When he was good . . .

. . . he was very very good, but when he was bad he was horrid.

Yesterday Nicholas was amazing!  He was good all day, had his best swim lesson ever, and then won a million bonus points by being angelic at Daddy's choir concert.  Even though the concert started an hour after Nicholas' normal bedtime, we decided to give it a shot because he has been expressing both curiosity about what Daddy does at choir and some annoyance at how often Joe is at choir. 

From 2012 December

And I'm so glad we went because Nicholas was really fascinated and it made Joe happy to have us there.  The part that interested Nicholas the most was watching the conductor, who is quite animated.  He paid quite a bit of attention to every song that was in English and it helped a lot that every fourth song was a whole-congregation sing of a Christmas carol and that he spent the first half of the concert counting down the songs until Silent Night.  I didn't have to bribe him with fruit snacks until 40 minutes in and didn't have to pull out a coloring book until the last 5 songs--about 50 minutes into the concert and 2 hours past bedtime!

Then this morning he was an absolute delight in church and even started really working at figuring out what was going on and working on the appropriate responses to the formulaic parts.

Most of the afternoon he was fine, a couple mini outbursts but overall very good as we played lots and lots of games with Uncle Matt.

But tonight . . . tonight he totally lost his mind.  Bedtime took almost an hour and consisted of fit upon fit upon fit.  I know he was exhausted and didn't want to miss out on the fun we were sure to have with Uncle Matt after he went to bed, but that is no excuse for yelling at us like that.

Ads

Nicholas apparently does not understand the concept of ad breaks.  He is watching a Mickey  Mouse movie Joe DVR'd for him and every time they go to an ad break he asks me if he can watch "another one."  The shows he watches on Sprout and Disney Junior only do ads in between episodes and he only watches them on DVR, one episode at a time.  So apparently to him ads mean a show is over.

It makes sense, but it stunned me, particularly for a kid who watches as much tv as this one does.

Meaning of Christmas

Nicholas is working much more actively this year to really figure out the whole Christmas thing.  While not unexpected, it is very challenging for me.  On the one hand, I can't stand lying to him.  On the other hand, I can't really tell him the truth.  And then there are all the things that straddle those two categories, but he is not yet ready for the nuance.

For one, he is very confused by the whole St. Nick/Santa thing.  Some books and movies use one name and some the other.  We tried to just say they were different names for the same person, but he has a VeggieTales movie that is about (well, more or less) the historical saint.  And St. Nick came last week to deliver presents but Santa doesn't come until Christmas.  But not only is he way too young to explain the historical difference, but popular culture isn't consistent.  Case in point: "jolly old St. Nicholas."

It gets even stickier when it comes to the religious meaning of Christmas.  We have been reading various versions of the Christmas story, I have been talking about who baby Jesus was, and he has a whole shelf devoted to the nativity scene my mom made him last Christmas (fabric figures he can play with). 

When he was bored earlier today I suggested that he go play with the nativity scene (which he calls "activity scene") and see if he could set them up and have them talk to each other.  When I came back the shepherds were stuffed on a different shelf, while all the other figures huddled around baby Jesus.  Nicholas' explanation?  The shepherds are in a dark cave because they were trying to kill baby Jesus.  His quote: "They were trying to kill baby Jesus.  They were trying to kill God!"

So I did what any good parent would do.  I changed the subject and left the shepherds in the "cave."  If the parents of either of my godsons are reading this they are probably regretting their choice.  But I just didn't know what to do with it. 

I wanted to lecture him on the violence because it is part of a recent trend of pretending to shoot and talking about people dying or being killed.  (That is a whole different post.  The influence seems to be mostly school but a little the recent transition from Mickey Mouse Clubhouse to Disney movies.)

But, on the other hand, he is shockingly close to the biblical stories.  No, the shepherds didn't try to kill baby Jesus, but Herod sent others to try to accomplish this.  And as far as Jesus being killed, well we all know how that went.  I can't think of anywhere he would have heard the story of Herod, so I assume it was just a lucky guess, but still.  The real problem is that I may say I want to teach him the religious meaning of Christmas but there are parts of the story that are just not appropriate (or comprehensible) for a 3 year old.

