Last Friday was date night! Guy and I went to see Newsies the musical, put on by Music Theater of Idaho. It was AMAZING!! The next musical we plan to see is next January - Wizard of Oz. We'll take Nico with us to that one.
My parents watched Nico overnight. My mom sent me this picture of Nico eating his bedtime snack.
And breakfast the next morning - a banana waffle and some liver pate!
Thank you Mom and Pa for watching the buddy!
Saturday morning Guy trimmed all our roses. He spent about 4 hours outside getting it all done. All our roses are ready for winter now!
For pizza night on Saturday, Guy's movie choice was The Court Jester. So hilarious! A few days later I heard Nico walking around the house saying, "Paizley with the pezzle" and other such things.
Watch this clip and you'll understand!! In fact, watch the whole movie if you haven't already! It's great.
Sunday evening after Bible Study, the kids came up to the front to give their Bible Study teacher some cards and hugs because she's leaving to move back to Tennessee. Each of the kids had a chance to hand her their card and say something to her. Nico said to her: "Be safe on your trip and always remember me."
Trunk or Treat Wednesday night at my parents' church. I had never been to one before! It was coooold outside, but we made it!!
Our very first trunk stop.
We came home and Nico ate candy on the couch while we watched some more of the Newsies movie we had started watching on Tuesday.
There is a boy in Nico's class that is also gluten free. On Wednesday his mom, Megan, sent me a text with a picture saying that she was sending in gluten free treats for the boys to eat for their Halloween party at school this afternoon. They were also in the same class last year, and Megan would always send an extra cupcake for Nico whenever she'd send a treat for her son. Amazing!
He came home from school today and told me he ate 2 cookies, and won this jar of candy corn by having the closest guess for how many candy corns were in the jar.
Then tonight we met up with Jeff and Allicia and the kiddos to do some trick-or-treating.
Then we came home and Nico ate candy on the couch while we finished watching The Newsies.
Last Friday, Nico woke up feeling a lot better. He was able to get out of bed and sit/stand/walk around. He ate breakfast and by all accounts he was all better! His first order of business after eating breakfast was trying on his Halloween costume.
It fits!
I took him to his doctor's appointment that day for his foot.
Besides it being dry and flaky, he has a huge bump on the bottom that they said was a wart. The doctor froze it off! She told him to raise his hand whenever the pain got too much to bear, and they did it 3 times. She said he will likely need to come back again to get it re-done because it is so big.
On Saturday, Guy drove to Nampa to pick up the tv that GG gave us. It was the one she used to have before she moved. It's huge! Thank you GG! While in Nampa, Guy stopped by a gluten free restaurant that just opened. They sell donuts on Saturday and he bought one of each type for us to try. He had to wait so long for the chocolate donuts that they gave him two. Nico's favorite was the twist donut.
Nico had a chess tournament on Saturday. He got a 1st place trophy, and he won the prize for best costume!
Raking leaves
Trying out his Switch on our new TV
Rough draft TV Stand setup.
Wednesday we had a parent teacher conference. We both LOVE his teacher. She is my favorite by far of the teachers he's had. She said a few days ago that Nico took over teaching the class about what "scale" means on maps. He stood up in front and brought out a ruler to demonstrate on the huge map at the front. He asked her if he could stay up there to teach the whole lesson and she said, well, No. Heehee.
No school today and tomorrow! Nico had scrambled eggs and toast for breakfast this morning.
After lunch we put together our new TV stand.
This afternoon, Allicia picked Nico up and took him to the Farmstead with the other kiddos. Guy met them there tonight because our church is doing the corn maze.
Here's a condensed video of the Trailing of the Sheep parade, plus some video of Nico walking around in his Halloween costume. I left the entire sheep part of the parade in the video, you'll see sheep passing by for 1 minute and 20 seconds. The rest of the parade part of the video is just snippets of the other acts that passed by.
This past week has been a doozy! Nico and Guy returned home from band practice last Thursday night after I had updated the blog, and Nico started complaining of a tummy ache. I tucked him into bed and prayed he would feel better in the morning.
Friday was meant to be the day we left for Ketchum, ID to attend the Trailing of the Sheep festival, but Guy and I discussed it and we decided that if Nico was still feeling poorly in the morning that Guy would go to the festival on his own and I would stay home with Nico.
Alas, Nico's tummy ache persisted into Friday and I called the school to let them know he wouldn't be coming in. I prepped everything for Guy to leave for Ketchum at 12:30 and we saw him off. I packed him one of the cupcakes I was going to take with us, to celebrate his birthday in Ketchum on Sunday. I kept the other 3 at home, knowing he'd be back Sunday and we could celebrate with him then.
