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Our first visit to the Detroit Zoo was a struggle. On a cool day with practically no one there, the part-time security was prepared for crowds like Elvis was performing at the Houndog exhibit. Every turn we took was going 'the wrong way', setting off an alarm, or critically risking the lives of precious animals (or so we were told... that was in the butterfly house, which once we were in, was littered with dead butterflies already. Not a nice exhibit.) There's a picture here of Nick and Brandi in the Prarie Dog exhibit. It was a lot of walking for Nick, and wore him out early.
Nick attended his first ballet when Seta, his friend next door, was performing in Cinderella with her dance crew. He really watched it closely most of the time, and asked good questions (good questions because I ask the same things... I'm not all that culturally well-traveled.) At one point, he threatened to storm the stage to take out the wicked stepsisters, but we restrained him.
Nick's interest in building things took off this month, so out came boxes of 30 year-old Lego blocks from the attic. Every car I constructed decades ago has been dis-assembled and rebuilt into a jet plane somewhere. The old city is back up in the new play room, or toy room as Nick calls it; we converted a bedroom into a dedicated toy area, so we no longer trip over train tracks out in the open walkways of the house. He's now sleeping in his own bedroom as well, insistent on having his own space.
New foods this month: gnochi, dunklings (which are dumplings) and kiwi.
New Nickabulary: Cometeor (co-MEET-ee-or), which is a silver Corvette.
Many of the pictures this month are from the beginning of what appears to be every modern kid's agenda: continuously running to activities. He's enrolled in soccer, tee ball, and a general intro-to-sports class. Tee ball has been a real winner, with them already playing a game on the second day, where he covered every hit ball from left field, so they moved him to first base. (Coach Jo scares me. Tough woman.) His buddy Jack is in the same tee ball class. This class also gives him a chance to hit on the little blonde girls while they wait turns to bat (in my opinion, he really should chase the brunette, who has an awesome swing and a heckuva arm for a five-year old.) We got some practice in tonite; he is throwing and hitting really well, but catching, not so much just yet. I owed him male bonding time as the last week had me laid up with a kidney stone, followed by a kidney infection, topped off with a bad reaction to the antibiotic... six tough days, man.
Pictures here from this month, and a few left over from last month (like the sunflower cake, and Nick's re-creation of Plants v Zombies out of Play-Doh.)
- Jason
Nick has been zipping around outside on an old plastic bigwheel that was mine in another lifetime, which we brought down from the attic because he's decided to ride his toys down the sledding hill now that it's Spring, and the bigwheel is closer to the ground when he wipes out onto his face. So he rides over to see Mr. Steve, the neighbor, who is an engineer for Chrysler. And I overhear him say, "Mr. Steve, you have two Jeeps now, what the f#$k!" Of course his mother is mortified that this can't help our standing in the neighborhood. He says he learned it on the computer. I am at least proud it was a nice application of the word, in a reasonably correct context.
Flying his remote control plane outside has become a favorite activity. He was out in the yard flying it one afternoon, and crashed it into his mother's head... tangled in her hair. She tells him to get into the house, and he replies, "How about I just wait for you in the garage?" He's clamoring more to get outside with the onset of Spring, wanting to 'play baseball' and toss the frisbee (but not necessarily catch it). We're even running into his friends now at the playground, like Devin this past weekend.
Most inpressive has been Nick's drawing abilities. In about two weeks he went from unrecognizable scribbles of a toddler to a better artist than I am (the bar is very low)
. He's been posting drawings all over the house of the Titanic (his latest obsession after seeing a documentary), planes and trains, with intricate details. And lots of drawing on the driveway; one of the photos is a peashooter from Plants v Zombies. But the true obsession is still trains, which we visited the Detroit Model RR Club earlier in the month.
We had another month of battling birds; the starlings from last summer have returned, insistent on nesting in our exhaust vents... particularly those vents that are 25 feet above the ground. After a couple days of me teetering on a tall ladder with long poles and duct tape contraptions, taping vents shut, and them busting through, a printed photo of a hawk did the trick. Now I have horny hawks circling the house every morning flirting with the photo.
Pictures this month, click here. And finally a couple new videos at right.
- Jason
Nick took an increased liking to planes this month (finally a break from trains!). We flew his electric airplane, an Air Hog, at the playground one afternoon, and around the yard on the warmer days (and there's been alot of warmer days.) He's getting the hang of the controllers, and knows the names of the components more than I do. We setup an airport on the kitchen bar to pass a day's time, a place to land the small planes indoors.
New foods this month (and they're getting tougher now as he gets picky based on appearance): lemon yogurt, Superman Ice Cream, but there's nothing better than the gummy butterflies and gummy fried eggs at the bulk market.
The Jedi mind tricks continue. He exits the school one afternoon, and says, "You need a car wash." Then it's, "You need gas, too." All in a lead up to, "Let's go to Taco Bell!" which happens to be next door to the car wash and the gas station. But more than the persuasion is his sharpening sense of tone and context. I try to be funny with him (and I know I'm not always the easiest to read), like saying one morning, "Your big head doesn't fit thru the little hole in this shirt," as he's growing out of clothes quickly. He deadpans, "Was that a joke?" Sometimes it's like looking in the mirror as he picks up my demeanor. For the most part, though, he's still a very outwardly happy kid.