On which note, we may have to just boycott Easter entirely this year because I am not ready to talk about crucifixion with my preschooler.

Letter to Santa part 2

Mailed.

From 2012 December

Getting Ready for Christmas

As this first week of Advent begins to draw to a close, Nicholas has just about perfected the Advent Song.

From 2012 December

(The video function is being a pain, so if clicking on the above image does not work, click on the December album to access the video.)

He asks every day how much longer until we get to light the pink candle.

And then after dinner Nicholas wrote a letter to Santa!  He sounded out all the words he wrote, although I corrected a couple vowels that he guessed incorrectly and just told him about the silent letters.  He wouldn't believe me about the "a" in ornament, though, and I decided not to pick a fight.

From 2012 December

From 2012 December

From 2012 December

Fun with Verb Tenses

We've been correcting Nicholas's speech patterns for a long time now, but he seems to be fine with it, so we end up doing a lot of grammar and usage work at the dinner table.

Recently I've been practicing the past tense with him, especially for irregular verbs (why do children only use irregular verbs?!). In particular, I've tried to help him figure it out through an algorithm: "today I x; yesterday I x-ed." Like most three-year-olds, he simply adds "-ed" to make the past tense (he's figured that out, at least), but has trouble with "go," "do," "make," and so on.

In any case, we were doing that the other night at dinner while he was telling us a story about playing with a shovel at school during the day. "I digged with the shovel," he proclaimed. "I dug with the shovel," I mildly corrected, hoping he'd get the past tense.

He sat pensively for a moment, then added: "Today I digged with the shovel. Yesterday I dugged with the shovel."

Getting closer, but not quite there.

St. Nick

St. Nick almost forgot to come to our house last night, but apparently remembered at the last minute.  And Nicholas' feet are so small that apparently he needed to use his boots to fit the Elmo Christmas pajamas he brought in.

From 2012 December

Class Performance

Nicholas' school had a family event the other night and the kids sang a song they had been working on.  And since class performances are basically obligatory for posting, here it is:

From 2012 November

And here is Nicholas' repeat performance at home:

From 2012 December

What cracks me up is how angry he looks at the end.  The kid is really getting into the role!

Starting Line

Nicholas currently uses "starting line" instead of "beginning" in his sentences.  A few examples from today:
"I don't want to start Shrek at the starting line.  I want to start where I left off."
"We went to dinner at a restaurant and at the starting line we had popcorn."

Cracks me up every time.

Thanksgiving Weekend, Part 2

The busy weekend didn't stop after Thanksgiving!

Nicholas swam more!

He built Halloween scary houses!

From 2012 November

He and Grandma engineered fancy (and constantly modified) houses out of blocks!

From 2012 November

He had lunch in Quincy Market and got to sit on the table to eat!

From 2012 November

He went to the Aquarium!

From 2012 November

And he got to put up the Christmas tree!

From 2012 November

From 2012 November

Ah, the life.  And today he turned 3 1/2.  I swear this last half year has gone even more quickly than the previous ones.

Happy Thanksgiving

We had a wonderful and exhausting Thanksgiving.  Nicholas' day included a little bit of the Macy's parade, a 2-hour hike, swimming with his grandparents, watching Tangled with Grandma, talking to 3 of his uncles, and a yummy dinner and dessert.  The kid is beat.

From 2012 November

From 2012 November

From 2012 November

From 2012 November

From 2012 November

From 2012 November

We are so very grateful for our lives and today are particularly grateful that my parents braved the long drive on Thanksgiving weekend to come visit us!

Reporter

Joe brought Nicholas home a reporter's notebook from his conference last weekend and Nicholas has gotten really into "reporting."  Actually, he does reverse reporting.  He has us ask him a question and then he writes down the answer. 

