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 Wherein Niklas Hates On Haircuts And Vaccuums And Also Flies A Kite. |
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Pictures News |
2009-04-06:
So I learned something important today; Niklas does not like being licked by dogs. There's a chocolate lab puppy who lives down the hill
from us and every once in a while she'll be loitering about by our door when we head out. She was wandering around this morning when we were
embarking on a trip to the playground. "Hi, puppy" said Niklas, excitedly. The puppy was pretty excited, too. She ran over and started licking
Niklas on the the arm. He didn't know what to make of this, so he started running around in a circle. He's quick, but not puppy quick, so the
lab was able to keep pace with him, licking his arm the whole time. Then, he started saying "daddy" in an apprehensive tone. I told him it
was fine and the puppy was just saying hello and that he should calm down. Then he started jumping up and down (while still twirling about)
and screaming. So, I picked him up, the puppy then chased a cat down the hill and we were off for some playground action. 2009-04-07: Well, the weather was pretty cruddy today, so we Niklas and I pretty much laid low around the house. Thrilling! Also, we went to the Post Office which enable Niklas to flirt with one of the ladies he likes. Later, Niklas graced Andrya and I with a reasonable telling of the Very Hungry Caterpillar. Anyway, there are some new pictures up here. 2009-04-09: So, big news on the potty training front today. Niklas made it all afternoon without needing a diaper change, which is pretty awesome. It would have been more awesome if I didn't have to take the diaper off and put it back on every time he went to the potty, but at least I wasn't dragging pee-soaked diapers around. I did have to dump a couple of travel potties full of pee into the bushes when people (hopefully) weren't looking, but I didn't dump any on my shoes, so it's a noted improvement over yesterday. Anyway, good job, Niklas! 2009-04-12: So, Niklas had a fairly eventful Easter weekend. On Friday, as is the tradition here, Niklas and I went down to the park and did some kite flying. Niklas proved surprising adept and we had no problems with kite-eating trees, people letting go of the string or unscheduled meetings between the kite and the ground. On Saturday, Andrya, Niklas and I did some more kite flying. Once again, Niklas managed the kite like a pro. I crashed the kite into a rock wall at fairly high speeds, but I'm pretty sure it still works. We also did some egg coloring on Saturday. Niklas didn't seem to grasp the concept of not reaching into the cups of dye with your bare hands and grabbing the eggs. He also was unclear on the concept of using the wax crayon thing and he was a bit confused when his furious scribblings didn't appear to do anything. Anyway, a good time was had by all, especially considering that Andrya and I put on a clinic on the improper way in which to boil eggs the night before. Still, I'm pretty sure Niklas's favorite part was playing with egg-shaped egg dying cups after we were done. Today, we went to church where Niklas was remarkably well behaved. He even managed to use St. Theresa's not at all child friendly toilet without falling in. Later, there were presents and an egg hunt. He did a pretty good job of finding the eggs. Where he needs work is in the opening. Luckily, Niklas is cool with eating M&Ms off of the floor. There are a bunch of pictures of Niklas's Easter exploits over this way. 2009-04-13: So, the other day I was in the kitchen when naked Niklas ran into the room shouting "oh, no!" Andrya had been giving him his bath, which is generally a disaster-free occurrence. "I spilled the pee-pee," said Niklas excitedly. Well, that certainly qualifies as "oh, no" to me. Inconveniently (or conveniently, depending on how you look at it), I was in the middle of some dinner preparation of some sort, so I handed him a few paper towels and sent him back to the bathroom. A while later, Andrya came out (for some more paper towels, apparently this was the Exxon-Valdez of pee spills) and explained that Niklas had used his potty properly, but the removable receptacle had stuck to his butt when he got up. Unfortunately, after he stood up it stopped sticking leading to some unpleasantness. 2009-04-18: There are many things Niklas doesn't like: peanut butter, haircuts, the blue vacuum, etc. Because he's two, he never says he doesn't like something. Instead, he says "Niklas can't like that." I suppose that instead of a grammar issue, he could just be implying that there's nothing that I can do to convince him that the things he hates are not the most horribly awful things in the history of society. Anyway, he's recently had run ins with two of his most sworn enemies. Yesterday, I was eating a peanut butter power bar. Niklas is a fan of fruit power bars. Can he tell the difference between the two just by looking at them? The horrified grimace, hacking cough and shrieking pleas for juice would imply not. Today, I vacuumed the carpet. Niklas was so disturbed by the presence of the blue vacuum that he