Judgment Call

In the car tonight on the way home, for some reason Nicholas announced, "I don't like people." He seemed sad, but he wouldn't tell us why he had said that.

So instead, we tried to distract him. "Do you like Mommy?" I asked. "Yes." "Do you like Daddy?" "Yes." "How about Grandma and Grandpa?" "Yes."

"Well they're all people, so you like people!" I concluded.

"And I like Uncle Brian and Aunt Shayna too," he continued on his own. "Uncle Brian is funny!"

So Uncle Brian, you're funny. And apparently the only one (other than Nicholas himself).

In Trouble

Lest you think all is sunshine and roses here because those are the times I write, our little darling did NOT have a good day today. When I walked into his preschool this afternoon, his teacher turned to him and said, "Let's go have a chat with Mommy." Uh oh. I've heard that line before with other kids. That means he got in trouble. And not the standard getting reminded to use his "walking feet" trouble. Real trouble.

It turns out that Nicholas didn't want to sleep at naptime. Okay, not great, but that doesn't warrant a talk with the teacher. He apparently decided no one else should sleep either and was singing loudly, taking toys down, and being a nuisance. And, worst of all, when his teacher asked him to stop and reminded him of why he needed to be quiet, he gave her some serious backtalk. Apparently he told her that he wasn't going to listen to her, that he didn't listen to the other teacher either, and that he wasn't going to sleep because he had to be silly.

I believe the teacher, but I was also shocked to hear this report. Not that Nicholas is an angel, but I've never heard him talk back to that extent before or continue pushing that hard. And certainly not with a teacher. But because he was so exhausted (no nap, remember?), he wasn't able to explain anything to me because all he could do was laugh and cry. We may try talking about it again in the morning.

But it was clear to him that we took this very seriously. When we got home I told Joe all about it with Nicholas listening. I tried to get him to tell Joe, but he knew by this point he was in trouble and just kept burying his head and trying to get snuggles. And he lost both tv and all games for the night. And was in bed at 6:45. We were not as hard on him as he had begun to expect, however. When we told him no tv and no games tonight, he responded with, "And no dinner?" But, no, we fed him. And bathed him. And gave him hugs and reminded him how much we love him. But I struggled. How do you walk that line between not comforting away the feelings of knowing he messed up but making sure he knows you still love him and will no matter what?

Actually

This is Nicholas' new favorite word. He has been using "actually" constantly the past couple days. And while his use of the word has been excessive, it has not been incorrect.

So, in honor of Nicholas' new favorite word, here are a few things that made it a very good weekend, actually:

Mike and Melinda came to visit on their way through New England, spending about 4 hours with us. And Nicholas actually did exactly what we hoped and fell asleep in the car on the way home from grocery shopping with Daddy, so that he napped for an hour before they got here instead of through the first 2 1/2 hours of their visit as I had feared.

It was warm enough that we actually went out and played soccer with Mike and Melinda. In February. In New England. Without jackets.

I actually took the holiday off. My university closes for most federal holidays, but they almost all fall on Mondays and Mondays are my prep days so I am usually working in an empty building while Nicholas (whose school is closed) is home with Joe. This semester I am rebelling. I will pay later this week, but today I don't care.

We were all home for the 3 days and I only worked during naps, bedtimes, and Daddy/Nicholas errands (with the exception of a few minutes here and there where I was trying to finish up something I had been in the middle of when he woke up) and yet I actually made great research progress--about 500 more kids added to my database!

We actually cooked a bunch of yummy and (by our recent standards) complex meals, including a sausage tomato sauce, fruit jello, and a squash soup. A delicious weekend and with lots of leftovers.

We played games upon games upon games and had a ton of fun. I got brave enough (and bored enough of the handful we'd been playing) that I taught him Dominoes and attempted Sorry. The last required very significant rule modification, though, so we won't do it again for another year. But Nicholas can now actually play Candyland, Preschool Uno, Hi-ho Cherry-o, Go Fish, Dominoes, and Memory with only a little help or tiny rule modification.

I started using the crazy language and routines from Nicholas' school at home and it is actually working. Apparently he respects school rules in a way he doesn't home rules, so simply by incorporating some of the language from school, he becomes much more manageable.

Nicholas actually slept in on a weekend. Rather than his usual routine of waking up earlier on days we don't have to be up, he slept until at least 6:45 all 3 days!

And, probably most impressive of all, Nicholas actually made it through the entire day using only 2 pull-ups. I actually lost track, but I think he successfully went potty 5 times today!

And, yes, I actually did take some pictures this weekend, although not a ton. There are of course more in the Gallery, but here are just a few:

From 2012 Feb

From 2012 Feb

From 2012 Feb

Homophones

Yesterday Nicholas and I were having a conversation about how people are related (we're not quite up to Grandpa Richard's lessons on how to figure out how many generations removed a cousin is; so far just within the nuclear family). He mentioned that I am his daddy, and I said, "yes, and you are my son."

"No daddy!" came the plaintive reply. "I'm not the Sun! I'm a little boy!"

