Some days he's grown up, like when he'll shovel our driveway and those of all the elderly neighbors, without being asked. Other days he's still Nick. In the course of an hour, while the snow fell, he managed to scrape the paint off my outdoor chairs with a metal snow shovel, use his $100 Ugg leather gloves to dig ice from the corner of our concrete stoop, and come in soaking wet because he, "accidentally stuck his head under the gutter." He's to the point of remembering and buying greeting cards (it's a must witih his mother), and covered Valentine's Day on his own, so that's no small deal.
Short trip to LA for me this month for the new Mustang clinic, back downtown near the Convention Center. Almost got pummeled by an angry parking attendant (saved by Heul!), but ate really well and avoided the LA Rams traffic. While I was away, that's Brandi's cue to try something new, so I came home to a greenhouse in the dining room, hundreds of little plants getting ready for summer (no, they don't help her breathe, yes, it's a bad idea). Spring is in the air, indoors this time.
We've been watching Nick's kidneys closely, which means lots of blood tests, not his favorite activity. But I must admit, what started in December as an uncomfortable visit, he's getting used to having his blood drawn, now it's not much of a big deal. Not the ideal way to adjust to something, but he has.
I stumbled across Nick's YouTube channel, had no idea he'd been creating videos. He wiped out all the old dinosaur stop-motion content, and it's all trains now. These kids were raised watching videos, so it should be no surprise they can naturally edit these things like professionals (what gets me is the copyright credits, ads, references... learning all this stuff somewhere). I'm not a train guy, but I can listed to Fat Bottomed Girls by Queen all day. Thousands of views, and hundreds of comments, his colleagues are enjoying the posts, that's what matters. In my consumer behavior work, we refer to the digital self as 'phygital' as it crosses the physical existence... they call him 'raz' online, so apparently Nick's phygital self has a name. That's just nuts (in a good way.)
For the first time in 15 years, almost a full month without a single photo of Nick. There's one... him and his mother asleep, Christmas decorations still up, laundry hanging around the house drying. This is what we live like in a typical day, for everyone to see.
