Nick's Twenty-Fourth Month

Nick experienced his first brain freeze. While eating some of Grandma Sue's frozen strawberry yogurt pie, his mama warned him. About 10 bites in, he dropped his head onto the counter, brow crashing with a thud against the hard surface, and mumbled in a monotone, "Oh, no." It was rather hysterical, actually. Best laugh I've had all month. (Even better than my buddy Donny singing "Queen" at karaoke, and that was a riot.)

Nick really loves music - no question now. He still sits daily at the piano, and loves to hear Brandi play her violin. Still dances the same, too. But he needed an instrument easier to handle. So we let him play with his great-great grandpa Golembiewski's harmonica, and he never puts it down - and he's aggressive with it. I call home to talk to Brandi, and it sounds like we have a hobo on speed in the background.

He counts everything now, clearly up to 10, and learning through 15 fast. But I got most excited when Brandi drew him a baseball, and he knew it by name. A touching manly moment.
Favorite new words: dragonfly, triangle, and parasail.

We shoveled the driveway together as a male bonding experience (and practice for what will become his job shortly.) I just can't keep his hat and mittens on him, but his hands and face are always warm - I think he's just warm-blooded, and gets hot.

Nick is not a kid shy of others, or afraid to be adventurous. I lose him in the McDonald's playground, and it's only one room. He takes off with kids older than him, into the tunnels high above the ground, and I have to go in after him to get him out. We're beyond the simple climbing phase, and into advanced climbing. He pushes chairs around the kitchen to reach the counters, open the freezer, and reach the cupboards. Nothing is out of reach. We had only one McDonald's incident, which resulted in a fat lip. When we took him out shopping later, he would ride around with his lip pressed against the cold metal shopping cart frame to sooth the pain.

And then there's the prep for Christmas...
We decided to set up a tree and manger for Nick at the last minute, the week before. We did the small 2' tree, with small unbreakable ornaments, safe lights in an enclosed tube, and set it at his level, just off the ground. Had we put it up high, he would have climbed until he eventually got to it anyway. He was very helpful with the ornaments, and once the tree was up, we stepped back to watch him enjoy it... by grabbing the top branch, yanking it from the table, and dragging it across the room like a caveman until the light cord would let him go no further. He shoved the ornament balls in his mouth and spit them across the room in laughter, and pulled off all of the garland and draped it all over himself. After about 3 days, he left the tree alone. He calls it a baseball tree, because of the balls on it.

Click here for 24th month pictures.

- Jason

Nick's Twenty-Third Month

PC is on the fritz again this month, slowing me down, but here's the update!Nick is going to be easily motivated with positive reinforcement. Tell him he did something good, or heavens forbid you clap, and he'll show you he can do it ten more times, every way from Sunday, and if it's a new word, at varying decibles. He counts to three each night before being handed off to mama for bedtime (although sometimes he starts at five - don't know why.) He's picking up concepts and ideas fast now - from the differences in big and small, to pretending to pull the whistle chain and yell 'choo choo' like a train. One of my favorites is shouting, "Yar!" whenever he sees a pirate on TV.

He can jump, sort of. Both feet usually leave the ground, sometimes his buns hit the floor before the other foot if he gets too much elevation. I let him loose in the yard, and he climbed the tall swingset steps to the slide - it was a challenge, but he made it. Winter has been tough so far, with a cold Fall, he's been able to go outside less, and when he does, he's bundled up like the stay-puff marshmallow man.

Favorite food this month: Skittles (fondly known as 'good beans'), but also loves Subway and oh my, mama's pancakes. He ate a full breakfast with me one morning - I slaved over eggs, bacon, potatoes and toast, and then mama wakes up and he screams 'pancakes!' and she comes out like a hero with 3-minute hotcakes.

He has so many new words that I can't cover them all, but my favorite is 'caboose' which somehow he pronounces as 'caballs' and thinks it's correct. At this age, you can get away with alot if it's cute. But most others, he's right-on. 'Frog' comes out often sounding like something I didn't want him to learn. But we're jumping right into two, three and four-syllable words like 'balloon', 'airplane', 'caterpillar', and his favorite, 'butterfly'! And he pronouces 'pony' like 'pawney.' We have several picture books, and he picks up a few more words every day, sometimes by surprise; he picked out the pumpkin picture tonite, which was a new one.

