They Don't Stop Growing Just Because You Stop Posting

My title jumped into my head when I was trying to come up with something witty in case anyone actually still happens by this little corner of the internet. It's been quite some time since I posted anything here. I didn't even make it over for Nicholas' second birthday...what a shame!

He's grown so much since last time I posted when I was concerned about his opening and closing doors. Now it's more like "Look at me Mommy! I can crawl up and down the stairs by myself." Whoa. He also has come to enjoy climbing into and out of the bathtub fully clothed...so far there have been no episodes of bath water being left behind, but he still gets a little damp on his bum. Now here's the funny part...he doesn't seem to desire to crawl out when he doesn't have clothes on...at least not without a hand from me. What a sweetheart making me still feel needed.

Nicholas is seeing a lot of fun new friends lately to help him along on his communication. And we've been working very hard at keeping him busy in other ways as he is a ball of boundless energy. What did I expect with that red hari? :)

All in all, the months that you've missed have been fun, but not without frustrations (primarily from external sources). I shall make it my goal to stop by here again periodically to let you in on the new fun thing that Nicholas is doing with his time. Until then, I wish you a fond September...for it starts tomorrow!

Opening Doors....

Our little cutie pie has just recently become proficient in opening doors periodically. Uh oh. It was two days ago that he opened his first and I just watched him open another today. Goodness gracious are we in trouble and yet, at least we'll be relieved of the whole "I've shut the door, I'm trapped, come save me!" screams that we've become accustomed to. That will be nice.

Another nice thing is that I can shave again! Yippie! I've been having my legs waxed for the past few months since Nicholas just wasn't having the whole shaving thing. It was quite surreal the first day I was able to take a shower without him screaming through the whole very abbreviated thing. I didn't know if shaving would be pushing the envelope, but I decided to give it a try and happy day, he was cool with it and I LOVE having completely smooth legs again....and I also really enjoy not having to feel hair ripped out of my legs. That seems to be a big plus.

Since I haven't mentioned it elsewhere to my knowledge, Nicholas also has a new friend named Charlotte. This is Mark's new guide dog. She's a sweet and very smart black lab and though he originally was rather indifferent to her, Nicholas now adores Charlotte. He follows her around and plays the drum on her back and then laughs and laughs. He's quite a trip.

Also, I am so behind on Nicholas' pictures on his website...partially because I can't access a lot of the recent ones because my computer died on me again. I hate computers. So, hopefully a friend of our family will be able to recover most of them so I can share again. :)

Size 7?!

We bought Nicholas his first official pair of tennis shoes on Sunday. Nothing overly fancy...primarily just nice and functional.

I was a bit surprised to learn via the process that his feet fit in size 7 shoes right now. What?! He was just wearing size 5s at the beginning of the summer. Wow. He is growing like a little weed...a cute little weed, if there is such a thing.

He does such a great job toddling around in his little (but not as little as I'd like!) shoes. He's really becoming quite a little boy. How I miss my little baby. And yet, I love watcing him discover the world. It is truly a wonderful experience. I would love to go through this over and over again...it's too bad I didn't get to start having children until later in life. I envy those who start in their twenties.

Perhaps once things calm down with our businesses and life in general we'll have another little one to enjoy. Or perhaps we'll just have Nicholas. Either way, I plan to cherish as many moments as I possibly can beause I can't imagine anything better in life.

Halloween Antics

The little guy will need supervision on Halloween it appears. He's already causing mischief. My son has discovered the joys of unrolling the toilet paper. Beware! Your house could be next! Or not...he's only 15 months and can't get there very easily. I guess you may be safe...for now.

This morning was a busy morning for me. I think Mark even wondered at one point if I'd up and forgotten how to get back home. I hadn't. I just had two back-to-back meetings...one was BNI for the candle biz and one was MOPS (Mothers of Preschoolers...which Nicholas isn't yet, but they let those of us with younger kidlets have fun, too). I had a good time at both and I have a little money (one of the restaurant staff wanted some candles...I only had one for sale so she took it) and a new nifty "Mommy Diary" which I made in MOPS. It's perfect - pink with an M on the front, a green ribbon that's both decorative and useful (as a bookmark) and some pink and green flowers. It rocks. :)

At any rate, the upshot of all this is I was away all morning. The boys weren't up when I left. So, I think Nicholas must have had a blast with the TP while daddy was showering (because the rest of the time, we keep that bathroom door shut!). Naturally, Mark wouldn't notice the mayhem unless he needed to blow his nose...apparently, he didn't. Which is why I found it when I came home and went into the bathroom after taking Mark to work.

I wonder what our next little "milestone" will be...

A Bath Without Sceaming...and Ice Cream!

We've had a few firsts here this week. The most notable is that Nicholas had his first taste of ice cream last night (as an ice cream lover, this is the most important thing out of our list - ha ha!). He made the funniest face since it was cold. We tried to record it, after he did it two times in a row, but on the third and fourth time, nothing. On the fifth when the video camera was stashed again...there was that cute scrunched up face. :) He's too cute, but then we already knew that!


He also treated me a couple of days ago to a lovely shower. It started out as any other...with me jumping in planning to wash myself as quickly as possible to avoid upsetting him longer than necessary. Strangely, though, after about a minute of fussing, he left the bathroom to play with his toys. Could it be that my little man is growing up? Say it isn't so...

Since I didn't get to finish this several nights ago when I planned to, I'll share another "wonderful" development in little Nicholas' amusement with the world. The little guy has discovered that throwing things away is almost as exciting as shutting doors. Of course, I have to disagree...especially since I spent a good portion of my evening on Monday laboring. Specifically, I was hunting down the pieces to what we call "Farmer Tad." This is Nicholas' fridge farm which he adores...but apparently he doesn't know that if you throw toys away they don't come back...unless Mommy digs for them in the garbage. When all was said and done, I'd found all but the back of the pig. Who knows where that is, but it is probably around the house somewhere. In my search, I found 2 balls and 2 animal halves in the trash gook...I think I'll try to look a little more often now so that I don't have to dig through goo again. It was so gross.

Of course, I've also put all the animal halves but two up out of reach. I figure I am well within my rights by decreasing the number of pieces I must keep track of and hunt down!

Thus endeth another bath...

Nicholas has recently become fascinated with the drain cover at bath time. The house that we rent has a grate over the drain so we have to use one of those plastic disk things to keep the water in. He likes to pick it up, feel the rush of the water as the tub empties and then put the cover back on...multiple times.

He gets into trouble when he puts the cover back on upside down for the current disk has a "handle" if you will. He can hear the water still going out and it drives him a bit nuts! So, he takes it off again...puts it back...takes it off...puts it back. Eventually there is no water left and the bath ends. I have on a frequent basis tried to help the little guy not end his bath prematurely, but it always seems to be in vain. So I've just given up...sometimes we have a nice long bath and sometimes we don't.

Either way, he comes out cute, clean and cuddly! :)

Piano Pleasures

My son has a love for our piano....which is good. He enjoys tinkering on it from time to time which is quite cute. However, his habit of shutting the lid everytime I am playing is quite annoying. I rarely get to play an entire tune. Makes me want to growl sometimes.

Tonight Nicholas seems to have more teething pain. Joy. And we tested the teething tablets and it looks like they were the culprits that led to the little guy breaking out last week. So, we went straight to Motrin. I am suffering from a lack of patience this evening and so Mark had to take him and put him down after I'd spent about an hour doing so only to sit down on the couch and here him start crying.

Sometimes being a mother is difficult, but I wouldn't give up my kidlet for the world!