I tried to explain using his chalkboard, a yellow circle, and two stick figures, but I'm not sure he gets the concept. Oh well.

Fishy Fishy Got My Wishy

Nicholas has embraced the world of games wholeheartedly. Last weekend I decided to try an experiment and see if he was ready for "Go Fish." He had a little trouble but caught on quickly and absolutely loved playing. Tonight he begged me to play it with him and he apparently cemented the rules in his head sometime over the last 4 days because he had it down pat!

I was even more impressed when after we counted how many cards we each had at the end and I asked whether 16 or 12 was the bigger number he said, "16! 16 is the higher number and 12 is the lower number!" Wow, not only did he know the order, but he changed my terminology. I was amazed.

And then he stood up and proclaimed, completely seriously, "16 is this high," reaching his hand up about 4 inches over his head.

So maybe the concept is still a little fuzzy.

But "Go Fish" he understands.

The Word on the Street

Tired.

We are all just tired. Hence the quiet on this here blog recently. Joe has been working frantically to finish a paper (submitted today!). I've been trying to absorb the extra 10-12 hours of work a week I've got going at work right now into my existing hectic schedule. And Nicholas, well Nicholas is apparently trying to find places to lie down and go to sleep in the mornings at school.

Nicholas has tons of new songs and there have been many a hilarious story from the past few weeks, I'm sure, but I can't remember any of them right now. Have I mentioned that I'm tired?

But what I do have, apparently, are lots of pictures of cooking--both real and pretend. Nicholas rediscovered his pretend kitchen this weekend and is a tad bit obsessed. It may have something to do with all the help he has been in the kitchen recently. With the exception of putting the pan in the toaster oven and opening the can of sauce, the kid can make English muffin pizzas by himself these days. Salad was a healthier phase of kitchen usefulness, but these are yummier. :)

From 2012 Feb

From 2012 Feb

From 2012 Feb

From 2012 Feb

From 2012 Feb

From 2012 Feb

(cooking while stirring a pot, how industrious)

From 2012 Feb

Nicholas has also become intent on setting the table, again both the real one and his pretend one. But, alas, no pictures of that.

Literalism

Nicholas hasn't quite figured out metaphors yet.

On Tuesday, I picked him up from school mid-morning to run him to a doctor's appointment (by the way, he's fine). When we got back to his classroom, everyone was mid-play, and he did not want me to leave. He grabbed me by the hand and walked me around to various stations, showing me around (which I suspect he also wanted to do).

At this point I hadn't been to work yet at all, and was a bit anxious to get going. I also didn't want to give in to what seemed like a little separation anxiety. So after about five minutes, as he was leading me to yet another station, I said, "Okay, Nicholas, I'll look at one more thing but then I'm going to rip off the Band-Aid."

He immediately started looking at his body trying to figure out where the bandage was that I was about to forcibly remove.* Oops. I then compounded the problem by saying "It's a metaphor!!" which made his teacher laugh, but only further confused him.

[* Note: To be fair to Nicholas, it would have been logical coming from the doctor's office to have gotten a band-aid of some kind. Though we didn't on this trip.]

Something similar happened just this morning. We were going through our morning routine, and trying to keep him on task so we could go run our errands. So I started to go through what he had to do: "Step 1," do X; "Step 2," do Y.

His response? To stomp around the room chanting, "Step 1! Step 2! Step 3!"

Sigh. He'll figure it out eventually.

Super Bowl XLVI

Nicholas has been psyched about the Super Bowl for two weeks, to watch the Giants one more time this season. (I've created a monster ... mwahahaha!!!) He wore his Giants t-shirt today, definitely for the last time, assuming that he grows, you know, at all between now and September.

Anyway, it became a playoff tradition/superstition to share a spinach-artichoke dip appetizer before the game, and then to eat dinner in the living room with the game on. That may explain part of why Nicholas was so excited, but whatever. Here we are with tonight's spread:

From 2012 Feb

Nicholas was only allowed to stay up until early in the second quarter, but he had a great time watching (not least because the Giants were ahead 9-3 when he went to bed).

He's also gotten the shutter bug ... bug. At one point he jumped up and ran over to the cabinet on which his camera sits, brought it over, and started taking pictures of the TV.

From Nicholas Camera

He was playing with the settings, which include all sorts of fun borders, fake hats, etc. that you can overlay on the photo. He very carefully selected this, and then took a blurry portrait of Giants coach Tom Coughlin:

From Nicholas Camera

What prescience from the boy! I'm just disappointed we can't stress our way through a game again for seven months! But he had fun and the Giants won, so it's all good.

Mommy and Nicholas Day

Today was officially "Mommy and Nicholas Day." I say "officially" because I wrote it on his calendar, which is the benchmark around here. I instituted this official day of fun because I needed something to offer Nicholas to offset his worries about Daddy not being here, but it really did turn into a delightful day, mostly because Nicholas was sweet and helpful, enabling us to have fun together and me to somehow feel like I got a little break even while on solo parenting duty. Astounding.