We set up a little table and chairs for him in the TV room, where he can have his snacks, draw shapes, and color. It's another hand-me-down, as I used the same table 30 years ago.

He still dances, but he's pickier about the music (prefers Mozart) and he hikes his pants up when he dances (we can afford pants that fit - I don't know why he does that.)

Click here for 23rd month pictures.

- Jason

Nick's Twenty-Second Month

This picture is what happens to Nick when he spends a week with his grandparents in Atlanta. He ends up in a dusty sombrero, wearing an elephant sweatshirt (in an election week!), and eating carpenter's glue. Truthfully, they are taking wonderful care of him, having toddler-proofed most of the house, from swapping out doorknobs to shifting every valuable in the house above chest height. Ironically, I spent this week in San Antonio and Houston doing cultural research, so the sombrero is a funny coincidence. I'll even make a plug for Lupe Tortilla's if you're looking for a good local flavor in Houston. Nick does miss home when he travels now, like the glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling in his bedroom. And counting the chimes on the old parlor clock, even though he just smiles until the fifth chime, and then starts counting at five. Placement of valuable items in the house is even more important now that he can climb out of the crib.

You can tell from videos he never stops talking. He's either pointing at something beyond the sight of old eyes yelling, "Look, look!" Or making ambulance noises like 'wee-wah, wee-wah.' Big words this month are 'helicopter' and 'kitty-cat' and he asks, "What is that?" continually. After spending so much time with older cousin Seth, Nick now loves planes as much as cars. He points them out in the sky everytime he walks outside, spotting them from distances so far I can't find them until a few minutes later. We're suspecting that he believes he can make them appear by pointing to them, not the other way around. My nephew made me a paper airplane that was pretty fancy. I considered throwing it at the airport when I got into the open air, as a proud gesture, but didn't since it has sentimental value to me, and I figured throwing anything at the airport would probably get me tackled by an unusually motivated TSA agent.

With Halloween comes punkins, and we had a good month for them. Grandpa Mantel grew him a bunch all summer on a vine in the garden; Nick would go out and test them by knocking on them all the time. Now he knocks on every pumpkin he sees - that takes forever in the four-foot-deep bin at the Meijer. He decorated his own punkin this year with a marker (you'll be able to guess from the pics which one is his when I get it posted) and we carved a couple with the Faylings. OK, so mine isn't an original idea, but I did add a little spin of my own. Great pics here. As a little extra, here's a great link to a less-messy pumpkin carving site.

His feet finally grew more, requiring new shoes. His growth has slowed a bit, falling back to the expectation that comes with two short parents. His eating habits are 'feast and famine' but there's little risk of him starving. He found a bag of animal crackers the other night, walked them out to the TV room, pulled up on the couch, opened the bag, and fed himself. It's almost like having a teenager, except for the diapers.

In my world - Carrie, Miranda, Jess & Robin - you'll be proud to know the sweater you bought me when I turned 16 found new life last week. I wore it for an 'ugliest sweater contest' at work, and qualified, but didn't win. I wasn't sure if simply being outdated was good enough to be considered ugly, but my younger coworkers assured me I was only feathered bangs and a Members Only jacket away from 1980s hideous. I argued I should have won a special category for 'first owner' sweaters to make the judging fair, as I didn't have to run to the Salvation Army the night before for a retread pullover. So save something in your closet for 20 years from now (although I can't imagine anything from today will look as awful as fashions from the 70s and 80s look today.)

Click here for 22nd month pics.

- Jason

Nick's Twenty-First Month

We've had 20 months of cute pictures - the kind that make you say, 'awwww!' Then somehow Nick crossed over into the bizarre. As I sort through all of the pictures from this month, I see him flipping 'the bird' to the camera, eating a Master padlock, in a dog cage, wearing what appears to be a racoon hat, and flushing himself down the throne (a moment in time that could well be titled 'a creative way to lose a good pair of socks.' 'Kind of a funny way to potty train, don'tcha think?,' observed my father. You never have to stage a great moment for a photo op at this age, you just have to be quick with the camera.

