Wahoooooz

On Friday we went to a new splash pad, the only one in Boise (the rest are in Meridian), at Borah High School. It's right next to their pool but has a separate entrance. It is fenced in. We played in it for a while and then took a break on a bench outside the fenced in area. It was in the shade and the table had a built in checker board. Nico ate his snack there.

After the splash pad we went to the dollar store to pick up a flotation device for Nico. The ones you blow up and put on your arms. I put them on him that night and he wore them until it was time for bed. We went for a Strider ride while he was wearing them.

On Saturday we went to the market, where we saw a large Marimba band. Nico pulled me over there and we sat down and listened to them for about 30 minutes. Nico was mesmerized, he clapped after every song and then asked "Another one?" We were in the sun, so I eventually moved us over to the shade, where we saw Nico's teacher. They said hello and we sat next to them for a little while. Nico was very excited to see her.

Then we left to go to the other market, where Nico wanted a balloon. He got a fishing pole balloon this time.

That evening, Guy and Nico had some time together. They were going to be going to movie in the park every month this summer, but since that didn't turn out last month, they did something different tonight. Guy took Nico to the bookstore to play with the train, and then to the park to blow bubbles.

Saw Allicia on Monday and also on Tuesday. Sure do love them. So looking forward to moving day: September 13th!

On Tuesday, Guy rigged the Elefun game to an AC adapter so we could plug it into the wall instead of using batteries. This game is one we plan to play at Nico's party. An elephant with a long trunk shoots butterflies out and you run around with nets trying to catch them. Nico and I had tested it out last week, but the power of the fan was piddly and only about 5 butterflies made it out. So Guy upped the voltage from 6V to 12V. Now all the butterflies shoot out hard and all at once! A big improvement, but he is going to try to find a 7V adapter next weekend to tone it down a bit.

Then TODAY! Today is the day that we went to Wahooz to ride the go-carts to have a Mommy-son celebration of Nico's birthday. Nico was very excited about it. I brought the GoPro camera instead of my new one because of its small size and wide angle. Wahooz also has other attractions: a huge arcade, miniature golf, bumper boats, laser tag, and bowling. They measured him to make sure he was at least 40 inches, the requirement to be a passenger. Yep, he was tall enough! We gave the man our tickets, started walking toward the go-cart, and Nico started pulling me the other direction, saying NO! I pulled him aside and asked him if he was scared. It was very loud with all the motors of the go-carts idling at the same time, plus the super loud music so you could hear it over the sound of the engines. I understood his aversion. So we sat on a bench a little ways away and watched some other people riding the go-carts. He warmed up to the idea again and pulled me toward the go-carts again. He was fine for a while standing in line, but the noise, again, got to him. After a few minutes of happily standing in line, he started pulling me away from the noise.

Excitement that quickly wore off

Looking warily at the go-carts

So we got our tickets back and exchanged them for a course of miniature golf. There are two miniature golf courses, which I realized only after the fact that we had chosen the one with the line of people. Whoops! But Nico didn't mind waiting after every hole. He had much fun, and clapped every time either of us got the ball in the hole. He imitated curious george getting on the ground, eyeing the ball in relation to the hole.

Waiting for our turn. Can't believe we were lucky enough to catch a cool day.

So we get to hole 16. Hole 18 was right next to us, the place where you hit your ball and it eats it so that the game is over. If you hit the ball into a certain area, then this big Tiki statue shoots out an enormous torch of fire from its head. I found a picture of it, take a look:

So back to hole 16. Nico was finishing off his putting when someone successfully hit a ball into that certain area in the Tiki statue. About 10 seconds later a huge fireball emitted from the statue. It scared me and I jumped and cried out a little bit. You could FEEL the heat from this thing. I turned around to look at it and someone in front of us motioned to Nico and said "he's running." So, if you can imagine how Nico was afraid of the go carts, you can perhaps imagine a bit how this fire explosion affected him. I turned around to look and Nico was indeed running in the opposite direction. He turned to look at me and his whole face was quivering about to cry. Oh dear me!! I ran to him but he could barely listen to me he was so frantic. I calmed him enough to be able to run back and grab our clubs and my bag. I caught up with him and took him back the opposite direction. Unfortunately even if you back track all the way to the beginning of the golf course, you still have to pass by the tiki statue to get out. You can see in this aerial shot how that works.

