A New Beginning

Monday Nick will be starting Day care again. It was finally built and completed..the one that we signed up for last September...the same one that was to open in October. Either way, it's open and we are looking forward to it.

Mom and Dad are excited for Nicholas to begin swim lessons, we signed him up for next month. If he likes a pool anywhere near as much as he enjoys a bath, he's in for a huge treat. Last week at Grandma Bowman's he was so excited he climbed back into the bath after the tub was drained. We had no idea how he would have climbed up that tub side until he did it in front us. He can lift his leg up about as high as his shoulder!

Nick knows the sign language symbol for milk so very well, he does it with two hands. He learned at the same time what the "food" sign means but has no interest in using that.

Here, at Babypalooza at the Matyja's, Nick is learning from Madeline.
They had an amazing food spread which included Kiwi & Strawberry. His first time eating either, the face he made was priceless.

Back to Good

Nick is back to 100%

His balance is still slightly off when he's walking around but Grandma Bowman thinks that is a cause of his mind wanting to go fast while his body can't keep up.

Nick LOVES the outside and when that door is open he is up against the glass grunting for us to take him out there. It's been pretty cold but on the days its warmer we do go out he loves it.

Teeth. We knew that his two to four front top teeth were coming in, but has been a very slow process. One tooth has hardly broken skin, we think that perhaps the surgery process affected it..or so we thought. Out of nowhere his two top eye teeth have broke skin and have taken the lead. That make 6 teeth coming in the top at the same time. Ouch!

Progress is good

We cannot wait until tomorrow morning, that is when Nick goes back in to have his drainage tube removed. Thus meaning he will not pull on it, his cap will not just fall off and the drainage tube that broke hours after they put it on him...will no long not do the job it is suppose to be doing.

Arm stints were needed so he didn't pick at everything. They want us to have him wear it all the time but we couldn't do it to him. They want us to continue to have him wear them an every nap for the next 4 weeks....we'll see how that goes. Mom calls him her little Oompa Loompa.

We removed the tube that was in his head-net and strapped it to his back so it was easier to replace every 4 hours and so it would stop pulling off the net.

Over the past week Nick was making a clucking sound with this mouth, very same thing Dad use to do, few people can do it :)

Over the weekend I encouraged him to learn how to wave hello and goodbye. It is hilarious, he actually does a wave but its in a circular motion!

Success

Thank you for your prayers and comments! The doctor was said he had "just enough skin" to be able to remove all of the mole. The surgery was just over 1-1/2 hours long, but we were there from 6:30-1 until he was fully awake with all the anastasia gone. Has a drainage tube in his head to prevent the swelling that happened last time. The netting over his head keeps falling off so we are like hawks watching him to put it back on. If the net falls off or his grabs it off he could pull out the tube, and that could be painful. Monday we go back in to remove the tube.

During the night when we can't watch him full time they have us putting stints on his arms so they don't bend. It was a rough night, the netting still fell off...

This photo was taken about an hour after surgery. After this cat nap Nick woke to his old self and was playing peek-a-boo around the arm of the chair. Mom's smile is that one of relief.
PS. This is the only chance Mom ever gets to cuddle with him. Otherwise he's on the move.

Surgery Day

BONUS POST

Tomorrow (Thursday) is Nicks 2nd and hopefully final surgery. I look forward to him not getting looks and for me, not having to explain to everyone around why his head looks the way it does. At least I educated them. We have to be at the hospital at 6:30am

Pickles!!! He LOVES them. Nick tried them for the first time last night and loved it, went in for more and a bigger bite. He took the whole top layer of a quarter cut pickle.

Navigational Nick

From the photo below, you can get an idea of what we mean. He extends his little arm as far as it goes, grunts and leans into the direction that he wants you to go. Once arrived, he'll almost immediately change course, want to go somewhere else and repeats the process.

Navigational Nick

Nicholas's 10 month photo

A little White Sox, a little Nicholas, a little Cormac, and a little of Aunt Jen snapping photos. You can see her family blog, the link is on the lower right hand side. "The Adventures of Declan and Cormac"

On another note, Nick has 4 top center teeth coming in. The two in the middle broke skin so far. No wonder why he's been crabby.

It's warming up

It's warming up outside, all the snow is gone, Nick walked freely outside for the first time. That's when he met the grass for the first time and as far as he's concerned, his last time.
He doesn't like it one bit. You can see from his face in the photos and how he has his arms up really high when he fell down.

As you probably already know, I am cutting back to the updates to 2 days a week. Monday or Tuesday and Friday.

Cousin Filled Weekend

One giant leap....over the weekend, while we were actually witnessing it, he stood up from a crawling position not holding onto anything. He balanced his own weight. Here is a photo capturing him doing it again a few minutes later.
Nick loves to eat anything including shoes...but still don't come near him with green beans.

Over the weekend Nick spent time with his Cousin's Cormac, Declan and Max.

Nick & Cormac

Nick chasing Max

Nick looking up to Max

Hiding

Ok, he's not hiding, but he did crawl under there. His TWO top front teeth on the other hand, are hiding and are slowly pushing on the gums to make their way out.

Cheerioooooooos

Nicholas does not like the sun in his eyes and he lets you know it!

But he loves his Cheerios!!! Lately he wants to feed himself and he sure did feed himself a lot of these last night.

He's really growing...

We knew he was growing, growing out of his extra large car seat, growing out of many clothes, standing taller over the crib...and today we found out the his stats from his doctor.
Weight- 18 lbs 7 oz
Height- 29"

While at his docter he was extra cranky, been cranky most the day... later we flipped him upside down as he loves when we do then Mommy "thinks" she noticed a white line in the upper gum line... This is the only way to get Nick to open his mouth. Otherwise, try to get a finger in his mouth and he'll lock those lips so that it's air tight.

Over the weekend I got to meet some of the cast from my favorite movie, Back to the Future. I had Christopher Lloyd (Doc) sign my die-cast Delorean. I promised I smiled from ear to ear, once I knew he was signing it in the right place.