More time this month with the cousins from Atlanta, and with no gasoline in the south, they had plenty of time playing at home on the slide, in the yard with bubbles, and indoors, safe from the Georgia heat. Most of the time you see baby Thatcher in the pics with Nick, as Thatcher is usually intent on whatever Nick is doing, where Nick is intent on intervening into whatever Seth is doing. And the dogs steer clear, for fear of being trampled by the high traffic of kids barrelling in and out of their doggie door.

Cool food of the month: he can dip his own Chicken McNuggets, and loves the BBQ sauce. He usually dives in 'double fisted' with a dry nugget in one hand, and a BBQ nugget in the other, so he can mix and match for the taste buds. Also loves chocolate Teddy Grahams, and Goldfish crackers. But nothing tops Gushers!

He sits for hours and stacks blocks one on top of the other, and they're the little ones, too, so it's not easy. His record is 15 blocks, and man is he excited when he sets a new record. He must be able to count in order to know, right?

Nick now meaningfully says, 'Hi' and 'Bye' and is pronouncnig other words better like 'doggie' and 'book' (the letters G and K took a little extra time.) Now we need to polish the non-verbals, like ripping off his diaper when he's ready to be changed.

Click here for 21st month pictures.

- Jason

Nick's Twentieth Month

Nick placed his first independent phone call this month, one year after crawling over to the phone and randomly pushing buttons just to hear them beep. Fortunately, when he stole his mother's phone he called me, not Italy, so the call wasn't expensive. This is part of a continuing pattern of his increasing sociability. We're making more friends in the neighborhood now as Nick waves at every car, bike and runner that goes by.

Brandi filled out a personality inventory for Nick in one of her magazines (probably the same one where you can 'rate your mate by the color of his socks' or 'estimate your ideal % of body fat by the number of carrots you can stick in your ear' so we take the advice with caution.) It appears he is a "Spirited" child, which is one of those words you use to describe another person's kid when you really want to say 'pushy' or 'loud' or 'uncontrollable tornado.' Essentially, he's uber curious, points at things constantly wanting me to say their name, and plows through other kids like the circus folk I encounter stampeding to board an airplane in every city. (Why do people have to cram onto the plane? What is this urge to compete for space on a plane where your seat is already guaranteed and assigned?)

Joy abounds as I finally stopped being cheap and bought an industrial sprinkler that will water my entire yard from one spot. Nick loves it - sticking his head in the streams, runnning under the water. It has a lifetime warranty, so he can take it to college with him. He's also back in the pool this summer, of which I have yet to post videos. He got his first skinned knee this month by racing around the pool and nosediving into some unforgiving concrete. He bled a little, brushed it off, and kept on trucking. Didn't slow him down.

Favorite new foods this month: barbeque chips, sloppy joes, and bratwurst.

I went away for a few days for business travel, and he sprouted while I was gone. He walked up to me when I returned, looked me in the eye, and explained to me... well, something I couldn't understand. But it felt like I got my first lecture. He's now very direct with his conversation. Tonite in the car, we pulled out of the driveway, and he asked, "Where are we going?" I'm not ready for full sentences yet; my reaction felt like immense surprise as if the neighbor's dog would have asked me for more treats in plain English - just hard to believe that's Nick already talking.

And he can find his belly button!

Click here for 20th month pictures.

- Jason

Summer 2008 in Atlanta

Brandi & Nick went to Atlanta for ten days, celebrating a 50th Anniversary for the Nicholsons, 50th Birthday for her Dad, and 50 diapers a day from the multitude of children in the house (ok, not fair to Seth, who is potty trained, but you get the idea - plenty of pandemonium with all of the activities.) It's amazing to me that each week Nick spends with Seth he returns home obviously more advanced. Hanging with the big kids, he picks up new tricks. There are some great pictures here of the older boys riding in shopping carts together, playing video games, and wrestling with the dogs. In six months, Thatcher will be added to the mix, as he will be old enough to jump into the pile (and probably large enough to take out the older two. My brother-in-law is going to need a second job to feed the toddler - he eats twice as much as Nick at the same age. Yikes!) The gang also visited the Atlanta Aquarium, plenty of playground trips, and of course, daily runs to the grocery store. I had quite the lifestyle adjustment at home as I fended for myself, while Brandi took her awesome home cooking on the road for a week. But not to worry, my return to bachelorhood tactics assured my survival.