Nico's tummy ache was unique in that he could continue eating normally. We went to Chipotle Friday night and picked up some food, as well as some smaller cupcakes from Trader Joe's. Nico ate his ENTIRE Chipotle meal (he has never done this before), plus 2 cupcakes, while we watched The Secret Life of Pets 2.
Guy's Friday night was full of Lamb food. I had purchased 3 tickets to "For the Love of Lamb", which allowed each participant 5 "bites" of lamb food from various restaurants in downtown Ketchum. Since Guy had 3 tickets, he got 3 "passports". He gave one to someone who had lost theirs, and used the other two to get 10 bites of lamb food. Guy said the age demographic for Friday was double his own.
Waiting in line.
#1 Lamb Samosa
#2 Lamb Meatball Gyros
#3 Lamb Curry
#4 Lamb Shepard's Pie
#5 (too tasty to remember to take the picture beforehand)
#6 Lamb Pasta with Mushrooms (not tasty, didn't finish it)
#7 Lamb chili - not tasty, didn't finish it
#8 Lamb ribs
#9 Lamb Sausage
#10 ?
He went back to the Airbnb and texted me "Yeah, it was intense. I'm back at the room, glad I saved my ginger ale"
SATURDAY
Saturday, Nico woke up still feeling sick, but he ate his pancakes just fine :) He spent the day playing on his Switch while I schemed to put together Guy's office for him while he was away. I put together the new bookcase we ordered (Nico helped a little) and unpacked a large portion of the boxes that were covering Guy's desk. I put his monitors on his desk as well. Not perfect but a large step forward.
Saturday night I ordered Nico a gluten free Chicago Connection pizza, I made my own pizza, and we rented another movie. Ugly Dolls. Nico ate almost his entire 10" pizza, leaving only one piece behind.
In Ketchum, Guy went to breakfast and got Lamb Benedict. He told me later that he usually doesn't order eggs Benedict because it's so difficult to make and he doesn't like putting out the chef. But, they were advertising this as a special and since it was a special occasion he went ahead and ordered it. His thought was, "Well, they did it to themselves by advertising it." :)
The Airbnb he stayed in was in downtown Ketchum a handful of blocks away from most of the places he needed to go. It was a "treehouse" (see video at end), but it wasn't built in a tree, more like it was built up off the ground. It didn't have its own bathroom, it shared a bathroom with the other "treehouse" on the lot. The bathroom was outside.
After breakfast on Saturday Guy drove to Hailey, ID (about 15 minutes away) to go to the Sheep Trials and the Folk Life Festival. There are snippets of these in the video as well. He really enjoyed the sheep trials.
He took this picture because of the dog on the leash in front of him. It's looking intently at what's going on in the field.
Lunch at the Sheep Trials.
He says next year we'll be sure to bring CHAIRS. Near the end of his stay at the sheep trials, he ran into two older women he had met the night before while waiting in line for sausage. He mentioned to them that he wished he had brought a chair, and they told him that they went to a thrift store that day to purchase some, and got 3 chairs when they only needed 2, so they had an extra. They told him they'd save him a seat at the sheep parade the next day. Front row. During the parade the next day they said they had "adopted" him as a stray, after finding out why he was there on his own without his family.
Anyway, back to Saturday. After the sheep trials, he went to the festival. He ran into a woman from our church, Debbie, who plays the bagpipes. She was participating in one of the performances that day (video clip of that below).
That night he went to Smokey Mountain Pizza, and who do you guess was there, but Coach Vellotti, Nico's chess coach! Coach Vellotti was putting on a chess tournament at the Smokey Mountain Pizza in Ketchum, ID the same time that Guy was there! Crazy!
SUNDAY
Happy Birthday to Guy!
Nico woke up feeling sicker. He ate no breakfast and complained of a progressively worsening tummy ache. This was the day he started throwing up.
Guy attended the Sheep Parade on Saturday after breakfast. I wasn't able to get that video off Guy's phone to include in the video at the end of the blog, so I will post snippets from the parade video next week. They move the sheep from summer pasture to winter pasture, right through the middle of town. They make a parade out of it!
Guy arrived home with just enough time to open his presents and eat a piece of pumpkin pie (a present from Jeff & Allicia) before he had to head to the church to help with an event that night. It was a long Birthday day for him, he even stopped by the store on his way home from church to pick up a few things for me.
Nico continued to throw up through Monday. Tuesday evening I called the doctor and he prescribed some anti-nausea meds to give to Nico since he wasn't able to eat, and drinking hurt his tummy. The anti-nausea meds helped a little bit, but he is still complaining of not feeling well and not able to eat much.
