We took Nick to the Butterfly House one Saturday afternoon. Hundreds of species of butterflies, flying free inside an indoor greenhouse, with flower and streams for them to live. Nick is heavy-footed, and they land on the ground, so you have to be careful where you walk - it was amazing we made it out without any butterfly casualties. They also had a lizard cage, which Nick was watching when another young boy approached. "It's a lizard," the kid points out. "There's pizza!" says Nick, from the newspaper ad lining the cage. That was our cue the day was over, time for dinner.
I called home one afternoon and Brandi had caught Nick on the PC surfing porn. Yeah, he's not exactly old enough to search it out, but it's not hard to stumble into it nowadays. (So I hear.) He's addicted to YouTube, and probably hit a stray click that led him into uncharted territory. My boy.
We're working hard to get Nick to speak in more complete sentences. And polish up on some 
of those not-quite words, like "prinzles" (pretzels) and "banilla" (vanilla). I barked at him the other night because he was rambling on and half ignoring me, as usual, and I told him he was ADD. I said, "Are you even listening?" to which he replied, "I'm ABD!" I admire his approach to simple communication - it fits well with my 'businessman bullet-point' style. If he asks for something, and you confirm it or try to clarify, like, "Nick, you say you want to go the playground?" He just responds with, "Thanks!" So you don't get, "Yes, and here's why..." Just, "Thanks." Why be wordy?
- Jason
In the picture of Nick on coffee table he's saying "Look mama, I'm an airplane! Will you kiss my little wing?"
We have been visiting different parks almost every day. He loves the giant bird house, a.k.a "the covered bridge" at Wildwood Metropark. We visit the Toledo Zoo at least once a week to see his favorite exhibit, a fish named Corey. He says, "I want to go to the zoo and see the GIANT GOURAMI (goo-RAY-mee)!" He can recognize tons of words on site and out of context: exit, stop, boom, Dr. Suess, food fight. His memory is really improving, he's memorized, "The Sneetches", "One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish", "Gerald McBoing Boing", "Horton Hatches the Egg" and others (he also has a memory like an elephant!) I tried to take him to a public pool that we haven't been to since he was 18 months old, and when we pulled up he shouted, "We are going swimming!" before the pool was in sight. With Nick wailing in despair as the pool was still one week from opening, we went to Luna Pier instead where he was very exited about the beachy atmosphere - Humpback whales would spray us every time a wave hit the pier. He soon happily declared it was "a perferct day on the beach," and proceeded to dig holes, and search for shells. His favorites were the cone shaped ones that he called "curlies." He collected troves of curlies, and then buried them pirate-style.
- Brandi
