Sweet Extract » Nicholas

Just in time for Mother’s day

Mama — Fri, 07 May 2010 20:00:08 +0000

We’ve gone through a VERY rough couple of weeks. The boys have been both sick and simply not their usual selves. Vaccines, teething and some sort of mild viral infection have made them cranky and dramatic beyond any reason. It’s been a miserable time for all of us.

Especially for Nicholas. It’s been hardest on him for some reason.

BUT, today, it’s as if an exorcism took place overnight. All of a sudden, my sweet, funny, giggly boys are back. Both of them. At the same time.

I’m SO happy.

If you click on the photo above and go to Flickr’s site, then click on “All sizes”, you will see a bigger version of this image. My reflection is in Nicholas’ eyes. I LOVE that.

TGIF

Mama — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 17:28:37 +0000

Nicholas mostly likes to hang around on weekends.

Don’t fence me in.

Mama — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 07:27:11 +0000

The playpen in the living room is becoming less and less relevant as the boys get older and their wanderlust grows. They’re still amenable to spending a little bit of time in there but the activities therein are becoming more and more unruly. One of those activities, aside from the de rigueur chuck-EVERYTHING-out-of-the-playpen game, (Hey lookit Mama/Dada picking it up again!) involves Nicholas squeezing himself into the overflowing toy basket and proactively reaffirming the laws of displacement.

The pleasure is fleeting, because, soon enough, he runs out of toys to chuck but I think that’s half the fun. The game has a start and an end.

And, sometimes, as a bonus, he rediscovers a long lost favourite in the process.

Here comes trouble – part two

Mama — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 00:14:29 +0000

Well, I’m a bit late in posting ’cause he’s been doing this for a while but here it is! Nicholas is hot on his brother’s heels.

God help me.

I’m outta here, suckaz!

Mama — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 00:24:43 +0000

As most of you know, the boys have a playpen in the living room. It IS admittedly a lot like a kiddy jail, but it affords me the luxury of doing stuff like brushing my teeth (sometimes) and finding shoes that match (occasionally).

The boys are not entirely resentful of this “caging” – heck, all their toys are within arm’s reach – but there are moments when it’s clear that they’d rather roam free with the other animals (read Goose).

Witness images taken with our… ahem… super-secret closed-circuit surveillance system:

Next thing you know, they’ll be making shivs out of their old rattles!

Mama’s boy

Mama — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 20:00:17 +0000

For anyone who’s wondering if there’s a family resemblance, that’s Nicholas at one year old on the left and me at the same age on the right.

Yeah, I think I can see a little something.

Click on the image for a larger version.

Bravo!

Mama — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 04:11:30 +0000

This post was originally supposed to go up October 11th. Sorry! Been a bit busy.

Nicholas clapped for the first time today. See?

What next? Stemware?

Mama — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 16:00:34 +0000

At our 6 month well-baby checkup (well, baby? how ya doin’?) the doctor said that we should start giving the boys water to drink, occasionally. And we should really do it in a sippy cup so that they can start practising for the time when they no longer get to have bottles (or boobs).

In an attempt to please everybody, I bought a bunch of different cups with different sippy bits. Some hard plastic. Some rubbery plastic. Some big. Some small. All of them unspillable.

Sebastian is pretty happy with any of these sippy cups. And happy with any liquid (including the less-than-popular-with-kids plain water). He even likes to do the heavy lifting on his own. He’s not that great at it, but he makes a valiant attempt. He is, for all intents and purposes, “training” to drink from a cup like the doctor ordered.

Enter Nicholas.

When it comes to anything new and different he is, at best, suspicious and, at worst, 100% resistant.

I’ve been giving him a variety of sippy cups like Sebastian but to no avail. He won’t hold them. He won’t drink from them when I hold them. He even balks when I give him sweet, sweet juice in them. Okay, ONE TIME he drank the juice but water? FUGGIDABOUDIT. No way.

So today, I’m sitting on the couch with Nicholas on my lap when I reach over for my big glass of Pellegrino on the coffee table. I watch him as he watches me. He tracks the movement of my glass over his head and to my mouth. Now I’m no baby scientist but, in my experience, that’s baby for “I want some”.

So what the heck! I take the glass and bring it to his lips. Remember now, it’s a) got water, b) it’s cold, c) it’s bubbly and d) it’s got lemon which he’s never tasted. These are all things which I’ve safely assumed, until now, will send him into one of his wrinkly-nosed, head shaking, yucky-face episodes.

But no. He drank. He drank a few times. Admittedly, not big gulps and he spilled a lot but he drank. Go figure!

So, to see whether it was all just a fluke, I tried again with a little cup (see above) and some homemade pear juice before his supper. And guess what? He drank again.

It would seem that perhaps it’s not the content of the cup that had his diapers in a knot but the cup and its infantilizing no-spill top.

Of course this means he won’t be drinking unassisted like his brother any time soon.

Still, I’m so proud of the little guy.

Blame it on the boogie

Mama — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 22:48:36 +0000

Nicholas’ dismay at Michael Jackson’s passing is beyond comprehension (Literally. Can’t understand a word the boy is saying.).

Nicholas’ beast of burden

Mama — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 20:39:41 +0000