Nico has a doctor's appointment tomorrow at 11:15, for an unrelated reason (a sore on his foot), but we will certainly talk about Nico's tummy issues. I am concerned about getting him into the doctor's office, because he can't sit up or stand up for very long. I will call ahead to arrange to have a room ready for him so he can go straight in to lie down. That's my plan at least. I suspect he is dehydrated though I'm pushing fluids on him, as much as he'll take. I bought a pack of 6 fresh pressed juices from Boise Juice Co. yesterday (Allicia picked up my Fred Meyer grocery order AND went to Boise Juice Co. for me!!) Most of the juices also have coconut water in them which is good for rehydration.
Nico unfortunately has missed 5 days of school so far. Tomorrow there is no school anyway, so that's good. He also missed a field trip on Wednesday, as well as the yearly Boo Bash celebration at his school tonight. Just this weekend we had ordered a new costume for Nico on Amazon, he said he doesn't want to be a ninja this year (boy that ninja costume, though, he wore for 4 years!!!) But Nico is not complaining about missing anything, he is happy to stay in bed because he feels terrible whenever he tries to get up. When I ask him how he's feeling, he says "Still not very good" every time.
But he has his humor still, Guy and him watched Three Stooges last night and Nico was being his silly self. Then tonight as I'm updating the blog, he has asked me several times into his room to show me cakes on Youtube that he wants to make with me. He watched a food video today and moaned the whole time, "I wish I could eat that food it looks sooooo good!"
Yesterday he told me he wanted strawberries so I drove to M&W Market, leaving him at home. I kept him on FaceTime the whole time and showed him what other fruits they had. He told me to also get a watermelon and a cantaloupe. He said no to the bananas and the asparagus ;)
Today he said he wanted Great Steak and Potato (a restaurant in the mall), so I asked Guy to pick some up on his way home (Turkey sandwich, no bread, with cheese on a bed of lettuce). Nico could only eat a bite of it, even though he asked for Guy to buy a LARGE. Oh well. We have leftovers now so he can try again tomorrow.
If he didn't have a doctor's appointment tomorrow, I probably would have called the doctor today to get a recommendation. Nico might need IV fluids to feel better. We'll ask the doc tomorrow and do whatever is needed.
From Guy's pumpkin pie. I texted Guy this picture "Happy Birthday ants!"
Drinking Nuun electrolyte drink through a straw. Everything through a straw.
Allicia brought these Nuun tablets over with the pumpkin pie on Sunday, knowing that Nico wasn't feeling well.
We received mail at Louisa St address that Avery biked over to us. Nico was happy for the distraction. Also, Allicia brought him some treats from the dollar store, some fun activities to do as he starts feeling better.
Me getting out of the house yesterday evening. A walk next to the foothills.
Oh, on Sunday night, I was a little worried going to bed in our bedroom with Nico being so far away in his bedroom. Nico didn't like it either, he ran to our bedroom in the middle of the night feeling sick. He didn't want to be alone and sick. So I camped out on the couch that night, and have stayed there all the nights since. It's a comfy couch, so I don't mind!
Here's the video snippets from Guy's trip. I'll include the ones from the parade next week! I forgot to label one part of the video, when there's a man sheering the sheep. The sheep is OK, he's just shaving it ;)
I just read the title from my last post, "Assembling Furniture, Friends", sounds like we also assembled friends.
We received a big order of ribbon on Friday to process and ship to Amazon, which we did on Saturday (check out video at end of blog). On Saturday, Nico also dressed up in his Cub Scouts uniform and went door to door with Guy to sell wreaths. The Cub Scouts are doing a wreath fundraiser. He made 2 sales on his adventure. I think they plan to go again soon.
For pizza night on Saturday, it was Nico's movie choice, and he chose to watch a show called Oggy and the Cockroaches. It's a silly cartoon.
I got only ONE picture of Nico this week. Him and Grace are playing a game in this picture. Her and William came over on Sunday afternoon.
When Nico didn't want to play anymore he said, "Ok I'm done playing, you guys can go home now." Grace asked him why and he said, "I just want some alone time."
I have a sneaking suspicion that he was done playing because he was done taking turns on the Switch and wanted to play it all by himself. We all squeezed onto the couch after that (I say squeezed, because even though we have a big couch now, in this instance we all squished together just like old times in the Clubhouse), and we each did our own thing on our own devices.
Nico is enjoying Drama Club, he came home with this the other day:
Then I got an email from Nico's drama teacher telling us who got which roles in the play. They are doing an adaptation of The Wizard of Oz. Nico had requested to be the Wizard, and he got the part! He also plays Uncle Henry and one of the Munchkins. Evelyn's role is the witch. Can't wait to see them in the same play together.
