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  Wherein I Stress Over Playoff Hockey. Also, Niklas Does Whatever. |
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Pictures News |
2008-04-01:
Yesterday's planned picture update was derailed by work (for me, sadly, not Niklas) and a five month early onset of
the terrible twos (that one was Niklas). Screaming? Constant messing with stuff? General jerkery? Yeah, we got that. So anyway,
here's this. Yeah, I know this is way short and quite uninformative. With all the screaming the
last couple days I'm amazed that I can turn the computer on let alone prepare a proper web update. 2008-04-02: Well, after two days of nap rejection and mass destruction, Niklas turned the beat around (as it were) and had a really good day. It started with him actually sleeping until seven instead of getting up at 5:45 and screaming for an hour. Big plus there. After that we read a few stories (Eric Carle and Sandra Boynton are still very popular) and there was some genial running amok. Then, at 9:30, eye-rubbing Niklas actually consented to taking a nap. Woooooo! I celebrated this by taking a nap myself. It was awesome. Anyway, when he woke up we headed down to Whale Bay Beach where Niklas had an awesome time running into the water and then running back out whenever a wave came. In the afternoon, we hit the park where Niklas played with our downstairs neighbor (neighbour, locally), James, who's a couple months older than him. Apparently, stomping about the park wears a guy out because when we got back home, Niklas took a second nap. Excuse me while I wipe away these tears of joy. We followed that glorious hour and a half up with some dinner, which Niklas actually ate instead of throwing on the floor. All in all, this day gets an A+, which reminds me that "apple" has replaced "bathroom" as the word that Niklas loves to say. Here's a fun (if quite blurry) picture from Grandma Meeker's visit:  There are a few other new pictures up here. 2008-04-06: A few weeks ago, we decided that a man of Niklas's advanced age should no longer be using a pacifier ("plug" locally... ok, in our house). He had pretty much only been allowed to have one at nap time and when he woke up super early, though I had been known to use one when he was screaming incoherently in public. He's adapted to taking a nap without one pretty well, though he hasn't yet mastered going back to sleep if he gets up at six or whatever. Oh, how I wish he'd master that. The public hasn't yet been subjected to a super-mega meltdown, but with the inevitability of his first plugless haircut, it's only a matter of time. In other news, beach weather is coming on strong in Bermuda. Niklas has been to the beach each of the past four days and on two of those days, he's managed not to fall over and get drenched by the surf. A .500 average may get you into the hall of fame, but we're (greedily, apparently) still hoping for some improvement. Either way, he's been having a fabulous time stomping about in the water. 2008-04-09: So our local beach here in Bermuda (West Whale Bay) is a "low tide" affair, which means that when the very high tides happen (as they do around the new moon), practically the whole thing is underwater. This, along with Whale Bay's rockituity, leads to the creation of some of Niklas's favorite things on the planet; tide pools. He's loves, loves, to stand in a pool and stomp in place like he's doing the merengue. It's a pretty hilarious sight. It's even funnier when he insists on standing in a pool when, unbeknownst to him, most of the sand has been washed out of it and it's two feet deep. Niklas's "shocked" face is comedy gold. 2008-04-15: Today was the first "can't go outside at all on account of torrential downpours that will wash you into the sea" day we've had since Easter. As such, Niklas and I were pretty much confined to the house. Let me just say that Cabin Fever Niklas is a sight to behold. If you're anyone but me, it's probably an hilarious sight. For me, though... bad times. Niklas thought emptying out my underwear drawer would be a fabulous way to spend his extra indoor time today. This is how my boxers came to spread across the living room and kitchen floors. Now, you're probably asking yourself "why didn't that lazy, lazy piece of laziness just stop him?" to which I would say "shut it". For your information, I was busy trying either to shove the 8000 diapers Niklas had strewn about his room back into his changing table or repatriate two boxes worth of Kleenex. Either way, busy! Also, I watched the replay of last nights Penguins game. 2008-04-13: A few days ago, Niklas started saying "hockey". Needless to say, I was very excited to hear that. My excitement was a bit tempered, however, once it became obvious that Niklas doesn't mean "hockey" when he says it. Oh sure, if you showed him this picture, he's say "hockey"... because of the glasses. Ah, the crushing, crushing disappointment. I'm pretty sure he's just messing with me. We play a game where I'll say "show me your nose" and he'll point to his nose, or whatever it is I ask him to show me. When I say "show me my glasses" he laughs, grabs my glasses and says "hockey". 2008-04-17: So, here's what happened today: 7:00 - Niklas wakes up yelling. I change his diaper and put him back to bed. 7:20 - After twenty minutes of babbling, I finally concede that Niklas is not going back to sleep. 