Ring Bearer

I don't have any pictures of Nicholas actually doing his job as ring bearer, but here are a couple of him and Nate (Shayna's nephew and his co-ring bearer). And, yes, two ring bearers is certainly more than double the cuteness.

Trying to blow out the fire in the fireplace (for like 5 minutes):

From 2011 October

Fist bump:

From 2011 October

Nicholas at the Wedding

Sarah and I realized that at least half of the people who read the Chronicle were present when these photos were taken. So this one's for the non-Uncle Brian and Aunt Shayna family and friends. Sarah may post a more complete account of the weekend (or I might, who knows), but for now, we wanted to give you a glimpse of Nicholas in his tuxedo:

Here's the whole family outside the wedding venue just before the ceremony, all of us looking dapper:

From 2011 October

And here's one of Nicholas surveying the dance floor at the reception:

From 2011 October

Think he was tired?

A great time was had by all, especially Uncle Brian and Aunt Shayna. Nicholas was exhausted by the end of the weekend, but how could you trade a few hours' sleep for the adoring attention of aunts, uncles, and cousins?

EDIT: Photo credits go to Grandpa Richard (below) and his friend Rob (above photo).

Home

Nicholas and I are home safe and sound. Joe is still working on getting back to Philly, but should be back by 1am. Nicholas was a rockstar, especially on the flights. And even more so when you consider that when he went to bed at 10:20 tonight that was earlier than the previous two nights. Sometimes he is so aggravatingly 2 years old and other times he just blows me away with his patience.

Nicholas' feelings about the weekend can be pretty well summed up with his prayer tonight: "Dear God, thank you for the planes and for my aunts and uncles."

Goodnight.

This Week's Calendar

Joe and Nicholas made a calendar for this week over the weekend.

From 2011 October

And I have to say, it puts mine from last week to shame.

And Nicholas loves to go and look at his calendar and narrate all about it, so the past two nights I've tried to get a video of it. And I'll post them both here, because they are each awesome in their own very particular way.

Last night:

From 2011 October

Tonight:

From 2011 October

And, yes, Uncle Brian and Aunt Shayna are getting married in Chicago this weekend, and all his aunts and uncles will be there. He is so excited!

Weekend with Daddy

Since Joe was home two weekends in a row (gasp!), our to-do list was much shorter than usual and we managed to take care of our errands and weekend chores and still have a little time to relax.

I think the most fun part of the weekend for all three of us was the half hour we spent letting Nicholas ride his bike around the apartment complex and over to the playground.

From 2011 October

He has gotten really good at pedaling with all the practice at school and was thrilled to have a wide open space to really get going. Watch him go:

From 2011 October

We actually got the Giants game on tv today and after watching the first half during Nicholas' naptime, Joe was really hoping to watch the rest. So he put Nicholas in his Giants t-shirt, taught him some cheers, and tried to get him interested in watching the game. Nicholas was most interested in watching people catch the ball, yelling "good catch!" regardless of which team it was.

Once he got bored, he switched to dancing, and we couldn't help but get out the camera after a few of these performances.

From 2011 October

The only downside to having Joe home for the weekend is that we all have to be up at 4:30 tomorrow to get him to the airport. Not quite the ideal way to start the week. I have the feeling tomorrow may be one of those days where I end up taking a nap curled up under my desk.

Smarty Pants

It's official. My two-year-old is smarter than me.

The most recent evidence:

• He has the entirety of Corduroy's Christmas Surprise memorized. Verbatim. And this is no short board book. It is 30 pages long and each 2-page spread has 4-8 sentences on it. And sentences like, "Corduroy looked out the window to see a crisp, sunny day and a fresh blanket of snow on the ground."


• He knows his left from his right and gets them correct 100% of the time. And if I get confused when facing him, he corrects me, confident that he is right, which he is.


• He loves fruits and vegetables. Not only do his salads have a wider variety of vegetables than mine (both of which he makes virtually by himself), but he also carefully eats every single onion I saute with the green beans after his beans are gone.

I'm sure there is more evidence, but those are the things that blew me away today. He also has figured out enough of the abstract question words to have a real conversation. A conversation two days ago in the car:

• N: I have a sticker, Mommy. See my sticker?


• S: That is a nice sticker, bud. Where did you get the sticker?


• N: At school. In my new classroom.


• S: Who gave it to you? (expecting either a random aside or maybe "my teacher")


• N: Miss Laura.


• S: That was nice. Why did she give you a sticker? (At this point I didn't figure he was following, but was bored driving home and hadn't talked to anyone all day.)


• N: (brief pause) I helped clean up the classroom.


• S: Miss Laura gave you a sticker for helping clean up the classroom?


• N: Yeah.

He also properly converted a pronoun the other day in a way that stunned both me and Joe. Joe was on speaker phone while Nicholas and I were crossing the day off on his "count down for Daddy" calendar. Nicholas tried to show it to Joe through the phone (the difference between speakerphone and Skype is a little above his paygrade) and then started pointing to things to show him.

"This is pizza. And that is school. And this is Da . . . this is you, Daddy!"

From 2011 October

I have been in awe of this little boy for a long time, but his language development is really amazing me. He works diligently on grammar and often pauses or goes back and corrects himself when he gets it wrong. He still has some trouble conjugating past tense, but he tries hard and I am impressed. Where did we get this child?

I'm just waiting for the first snowfall (in, you know, a week), when Nicholas looks outside and proclaims that we have a "fresh blanket of snow on the ground." He has already declared that he is happy because he is going to Corduroy's house at Christmas. I tried to convince him we could only pretend to go, but he is pretty determined. Anyone want to come over dressed up like a bear in overalls and make a gingerbread house?

Prescience

From the post, "Six Days In," May 31, 2009:

Oh, and he's discovered how to suck his thumb. We may hate this last skill in about two years, but for now, it's a nice developmental step.

Why yes, yes we do hate that skill. And we somehow sensed through the haze that it would cause problems one day. Sigh.