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.
- Jason