From 2012 November

After the first few questions it becomes very difficult to ask questions that he can actually write answers to because after all he is only 3.  The only answers he can write completely on his own are his name and numbers.  After that we have to come up with questions that have answers that are short and easy to sound out.  But I guess it is good phonics practice, right?  Not to mention the fine motor skills necessary to write while standing up.

Word of the Day: Peppermint

I got a Peppermint Mocha coffee the other day and discovered that Nicholas apparently does not know the word peppermint.  He is, however, quite skilled at dissecting words, even if incorrectly.

N: Is that a Decaf Caramel Mocha?
S: No, buddy, I got a Peppermint Mocha this time.  Would you like to try some?
N: No, I don't like peppermint.  Peppers are spicy and I don't like mint toothpaste.

He of course did try some once I assured him that there are no peppers in peppermint and it was not spicy.  His conclusion?  "I like it!  I like mint coffee but I don't like mint toothpaste."

I decided to skip a discussion of the difference between peppermint and spearmint and instead buy him a candycane to introduce him to what peppermint really referred to.

Boston Tree Lighting

Nicholas and I went into Boston with some neighbors tonight for the tree lighting.  We apparently got there too late to see Santa, but we did see the huge tree as well as a bunch of smaller ones, listened to a few different bands (for a couple songs each), and ate dinner in Quincy Market.

From 2012 November

From 2012 November

From 2012 November

I knew we would have fun because we absolutely love our neighbors, but I didn't expect the tree lighting itself to be so cool. I didn't take video myself (because as you can see above, I had my hands a little full), but there is of course already video up on youtube. We were much closer than the person who took the video, but off to the side a little. Nicholas absolutely loved it! He described it as the tree "dancing" to the music.  And I have to admit to being impressed myself.  It helps that my expectations were pretty low; I assumed they would just plug it in and it would go from off to on.

I am hoping to have an update post later with more pictures because Clair's camera is much fancier than mine and therefore able to handle the crappy lighting conditions of 4:00-6:30 in November in New England. 

Weekend in NY

Nicholas spent the weekend in New York with his grandparents.  This is always a special treat and an exciting proposition, but this time it was even better than usual because Joe and I weren't there to interfere.  We dropped him off and then ran away.  It was a win-win for me.  I got two days to work and sleep and even watch a little tv without interruption.  And then I got the longest and tightest hugs ever when we met up today for the hand off.  Oh, yeah, and Nicholas seemed to like it too!

From 2012 November

From 2012 November

From 2012 November

If You Give a Boy a Job . . .

Nicholas is always so excited to talk about the job he has each day at school that we decided to start giving him jobs at home as well.  So this week we worked together to come up with a list of chores he can do around the house and created a chore chart for the week.

From 2012 November

And it is amazing how much more agreeable (and even eager!) he is to help out when I can link it to his job of the day.

Now if only there was a "sleep through the night-er" job.  He has been up for at least an hour in the middle of the night each night this week.  And as I was typing this he came out of his room for at least the eighth time since I put him to bed 45 minutes ago.  "Mommy, I need you" shouldn't be a phrase that makes me scream inside.

Meta

Nicholas and I had a day today.  You know the one.  When you swear the child's ears must have become disconnected from his brain because he does not listen to a single thing you say ALL DAY and every little thing becomes a 10-round debate.  And where you in turn morph into the parent you hate, yelling, threatening to take away every privilege and beloved possession you can think of, and in general completely losing your cool despite the voice in the back of your head helpfully pointing out that yelling is not helping the situation.

So tonight at bedtime I began a completely calm attempt to discuss the day and try to draw some lessons from it with Nicholas.  We started off fine, with Nicholas immediately answering my question of "How do you think today went?"  with "It was a bad day because I made a lot of bad choices."  He then started listing all of his bad choices, which was not a problem . . . until he turned it into a stalling technique by listing all the toys he "forgot" to play with today.  And when I told him it was time to stop and finish bedtime, he lost it on me.  In response to his screaming I stomped out of his room, which led to him chasing me while screaming at me and eventually me yelling that he was making a bad choice in yelling about the bad choices he had made today.  All while the voice in my head was still helpfully chiming in about how yelling back at him was also a bad choice.  How meta.