Well Nico ran toward the fence, wanting to get out by crawling through, instead of passing by the statue. I told him that I knew it was hot and loud and big, but that the fire wouldn't hurt him and the statue wouldn't hurt him. I told him to close his eyes and put his head on my shoulder because we HAD to walk past it. I held him and he gripped me SO TIGHT while we passed it. And there was an instant calm after I did. Phew.

We returned our golf balls to the counter, since we didn't finish the course, and then wandered around the arcade. It is also very loud in the arcade. Nico wanted to try a few games, so we did, but every time we swiped our game card to start a game, the game would come to life. "WELCOME TO THIS GAME, PLEASE DO THIS AND THIS..." and then every game had loud music accompanying what the loud mouth was saying. Every time this happened, Nico backed away from the game, so didn't get to play much. We did win 20 tickets and redeemed them for a styrofoam airplane and a turtle eraser.

Photo booth

Then we made our way to Louie's. It is a nice restaurant that serves italian food. Spaghetti and pizza and other such things. We shared a big bowl of gluten-free spaghetti with meatballs.

Then home to eat chocolate cupcakes. I made a test batch for his birthday party on Tuesday. He likes it when I put a candle in it and sing him Happy Birthday, so I've been doing that.

Also, a slight milestone for his speech and communication: He clarified what he was asking because I didn't understand. He kept asking "What is this?" as he was holding a cup filled with a smoothie I had bought for him. I kept saying "smoothie" every time he asked. "What is this?" "A smoothie that I bought for you." "What is this?" "A smoothie" "What is this?" "A smoothie"…. Then he changed his question. "What is IN this?" !!!! "Bananas, strawberries, and orange juice!"

We are looking forward to this weekend as Grandpa and Grandma Russell are coming into town for Nico's birthday and for a family reunion. We are so excited to see them on Saturday!

Other pictures from this week.

Testing out camera settings

Climbing the "tree" in the front yard

Reading his big pile of library books while munching on a muffin

His very first lollipop

Reunion, Puzzle, G.G.

On Saturday we had a mini friend reunion with my High School friends. Nico enjoyed jumping on the trampoline and playing with the toys and the kids. Me and three of my friends, together have 10 kids. It was the first time Guy had met any of them. He said he liked them and wanted to see them more often. I agree! I invited them all to Nico's birthday party so we may or may not be seeing them then.

Later that night we went to Smoky Mountain Pizza. Guy watched Nico. While we were there, our 5th friend from High School called us and we were all able to talk to her. It hasn't been since High School that all five of us were together, and perhaps someday soon we'll be able to do that. 

On Sunday, Papa came over for a bit to drop off some eggs and milk and the truck. And to watch a few minutes of Despicable Me 2. Nico has really been digging that movie.

We needed to borrow his truck so that we could move our 13,200 piece puzzle from our house over to Jeff and Allicia's, which we did successfully on Tuesday evening. They have a nice large wall in their front room that is perfect for the puzzle. Guy and Jeff hung it while Allicia and I and the kids read books and played. We were also able to bring over some bins that were ready for storage. They are storing some things for us since we will be living in a small space and won't have room for everything. We are all getting very excited about moving in 2 months! I've told Nico several times that we're moving into Evie's house and he seems to understand. I am so happy that he'll have someone to play with more often.

Our living room without the puzzle, and with an almost bare bookshelf from packing.

We kept the truck until today. I enjoyed being able to see EVERYTHING while driving it. It is up high and I don't know why but it felt like it had more windows than our car. That's not true, but it sure felt like it! Papa came by to pick up the truck tonight, and he is heading straight to Yakima. My Mom is in Yakima with my Grandma. My Great Uncle Jerry passed away early Sunday morning, a few days after my Mom and Grandma arrived to see him. I didn't know him but I have heard great things about him. The funeral is tomorrow, I am praying for everyone.

Some more pictures from this week..

Memorial Park

 "Where's the airplane? I don't see the airplane!"

A new game Nico invented. Falling off Daddy's shoulders onto the bed.

Nico loved riding in Papa's truck. We had many discussions about Papa's truck and our car. He loved to repeat how Papa took our car and left his truck so we could use it. He was very careful to correct me whenever I called the truck a car. "It's not a car, it's a truck!" He often asked to go to Grandma and Papa's house when we'd get into the truck. 

