Hold it!!!

Warning – this is a poop story…So Chris usually takes Nick to school and I pick him up. Works out well. Nick likes his leisurely mornings. He wakes up, calls out our names, then asks to go lay on the couch. I take him downstairs while Chris sleeps or reads the sports page in bed. With his pillow, the green, fuzzy blanket over him (making sure it covers his feet!), warm milk and Higglytown Heroes on TV, Nick’s a happy camper. Chris then feeds him breakfast and gets him dressed. I’m out the door by 7am and pick him up by 6pm. Chris is out the door around 8am and gets home around 6:30pm. Well, today I needed to take Nick in, so we were out the door early. So not as much leisure time for Nick as he likes. And we missed going to the bathroom before we left. Uh oh. So on the way there, Nick says, “Mom, I have to poop.” I say “No worries. We’re almost there.” Well, that wasn’t good enough. I could hear the fear in his voice. So I zoom to school and try to give him pointers along the way. Me – “hold it”. Him – “like this?” with hands on crotch”. Me – “No, use your muscles, like this…” with me making faces and noises. Not one of my more glamorous moments. We get out of the car and Nick is holding both ends saying “Hold it mom!”. So I pick him up and put lots of pressure on his bum. Unsure what to do but run. We make it to the bathroom (zooming by the teacher with a “hello, bathroom emergency”) and get his pants down in time. Phew. What a way to start the day. Then we both strut out, so proud of ourselves for having made it. Next time, I’ll take the extra minute for a potty break before we leave the house.

Tell me about today...

Nick has started to reminisce. Especially when he’s had an excited day and not the typical – breakfast, school, dinner, play, bed. “Tell me about today” he’ll say and then we go through everything that happened that day. “Dad dropped you off at school. You had a nap. Mom picked you up. We met Lewis at the ice cream social. You came home and were tired & grumpy and didn’t want to go to bed. Now we’re all relaxed and ready for a good night’s sleep” or “You were on the dock and jumped into dad’s kayak, but you bounced off it, went under the dock where bubbles came out of your mouth. Then Dad saved you and you were very brave”. He’ll chime in and add his own sections (“I swam!”) or correct our recollections (“we didn’t see the Batman movie!”). It’s just fun to see his little memory at work. See how that mind is working, thinking, processing everything at the end of a long day. So much to take in!

Good job, Mom!

Nick has been very giving with compliments lately. I was looking through his toy box for a missing action figure arm and got a “Good job, Mom!” when i finally found it. Cleaning up some cereal that spilled – “Good job, Mom!”. It’s so cute and makes me laugh every time. But then also makes me feel slightly lame, as if he feels like I need that extra encouragement to get things done. Wonder if that’s how he feels when we praise every little thing? “Oh, you peed standing up! Good job, Nick!”

Best Friend

So Nick has a best friend – Lewis. Lewis and Nick are exactly alike. They have the same sense of humor (potty humor), the same likes (Scooby Doo and Legos) and the same inflection on many of their phrases. They are just too cute together. Lewis used to go to Nick’s school, but left last month to attend a new one. So sad. But they see each other just about every weekend.

Boots

I was pulling some of Nick’s “too small” clothes out of his closet this weekend and he saw his snow boots. Which have got to be two sizes too small for him. But he put them on and insisted they fit. A while later we were off to the grocery store and took the stroller since we were walking. Get outside to find him in shorts/t-shirt/snow boots. Whatever makes you happy kid! He also insists on wearing his rain boots a lot. We recently bought the matching rain jacket, but can usually talk him out of wearing that (unless of course it is raining). Never fails, someone will see us and ask “is it raining outside?” Uh, no, he just likes to wear his raingear on sunny days.

Yoga

Nick has a Babar the elephant yoga bookthat he’s fallen in love with. We have to do yoga before he goes to bed every night and sometimes even in the morning when he wakes up. So cute. We took a mommy/tot yoga class last year, but all the other kids had been doing yoga since they were 2 (no joke) and Nick wasn’t into it at the time. The best is him bowing at the end and saying “namaste”. So adorable and innocent.

And then the crying/screaming/yelling starts because it's time to actually go to bed. Diminishing any good that came out of our yoga session.