We eventually got it together and had a perfectly delightful rest of the bedtime routine.  But I am throwing in the towel on today.  I absolutely have to deal with dishes and the kitchen, but after that I am ignoring the pile of work staring at me (this whole no napping thing is killing my weekend work quota) and curling up in bed with a bowl of ice cream and some Brothers &Sisters DVDs.  And tomorrow afternoon I just may greet Joe at the door with keys in hand. 

Or maybe tomorrow will be better.

Halloween 2012

For the first year Nicholas decided on his Halloween costume himself this year and helped work on it!  And he was . . .

From 2012 October

Woody, from Toy Story!

I took him to Target at the beginning of October to pick out a costume before all the options in his size were gone (because that is how our Target works--if you don't buy your swimsuit in March when they first come out, you are out of luck, even though it is still snowing).  And out of the choices available he really wanted the Woody costume.  Given that it was so thin it wouldn't have been appropriate for trick or treating in Southern California and was really tacky looking, I repeatedly tried to guide him towards other options.  But he wasn't having any of it.  Thus began our weekend adventure of looking for pieces of a costume.

And he really enjoyed looking for parts of the costume, although I got frustrated at points with how perfectionistic he was being.  I can't tell you how many yellow shirts he dismissed as "not a Woody shirt" because they didn't have red "squares."  But we eventually put together an outfit, only buying the hat/belt combo as an actual Disney purchase.  And he even got me to be domestic for a couple days to sew his vest. He picked out the fabric (thank goodness JoAnn's had multiple cow fabrics) and cut the thread for me each time I needed more thread to stitch on his sheriff's badge.  I will admit, however, that I sewed the actual vest while he was sleeping.  Maybe next year he will be old enough to help with the sewing machine, but this year that was still a bad idea.

Nicholas seems happy with his costume:

From 2012 October

We went trick-or-treating with our neighbors and had a delightful time. Nicholas went up to the houses by himself this year, and quickly learned about scooting to the side to avoid getting hit by storm doors that opened out. He rarely said "trick or treat" but was pretty good about "thank you." Our real concern with him was how acquisitive he was. I don't know if it is inherent or the result of the people at the first few houses holding out a bowl and telling him to take 2 or 3, but he was really bad about reaching into the bowl to take extras when someone put something in his bucket. But overall, a great success.

From 2012 October

From 2012 October

From 2012 October

Initials

The other day at the post office they needed my first initial for a customs form.  This of course led the curious 3 year old to ask, "What is an initial?"  And a classic exchange:
N: What is an initial?
S: It is the first letter of your name.
N: Oh.
S: So, what is the first letter of my name?
N: Mommy. Mmmmmm. M.  M is your initial!!
S: Well, no.  What do other people call me?  What is my real name?
N: (thinks for a couple seconds) Sarah!  Other people call you Sarah!
S: Okay, so what is the first letter of Sarah?
N: Ssssss. S!  S is your initial!
S: Yes, that is right.  What about you?  What is the first letter of your name?
N: N!
S: Yep, so what is your first initial?
N: N.
S: Yes. Okay, what about Daddy?  What is Daddy's name?
N: Daddy.  Ddddddd. D.  D is Daddy's initial.
S: No. What do other people call Daddy?
N: Dear.  Dddddd. D is the first letter in dear.
Postal worker (laughing): Well, I guess there are worse things he could hear at home.

Indeed.

Correction

Each night before bed, Nicholas says a little prayer, helped along by whichever parent is in charge of bedtime that night. It's pretty simple: one of us says something like "God, today I am thankful for..." and then we let him list things and people he's thankful for.

Recently he's gotten in the habit of naming five people (he makes me, at least put up my hand to count on my fingers) because he would occasionally go into a run-on prayer in which he thanked God four or five times for Mommy, three times for Daddy, twice for each grandparent, three times for an aunt an uncle ... and so on.