Also, some interesting tidbits about Nico:
And in this one he mentions Clams as the best food. He had them for the first time in Portland this past summer. He has also been asking me to let him try sushi.
OH, speaking of food. A few weeks ago Nico told us that he asked God if he could have gluten, and God said Yes. So we're going through an investigative time that will be educational either way. We believe that God can speak even to kids (there's no junior Holy Spirit amiright), but we also know that our own desires can sound like God sometimes. So, we're going to try gluten. We've never been through a definitive gluten-reaction test with Nico before. In fact, we are not entirely sure WHAT his reaction is exactly. We just know that the tests show that he is very sensitive. The plan is to allow him to eat gluten for a week, Thanksgiving week, when he will be home. One gluten meal a day. Then we'll stop the gluten, and wait until his next doctor appointment in December to officially test him.
The night we told him this, he got so excited he had trouble sleeping. We spent a while listing restaurants and foods that he could try and he went bonkers after each one, especially when I told him we could go to Blue Sky Bagels. A few other ones we came up with - Pizza Hut, waffle cones from Baskin Robbins, Chick-Fil-A chicken nuggets, hot lunch at school (we may do this the following Monday when he goes back to school), pretzels from the mall, Olive Garden, biscuits and gravy, Belgian waffles, pancakes, and of course Thanksgiving things!
If anyone has other suggestions on what he should try, let us know! He woke up the next morning and asked, "What other restaurants can we go to that have gluten?" After school he asked the same thing. He is excited.
Okie dokie, I think that's it for this week! Next week we'll have a fun update about this upcoming weekend, tomorrow we venture to Ketchum, ID for the Trailing of the Sheep Festival to celebrate Guy's birthday!
In the unpacking we rediscovered the game called Munchkin. Nico is all about this game now. We play it before school, after school, after dinner, whenever someone says YES to his question: "Do you want to play Munchkin?"
Saturday was a good day. Nico's only chore was to empty a box in his room, but then he realized that one of my chores was to assemble the new shoe bench we ordered, and he begged me to let him do it. I said yes, of course, and so he assembled the shoe bench for me. The only thing I had to do was tighten a few of the screws all the way, the rest was him. We keep the shoe bench by our front door. It has been working out great, we have a place to sit to put shoes on now!
It was my movie choice that night, and I chose Singing in the Rain. It's a good movie that I hadn't seen in a while!
This past Monday we received the delivery of our new storage cabinet. It looks exactly like our other one, but we put this new one in the dining room to hold all our board games. Nico volunteered to put this one together too. It was a long journey; he asked me to take over for him after he put in an hour of hard work.
This is how he got all the pieces out of the box.
On Tuesday Nico arrived home from school in a car, his friend Grace had offered him a ride home with her mom. Grace and her little brother William were at his birthday party in July.
Nico walked in the door and said in really fast succession: "I invited Grace over today and she's going to come over with William and you just have to text her mom and let her know and then she can text you back and then Grace can come over."
Grace lives just down the street from us!
I texted her mom and then Grace and William came over a few minutes later. They are both very sweet kids. After all of them played in his room for a while, Nico and Grace separated off and started playing the Switch while William put together Nico's domino set in the living room. I really love these friends of his.
Tuesday evening was Cub Scouts. Guy is applying to become the secretary for the Cub Scouts council. They stayed late on Tuesday to stay for the council meeting even though he's not "officially" the secretary yet. He took notes just like a secretary is supposed to, and then emailed everyone the meeting minutes the next day. He is amazing. On a side note, he told me that before moving, he didn't feel like he had control over anything, and now, he has the power to change things and to affect his surroundings. His stress level is a lot better. He spent this past weekend cleaning out the shed and putting up shelving in there, mowing the lawn and trimming the roses. He says this house reminds him of his childhood. The floors, and the dim light in the living room in the evenings.
On Wednesday mornings, Grace's mom has started picking Nico up on their way to chess club, since Grace is in chess as well.
And Wednesday afternoons and evenings, Grandma Salisbury picks Nico up, then him and cousins and Grandparents go to dinner and then Youth Group. Afterward, Papa drops him off. It has been a fun tradition!
Today in Drama Club he got the script for the play they're doing, Wizard of Oz! He put in his request to play Oz, we will find out next week which role he got. Evelyn is also in class with him. It'll be fun to see them in a play together.
Nico has been really into National Geographic "Weird But True" books. He has been checking them out from the library at school. He brings up facts all the time, "Did you know that soap actually comes from underground? So it's impossible to wash your hands!" He used this line on me when I told him to wash his hands before dinner tonight.
