NSJ

Niko’s talking has moved from unintelligible babbling to unintelligible babbling interspersed with actual words. He is turning into a bit of a parrot which has its ups and downs. On the positive side his attempts to pronounce words are pretty damn cute. On the negative side, he repeats EVERYTHING. I spilled my coffee the other morning and muttered, “shit.” He spent the rest of the day singing, “shit, shit, shit, shit, shit.” Good stuff.

His favorite word is “car” which he says with a thick Boston accent, “caaaah!” This is rather unnerving for a crazy Yankees fan like my wife. He is also a big fan of “dau” (dog), “pa!” (grandpa), “guma” (grandma), “cook-cook” (cookie), “mah” (more), “burd” (bird), “biburd” (big bird), “wuf” (woof), and “W-O-W.” His new favorite is “DUCK!” which doesn’t in fact mean duck (duck is “ducka-ducka-ducka” if you recall), but instead means “STUCK!” In the high-chair for more than 22 seconds? “DUCK!” Being held when he doesn’t want to be? “DUCK!” Pulled the entire bookcase over on to himself? “DUCK!” In the crib with no interest in sleeping (always)? “DUCK, DUCK, DUCK!”

We are spending the week in CT for Thanksgiving (which is near that MA place). Showing her genius, Jul got Niko his own seat for the flight last weekend. I’m not sure why we think of this earlier. It was like having his own play area between Jul and I. The flight bordered on pleasant! Hopefully this will make travel with the little rascal a bit more reasonable until he becomes easily distracted by movies. It is great to see him running around with his cousin Molly. As a result of the Kodama visit and Molly’s influence, Niko has embraced walking. Walking, in this case, means stumbling around like a drunkin sailor.

[flv]http://happyinwater.com/nicholas/videos/NoNoNoNo.flv[/flv]

All is good, here on the cold side of the country.

The Kodama clan dropped in for a week on their way back from Hawaii. They moved out to Massachusetts last year so it was great to catch up with the family. (I’m pretty sure Massachusetts is out on the East Coast, but all those states kinda blend together for me, so I’m not real sure.) We even got to see Rachel’s sister Sarah, who came down from the city to hang with us in the burbs.

Miles and Jude are both walking which I had hoped would encourage Niko to do the same. Turns out when you can crawl at 200mph, there really is no reason to even consider walking. Having three boys (and a pug) running around the house was a blast. Miles, now three (ish), shattered my belief that once Niko could talk, I could reason with him. Turns they still don’t do what you say, but can articulate WHY. Hard to say which is better.

Grandma Pat joined all of us for the weekend, giving Jul and I a chance to sleep in on Saturday. Everything was going well until Michigan lost to Wisconsin, which was really quite upsetting. Later in the day Ohio State lost to Illinois, which made things a little bit better. Then we had a party and I think about 1000 babies showed up. It was like a scene from Kindergarten Cop, but without Arnold.

In other news, Jul got her nose pierced. Can you spot the stud?

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Niko and Jul did some pumpkin (or as Niko calls it “pum-pum”) carving on Halloween to get ready for the trick-or-treaters. The most fun was to put the seeds back in the pumpkin because unlike those annoying toys that make you match the shape to the the hole, pumpkin seeds fit into the eye without problem.

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Today was the annual kid’s Google Halloween party. While Niko’s first word was “dog” he followed it quickly by “ducka, ducka, ducka” (always must be said as a triplet). So Jul deemed it appropriate that Niko be a duck this year for Halloween. We are in that wonderful phase where he has no input into his costume (that we can understand). Makes it pretty easy.

Couple observations from the party:

• Niko can eat 10+ chicken nuggets without breaking stride.
• It is a little odd to have a duck eat chicken nuggets. Is that a form of cannibalism?
• I can eat 10+ rice crispy squares without breaking stride.
• Of all the activities (face painting, balloon animals, dancing pirates, a sing-a-long band, pumpkin decorating, trick-or-treat bag decorating, people dressed as strange fictional characters) Niko was most interested in chicken nuggets, chicken nuggets, the local birds who were feasting on food dropped by children, and planes flying overhead. Next time we will just bring him to a park near the airport.
• My favorite costume was a little baby dressed as a lobster with the parents dressed as cooks.
• I bet the kids Halloween party today will be much more fun than the adult one tomorrow.