In any case, because he does that now, after he's done with his five, I usually say, "Thank you God for all the people in my life, please keep us all safe and healthy, and help us have a good day tomorrow." Then an "amen" and it's off to his songs.

Tonight when I said the coda, he stopped me. "They're not in my life, Daddy!" Uh, what? "It's just a metaphor," I replied, never missing an opportunity to shoot an SAT word way over his head.

"Daddy, they're not in my life," he repeated. "They're in a state!"

Touché.

Yes, Sir

Nicholas has recently started saying "Yes, sir."  We can't figure out where he picked it up, but he does it for men and women alike.  Mostly it is hilarious, but I'm a little concerned about what will happen the first time he says it to a woman in the store.

Pumpkin Picking

We had already bought a tiny pumpkin at the grocery store a couple weeks ago, but Nicholas was insistent that he wanted to go to a pumpkin patch and I was searching for things to do with him to keep him out of the house on my shifts (Joe and I basically were trading off Nicholas all weekend so we could each get some work done), so off we went to the pumpkin patch on Sunday afternoon once the rain stopped.

From 2012 October

From 2012 October

From 2012 October

From 2012 October

From 2012 October

From 2012 October

Yellow Submarine

I walked into Nicholas' preschool today and was immediately greeted by one of his friends singing the opening lines of "Yellow Submarine."  Apparently Nicholas has been teaching the other kids all of the words so there is now a room full of preschoolers who go around all day singing, "In the town where I was born . . ."

The teachers seem less than thrilled.

Pitching

We watched a lot of baseball in our house last week.  Afterall, the Orioles in the post-season is a pretty big event.  And apparently Nicholas was watching very closely.  Or at least watching the pitchers closely.

From 2012 October

The Dangers of Parking Lots

Today in the parking lot at the doctor's office:

S: Stop! Don't run into the parking lot.
N: Why can't we run into parking lots?
S: What is in the parking lot?
N: Only cars go in the parking lot.
S: Okay, so then why do you think you can't run into the parking lot?
N: Because then a car might smash into me.
S: That's right.  And that wouldn't be good.
N: No.  You don't want your little baby to get all smashed up.  Because then your Nicholas will be all in tiny pieces.

Holes in One, Skateboarding, and Making Applesauce

Nicholas' weekend has been dominated by two major elements: athletic activities with Uncle Andrew and cooking with Grandma.

On Friday afternoon Nicholas got 2 legitimate no cheating holes in 1 while we were playing mini golf!  Here is his scorecard from the game:

From 2012 October

The only exception to normal rules that he played by was that he played some of the holes multiple times and in those cases we recorded the lowest score.  Unfortunately I didn't have the camera running for either of his holes in 1, but here is what he did, when I asked him to re-do a hole he had just gotten a hole in 1 on.

From 2012 October

You can see here his strengths and weaknesses.  His first hit is amazing and when he gets within a foot of the hole he can putt, but his middle game is pretty bad.  (Hence he got more 1s than 2s.)  You can also see in the scorecard that Nicholas' score dropped off towards the end once he decided that his primary goal was to hit the ball up the ramp to whatever the obstacle was instead of aiming for the hole. There is another video in the Gallery of him telling his Grandma and Grandpa about his holes in 1.

Nicholas and Uncle Andrew also played catch,

From 2012 October

worked on hitting tennis balls (which I didn't get pictures of), and Andrew taught Nicholas to skateboard.

From 2012 October

From 2012 October

Now, this skateboarding did lead to another face plant (from sitting on the board, not standing), which knocked  the front tooth a little looser, but since Nicholas has spent most of the weekend throwing himself face first into chairs and couches, it was inevitable that he would jar the tooth at some point.

The other major category of activities involved gardening and cooking.  Tonight for dinner we had Russian Pastries Nicholas had filled with meat, green beans Nicholas had helped pick, and applesauce Nicholas had helped make.  I am always reminded on these occasions how much more well-behaved he is when he is helping.  I need to remember to involve him more often.