Kayak

We went to visit some friends this weekend at their lake house. We had lunch and then hopped in the kayaks for a little paddle. I got the smaller red kayak and Chris was in the larger green one. Since his was larger, it was suggested that Nick ride in the front of his kayak. We all got our life vests on and hopped in the kayaks. Nick sat on the edge of the dock and was working with Chris to jump down into the kayak. Yes, you see where this is going…One hop turned into a bounce off the kayak, causing Chris to tip over and Nick to fly under the dock. Happy to say the life jacket did its duty (brought him right up) and Chris’s long arms grabbing the front of Nick helped as well. How Chris got out from under the kayak and grabbed Nick so fast, I’ll never know. I was still sitting in my kayak stunned. It all happened within 5 seconds. A few coughs and he was fine. That little trooper still wanted to go out in the kayaks, but said “I think I’ll ride with Mom”. Ha! Luckily we didn’t scar him for life. We had a great paddle and he even went out on the motor boat later that day. Love those life jackets. He had us repeat the story to him all weekend. He would add in “and then bubbles came out of my mouth” and “I can swim!”. I so wish I’d had my camera out for before and after photos.

Crew for tots?

We have an erg from our days of crew. Right now it’s in our empty basement. Chris was on it the other night and had Nick in his lap. Apparently Nick then hopped on by himself and rowed for a bit. Good form and all! I was at yoga and missed it, but it makes me laugh thinking of Nick rowing.

Brown Bag

Summer fun at school continues! Today was Picnic Day and everyone had to bring a lunch. Thank god I looked at the calendar this am, or little man would have been SOL. Some of you have heard how my mom used to make my breakfast every morning growing up. Buckwheat pancakes were the best! Well, she would also pack my lunch and include a little note on my napkin. Just something nice like “Have a great day. I love you! Mom”. So I’ve been writing Nick napkin notes on the days he has to take a lunch. Not that he can read, but hopefully someone is reading it to him ;) I drew a train on today’s napkin. So what does a three year old ask for in their lunch? Batman snacks and potato chips. What does his lunch bag really contain? A juice box, apple, PB on Ritz Crackers, baked chips and Batman snacks. What will he eat? Batman snacks and chips. Maybe a few bites of apple.

Transformers

Nick is all about the Transformers these days. I bought him a Transformer sticker book in Hong Kong and he made me name each Transformer and tell him if it was a “good guy or bad guy”. I’m sad to say that I know more about Autobots and Decepticons than I care to know. Nick got a Transformer toy the other day. They come with different levels of difficulty. Apparently age 5 (level 3) is too difficult for even me. So all day long I heard “mom, will you transform to a robot? Mom, will you transform to a car? Robot? Car?”. It got to a point where I was pretty good at it. Then it got to a point where I could not get that sucker back into a car. Spent ½ of dinner trying. Went to bed. Nick woke up saying “transformer…car…help…”. I told him I’d work on it and he fell back asleep. Poor little guy must have worried about it all night. So there I was at 6am trying to get it back into a car. Success! Nick was still snoozing when I left for work, so I went in, put it in his hand and told him I’d fixed it. He woke up briefly looked at the car then went back to sleep. What a stinker. Level one from here on out.

Potty

Come on - it's been a while since we had a potty story. Guess who can pee standing up?! Yes, a month or two too late in my eyes (visions of me holding his bum over a hole in the ground in Hong Kong while he yelled and peed all over my feet), but we’ll take it. He’s so proud of himself and his aim isn't too bad!

Cuts & Bruises

Boy oh boy, Nick is great at Karate! You should see the other kid!

OK, ok, so maybe those bruises aren't from karate. The one on his chin happened on the way to karate when Nick collided with a curb. The eyebrow, noise and knee happened leaving a block party when he collided with the sidewalk. His friend Lewis came over yesterday and i heard them comparing wounds. Too funny. It doesn't seem to have slowed him down.

McDonut

Driving down Irving Park the other day and Nick yells out, "ohh, Mom! Mc, Mc, McDonut". Makes me laugh. What doesn't make me laugh is going into DD, everyone ordering their own donut and then Nick deciding he wants the one I picked out. Leaving me with his (pink frosting with sprinkles). Uh...no.

Garden Helper

Since we missed planting our flower beds this spring (hard to plant while you’re on the other side of the world), we made a mad rush to do it in July. Turns out Nick is a super garden helper. He digs holes, pulls up weeds (and more) and then gets sidetracked with running through the sprinkler. He saw my gardening gloves and insisted he needed to wear them. So there he was, blue flowered gloves on, five sizes too big, doing lawn work. While I had to wear my yellow “moving” gloves. Grrrrrrrrr. Imagine my surprise when we were at the toy store and I found a mini pair of real work gloves! They even have mini brooms – real ones (not plastic) that I aim to buy next. Who am I to keep the boy from his sweeping?!

When it came time to take these photos, Nick was more interested in showing off his Transformer Autobot instead of the gloves.

