Lovely Little Nicholas

Our little "bonus baby" has turned out to be quite an entertaining and amusing child! I do a horrendous job of documenting milestones in a baby book, so all of you will have to suffer through my recordings of cute things Nicholas is doing! :)

I've written before about the novelty of having such a verbal 2-year-old; neither of our other boys started talking (or singing!) so early and so expansively at this age.

1. My parents have been out of town for a few weeks (watching my nephews while their nanny went on her delayed honeymoon), so Mike took Nicholas along to his children's writing group last week. One man in his group had a son who went to an alternative school, and in one of his son's classes, they had a tradition of saying "I'm twinkling you" if you like something that someone has done. They have adopted this in the writing group, much to my amusement. Mike had taken the portable DVD player, hoping that N. would happily watch Bob the Builder while he met with the other writers. However, N., similar to the rest of the family, wanted to be in the spotlight. Each time Cliff would say "I'm twinkling you" to another writer, N. would launch into a loud rendition of "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star"! Mike grew increasingly annoyed and left the meeting early. He recounted this later to me on the telephone, and sadly, instead of giving him sympathy, I just cracked up!!

2. The other day as I was trying to get N. to go to sleep (he's the person in the family who seems to need the least amount of sleep), he was chattering away as usual. "Mommy goes to work." "Daddy stays with me." "I watch Bob the Builder all day long." Later I amusingly reported to Mike that I heard he let N. watch videos all day long. We are thinking that he must have picked this up because Mike has said to him "you can't watch videos all day long!" Last night at dinner, after he had appealed to no avail for more TV-watching time (we are such TV nazi parents!), he kept saying "just a leetle bit? just a leetle bit TV?" in the cutest little voice. Nice try, buddy. Your parents won't be charmed into more TV!

3. The other day he hit his head on something, he came running up to me in tears, and I was having a hard time deciphering what he had hurt. Finally, I figured out he was saying "I hurt my noggin"! Later on, we were sitting in a Thai restaurant and I was teasing Mike about using the word "noggin" for head...I told him that in the U.S. we don't regularly use the word "noggin." Later the couple sitting in the booth behind us got up to leave the restaurant, and the man (British!) complimented us on our well-behaved children and told Mike that he was glad he taught his boys to use the word "noggin"!

4. I'm doing my best to start calling him "Nick" at times, because when I ask him a rhetorical question such as "are you my little sweetheart?," he declares vehemently, "No, I NICK!" Soon followed by "I TWO!"

5. Between the play and rehearsals and picking up Chris after band practice post-school, we often find reason to drive to the middle school. And to get there, we go down a lovely steep hill, which, if you take it at the right speed, is reminiscent of a roller coaster type feeling. N. loves this hill, and as soon as we take off, he starts shouting "Whoaaaaaaaaaa!!" in a sing-songy way, like one would do on a roller coaster. How he learned that, I'm not sure, since he's never been on a roller coaster! I have a feeling he's going to like them when he's old enough. Ya think?

6. He continues to love "Bob the Builder" (and loudly bellows the song, with a syncopated rhythm, no less!), Barney, the Wiggles, Winnie the Pooh, Thomas the Tank Engine, and all things fire trucks. He's also discovered the singer Laurie Berkner and adores her song "I'm Gonna Catch You!"

7. His favorite book of the moment is I'm a Little Teapot (thanks Shelia, Ken, Beck, Myla, and Ari!!), and we sing/read it several times a day. He can finish each line if I leave off the word at the end. It's an elaboration of the classic song, with the teapot taking two children all over the world on adventures. His favorite verse starts out with "I'm a little teapot, golly gee!" He seems to have developed the same love of language and expressions as the rest of the family.


one of N's favorite pasttimes is walking on walls...

In short, Nicholas is a joy to have in our family and I simply can't imagine what life would have been like without him!

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