Click here for pictures from the trip.

- Jason

Nick's Nineteenth Month

Like his dad, Nick continues to add to his car collection (two big-kid toys and the new Chrysler, of course, his favorite). But you can't just let a rookie driver take off with the new car, so Brandi found him a gently used Cozy Coupe from the 1980's (he loves the classics). Interesting that the first time he approaches any car he checks the tires, as if to gauge the tire pressure. When he was just old enough to walk, he must remember me checking air in all the car tires with my new air pump, so he knows that's important. When he's in a parking lot, he runs around knocking on all the tires. I'm going to teach him to check the oil next. Brandi also bought him a tee-ball set. We're starting with bunting, because it's a lost art that needs to be stressed early (right before switch-hitting). And he loves toy lawnmowers. At a recent party, he monopolized the toy mower from the other kids (and even got a little pushy about it - thank you for sharing your toys with us, Evan, and I'm sorry!)

Nick's love for music doesn't stop at singing and the piano. He randomly breaks into dancing while watching TV, or hearing Brandi's music box. His dancing reminds us of the elephant in Aladdin, but there's video for you to be the judge. Apparently rhythm is a genetic thing, because he's never seen us dance. (Nick taught Brandi this dance, not the other way around.) He started jamming in his car seat when I played the new Kid Rock CD. My boy, made in Detroit.

Nick went strawberry picking at the beginning of the month with his mama and family. He quickly figured out filling his bucket with berries went much faster if he just thieved the berries from other people's buckets. Everyone stayed in order, picking and eating a little along the way, while Nick rotated between picking, running through the fields to the furthest corners of Petersburg, and moving the farmer's marker flags. A big thanks to Mr. Steuwe for letting the family pick all morning and having the field to themselves (my plug for Steuwe Farms, in Petersburg, MI.) I made myself sick on strawberry shortcake, and Brandi made homemade strawberry jam, which we ate with almost every meal for 2 weeks. Absolutely awesome.

Least favorite food of the month: avocados. I concur. Yuck! But we did take him out for some good Mexican, and there was nothing he turned down - not even the spicy stuff. He now gets steak Gorditas from Taco Bell as a reward, and he eats the entire thing.

Since this is a blog about the family, and not just Nick, Brandi earned a story this month. At a July 4th party with our gang from school, Stephanie had a video on her phone of Brandi riding the mechanical bull at the local bar, Whiskey Ranch, a few weeks earlier. It's a little dark to view, but I posted it anyway, because events in life that are a great story and a great memory are priceless and worth sharing. Apparently the word is out - invite the Mantels if you're looking to liven up the party. Can you believe that?

And finally, mark the day: July 21st. Either this was the exclusive preview to the terrible twos, or they've already started. In one day, he nearly pulled a dresser down on his head, climbed up on a table 4 feet in the air, knocked over the dehumidifier on himself and almost pulled a light fixture from the ceiling. All remodeling is officially on hold until the destruction is complete.

Click here for 19th month pictures.

- Jason

Baseball Weekend, June 2008

The guys and I renewed our summer baseball ritual from the 80's and 90's, only this time instead of watching the Reds play in Cincinnati, we followed them to Yankee Stadium, my first trip to the Big Apple.The crowds took some adjustment, as did the reek of sewage, high humidity, teeth-jarring subway trains, and cramped airport (Laguardia was like a rabbit farm on the way out of town, as cancelled flights caused people to pile up in the terminal with fewer exiting than arriving.) But let no one tell you that folks out east are rude - I encountered some awesome folks during the trip (the girl from Australia, the bartender from Ireland...) Seriously, except for the jerk bartender in "Charley O's" bar (avoid that Sunday afternoon shift at the bar on Broadway), everyone was great.

The memory I will most take away from this trip is Brad's jumping on the wrong subway train for south Manhattan, the door closing, and him being rushed away while the rest of us stood there and watched. We connected later, but watching him be helplessly carried away was a chuckle. Since our phones were working only sporadically underground, I sent my first text message ever, in desperation to find our lost friend. It said, "beers @ eamonns, murray @ church - come find us." We watched four innings on the big screen before he arrived.