7:30 - Niklas has some cereal and fruit cocktail for breakfast. In a delightful change, instead of indicating that he is done eating by throwing his remaining food on the floor, he piles some diced peaches and pears up on his head. 7:50 - I wash Niklas's hair. 8:00 - Niklas hits me with various books which I proceed to read to him. 8:30 - A bunch of eye rubbing during a diaper change leads to a surprisingly protest-free nap. 10:00 - My own wonderful, wonderful nap is interrupted by some Niklas wailing. 10:10 - I ask Niklas what he wants for a snack. As "cheese" is the only snack food I've ever heard him mention, that's what he ends up with. 11:00 - We head to the playground where Niklas enjoys the swings, playing in the sand and going down the slide about five thousand times. 12:30 - Niklas and I go down to the beach where he has some lunch and calls a bunch of wild chickens "kitties". 1:00 - I once again thwart Niklas's efforts to play with jellyfish that have washed up on the beach. 1:30 - Niklas takes a bite out of a lemon in the grocery store. This was not nearly as unpopular as I would have expected. 2:00 - Niklas helps me put the groceries away. Niklas is a firm believer that beer goes on the coffee table and that bananas should be kept in the subwoofer. 2:30 - Niklas is unbelievably agreeable to taking a second nap. I watch some old unbelievably funny episodes of Seinfeld. 4:00 - "Yell! Yell! Yell!" apparently translates into "My nap is over". 4:05 - I retrieve a banana from the subwoofer for Niklas's afternoon snack. 4:20 - I put a swimmer diaper on Niklas in anticipation of a trip to the beach. 4:22 - I put a second, poop-free swimmer diaper on Niklas in anticipation of a trip to the beach. 4:30 - As Niklas is already wearing a swimmer diaper, we head to the beach. 4:45 - Stomp stomp, splash splash, run run, stomp. 5:30 - Niklas brings about five pounds of sand with him to the car. 5:45 - Niklas has some lasagne and corn for dinner. 6:15 - I brush a bunch of corn out of Niklas's hair. 6:30 - Niklas embarks on his traditional "Late Day Reign O'Terror". Today, this includes some drawer emptying, pot banging and toaster stealing. 7:00 - Andrya comes home and Niklas embarks on his traditional ploy of making his mother think that he's good. 7:20 - I defeat Niklas in a no holds barred tickle battle royale. 7:25 - Andrya gives Niklas a bath while I work on my napping skills. 7:45 - After a rousing (in a going to bed type way) reading of "Good Morning, Good Night", Niklas is off to bed. Pictures? Yup. 2008-04-21: So as to better convey my displeasure with my coworkers back in Chicago, I had to break out the scanner. In addition to angry red scribblings on engineering documents, I scanned this classic Niklas picture:  That's him at three plus months. We have a few more of his pro-shot pictures here that I'll scan in the near future. Anyway, if you want to print that out, you can do the right-click, save-target-as thing. And now, back to this. 2008-04-23: Niklas and I have been keeping a pretty low profile lately. Playground, beach, nap, beach... it's quite a grind. Anyway, Andrya has recently compiled a list of words that Niklas can say and found that he's up to 47. I'd reproduce that list for you here, but there's no way I'm typing all of that. Besides, he's still got a ways to go to catch this guy (or "kitty", as Niklas would probably say). In other developmental news, Niklas has twelve teeth. He's actually had twelve teeth for a while, but I don't think I've mentioned it. He's also much steadier on his feet these days, although there's still the occasional spectacular wipeout of spectacular-ness. My favorite falling down episode lately actually started with Niklas on the floor playing. He decided he needed to get up for something (probably something destructive), so he got up on all fours, as he generally does before standing. Ideally, once on all fours, he'll sort of sit down and then drive himself up to standing with his legs. This particular time, though, before he could do that, his hands slipped on the carpet leading to and impressive head-butt of the floor. Then he got up and did something destructive. Lackluster update so far? Maybe, but it's nothing a little classic Niklas won't fix:    2008-04-27: Niklas is turning in to an outdoorsy guy. I'm not sure where he gets this as I have a long held grudge against the sun and Andrya laughed and laughed today when I asked her if she was ever interested in doing any camping. Still, there seems to be a direct correlation between Niklas's joviality and the amount of time he spends outside in a day. Therefore, we've been spending a lot of time in the park down the the hill. Niklas loves it because there are endless amounts of leaves, other tree-dropping type things (as I said, I'm not outdoorsy) and the occasional rock to play with. Also, there's a wall with drainage holes of mystery that is apparently spectacular fun to walk on. I forgot to mention that last week, I took Niklas for a haircut. It went much better than previous trips to ye olde haircuttery. Whereas before, his rage on a scale of 1-10 was about a 23, this time, it was no more than a 9, maybe 9.5. Progress! 2008-04-30: There are many ways in which Niklas and I are alike. We both love the Penguins, pizza and AC/DC. Also, we have similar last names. One major difference we have is that while I love sleep (love it), Niklas has decided that sleep is for suckers and he doesn't want to do it anymore. This has led to some unfortunately early rising and nap protestations that feature furious anger. To sum up, I am sleepy. Please enjoy these pictures while I wander about the house in zombie-esque fashion.  
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