End of the month lookback, May

May 2008
Weight: 12lb 8oz
Height: 23in

May 2009
Weight: approx 28lb
Height: approx 34in

May 2010
Weight: 36lb
Height: approx 40in

If Nicholas ruled the world

-he would wear no clothes or diapers, only his green hat and shoes when we go outside-we would spend 95% of the day outside. Riding his bike, pushing his lawnmower, walking, playing at the beach. It would never rain.

-he would only eat popsicles, chips, cookies, M&Ms, and french fries. He would only drink apple juice

-if the mood strikes, we would come inside and he would take a bath with bubbles and he would play as long as he wanted

-at the end of the day, if he felt like it we'd sit on the couch watching only Caillou or Dora. He would only go to bed when he fell asleep on Mommy's lap and couldn't hang anymore.

Slow to update

It's been a hectic week. I've been slow in updates. Nicholas took to not feeling well over the weekend. He had a pretty high fever, some fast and hard breathing, a little vomiting, but no other symptoms. We went to the doctor and everything looks clear: no ear infections, no sinus infection, his throat is the tiniest bit red but Strep came back negative. His lungs sound good so it's puzzling. We're doing a round of antibiotics just to see if that takes care of whatever it is.

Fingers crossed it goes away quickly.

Picture of the Week

Little ones playing outside.

This is from June 2009. My all time favorite picture of Nicholas on a slide. One of his first sliding experiences and he's loving it.

Full weekend

We had a pretty full and fun weekend. The weather was beautiful, finally!

Friday night we had a little fun with hats.


Saturday morning Nicholas and I got up and walked down to the beach.
As soon as we got there, he headed straight for the slide.

He went up

Can you tell he loves it?

And he went down

Repeat 8643 times.
Then we walked along the beach and searched for shells.

He found a big stick to help

Here he is carrying all his loot. Guess who got to carry them (and Nicholas) home?

On the way home he picked me a bunch of dandelions and I showed him how you can blow the white ones. He thought it was awesome!

We took a nap then got up and went back down to the beach for a concert with a rockabilly band, we ate some Italian ice

Then sat and watched the local ballet school put on a performance

These little girls were incredibly cute.


For dinner I made spaghetti. Nicholas ate 2 bowls! Pasta, sauce, meat and all. this is incredibly wonderful for him.

When all was done, we walked 6.5 miles on Saturday and spent 4 hours down at the beach. Thank God for beautiful weather.
Sunday was a quiet day at home. Nicholas was worn out by weekend's end. Sunday night he was dead asleep less than 3 minutes after his head hit the pillow.

Spiders and torment....that's what boys are made of

This is what my loving son did to me last week.

We live right next to some woods and wetlands so we have a lot of spiders in and around our house.

We wake up in the morning and somehow in the dark bedroom Nicholas sees a little spider running across the floor.

He's chasing it trying to catch it and I'm tell him no leave it alone, running to get some tissue to squish it. Before I can get the tissue, Nicholas actually catches the spider in his hands and squishes it between his fingers.

I have the tissue now and I'm asking him to open his hand so I can wipe it up. He doesn't want me to wipe it up, he keeps saying, "no Mommy no wipe".

So for a couple of minutes he's carrying around this dead squished spider because he won't let me wipe it off of his hands.

We go to change clothes for the day and he's sticking his hand in my face to show me his new best friend. I'm squirming away saying ick no I don't like it which to Nicholas is hilarious.

So he torments me for a minute or two and then what does he do? He throws the spider on me and cracks up!

This boy is going to be one of those practical joke tormentors that's going to bring home a snake and throw it in my lap just to see me freak out.

Mother's Day weekend

Mother's Day weekend started out with me coming home to this flower that Nicholas picked for me. He was really REALLY excited as soon as I walked in the door, screaming at me "FLOWER FLOWER!" He's such a sweet boy.








Friday evening, he played a little baseball. He got this bat and tee set for his birthday and we just opened it up about a week ago. He's surprisingly good! He sets the ball up, squares his feet, and we taught him to hold the bat right hand on top of the left (he's definitely a righty). He watches the ball and BAM! He's had a couple of line drives blast thru the living room.


Saturday we went and got Nicholas another haircut. I think this makes #4 or #5 already. After the last haircut episode I figured we'd be in for a rough day so I packed a bunch of lollipops and said a little prayer.

He was surprisingly good about it, we went thru 5 lollipops, but he sat and let his stylist, Beatriz, shave his hair and use the scissors. Yes, my son has a stylist. I do not.

Of course he turned out looking extra handsome and somewhat older.


The back and sides. She cut it really close for the summer.

And a smile.

Mother's Day morning, I woke up to this.

