NiklasSmith.com

NiklasSmith.com

Chomp, Chomp, Chomp.

Niklas Doesn't Recognize The Trump Building

2009-11-10: So, Niklas had a good Halloween. (Yes, it's ten days into November and I'm just now talking about Halloween. Chalk it up to some sort of Mummy's curse.) I had thought that maybe he'd be more into pulling the guts out of the pumpkin this year. His vague stabs with a spoon that netted the removal of one strand of orange stuff and possibly one seed demonstrated otherwise. He also didn't like it when I put put a big handful of guts on his arm. He was much more into the carving, which turned out pretty well:

On account of how door to door trick or treating isn't so much of a thing in Chicago, we took Niklas down to Grandma and Papa Meeker's house in Bloomington so he could shake their neighbors down for some candy. He had a great time buccaneering his way around collecting candy (much of which ended up being eaten by a mysterious candy bandit) and charming people with his cuteness. Also, he raked some leaves.

There are some pictures of Niklas's latest adventures here. 2009-11-19: Do you know who hates broccoli? Cats. Also, Niklas. Last Sunday, we went over to Jared, Dana and Aaron's for dinner and running around like madmen (that last one was mostly Niklas and Aaron). After some running around that would make whoever your favorite madman is madmanish with rage (my favorite madman was Noah of Ark fame as described by Queen in "The Prophet's Song"), we sat down for the dinner that I previously mentioned we would be having. Niklas hasn't been about dinner lately, so he picked at some chicken for a while and then he announced that he was done and also that he believed that some dessert was in order. As half an ounce of chicken does not grant you access to the cake club, I insisted that he also eat a quarter of a normal sized bite of broccoli before consuming a week's worth of calories in cake form. As he isn't the type to eat broccoli just on my insistence, I sat him on my lap so as to get the unpleasantness over with as quickly as possible. "I don't like it!", shouted Niklas. That gave me the opportunity to chuck the broccoli into his mouth. He choked it down and I congratulated myself on getting my kid to eat a grape's worth of vegetables. I was in the middle of the first verse of the song about how awesome I am that I sing to myself upon a successful parenting venture when he threw up all over me. While I was reflecting upon how I had gone from puke free to the exact opposite of that, he threw up some more, also on me. "Well," you might think, "a tiny bit of chicken and broccoli puke isn't that bad." You have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. In addition to his pittance of food, Niklas had also consumed about a gallon and a half of milk. Milk and stomach acid add up to a fairly foul concoction, I assure you. On the plus side, I'm not above scraping half digested milk solids off of my clothes and eating cake, so I did some of that after hosing Niklas off and dressing him in some borrowed clothes so he continue his master performance in the field of madman running around.

2009-11-24: So, Niklas went to Aaron's birthday party last weekend. It was at Pump It Up, which is a warehouse filled with giant inflatable stuff like slides and American Gladiators' Eliminator prototypes. I think there were ten kids or so there, but they were running around in such a crazy fashion that it was really hard to tell. For example, I watched Niklas climb up a giant slide and then apparently teleport onto a rock climbing wall. A good time was had by all.

On Monday, Aaron's nanny and mom were both sick, leaving Jared in charge, so he and Aaron came over to our place. Niklas and Aaron displayed heretofore unknown levels of insanity and then we went and got some lunch. Seriously, though, those dudes were crazy. I saw Niklas brushing a lego alligator's teeth with his (Niklas's) toothbrush while Aaron ran around with a recently emptied ball bin on his head. A good time was had by all.

Today, Niklas and I went out to get the stuff we needed for Thanksgiving dinner. We got a five gallon bucket, a thermometer and some beer. Niklas claimed that he wanted a new washer and dryer and some vegetables scrubbers for Christmas. A good time was had by all.