His dinnertime prayers have become more creative, and are starting to take bizarre turns. The Montessori school had some sort of agnostic pre-meal ritual about being thankful, and I think it confused him. The latest prayer is, "I love you godmother, and smoke coming out of your house, taking a trip, yow-wow, Amen." I haven't told his godmother to be mindful of open flames around her house yet.
There's some Polish genetic hand-waving thing coming out of his personality now. When he makes a point, he smacks one hand into the other palm like a karate chop, telling you, "That was my final answer." (Brandi says it's sign language, that they're teaching him that!) He was really wound up the day he emerged from school and I had a flat tire. "Oh, we got a cute little tire instead!" When he woke up the next morning, after I had the full-size tire replaced, he couldn't even eat breakfast before seeing it, quenching his excitement.
And we saw the movie The Lorax, which was Nick's first 3D movie. Didn't realize it until we got in, but he wore the glasses, and enjoyed the show. It was cool reading the book, then seeing the show. Another first for him this month was in his mama's dental chair getting his teeth cleaned. Unlike regular patients, he got to play with all the cool instruments that shoot out water and air, etc.
- Jason
Nick celebrated his 5th birthday at Castaway Play in Howell. It's a big indoor playground we've been to may times before, but always thought it would a good place for a party. He had like 14 kids show up (I lost count), every invitee. The kids were all well behaved (except for one small riff over the size of Nick's cake relative to another kid's recent party) and most of them ran for hours until they were exhausted. Nick being who he is, there was a little blonde girl on one of the inflatable slides intentionally blocking the slide part way down and making all the kids wait. So Nick thinks it through, climbs over her, grabs her feet, and drags her to the bottom, to a round of applause. He will not be denied. He was showered with gifts from birthday and Christmas, our friends and family were extremely generous. We had to designate a toy room after the holiday to contain it all.
I pick him up from school one evening, and ask him about his day. From the back seat, he says, "Give me a minute, I'm thinking." I'm getting more of these responses lately. He's busy, he can't be interrupted, he's deep in thought... what's so heavy on the mind of a five-year old?
With his new school comes the opportunity to ride the bus, which comes to pick him up curbside. Kindly the driver and her helper have been very patient with Nick. In the first week, he complained about taking a dirt road, a bumpy road, and coming home using directions with which he was not familiar, or as Nick calls it, "the wrong way!" They've changed the entire route just for him. I apologized to the driver - some of that is clearly from him hanging out with me. And the route number is easy to remember... Nick rides Route 66.
We've reached the age of food experimentation. He creates bizarre concoctions like Doritos inside bread, or crackers in a tortilla, or dipping his sandwich into his Kool-Aid. What he doesn't know is his mama has been creating puree from vegetables and slipping them into his usual food, so he's getting carrots, beets and cauliflower in small doses when he least expects it. We've uncovered a few new allergies, too, but had some success.
Pictures here from Month 61!
- Jason
This was another 'leaps and bounds' month for Nick, as his grasp of language and communication jumped ahead. My favorite quote this month, "Life's 120, Daddy." I'm not sure why he told me this several times, but I'm going to try and live by it - can't hurt. New to the Nickabulary this month: "youmember", which is short for, 'you need to remember.' And the constant phrases, "watch this", and "I need to ask you a question." There's still occasional breakdown, though. He couldn't pull himself away from his third bowl of Lucky Charms, and I called him an "addict", to which he replied, "That's not possible, we already have an attic." And, he's singing alot more, school songs and "Mahna Mahna".
We played alot more games that required the lesson of winning and losing, which of course, he does not like losing. But he shakes hands and says, "Good game," either way. We played matching card games, lots of racing around the house, and his favorite was jumping parking lot cracks while shopping.
He's very good about encouraging others, telling them they did a 'great job' or 'nice work'. We bought him headphones for his video player so he could watch videos on the long car trip to Georgia and we wouldn't need to listen as well. Rather than attaining quiet, he talks to the shows twice as much when he can't hear himself. He was very supportive of Tom Cat (from Tom and Jerry) telling him frequ
ently, "Great job, Tom!" He still travels well: quiet for a 12 hour car ride, eats good, sleeps anywhere. He's been on a Tom and Jerry, and Tweey Bird run this month for entertainment.
Nick and his cousins are connecting better, too. Seth volunteered, "I think I kinda like Nick." Seth was showing him how to build airplanes from drinking straws and paper, and they actually could fly. I spent an afternoon with the guys at the remote control airfield, and most of the men don't fly a plane as well as my 7-year-old nephew.
I took Nick to his first full-length movie at the cinemas in GA; we saw The Muppets. He fell asleep for a bit in the middle, but admittedly, I felt the same way. When there was action, though, he was on it, and applauded to show his appreciation a couple times.
He had a banner Christmas, with the full tree, lots of paper snowflakes throughout the house, more toys than we had planned for, including many gracious gifts from friends and relatives. He finally got the Lionel Polar Express train, the ultimate gift. Also this month, pictures of us at the Huckleberry Railroad in Flint. (I see there's some old pics in here too, like Halloween. And the champ in the yellow shirt flying a plane is Seth, not Nick. When you see bizarre pics from the floor or zoomed in too close, that's Nick playing with the camera, frequently taking photos of himself or his trains.)
