NiklasSmith.com

Niklas Doesn't Recognize The Trump Building

June 2010

2010-04-11: So the other day, I was awakened to the sound of a raccoon going through our kitchen trash. As raccoons are scarce in the city (and those versed in breaking and entering are rarer still), I thought his odd enough to investigate, even though it meant that I had to get out of bed. It turned out not to be a raccoon, but rather Niklas. He wasn't eating the trash, either, which was a plus. Instead, he had literally torn his way into an (previously) unopened box of Cocoa Pebbles. Amazingly, even though the box itself looked like it had been through a wood chipper, the bag containing the cereal looked like it had been opened properly, which I guess puts Niklas one up on me. Niklas getting up and starting his day without me isn't an entirely new thing. A couple days before he stole the cereal that I had bought for myself, he got up, got himself some Cheerios (which is fine because I hate them) and turned on the TV. He hasn't mastered the remote yet, which I guess is why there's an episode of Good Morning America on our TiVo.

Later this week, I hope to put up some new pictures and relate the tale of Niklas's Easter. I guess that means look forward to that stuff in May.

2010-04-18: Right. So Easter was a couple of weeks ago, now. What did Niklas do then? Let's see if I can remember. We took him to the early (8:00) mass on account of how the Easter mass is generally quite crowded and we wanted to keep the number of people exposed to Niklas's church squirminess to a minimum. He was reasonably well behaved; we haven't been banned from the church or anything. On the way home, Andrya and Niklas went to the Dunkin' Donuts while I rushed home to have a beer with the Easter Bunny who was running late with his egg hiding. In addition to the eggs (which Niklas found with no problem; EB will be stepping things up next year), the Easter Bunny left Niklas a toy train and a Hot Wheels scale Zamboni, both of which were incredibly popular.

Once Niklas was hopped up but good on sugar, his Grandma and Papa Meeker and Uncle Eric arrived from Bloomington. Niklas showed his grandparents his complete complement of "tricks", which are pretty much just different ways of throwing himself about. Grandma and Papa brought him a pop up book of desert animals which was quite well received, except for the page with the snake, which Niklas is not a fan of. After Niklas had run his grandparents a bit ragged, we had lunch. Niklas ate his weight in applesauce and rolls whilst acting like ham, green beans and mashed potatoes were sent by Satan. (In reality, I made them and my devilish qualities have been vastly overstated.)

Niklas took advantage of his role as host and skipped his nap, which I didn't mind so much as he was entertaining his grandparents in his room. A good time was apparently had by all. I'm not sure what they were up to as I was on the couch drinking beer, but there was a bunch of laughing.

2010-04-25: New pictures... tomorrow. I've been doing some work this-wise, and despite Niklas's increasingly competent photography skills (here's where I would post a picture he took, but...), he's not yet ready to take over maintenance of the website. So, Niklas! What's he been up to? He had his last drumming class last week. He made the most of it and laid down a Bonham-esque solo. He's also moved on to the next level of ice skating, which means I get to sit in the stands and watch while someone else tries to convince him not to eat ice shavings. Good luck, suckers!

2010-04-26: So, as I mentioned yesterday, Niklas had his last drumming class last week. Niklas went out on top.

Dialup users should right click/save as this. It'll take maybe a couple of hours to download, but hey! One minute of Niklas drum action!
Also, I promised pictures. Behold!

In today news, Niklas was a pretty busy guy. We gave Andrya a ride to work this morning on account of how the CTA is not the best at catering to the transportation needs of very pregnant ladies. We celebrated the fact that we had accomplished something before 9:00 by having Dunkin Donuts for breakfast. We followed that up with a trip to the barbershop (take that, Niklas's hair) and finished the morning up at the playground. To make up for all of this activity, we plan to spend the rest of the week making sure the couch doesn't float away.

2010-04-27: It's been a while since we had a pee mishap. Well, it had been a while. Right now, it's been a few hours. So Niklas wears a traing pull-up when he takes his afternoon nap. This is basically a diaper that you put on like underpants. Apparently, whilst napping, Niklas peed in his pull-up. As far as the top team of scientists I have in my employ can work out, this woke him up. He then changed into a pair of regular underpants and went back to sleep. So attired, he peed a bunch more soaking his underpants, pants, socks (?!) and sheets. He woke up again, changed his socks and slept a bit more (or so the evidence suggests). Eventually, he came out to the living room in his pee covered pants and interrupted my great works (Sonic the Hedgehog for iPhone). While I got him some dry clothes, Niklas and I had the following conversation:

Niklas: My socks had pee on them but I changed them.
Me: Where are your old socks?
Niklas: I put them back in the drawer.
Me: I see. Where are your wet training pants?
Niklas: Oh, they're in my desk.

Baffling all around, but I think the fact that he changed his wet socks but not is pants is the most perplexing.

2010-04-28: So, Niklas was feeling a bit under the weather today. It didn't seem to slow him down to much, but the fact that he took his nap and went to bed without complaint is pretty convincing evidence that something wasn't quite right. Anyway, I didn't want to wear him out to much, so we laid low and watched a lot of Bugs Bunny. Now Niklas keeps calling me "pinhead" and pounding on my skull. Thanks, Fudd.