Of course traveling means eating non-stop. We covered "Mickey Mantle's" along Central Park, Moxie's Deli for a multiple-pound Pastrami, the "Brooklyn Diner" for awesome thin crust pizza, and a great little Irish pub or two, our favorite being "Eamonn's" in central Manhattan.

I also saw my first Broadway play, "November", starring Nathan Lane. Very talented man, and great entertainment for anyone, but especially if you love a little twist on your politics (is there such as thing as 'untwisted politics?') Best quote from the play: "There are no solutions. Only rearranging of problems." I recommend it, although it's closing in July. Best part of Broadway? The blonde aussie I met in the ticket line who gave me her reviews of all the shows she'd seen in a week.

Finally, I did a little 'tourist' round of visiting the Ground Zero site and memorial, and walking down to the park to see Lady Liberty from a distance. We also played catch in Central Park one afternoon.

I came home with a $3 T-Shirt from a street peddler, and a lot of great memories (and only about 15 hours of sleep in 3 days.)

Click here for photos from the trip.

- Jason

Nick's Eighteenth Month

Nick is getting into rhymes and games now. Mama taught him 'Patty Cake' and 'Ring around the Rosy'. For the first one, he can 'mark it with a B' by drawing a B in his hand. For the second, he flops on the floor like John Barry at the word 'around' (an NBA player known for flopping fouls, for the pointless-sports-trivia-challenged folks.) He's also learning rhythm, when we sing in the car, and taps his hands to the beat. Brandi plays her boombox frequently, so his favorite tunes to sing along are from Sara Evans. His singing still sounds a little like the 'Chinese Top 40', but as far as just talking, his current vocabulary contains Ball, Up, Bird, Mama, Daddy, Chocolate, and Juice. (This must be how the writers for Star Trek came up with all those langaues.) Want to hear his opinion on things? Check out the video at right where he's jumping on the bed and talking up a storm.

All those toddler TV shows I thought were so cute 6 months ago, I now find myself mocking behind Nick's back. "Just save the damn squirrel, already!" I shout, as the Wonder Pets fart around singing and carrying on, taking a half hour to perform the daring rescue in their flying red Frisbee. Mama has her hands full containing us both. All those people who create outlandish warped videos on YouTube, making a mockery of innocent children's shows? I now understand these people - they are crazy parents desperately trying to get the theme from 'Barney' out of their heads.

Most of us don't remember the cro-magnon urges from our youth, but we are quickly reminded by seeing our children come across something that rivals the greatest things of all creation - like Spicy Chili Doritos - and watching them shove their mouths full until they choke. The 'too much of a good thing' lesson comes early in life. Favorite new food this month is a grilled cheese sandwich.

The pictures this month feature some shots of his 'happy Chinaman' smile, which isn't so much his squinting in joy as it is the 'scorch the retinas from your skull' flashbulb on our old camera. It makes for cute pictures, so we use it on occasion. (If his eyesight starts fading in his twenties, I'm gonna feel guilty about this moment.) Mama bought him a toddler pool for outdoors on hot days. She was so eager to introduce him to the pool, we rushed him into it the first weekend for pictures. He wanted no part of the pool, or at least not while there was a broom to push around. He played with the broom for an hour - naked, of course - and barely wet his bottom in the pool.

Brandi made us some homemade Halushka (or sometimes known as Polish Palushki) from her grandmother's recipe. Nick and I both enjoyed those, and she hit the recipe right-on the first time she made it. Good stuff!

He's been snuggling up to us for awhile now, but is finally giving all-out hugs just this month. There is nothing better in life (not even Buffalo & Ranch Doritos, although Nick might disagree.)

Click here for pictures from Nick's 18th Month.

- Jason

PS: You'll find one stray picture in the link this month - of Joanae's little boy. Collin Greenawalt, welcome to life.

Nick's Seventeenth Month

We're getting out more with the warm weather, to the playgrounds and parks. He's come to love the indoor playground at McDonald's, although he'd rather run the grill (I can't keep him in the playground - he wants to be in the kitchen.) We got out to a local church festival with some friends and rode the carousel and train. Nick enjoyed them both, but not as much fun as running free through the beer tent and trying walk off with the band's instruments.