A suggestion in his Curious George sticker book was to make a raft out of craft sticks, let it dry, then float it on water and see how many pennies it could hold. We tried this out. We got up to 6 pennies I think. Then after all the sticks were wet it could only hold 2 before sinking. Then the glue melted away and the raft fell apart. Then we were done and we left the raft and the pennies in the sink while we took a nap on the couch. Lots of work hauling pennies around on rafts.

We visited G.G. today. Nico got to feed Scamper his food and his snack-bone afterward. He played a bit with some of the toys around, but then started asking to leave. We could attribute it to a few different things. G.G. noticed that the cartoon he had started watching had a dinosaur in it. When we asked him if he wanted to leave because of the dinosaur, he said "Yes". But when we changed the channel he still asked to leave. Then he made more of a complete thought than just "Go home"… he said "Go home and get gas in the truck." I had mentioned to G.G. that we were going to fill up the truck with gas before going home and Nico heard this. Nico loves the truck!

So sweet!

Fireworks, Puzzle, and Splash Pad

Friday was the 4th of July! We went to the zoo. We got to the park a little early so we wandered a bit and went over to the huge Abraham Lincoln statue. There was an American flag sitting on the bench next to him, so we used it as a prop. 

Then to the zoo. I brought some of Nico's summer birthday money with us and he chose to rent a jeep cart and then buy a truck at the gift shop on the way out. He let me push him in the cart for a while but he mostly preferred to push it himself. He still is very wary about going to any part of the zoo, though we did find out that the whole left side of the zoo is devoid of dinosaurs. I'm sure they found that there were a lot of kids afraid of them, so they opened up half the zoo as dinosaur-free. You can still see the spots where they used to be, and Nico remembers from last year where they all were. It has taken a while to warm him up to going even to those parts that don't have dinosaurs anymore. 

 I wanted to take a picture of him with the truck he got at the zoo, and he told me to take a picture of him while he was posing like this. heehee.

Guy was able to go to work a few hours later that night so we could set off fireworks. We just bought sparklers, snakes, pop-its, and ground flowers. Nico had a lot of fun until we did the ground flowers, then he asked us to not do anymore. Those are louder than he prefers. We did one more ground flower and then stopped.

Playing with pop-its.

Watching the snakes grow.

On Saturday we packed a lot into the morning. I had to go to the Saturday market, so we did. We couldn't find parking right away so we decided to go through the carwash that was right there. We had tried to do the carwash on July 4th, but it was closed. And this seemed like a good opportunity. We imitated Curious George going through a carwash as each of the things happened. Blub blub blub. Fwap fwap. Swish swish swish. It was loud so we plugged our ears some of the time.

After the carwash, we found parking and made it to the market. Unfortunately both vendors we went there for were not there. We left, and were headed to a sensory-friendly movie in the theater, but I noticed we had a few minutes, so we jetted into a parking garage and raced down to the OTHER Saturday market, and got a balloon in the shape of an elephant! We raced back to the car and headed to the movie. 

The movie that was playing was Rio 2. It is an animated movie about blue parrots. Nico was talking about "blue parrots" all morning, knowing that we were going to this movie. I thought he might be a bit more interested in this than the muppet one we saw last month, but he lost interest again after 30 minutes and asked to go home.

He won his monster truck by going #2 on the potty and filling out all the spots on his potty chart with stickers. The chart seems to have helped him remember how to go, and he hasn't had an accident in a while.

On Tuesday night we pulled out a puzzle and Guy and I worked on it for a few hours. The next morning, Nico found it and wanted to work on it a little bit, so we did. We moved it to a card table and it's now in our living room, almost put together. While we still had it on the kitchen table, we ate our meals on a blanket in the living room as a picnic. That was fun, but I soon realized how much I appreciate having a table.

Wednesday we went to a park that has a splash pad. After watching the water for a while, Nico started playing in it. The park has no shade, so it was perfect that there was cloud cover so the sun wasn't shining right on us. Otherwise I know I wouldn't have lasted more than 5 minutes! Nico got soaked. Then he played on the playground for a while, lots of different playground toys that he enjoyed.

We've been playing word bingo, which is one of the games Miss Susie sent home with him for the summer. Nico likes that. He also loves tracing the alphabet on papers his teacher sent home with him. He uses dry erase markers and the papers are in sheet protectors! I put all of his summer work in a binder that I pull out twice a week. I figured since he used to get speech therapy every Tuesday and Thursday, we could follow that same schedule during the summer. I sure thrive on schedule! I think Nico does too.

That's it for today.

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.)