And Russian Pastries and homemade applesauce!!!  It makes me wish we were staying a couple more days so I could have leftovers.  Or that the TSA rules weren't so different from my childhood, when my grandparents would bring jars of homemade applesauce to us in California in their carry-on.

It was so good to see Andrew again and Nicholas is totally smitten.

From 2012 October

From 2012 October

The Trip of the Tooth

Last night at the airport Nicholas did a face plant, knocking one of his front teeth (the right one, for my record keeping purposes) out of place.  Now, it could have been worse--the tooth was a little out of line (behind) from his other front tooth and there was a thin line of blood right at the gum line, but it wasn't hanging or really wiggly and he didn't have a mouth full of blood.  We were about to get on a plane, but we decided it wasn't severe enough to cancel our trip and flew to Maryland as planned. 

I did call his dentist on her cell as soon as we landed and on her advice realigned Nicholas' tooth last night after he fell asleep (the fact that I could do this without waking him up tells you both that it wasn't as severe of an injury as it could have been and that the kid was exhausted) and then got him in to a dentist here this afternoon.

The current verdict is optimistic but uncertain.  As long as we can keep him from putting too much pressure on that tooth for the next week, it should tighten back up in the gum given how little looseness there is currently.  This is easier said than done, but at least he no longer sucks his thumb and can go without a sippy cup because those would be clear sabatoge for that tooth.  The longer term outlook is less certain.  The dentist today couldn't tell whether or not there was permanent damage done that would kill the tooth.  Basically we might wake up one morning to discover that his tooth has started to darken and it might turn black.  Or he might be perfectly fine.  It is just a wait and see game and there isn't anything they are going to do on a baby tooth at this stage.

The only cool thing about this episode was that we got to see a really cool x-ray of his teeth in which you could see the adult teeth coming in on top of the baby teeth.  And it was amazing to me how close those front two adult teeth are.  I have no idea how long it takes them to get to where they actually push the baby teeth out, but one of them looked like it was almost touching the top of the baby tooth under the gum line.

Other than the tooth, we have had a great trip so far.  But that is the subject of another post.

On a Jetplane . . .

We go to Maryland tomorrow and Nicholas is SO excited!!!!  He has been counting down the days until he gets to go to his grandma and grandpa's house and it might as well be Christmas!  I am very excited myself, especially since my youngest brother is finally back from China and I haven't seen him in a year and a half.  Hence, the reason for this trip.

As you probably guessed from the lack of posts, life is completely insane here.  And I've finally given up on my earlier insistence each week that the next week things would calm down.  This is going to be the status quo until Christmas.  I'll try to post pictures next week from the weekend, but that may be the peak of blogging for awhile.

In Which the Idea of Being Five is the Coolest Thing Ever

This afternoon on the way home from work, we were all chatting, and somehow we ended up talking briefly about something annoying that teenagers do (the details aren't important nor do I remember them that well). Reminded of what teenagers are like, I called back to Nicholas, "Could you please stay three for a while?"

"I'll be three, but only for a little while," he replied. "And on my next birthday I'll be four!"

We were suitably impressed that he'd put that together, though it's unclear whether he realizes his next birthday is eight months from now. But then he continued, "And then I'll be five!" He was ecstatic, so Sarah asked him why he wanted to be five, that is, what excited him that five-year-olds get to do. His reply?

"I want to go to elementary school! And kindergarten."

We discussed it a bit, and all of us agreed that kindergarten will be fun because it's a lot like pre-school, only better. Also, can you tell this is the son of two academics or what?

Picture Post

We haven't posted any pictures in awhile, so here are a few from recent weeks.

We went apple picking last weekend, which was a disappointment overall because the trees had already been picked pretty clean.  In fact, I ended up climbing trees to get some that were up at the top.

From 2012 September

From 2012 September

Today Nicholas and I went to the park while Joe got some work done.  The light was really tricky for pictures, so I only managed to get two that weren't washed out.

From 2012 September

From 2012 September