He also got out alot this month with the gaggle of moms and kids. The little girls in his play group have trouble pronouncing 'Nicholas' and call him "NEK-lee-us" which he's taken on as a nickname. Early life lesson accomplished: it doesn't matter what the cute blonde calls you; if she calls, you respond.

He's using sign language more to communicate. The universal signs he knows are for 'more' and 'milk'. Along side of those are some signs unique to him, like smacking the front of his trousers for a diaper change. I fear the switch at some point to less-padded diapers could be a painful transition.

We made a trip back home to Huntingdon, PA for the holiday weekend, and Nick stayed in a hotel for the first time. We hung a bedsheet from the ceiling with thumbtacks to divide the room, so he had his own playpen to sleep (which he did a little of), a sanctioned play area, and toddler videos playing around the clock. He traveled well once again, without a fuss for over 800 miles on the road, and only a short adjustment period to the new surroundings (I got at least 5 hours of sleep in a row each night, so that's not bad. Mama came with her earplugs, since the hotel sits along the railroad tracks, so she slept better than I. I have the train schedule to Huntingdon memorized if you're looking to make travel plans by rail; are those trains that arrive at 1AM, 3AM and 5AM considered 'red-eyes'?)

On the subject of trains, we have a wooden whistle that sounds like a train, when you blow into all four hole openings at once. I make choo-choo motions with my arms, and blow the whistle and he loves it. Now he can make the motions himself, and knows how to blow a whistle, but only one hole at a time. Now that he knows how to blow a whistle, how much longer until he figures out how to blow his nose?

Nick feasted on home cooking for the weekend (as we all did) from his Great Grandma Perow's kitchen, to the family restaurant. He loved his Grand-Daddy Bobby's bread, and it turns out he loves ice cream after all. He bonded with his Grand-Daddy over some fresh rhubarb stalks straight from the garden. He carried around a stalk and gnawed it for hours. He also got to splash in the small fountain with his Great Grand-Pappy.

A final stop on the trip, we broke bread with his Great Nanny and Grand-Pa-Pa for an afternoon. We couldn't tell if all the orange jello he ate stained him from the outside-in or inside-out, but he was mostly orange, and a little green from top to bottom. Meals are always good fun. As he continues to train for the olympic cheeze-it throwing contest, whether he is right or left-handed remains a mystery. He can cover equal distance across the kitchen with either arm, thereby keeping my hope alive that he'll be the first switch-throwing pitcher in the big leagues someday. In the meantime, he has mitts for both hands.

Click here for 17th Month Pictures.

- Jason

Nick's Sixteenth Month

More often Brandi and I are noticing habits and idiocyncracies of Nick that remind us of each other. Yeah, he's talkative, flirtatious, pushy, determined, stubborn and short-tempered... just like Brandi. But he also hangs his tounge out like a beagle when he's thinking hard, chews his lip, and fidgets constantly, just like me.

After seeing him standing on the glass table in the tv room, we removed the glass surface, so it can now serve as his personal jungle gym. He's also now finding things we never knew we lost - or he's disassembling key pieces of the house and furniture that will collapse under us later. He's walking around with nuts, bolts, springs and all sorts of who-knows-what pieces and parts in his fists or mouth. He also loves to hide things in the sofa cushions like ladels, spoons and straws.

There are some pictures of him doing remodeling work, just like his GrandMoose. He can now mimic an action upon seeing it only once. And some actions we don't even remember showing him. We don't think he watched us scraping the paint from the wall, but we look up, and he's doing it.

Nick is starting to ask for things now, and we're requiring him to speak more often to get what he wants. Sometimes it works in reverse, though, and he says the word after he gets it. He can almost say 'chocolate', and if I withhold the morsel waiting for him to verbalize, he has a meltdown. But everytime I hand it to him, he says it after. Who's being trained here? Give him credit, though, he understands 'no' and stops in his tracks right before sticking his legos in a light socket or shoving his head into the oven.

The picture here is in the swing from his Aunt Megan. He'll sit in it for hours if we let him. Nick and I went out this Saturday to give mama some free time, which included a trip to the elderly home around the corner to visit a friend (oh, how they love him there!) and to the park for a ride on the tax-funded swings. He pushed his way past the other kids to the jungle gyms he wanted on, and had no fear climbing to the top. Except for eating a wood chip (Nick), and being nearly lambasted by a swing (me), we came away unscathed.