volunteered to take a nap at 10:30 in the morning so as to put a closed door and his blankeys between the vacuum and himself. THAT IS SO SIGNIFICANT IT SHOULD ALL BE IN CAPS. 2009-04-19: So Niklas had a pretty good day today. This morning, we went down to the park to fly the kite. Niklas delegated kite flying responsibilities to me while he played pretend post office with Andrya. They had a fine time doing that and an even better time watching me sprint (as it were) across the park chasing the kite string when I was attacked by wolves and dropped it. Alright, there probably weren't any wolves. Later in the day, Niklas shouted down suggestions that we go to the beach ("not go to the beach!") opting instead to play with play-doh for several hours. He also dumped a big bin o' balls under the couch. 2009-04-20: Today, Niklas continued his quest to outwit me. Fortunately, at this point, my thirty one year head start on him still gives me a slight edge. In a few years, I'll move into the "doddering" zone and pretty much be screwed. Until then, though, I'll be able to see through his machinations. Anyway, today he tried to avoid nap time using a time-tested-to-fail plot. Around 8:30 every morning, I'll ask him what he wants to do during the day. Usually, he'll say "go to the zoo" or "go to the playground" or something and that's what we'll do. Today, he wanted to go to the pink playground (which is the pink playground because of the pink slide that was there before it (the slide) disintegrated into a pile of knife-like plastic shards). I told him fine, that's what we'd do as soon as he got dressed. Then, the "not yet" plan leapt into action. All morning I asked if he was ready to go to the playground and got a "not yet" in response. Then, at 11:30, he said "go to pink playground now". Seeing as how he has lunch at noon and it's a fifteen minute drive to the playground, we probably could have made it there and back before lunch. However, I'm pretty sure a zero (0) minute trip to the playground would not have gone over well. His plan, no doubt, was to go to the playground until one or so, than dally through lunch at home until about two and then scream at me in his overtired voice that two o'clock is indeed NOT naptime and I missed my chance for naptime and he's not going to stop yelling until I recognize that fact. Actually, I guess this plan did work for him once. Not today, though. 2009-04-22: Niklas and I rode the ferry into town today for the weekly running of the errands. He got some new shoes and a new pair of sunglasses that he is really excited about. We also made an appointment for a haircut; he was much less excited about that. Later, Niklas stood up to go pee-pee in a public bathroom and demonstrated his inability to aim pee-pee. "Oh, no! Pee-pee!" exclaimed Niklas. So, all in all it was a pretty successful trip. 2009-04-26: So Niklas got into the crazy pills today. Here's a list of stuff he stood on so as to be able to mess with the lights (though not all at the same time): a chair, his tricycle, his walk-behind lion thing, his toy drum, and an empty diaper box. He also stood on me, but we weren't near a light switch at the time. In addition to his interior illumination antics, he also ran around like a madman, helped Andrya with some baking, recited the text of "Dinosaur's Binkit" and searched online for some new bedroom furniture. He was shockingly excited about that last one, and his choices so far have been pretty tasteful. 2009-04-27: I forgot to mention how Niklas's Friday trip to the barbershop went. IT WENT POORLY. He was fine about the whole thing until I sat him down in the haircutting chair (the chair you sit in for the haircut, not a chair that cuts hair). Then the wheels came off, the chassis was on the ground and sparks flew everywhere. Also, there was a bunch of yelling. On the plus side, David, his barber, does quality work under less than ideal conditions, so Niklas looks good. 2009-04-30: It's been a busy week for Niklas so far. He's been to the playground, the zoo, the Maritime Museum, the lighthouse (where he climbed up all the steps by himself, which was awesome for me) and the beach. This was the first time this year I let him go in the water, so he was pretty excited about that. We went at low tide and he spend most of his time sitting chest deep in a tide pool, throwing rocks into the water, taking them out of the water and then throwing them back in. After twenty minutes or so, we had this exchange: ME: So, do you want to do something other than repeatedly drop rocks into the water? NIKLAS: Not yet. [drops rock into water] Whoa! Splash! After an hour or so more of that, I finally convinced him to leave. Usually, when we get home from the beach, I'll put him in the bath, but this time he insisted that he take a shower. That's fine with me as it brings me one step closer to my ideal solution of just hitting him with hose every now and again. Unfortunately, he's apparently a bit unclear as to what a shower entails. When I put him in the tub and turned on the water, he ran to the back of the tub yelling "no stand in rain, no stand in rain". So that was fun.  
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