Race Car

Nick believes I drive a race car. I encourage this belief. Whenever we’re on the highway and he spots a tractor trailer, he yells out “get it!”. And off we go, making racing sounds with our mouths until we pass the truck. Then cheers from our car until we spot another one. Our little game to get us to where we’re going. Even in the parking garage at school, he has me race the other moms to the exit. They must love us. The other day I found a CD in my car that Megan bought for Nick ages ago. Kindergarten songs. I can’t describe the joy when he realized he knew all the words to the songs! So now our car trips consist of me drving quietly while he sits in the back and sings along. I really need to get a recording of it. It’s too cute. Little fighter/jumper/loud boy gets all quiet and cute with his music. “Are you sleeping” seems to be his favorite (or maybe it’s my favorite to hear him sing).

Tornado

Monday evening, we were winding down after N’s bath and I was letting him watch a bit of TV. (Ben 10 – he loves anything with monsters or watches that turn you into a monster). Anyway, Nick yells “mom, look what happen to the TV” and I come in to find a black screen alerting us of a tornado warning. I read it and it seemed to be hitting the burbs, so we just waited for it to go back to Ben 10. Five minutes later it comes on again. We ignore, but I read it more closely. Third time it comes on and is saying “Lincoln Park, Lincoln Square…” and naming the neighborhoods in alpha order, one of which was ours! So I calmly tell Nick “Hey bud, let’s take our popcorn/cell phone/flashlights and head to the basement for a while”. You know when you see the aftermath of disasters and everyone is wearing crazy clothes? Well, that would have been us. Nick insisted on walking around shirtless with his spiderman shorts on and a big, green fuzzy blanket. I won’t even tell you what I had on, but it wasn’t an attractive combo. Nick was such a trooper. He had the same calm outer persona that I was hoping to portray, but must have been scared bc he wouldn’t let go of my hand and insisted on coming with me the few feet to close the basement door or turn off the de-humidifier. So there we were eating popcorn, listening to the tornado sirens (didn’t even know we had those) and me explaining what a tornado is, why it’s dangerous and why the basement is safe. Chris was out with the guys, so some quick texting to find out everyone was safe. Then some more texting with a friend in the city (and hi-rise with lots of windows). Thirty minutes later we emerged, all was well (and dry-thanks to Chris’s rerouting expertise with the drain spouts!) and we headed up to bed. Phew.

Little Reef

Hey Megan, this one is for you...He LOVES them now!

Martial Arts

Between Kung Fu Panda, Batman, Transformers and the Power Rangers, Nick has become completely engrossed in fighting. He's always saying "let's fight" or "let's do karate" or "let's get the bad guys". Figured rather than me look like I'm beating up my kid (but we're playing!) I'd sign him up for martial arts! We went to our first introduction a few weeks back. Nick got as far as putting on his gi (uniform) and bowing to the mat before his face crumpled and he ran into my arms. The instructor was so nice and said we could come view classes for the next few weeks before we try again. Which we did. While he's watching the classes, he's doing all the moves. But when he see's the instructor, he clams up. As soon as he got out the door of the Martial Arts school, he was happy Nick talking all about Karate and fighting! Go figure... So Saturday found us off to another "introduction" where Nick wouldn't get on the mat unless Chris and I went with him. There we were, the three of us and the instructor, learning our punches, stances and kicks. Turns out Nick can't sign up for class until he can do the basics alone with the instructor. Like we have time for this...They said for him to wear his uniform around the house to get used to it. And we're practicing bowing to his rug and other moves at home.

Carnival Day!

Nick has had “summer camp” at school this summer. Every other day is some sort of fun event/activity. Picnic’s, tie dye, animals, etc. The other day was Carnival day and Nick came home with a balloon and goody bag. The goody bag had the most ridiculous assortment of stuff. Candy, an orange wrist band, plastic watch and a whistle. Turns out our little guy knows how to use a kazoo but not a whistle. Well, he learned and then ordered us around. Whoever was wearing the whistle was in charge. I should see if his teacher wears a whistle…Down to the basement we went to play karate soccer. Yes, we make up our own games. We still haven’t put carpeting down there since the flood last year, so it’s open and hard. Nick’s forehead and the dehumidifier collided at one point, but he cried and then walked it off. Was having too much fun playing! After a few rounds of karate soccer, we moved onto baseball (but with bouncy balls of all sizes). Well, it got a bit too competitive and while trying to tag one of them I stepped over one of the big bouncy balls (but didn’t quite get over it). Imagine all this in slow motion (since that’s how it felt) - the big bouncy ball, my foot on the ball, the ball moving, me still in my work skirt, me falling back, me trying to gently land on the hard concrete, me lying on the concrete on my side, bad hand and hip catching the fall and Nick and Chris with big eyes asking if I was all right. Smooth. A little sore, but all is well. Needless to say, that was the end of our game.