Joe went to New York for a memorial service for his aunt and even though he was only actually going to be out of the state for 27 hours, Nicholas would be going about 48 hours without him, and Nicholas was really anxious about it. The kid may not be permanently scarred by our fall living situation, but he does not take it as lightly as he used to when one of us goes somewhere. (In fact, every Tuesday night when Joe leaves after dinner for choir we have to reassure the worried little boy that Daddy will be back when he wakes up.) So in addition to reminding Nicholas repeatedly that Daddy would be here when he woke up on Sunday (and making a big deal about the fun Superbowl party they are going to have), I decided to turn Joe not being here today into a special thing in and of itself.

Anyway, Mommy and Nicholas Day started with 2 episodes of Little Einsteins after breakfast because Mommy was tired and after dozing on the couch off and on during the first episode, I put on another one and fell sound asleep. We then finished getting ready for the day and Nicholas was a huge help, gathering up his library books and getting them loaded into the bag. He did stop to read one for a bit, but we weren't in an actual rush for once and he was so careful with the book!

From 2012 Feb

We then hit the library soon after it opened. This is always one of Nicholas' favorite Saturday activities, but today I had promised him something extra special . . . that we'd look for a movie. I may regret having spilled the beans that you can check out things other than books from the library, but I really wanted a movie for us to watch in the afternoon. Have I mentioned that I'm tired?

After the library we did the grocery shopping and because he was being well behaved and asked very nicely, I let him get down and walk when he asked 2/3 of the way through. We had a delightful time and accomplished one of our weekend errands at the same time. Golden.

As we got out of the car at home our friends from the next building were coming out and so we stopped to talk to them for a few minutes, which Nicholas always loves because he is completely infatuated with their 6-month-old daughter. In fact, we now have a song about her. Very creatively, it goes: "It was fun, fun, fun, to see Lei-la-la." He loves Leila!

Two trips with a "helper" to get the groceries up, then we made lunch together, and by the time we were eating Nicholas was leaning his head on his hand. He was too tired to eat much so I let him get down to play while I finished my lunch. And he was playing alone so nicely that I was able to eat lunch while reading a novel! Amazing!

Then we both napped. Heavenly. He even went back to sleep after waking the first time, ending up with over 2 hours. I read, I napped, I read some more. It was like a vacation.

At the library I had promised him the movie after his nap, but he woke up and wanted to play with a puzzle instead. I thought it would be too hard for him because each of these pieces was so discrete and told its own story, but he was much more attuned to subtle visual clues to match pieces than I was.

From 2012 Feb

Once again he played mostly by himself and I was able to do some work in the kitchen.

After a bit he either got bored or suddenly remembered the movie. And the special movie treat I had promised him to go along with it. And so we spent the afternoon curled up on the couch together watching Ratatouille and eating soft pretzels. Really, can it get much better?

We then did 3 loads of laundry and Nicholas was actually a huge help. I despise the front-load machines because clothes are constantly falling out and onto the gross basement floor, but it does mean that Nicholas can load and unload the machines. So since we have two sets of machines in our building, I left him to load one or transfer clothes from the washer to dryer in one while I did the other. Teamwork.

We made dinner together (omelets because the "mouse" in Ratatouille made them), had a delightful dinner, Nicholas did some jumping jacks to burn off energy, and then it was time to get ready for bed.

From 2012 Feb

The wheels came off the wagon a little bit in getting ready for bed. He had been doing so well all day that I sent him to his room with instructions to get undressed while I went and loaded the dishwasher but when I returned to his room to find that he had gotten as far as taking one sock off before he got distracted with playing with the velcro on the shoes on his floor. We had a couple other minor conflicts at bedtime, but nothing big. And he is only 2 1/2, which we sometimes forget.

And, to top it all off, three successful potty trips today! Still less than 50% on the day, but better than the last couple weeks.

Overall, we somehow managed to have a day that was both relaxing and productive and I really felt like we had lots of good quality time. Part of it was luck of the draw that he was in a good mood. Part of it was that he is getting old enough to both play independently and be helpful. And part of it I think was that I wrote off any possibility of doing schoolwork today and so napped while he napped, did housework while he played, and watched the movie with him instead of going off to work. I'll pay for it next week, but I'm beginning to think it was worth it.

Plotting

Joe was gone the past two days and will get back tonight after Nicholas is in bed. Tonight at dinner Nicholas and I had the following conversation:

S: "Daddy will be home when you wake up in the morning. In fact, when you wake up, you should say, "Daddy, come get me!" (As I was talking I realized I could maybe sleep in if I played this right.)
N: "Mommy, come get me!"
S: No, you say, "Daddy, come get me!"
N: "Daddy, come get me!"
S: "Yes, that's better. Okay, in the morning, what are you going to say?"
N: "Daddy, come get me!"
S: "Yes! I like it when we plot."
N: (giggling) "If I don't plot I say, "Mommy, come get me!"

Giggle Fest

From 2012 Feb