Arlingtown!

Last weekend was our trip to Arlington. It was Guy's Grandma's 90th birthday celebration, so we got to see a lot of family. I was able to meet relatives I had never met before! We also had a nice amount of downtime just hanging with Guy's parents and brother. We had an adventuresome walk/Strider ride to a local park, and we were also able to go to the River (the place Guy asked me to marry him!) Nico really enjoyed throwing rocks in the river, which he started to do after he saw Uncle Tom (Guy's brother) skipping rocks. Walking through the wooded area to get to the river was fun and damp, a little muddy, but beautifully green.

We were able to go to our old church on Sunday, which was nice. We saw old friends, and Nico actually did just fine in the nursery, and didn't want to leave!

Guy decided to switch to a day schedule on this trip so he could have more time with family (he's a night worker, so normally has a night schedule). He drank a lot of coffee, and was very tired, but he did it! He's still trying to get back into the swing of working nights after being back a few days.

We learned a lot of valuable lessons about traveling with a toddler. Keep everything simple! Don't put too much into the back seat so you don't have to go through more than one bag trying to look for something. Don't bring too many toys from home, they take up space and don't hold their attention. Bring several NEW toys for them to play with. Don't be afraid to use the iPad! And always keep the toddler fed so that low blood sugar doesn't cause breakdowns. That last one applies to everyone! :)

Without further ado - pictures!

Both boys sleeping on the drive over.

Right after arriving, Nico started playing with Grandpa's wooden toolbox

A room full of family

At the river

With Great Grandma Gohl - I love that her and Nico are exchanging looks.

Watching trains on the iPad with Grandpa

Our trip home - stopping at Miner Burger in Yakima - a ritual!

Beautiful day to eat outside

A video!

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!

Strider Strides

It turns out that it's a hit and miss with dried apples at one or the other market. They switch back and forth! We were out of luck in choosing the right market last Saturday, but thankfully there was another vendor selling dried apples that we were able to buy from. Nico also got a balloon snake made for him. And then we actually ended up going to BOTH markets since we were able to easily find a parking spot for the other one. We bought some bok choy and radishes.

Stopping at some benches to eat some dried apples before walking back to our car.

Lots of parks this week. We've discovered which ones are best as morning parks and which are best as afternoon parks. The best of the best afternoon park is Memorial Park.

At Memorial Park

In the afternoon the entire park is covered in shade! So if it's a hot day, this is the only acceptable park to go to in the afternoon. The Fish Park would be 2nd, but a lot of it is still in the sun. At Memorial Park last week, we started a new thing - Nico gives me a high five on the way down the slide. He enjoyed this so much that the other kid at the park wanted to do it, too. So for a while, Nico and this little girl went up and down the slide, each giving me a high five as they passed. And when I say they went UP the slide, I mean it literally! They would both give me high fives on the way up, too.

Nico's fever seemed to return on Monday, so I went back to  using the essential oils and humidifier in his room. I've been running his humidifier every night since then. I figured tonight would be the last night, since he hasn't had a smidge of a temperature since Monday and his runny nose is all gone. I may have decided to run it tonight only because I preferred filling it back up with water over dismantling it and putting it away.

On Tuesday we had an appointment to get our vents cleaned out, but when the technician was down in our crawl space setting things up, he found that the top part of a section of our vent had been replaced with a strip of fiberglass insulation, and it had caved in. The picture he took showed us that the insulation had caved in and was almost blocking the entire airway. We told our landlord and he will be sending someone out to take a look at it.

We went to the aquarium on Wednesday, and met a friend and her two small sons there. Nico also had another speech therapy appointment on Wednesday. She brought a whole bunch of new toys and new strategies. She gave me a handout and left some activities for us to do during the week. She encouraged me to spend time helping him make sounds. So I added it to our morning routine. Right after chores we'll be spending some time focusing on sounds. Marcia makes it look so easy!!

A typical evening

Nico likes to "tighten" the bolts on his Strider. And hook up the pump to the fake air intake valves on his tires. I love this picture because you can see how excited he was that he got the pump hooked up. He puts his hands on the back of his hips and smiles.

Testing out the spinning wheel

And a Nico Snippets VIDEO is coming up!! It is still uploading to youtube (40 minutes left) but will be posted soon! Nico has really started to catch on to riding the Strider - you will see some of his smooth moves in the video!

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

Bonfire!

Saturday we went to the Farmer's Market. Apparently both the new and the old market have the same dried apple vendor, so now we just choose whichever one is easiest to park at. It turns out the old market is the easiest. We park in the parking garage and the first hour is free. We never stay more than an hour anyway! We went to the fountain in the middle of the market and Nico wasn't bashful at all like last year. He walked right into the middle of it and got soaked!

On Sunday all of us went up to the cabin for a bonfire with the family. Once the flames died down we were able to roast marshmallows on the coals.

Nico had a great time throwing rocks off the mountain with his cousin Lexie. He got good and dirty!

Holding an ax with Papa.

Eating the yummy food. Strawberries and grapes and lara bars, oh my! (with a little meat/veggie/garlic omelet on the side)

The whole crew.

Nico helping me out with the dishes.

More chores! One of Nico's favorite things to do is refill the steam mop. He is pretty good at not spilling any water.

A bike ride with Daddy. You can see that he is very nearly too tall for the bike seat!

Nico had another speech therapy appointment on Wednesday, but he was NOT in a talking mood. He sat on my lap and hid his face in my chest the whole time, which is very unlike him! Marcia could barely get him to say anything. We tried to work on chewing by putting some nut butter on the end of a celery stalk and having him chew on it, but he just sucked on the celery and had no desire to chew. Marcia said that sometimes kids just don't want to talk! So we ended the session early. She'll be back in 2 weeks. 

What we enforce with him at home is very important to Nico's success in speech therapy, so I will be working hard to encourage talking. Today I started enforcing his use of the word "banana", which he calls "nana". He caught on quickly and asked for a "nana" several times today without signing. 

Also today he randomly assigned the name "mommy" to one of the tires on his truck. He then assigned "daddy" to one of the other wheels. When I asked him where the baby was, he pointed to another wheel. I pointed to the fourth wheel and said "who is that?" and he said "baby".

Another thing that kind of blew my mind this week was his drawings. He spends a lot of time drawing the same sort of things over and over again, like he's being purposeful in what he's trying to draw. At one point Guy asked Nico what he was drawing and he responded by saying that he was drawing Mommy! Sure enough, he was drawing circles within circles like he was trying to draw a face.

Another one of my favorites was where it looked like he was trying to write words, because all of his small scribbles were in a perfect line.

That's all I can remember from last week!

OH, I forgot an important note - Nico had his hearing tested on Tuesday morning and it was perfect! It will be retested in 6 months just to make sure.

Mostly Pictures!

Nico and I made play-doh last week with Teff flour. We spent almost 2 hours playing with it that first day.

Zebra at the zoo.

Nico hiding in the cooler with the iPad.

On Wednesday we met Uncle Jonny and cousin Alexis at Old Park. It was a beeeeauitful day and Nico had so much fun.

No speech therapy this week. We start up again next week. Also next week Nico will be having his hearing tested. 

Last night Nico ended up with a fever, and diarrhea. At the height it was 101.9. He still has the fever and the bowel problems today (Thursday), but otherwise he is in a great mood, but perhaps a bit more tired than usual.

Short and sweet this week!

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.

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