This is Nicholas new way of letting you know he's not pleased with you. He folds his arms, wrinkles his face, and says "I'm mad."

It only lasted for a little bit though and he must have told me a million times thru the day "Happy Mother's Day" and gave me kisses.

He also gave me the best gift I could have ever asked for: he took a 4 hour nap. He hasn't done that since he was a newborn and boy did I need it, I got a nice snooze in too.

I made dinner and Nicholas kept me entertained with his pot orchestra.

At the end of the night, I said to Nicholas, "thank you for giving me a great Mother's Day."
He said, "ummmm you're welcome."

Edited to add: I have to mention that my 12 year old step daughter called yesterday to say Happy Mother's Day. I have the best step daughter anyone could ask for.

End of the month lookback, April

A look back at the month of April from 2008 until now.

April 2008
Weight 9lb 14oz
Height 21.75 inches
Nicholas was about 3 weeks old here. Sitting with his Great Grandpa on his first trip to Pennsylvania, first stay in a hotel, and first meeting for a bunch of extended family members.

April 2009
Weight a little over 25lb 5oz
Height a little over 33 inches
He's already got lots of teeth and is perfecting his smile

April 2010
Weight a little over 34lb
Height a little over 38 inches
*He's completely outgrown anything size 2T and 3T, especially the pants are too short
*He's mostly wearing size 4T and 5T or little boys XS sizes.
*He's wearing a size 11 shoe mostly but can still fit into a pair of size 10.
*He's wearing the largest Pull-Ups size, 3T - 4T and still trying to potty train. He's stubborn about it and does it when he wants to or when he wants fruit snacks.
*He can count 1 -12 unassisted and up to 20 with help.
*He knows most of his letters on sight especially upper case and also a few lower case.
*He loves to sing and wear hats. He loves to ride his bike and be outside.
*He's not a great eater, won't touch vegetables and most meat. He will eat fish sticks and chicken nuggets. Pssst, those are vegetarian chicken nuggets.
*He loves macaroni & cheese, grilled cheese sandwiches, apple juice, most fruit, yogurt, string cheese, and of course cake and cookies
,

3 things Thursday

3 Things I'm loving this week

1) The post secret sites I've recently been made privy to. Lots of time wasting and juicy gossip going on reading those. 2) Receiving wilted dandelions at the end of almost everyday. Nicholas pics them for me when Grandma takes him to the playground in the morning and saves them until I come pick him up. They're pretty much dead by 5:30pm but I don't care, I treasure those floppy flowers.

3) Nicholas being such a gentleman. I've said it before but I love that he removes his hat when he goes into a building, says please, thank you, excuse me, and you're welcome. And that he will open a door for me and hold it while I walk through. He's going to be quite the catch someday.

Are we there yet, please please please?

So apparently Nicholas is bored with my driving and has a need to get where we're going fast. On almost the entire trip to the grocery store this past weekend, he kept asking, "Are we there yet?" "Are we there yet?" "Mommy, are were there yet? I don't see the store."

He'll also ask for something like to stop and play at the playground and end it with "please, please, please, please, please...."

I thought these 2 things weren't supposed to happen until at least age 6 or so.

Picture of the Week

This week's theme: Musical tot.
Here's Nicholas listening to the headphones

Kenya's 12th Birthday Weekend

Kenya's 12th birthday was this weekend. She decided to have a slumber party for a few friends. Friday night Rich picked her up with 2 of her girlfriends, he took them to dinner, and then they headed home.

Nicholas sat patiently waiting way past his bedtime. He was way too excited that his sister was coming and that she was having a birthday party to sleep. No, Kenya did not have a Nemo party just like Nicholas. Nicholas feels it is 100% necessary to wear a party hat to all parties especially while singing "Happy Birthday" so he wore this hat all night, sang "Happy Birthday" over and over and pretended to blow out many many birthday candles.

The next morning everybody went to breakfast and the mall, picked up another of Kenya's friends then we all headed to the beach.
The girls mostly hung out near the water.

Nicholas went down the slide about 80 bazillion times.

The girls took some photos

Nicholas wasn't a fan of the photo sessions.

Saturday night was quiet at home.
Sunday morning we got up, did breakfast, then Nicholas got ready to drive us down to the beach again. He put on some Chapstick to protect his lips from the sun (that's the huge glob of red gunk you see on the side of his face).

We walked a bit then all went for ice cream. Nicholas was disappointed they didn't have "yellow" ice cream so he settled for chocolate.

Can you see his wheels spinning, thinking, there has to be a better way.

And here it is, face first to the bowl.

We headed home and the girls played a few games

Finally, everybody said their goodbyes and headed home. It was a nice weekend, I think they all had a good time. After everybody left, Nicholas went to bed early and I sure know I was exhausted.