The warmer days of summer are upon us, so Nick takes advantage of cooler activities like running through the yard sprinkler. I still setup the old fashioned sprinkler for his enjoyment. And he uses the visqueen from our construction as a slip-n-slide. We probably look like local trash to the neighbors, but we're having fun. Grandpa got him a small kiddie pool, which has gotten its use, although he insists on warm water in the pool which I fill with the hot/cold spickets from the garage. We're spoiling these young kids.He got into an unintentional tussle with some bigger kids at the indoor playground, and came away with a black eye, which lasted for well over a week. He needs to learn the bigger kids are a little rougher, and he's gotta play defense in those situations.
We played at the school playground across the street one afternoon. I kicked around a soccer ball with a boy names Slava for a half hour before I realized he didn't speak English. After all my barking at Nick, though, he knew Nick by name before we left. A great equalizer between kids that are 4+ years apart is the lack of a common language - they played together really well.
New foods this month: Cinnamon Toast Crunch (aka: Crunchy Little Squares, which he eats by the box) and beef jerky.
Another leap forward this month with the push for independence. I wake up in the morning and find evidence Nick has used the bathroom on his own during the night. He insisted yesterday morning on having a spoon with his cereal, and actually used it. He now puts on his own shoes, and takes off his own clothes. He seems to have a genetic tendency towards 'perfection' (yeah, imagine that,) but not in an obsessive way... he recognizes right and wrong in his view of structure, and insists on compliance: engine at the front and caboose at the end, prayer before meals, ice in his water, not skipping any words in his books. His vocabulary is taking on an independent tone as well, as he makes demands of his toys ('Yes
it will!') when something can't be done, and 'Don't even think about it!' when he's trying to stop something in its tracks. He also shops for his own groceries - only items "on special."You can tell from the pictures he loves to help with work tasks, from trimming trees and hauling branches, to watering flowers. He planted a couple sunflowers to see what will happen, of which one has survived the starving bunny onslaught. For Father's Day, he helped me paint my great grandfather's concrete bird feeder; Nick is pictured here with it, on its 5th generation. My cousin counted this thing has now been hauled to like 12 homes in its lifetime.
Each night before bed we now drag him around on his bath towel, and toss him into bed: he calls it the "Turtle toss." He crawls around on the floor after tubby under a towel, looking for slippers to lick ("Turtle licks"). Have no idea where these ideas came from.
At dinner this evening, I spotted a green Nerd candy on the floor, which must have strayed from an earlier snack. When I pointed it out to Nick, he dove head first across the room like he was taking out Ray Fosse, face to the ground, and licked it off the floor, like it was the last Nerd on earth.
- Jason
