NiklasSmith.com
Niklas and Zoe bring the boom in totally different ways
Listen To Your Brother, Zoe


  • July 2010
  • June 2010
  • May 2010
  • April 2010
  • March 2010
  • February 2010
  • January 2010
  • December 2009
  • November 2009
  • October 2009
  • September 2009
  • 2008-2009
  • 2007-2008
  • 2006-2008



  • July 2010
  • June 2010
  • May 2010
  • April 2010
  • March 2010
  • February 2010
  • January 2010
  • December 2009
  • November 2009
  • October 2009
  • September 2009
  • 2008-2009
  • 2007-2008
  • 2006-2007


  • 2010-07-31: So, Niklas needs to work on his sharing skills. To that end, we're booting him from his personal site and making him share with Zoe. You can find all the latest Niklas and Zoe news at niklasandzoe.com. This site will still be around so you can re-live all of your favorite 0-3 year old Niklas adventures like that time he threw up on me or the fifteen times he tried to bust up my CD collection or that time he ate beach tar. That's a good one.

    www.NIKLASandZOE.com

    2010-07-18: So, it's been hotter than a really hot thing lately. Yesterday, Niklas and I went to the park to fly his kite. Despite the fact that the good kite flying park is only a fifteen minute walk, we took the bus so as to avoid any unnecessary time in the hated sun. This is the first time we've had the kite out in Chicago, and it turns out that despite the city's claims of a windy nature, the ocean breezes of Bermuda are superior when it comes kite piloting. That is, of course, based on a pretty small sample size. Anyway, despite the heat, the lack of consistent wind and my god, the heat, Niklas had a fabulous time running around. Also, he saw a dog. "Hey, dog!" said Niklas.

    On account of the obvious superiority of indoor activities these days, Niklas has been playing with his Matchbox cars a ton. He and I built a
    ramp to facilitate racing. The best car so far has proven to be a Mazda 2, though his garbage trucks have been remarkably successful as well. Race cars are surprisingly inconsistent at racing. Planes are right out.

    Zoe has been doing well. She's developed a shriek that Andrya and I don't remember Niklas having at that age (though he can shriek like a madman now, let me tell you), but it's not something she unleashes a terribly inconvenient amount. Also, her hands and feet have finally filled out so she no longer looks like she has tiny, tiny old lady hands. She's settled into an almost consistent eating schedule, which has just enough variance in it to keep Andrya from getting a reasonable amount of sleep in the evening. Hopefully, that will turn around any day now.

    Zoe had her first minor poop debacle a couple of days ago. We had just given her a bath and she was all wrapped up in girly pink towel with the flowers, looking all cute and whatnot. Andrya put her on her changing pad so as to get her dressed when Zoe unleashed a BP level poop that blasted it's way through the towel and wrecked up her changing pad as well. Looking back on Niklas's propensity for pooping on the floor, the wall, the changing pad after you've already removed the changing pad cover he just pooped on, etc., we're getting off pretty easily with Zoe so far.

    Here are some new pictures, including one of Niklas showing me up at golf. Not that that's a challenge.
    2010-07-11: Pictures? You bet. And I haven't even sat on my pony yet. Anyway, Zoe's been rocking the tummy time, looking cute and switching up her sleeping and eating schedules as dictated by some sort of sleeping/eating randomization software. Niklas went to the Target with me the other day and I bought him a Matchbox garbage truck. At $0.92, it was dollar for dollar the most popular toy in the history of toys or things that are popular.
    2010-07-07: So, what's been going on lately? Much. I've got pictures of some of it, but for the rest, you'll have to rely on my nice, cheap words.

    I'll start with Niklas since his name's used for the domain and I pay for the webhosting by robbing his piggy bank... I mean, through my legitimate moneymaking ventures. Anyway, we've been cracking down on Niklas's bedtime stall tactics, so that's been fun. We make him go to the potty before he goes to bed, but usually within ten minutes of putting him down, he runs out of his room claiming to have to go urgently. Unless he's been drinking heavily for several hours, I don't think science really allows for that. After five or six days of losing toys and privileges at an impressive clip, he went right to sleep tonight, so we might be making some progress there. Of course, he might just be resting up for and increased offensive on the "I will not go to sleep" front, so we'll see.

    Sleep avoidance aside, he's been doing well. We've been to several playgrounds of late, including one that was far enough away for me to agree to pull him there in his wagon, so that was popular. Yesterday, he did an awesome job of hitting at T-ball and an opposite of that job at playing defense (unless the rule have changed since I was a kid and it's now recommended that you let the ball roll by you, chase it down, throw it in the wrong direction, chase it down again and pretty much repeat this until someone runs you down). Solid hitting, though.

    Zoe's doing very well. She had her two week checkup last Friday where she weighed in at seven pounds, five ounces. She's also allegedly an inch and three quarters taller than she was when she was born, but I assume there's some error in one of those measurements. Her umbilical cord and its subsequent scab have fallen off, so her belly doesn't look freaky anymore, which is nice. She's already able to roll over from her stomach to her back, and in a flukey but still impressive move, she scooter herself across the crib on her knees for a few inches. Other than that, poop, eat, yell, etc.

    One thing that is much easier with Zoe than it was with Niklas is the diaper changing. I assume it's a boy/girl thing, but there hasn't been even remotely as much peeing on the changing table that I'm use to. She's only peed once while I've had her diaper off and thanks to science, I didn't have to worry about her spraying it all over the walls, me or the floor which happened with Niklas every other day or so. She's also only pooped while I was changing her once, and that was while she still the black tar newborn poop, so it didn't fly all over the place. Apropos of the season, it looked like one of those smoke snake things. This is a far cry from Niklas who had painted the walls a couple of times by the time he was three weeks old. Keep up the good work, Zoe!