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A wonderful (albeit rare) weekend at home. Michigan won so everybody is in good spirits.

While I was gambling away Niko’s college fund in Vegas, Jul hit another pumpkin patch with the Loewys (a.k.a peter pan and squirt the turtle). I believe going to a second pumpkin patch counts as extra credit. I’m hoping I can cash it in some day when I forget his birthday.

Jul left for the east coast on Thursday for a girls weekend making it a boys weekend here on the west coast. When I spend extended periods with Niko it always reminds me I’m like a six year old with a credit card and drivers license. It will be sad when he turns 10 and doesn’t want to play with me anymore.

Today we tried painting. This was exciting but made even more exciting when Sumo ran through the paint and we had to chase him around the house trying to contain the damage. In retrospect, I should have seen it coming. I’m hoping Jul will see it as “adorable” and “artistic” as opposed to “aggravating” and “destructive.” Nothing replacing the furniture won’t fix.  I finally herded everybody into the bathtub where I had little luck getting the paint off the three of us, but certainly made our white bathtub…errr…not white anymore. I put too much bubble bath in the tub, so the bathroom overflowed with paint colored bubbles. Then Niko turned it up a notch by pooping in the tub. Had to be a pretty funny picture. I’ll leave the rest of the story up to your imagination.

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I believe there is some law requiring parents to take photos of their kid in a pumpkin patch each year. Here are some pictures so we don’t get in trouble.

Niko continues to be a spitting image of jack-jack. I couldn’t make his hair do that if I tried.

Niko helped me make chicken soup today. His job was to take things out of the cabinets and bang them. My job was to not spill scalding chicken parts on him. We were a good team.

I also caught some video of the kid doing some bashing, some dancing, and a bit of peek-a-boo. Apologies for the poor camera work. I didn’t miss my calling.

[flv]http://happyinwater.com/nicholas/videos/Dancing.flv[/flv]

We headed east to Michigan yesterday morning. It was acceptable to fly during the Michigan game as it didn’t seem to be televised by any known channel on this earth. This turned out to be a good thing as we were losing to Northwestern at the half. I’m not sure I could survive a season where we lost to both Appalachian State AND Northwestern so it would have been a pretty rough first half emotionally. Luckily, being in flight, I was none the wiser. We were winning when we landed in Detroit thus avoiding a lot of drama.

The boy is still very confused by plane rides which require him to sit in one place for extended periods of time. He uses regular pterodactyl-like screams to voice his disagreement. It turns out to be a fairly effective way to communicate frustration. Nobody in the plane was confused about what he thought. I’m pretty sure he works for the airlines, because all the screaming just makes me order more drinks. Three hours into a flight with an infant and $5 seems like a bargain for a shot of jack.

Fall is just arriving in Michigan. The air is crisp and it smells like fall but the leaves are still green. We visited Great Grandma Louise in the hospital where Niko and Louise roamed the halls using the same walker.

Niko turned one yesterday! I feel a mixture of shock that a year has passed so quickly and amazement we managed to survive a full year. We celebrated his birthday this weekend at the park. Auntie Meg, Cousin Molly, Grandma Mart, Grandpa Lew, Grandpa Jere, Grandma Pat, and Auntie Jan all flew in for the event, proving our house maxes out at seven guests. Watching the trouble Niko and Molly can create together with only limited resources makes me think we will be bailing the two of them out of jail when they get older.

We had a great time at Niko’s party. When we originally set up food on the picnic tables, we were invaded by a gang of wasps, thinking the food was for them. It wasn’t that I wasn’t willing to share, but it seemed like wasps and “lots of children” wasn’t a great combination. We tried setting up a “bee table” nearby, hoping they might have their own party, but they didn’t fall for that trick. Upon learning of our plight, Christina recommended we spread dryer sheets on the table to keep them away. Turns out bees are deathly afraid of dryer sheets. Who knew? Genius that Cristina.

I was kinda hoping Niko would go face down in his cake or throw it across the table. Instead he took his time and, cheerio size bite at a time, ate the whole piece. It took him 30 minutes, but I suppose it’s his birthday, so he can eat slowly if he wants to (eat slowly if he wants to).

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