when the totoro reappeared, he laughed joyfully. It was very nice to snuggle on the couch with my boys.

Family!

Church this morning, then nap, then more family this afternoon! This evening we made popcorn in our new popcorn popper and everyone seemed to enjoy it. Nico ate his with our new collection of tiny Santa forks.

The picture is from a few days ago, but I had to share this great picture of Nico that Grandpa Russell took.

Family

Grandparents Russell came by again today, bringing G.G. (Great Grandma Russell) with them! We did a gift exchange, ate dinner, then FaceTimed Tom (Uncle Tom to Nico). Lots of fun was had!!

A Visit!

Grandparents Russell came into town today! We ate breakfast for dinner, opened a few gifts and then hung about.

The picture is of Nico and Grandma playing with his new sticker book.

Smelly bed

Nico's big boy bed was delivered today! After Nico was crawling on it for a while, we noticed that he had brown all over his hands. The bed's stain had not finished drying! And his room smells mighty terrible at the moment. By proxy it smells in our bedroom, too, but he'll be spending the night in my bed tonight. I'm hoping by tomorrow the smell has gone down a bit.

We'll get a picture of Nico with the bed as soon as the bed is approachable. The picture for tonight is of Nico playing with cars on our bed. We will turn in shortly and hopefully snuggle ourselves to sleep.

Advent train

Nico and Guy rebuilding the train on the advent calendar and watching it run. A daily occurrence.

Cars

Lining up his cars on the couch.

All better

Nico's fever broke a bit before midnight last night. He woke up as cool as a cucumber and quite his normal self. Go immune system! I gave him some homeopathy last night, perhaps that helped a bit.

I made scones tonight for when Guy comes home from work tomorrow. Saturday morning is our "date night". But I burnt them! Whoops!

Picture is of Nico watching MST3K on the iPad. He enjoys listening to the opening song and rewinds it after the song is over so he can hear it again. You can see his cupcake on his plate, and a little piece of the failed scones. Nico wasn't a fan of the burnt.

Fever

Nico woke up from his nap this afternoon with a fever. 102.2. We snuggled and watched Shaun the Sheep for most of the afternoon. He only nibbled on a banana, and he is asleep now at 5:45. I'm hoping he wakes up feeling better! He's got some reddish cheeks in this photo. Fever topped out at 102.9.

Ho hum

Sitting on the couch at the end of the day.

Coloring

Nico asked to color 3 different times today, always with VBS music playing. He is quite a fan! In the picture, you can see his plate, he was eating a "cookie" (a few slivers of a lara bar).

Also, every evening Nico and I do our computer-based advent calendar gifted to us from Grandma Russell. Tonight we built a train! Nico picked out the cars and I dragged them into place, then we got to watch an animation of our train on the move.

Curious George

Daddy and Nico finishing up watching Curious George: A Very Monkey Christmas. A present from Grandpa Russell!

Aglow

Winter Garden Aglow tonight at the Botanical Garden. Yearly picture done!

Snuggles

Nico has lately been taking his blanket out of his crib and crawling up onto the couch and lying down with it. It's been a daily thing for about the past week.

WinCo

We went to WinCo this morning. Nico likes WinCo for a few reasons - he likes to "jump" over the lines on their floor. And he likes to help me with the self checkout. He squeals whenever he helps me put the money in the money taker. I also let him push the buttons on the screen.

We wrapped up our day by hanging out on the couch. Nico is playing with the "Little Red Hen" story book on the iPad. And I am updating the blog!

Also of note - you can see the rash on Nico's chin. I've surmised that he didn't have hand foot and mouth disease last month, because the rash on his chin, though it went away for a few days, came back and is still there. Not sure what that week long illness was that he had, but I'm guessing it likely wasn't HF&M.

Car Line

A lot of the time, Nico likes to take toy cars with us whenever we go anywhere. He piles them in his diaper bag. Well today, we emptied the diaper bag of all his cars, so he sat on the floor in his room and lined them all up.

Aquarium

We went to the Idaho Aquarium today for the first time. I remembered afterward that I was going to stay away from the mall area because of holiday traffic. Whoops! But we had fun. Nico was so excited he ran around to everything several times.

We also saw a real live train today! The tracks run right by the aquarium.

Matching

Nico and Daddy playing a match game. Nico loves playing this!

Train

We went to the market this morning. After Nico's nap we went to Barnes and Noble so he could play with the train. The traffic around the mall is really bad so we likely won't be going back until after Christmas!