Click here for 16th month pictures.

- Jason

Nick's Fifteenth Month

We've made it to 15 months already, or 5 consecutive quarters. If Nick was a corporation, he'd finally be able to report year-over-year performance for the first quarter. His stock is rising, but if he keeps breaking things around the house, his net worth is going to roll backward. He found some old martial arts weapons I thought I had well stashed - he came running through the house with an Escrima stick and proceeded to protect us from the piano. And I finally figured out what is causing the rough edges on the leather steering wheel in the Jeep - it's Nick. When Brandi lets him play in the truck, he's gnawing on the steering wheel. Anyone else buy their kid a $40,000 chew toy? If you know me and my cars, you know it's driving me nuts.

The doctor says he has the cognitive skills of a two year old. I know he has the voicebox of a two year old, and he's using it more frequently. He's also passed all the food-allergy tests, and is clear to consume most things he encounters. He's now into eating whatever is on someone else's plate: toast, pizza, veggies, and his first Jello (it was blue). He loves garlic mashed potatoes (all real stuff here, no boxed tater flakes in our house.) The trouble is, he hates having someone feed it to him, or taking it from a untensil. Some food is just hard to pinch between his two little fingers, but it doesn't stop him.

Another proud moment for the daddy as Nick reaches more milestones towards earning his man-card. I always thought the concept of 'farts being funny' was driven by societal pressure, not necessarily natural instinct. Well, it turns out he learned this on his own, therefore disproving my theory. Along the same lines of 'tricks he'll carry with him through college' is his love for making hats out of everything, from tupperware to his mama's bras.

We were watching The Wizard of Oz the other night (which I had never seen before) and Brandi observed of the Wicked Witch of the West, "You can see why children were terrified of this character." Meanwhile, our son is pointing at the screen and laughing loudly each time he sees the witch. "Yeah, I see what you mean." We took a walk down the 'JC Penney Yellow Brick Road' (ever notice how the traffic pattern around the store is faded yellow tile?) - he loves to walk the store in circles... forever. I snuck in front of him to change my view of his adventure, and he stopped. "He wants to lead," says Brandi. Sure enough, he's already decided he's not going to follow. He either leads, or he stops and looks at you waiting for you get out of the way.

Nick and Brandi went to the Bunny Party at the local library last week. The pictures are of him pounding on another little kid about his size for a toy, and then trying to hijack the strollers of other children, sometimes with them still inside. He doesn't seem to have developed a fear mechanism yet, and his social skills could use a little polish. We're working on it.

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- Jason

Nick's Fourteenth Month

Nick loves lollipops, especially Cotton Candy Dum-Dums, so there's now something to bribe him with at the doctor's office. He'll lick that little sucker and mumble 'Dar, Dar, Dar!' until he's covered in candy stickiness from head to toe. (Of course, with such a small lollipop in his mouth, there's room to stick the other hand in at the same time!)

We sit back and he entertains us with whatever he will think of next. He pulled some toys out of his toy drawer, crawled in and layed down. He can now reach the edge of the counter tops, where he grabbed Brandi's hairbrush off of the counter and began brushing his own hair. He loves to push things, like the vacuum or his stroller. The problem now is that when the stroller comes out, we can't get him in it, because he wants to push it. Each morning after breakfast, Brandi pulls cushions off of the couch and builds a fort so he can crawl in, and on and off of the couch. Sometimes he falls on his head, but no permanent damage yet (that we can see.) And he knows that three singing pigs say, "La La La" (or so his book says - when we stop reading, he chimes in with the missing words.)

We had a warm enough day for him to play outside this weekend. He ran all over the yard, and played in the soap suds (I was washing a car while he played - what did you think I would be doing?) We got out to Funarama, an indoor festival, this weekend to fulfill another one of our duties as good Catholic parents - he played his first bingo.

Last week at work, one of my teammates accomplished something great, and I found myself clapping for her and singing, "Yay!!!" It's official - I'm a parent full time.

