The big slide

We had another gorgeous day here last week with almost 70 degree weather, a perfect day for heading back up to Robbins Farm park. This time, John and Lola were with us, so Niko was able to go down the big slide with Mommy at the top and Daddy at the bottom. The funny thing was, he went down so sloooowww, I probably could have sent him down the slide when it was just us, and had more than enough time to meet him at the bottom. Maybe next time we'll have to grease his bum with crisco (although I think the real problem was he hasn't quite learned to not touch the slide so much with his sneakers). Regardless, he must have fun because we were up and down at least 10 times!

Rain, rain, go away

Niko got new rain boots a few weeks ago, and good thing because we needed them these past few days. For anyone reading that doesn't live in the area, we had 3 straight days of heavy rain, resulting in lots of flooded streets and homes. We had about 5 inches of yucky water in our basement, but lucky for us we were able to move most of the things we care about up higher on top of plastic storage boxes and old tables in anticipation of this happening. On the 3rd day, John called the fire dept. to see if they could help pump some of the water out, but they couldn't because the water was backing from a pipe and could contain raw sewerage (definitely yucky water, but on the plus side it was all clear water). Niko got a kick out of looking out the window while holding his own mini fire engine.

The other picture is of him wearing his boots while watching tv, and this is what he has looked like almost every day since we got the boots. He's been wearing them around the house (even on the most dry, spring like days) and insists on wearing them whenever he needs shoes. Our next purchase is a raincoat, because when we went out puddle jumping he was wearing one that was 6-12 months! Oddly enough, it still fit his skinny little 21 month old body except for being a little short in the sleeves.

Movin' on up!

A couple of weeks ago, we bought Niko a new wagon. He doesn't go into the stroller as easily as he used to and usually finds a way to wiggle out of the safety belt and turn around in the seat (dangerous!). He was very happy to try out his new ride which gives him a little more freedom to see what's going on, and he can stow snacks and toys in there, and there's even an empty seat for a friend, or Lola if she gets tired.

Robbins Farm Park

The only thing missing was Lola! We went to Robbins Farm Park today where we played on the swings and the slide, ran around in the grass and mugged for the camera. The view up there is gorgeous, and the playground also has a super long slide built into the hill. Niko didn't go down it because it was long enough that I'd want someone to see him off at the top and then be waiting at the bottom (which I couldn't do, at least not without knocking over a couple of 6 year olds!) so we'll have to wait for next time when we have Dad with us. When we got home, Lola got her walk down the bike path while Niko rode is his new wagon. Today's weather (and Sunday and Saturday's) gives me hope that maybe snow is out of our forecast for good!

Hanging out with Gabby

Last week when we went to Grandma's, it was one of the days when Gabby was over. Niko was happy to see her because he doesn't get to see her as much as he used to. He was even happy to go into the playard with her to watch Sesame Street. He probably went into it a total 10 times when we had it set up for him!

Here we are again...

So despite my last post about being back and not slacking so much on the posting, here we are again 3 months later with no posts! A number of things contributed to this: I left my camera in a pocket and it went throught laundry (this happened in August), my laptop got a virus in December and all my pictures are stuck on an external hard drive that I've yet to figure out (dead laptop replaced with my aunt's-thanks Debbie!), and I got an Ipod Touch that now gets all my attention thus resulting in the new laptop not getting turned on nearly as much.

So as a result of all these sad events (does not apply to new laptop and ipod) I've let the blogging fall to the wayside.

With that, I'm going to start posting regularly again, as I have a lot more time on my hands. I was unfortunately laid off at the end of January and have had lot more time with the nugget (the upside). At 21 months, Niko doesn't say too many words yet but you could ask to bring you the hat with the airplanes that's hanging next to his coat and he'll follow through with no problem. Some words that he is saying are are da, mama, gamma (or ma for grandma), rara (Kali), Lola, down and stay (favorites with all dogs).

He loves Curious George (maybe a little too much, sometimes he sounds like he's speaking monkey) and torturing Lola, which she gives right back to him. He tries to ride her, gives her constant suffocating hugs, kisses her, walking her around the house on her leash and trying to hold her leg when she walks (he got in trouble for this one today!) She returns all this love with pulling his socks/slippers off while he's walking, stealing his stuffed animals, chewing any new, nice wooden toys (99% of them have lovely chew marks) and knocking him over for whatever he's carrying around and eating (which we try and avoid for this reason). He must pick up on the fact that she thinks she's starving (despite being 5 lbs overweight) because he finds it hilarious to cast aside whatever food he doesn't want to her who anxiously awaits under his high chair. We had to move the dog food bin on top of the dishwasher because he was also taking the liberty of hand feeding her--Lola was very sad when we caught onto this! He must think that if he's sharing his human food, she should share her dog water. He's notorious for going into the kitchen, laying down on his belly and drinking the dogwater! This is driving me crazy and I've tried explaining that the dog water is not for him, that he needs to try and tell me somehow that he's thirsty, that doing this makes his clothes soaking wet (literally he soaks his shirt, pants, socks) and I've tried time outs. Clearly none of these are working and I don't know where else I can put the dog water that Lola can get to it but not Niko.

So that's a little bit of what's been going on in the last few months. Obviously, these two keep me on my toes (and drive me a little crazy) so there won't be any shortage of things to talk about.