If you don't have a kid, then these things may be foreign to you. I am obligated by the unspoken parental code only to tell you how wonderful having a child is; being a part of the cult means tricking others into having children with only happy stories. For a small peek of what toddler world does to the adult mind, click here to see the Moose A. Moose video Nick loves so much. He rumbles to the TV from wherever he is when he hears Moose (not a decendant of Mr. Moose from Captain Kangaroo, for those of you who were kids in the '70s. Back then, not every character was required to be a good singer.) Be warned - once this is in your head, it will take days to shake it. It's worse than "It's a Small World." (Sorry.)

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And welcome to the world, Mason Alexander Poley! Your blog is at right.

- Jason

Nick's Thirteenth Month

(Finally got the pictures posted to this entry!) Yes, that's a picture of Nick wandering around the garage checking the car tires. If the door to the garage is left open, he bolts out the door to play with the cars and power tools.

He's doing all the little things that let you know his year-old cranium is absorbing new ideas at a blistering pace. He now points at things with intention - just a week ago he looked up the wall rug in his room, to which we say 'good night' to the animals each night by name, and pointed to them, knowing it was bedtime. He knows how to toss blocks into their box from about 2-3 feet, like a baskbetball hoop. Whenever he finds a ball, he carries it to a hard floor surface to try and bounce it. And yesterday he took one of his shoes, carried it over to one of mine in another room, held them up, and studied them - he knew they were both shoes but they were different.

And then there's the head-shakers, like lifting the lid to the throne and splashing around in the water, or his obsession with being in the refrigerator constantly. Our house is quite baby proof, and he's allowed to roam rather freely most of the time. You can tell which room he's in by the noises. Hear the piano? He's in the living room. Hear his tin pot? In the dining room. Hear bottles rattling? He's in the laudry room preparing to scatter recycleable containers throughout the house.

Nick is really starting to appreciate the little things in life. He loves to snuggle in the quilt from the bed when it hits the floor. He stole a pillow off of the couch and sleeps with it now - under his stomach, so he sleeps in the shape of an upside-down 'U'. Other than the crusty old pillow, he hasn't bonded to any stuffed creatures yet. (That's like Teddy Bears, not Taxidermy, for the hunting folks in the family. Although he was very interested in his GrandBa's stuffed armadillo.)

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We're now watching alot of 'Moose A. Moose and Zee' on television, and he's getting more into Blue's Clues. I came across a familiar beat on the radio this week and found myself singing, "Moo, Ba, La La La" to the tune. The video that teaches sign language to kids is very cool - I'm even learning a little. I'm impressed with the educational shows available to kids - we're looking forward to the SuperBowl.

- Jason

Nick's First Year

For those of you waiting for the 'Cliff's Notes' from the past year, here they are - wrapped up in one neat video (about 7 minutes, but you can cut it short. This is more for his mother to watch over and over.) Hard to believe it's been a year. (Only 17 years left to save for college.)

Nick's First Birthday included a cake made by his mama, and a neat air-pressure machine that throws plastic balls all over the room from his Aunt Megan. I'm getting my exercise with this contraption. But for all the toys he received, his favorite things at the moment are playing under Brandi's new dining room table (like a jungle gym) and playing with the steering wheel and dash in the Chrysler. Whenever we open the door to the garage, he comes running to see the car, and completely wigs out when we close the door without letting him out to play in the car. Of course, my boy.

He's jumped right into the "twos" with his new aggression and curiosity. He's into everything already, running not walking. We have to keep pulling the tea bags away from him when he digs in the cupboards - loves pulling them apart and chewing on them. Perhaps there's a connection between caffiene and the aggression, or maybe at least with the 4:30 am wake-up call every morning.

Having a kid with sensitive skin, there's a lot of trial and error with shampoos, soaps and lotions. We've had good luck with the organic stuff at www.healthytimes.com. But when Nick's skin doesn't respond well to something, it's passed over to Da-da to to use it. I've got 3 bottles of baby lotion to finish. So if you're near me and think, "Man, Jason smells really good," that's not Halston, it's 'Grins & Giggles'.

If you like the video music, I don't mind giving a plug to the artist: www.ericguitar.com. Hey, maybe you're a jazz fan and you just don't know it.

Thanks to everyone for all the support during the first year, and all the Christmas and Birthday gifts to the little man. Anyone interested in babysitting? :)

- Jason