Water: I love you...I love you not

Nico has had a love hate relationship with all things involving water since I can remember. There was a short time period when he loathed taking a bath and would scream and cry when put into the tub; however, recently there have been times when I have found Nico trying to climb into the tub because he wants to take a bath! Then there was the dreaded swim lessons last summer. Those did not go well. Nico was the only baby there who was stubborn enough to cry the WHOLE way through the lesson, which was a joy for everyone involved; however, he did thoroughly enjoy being in his baby float and lazily drift around in the neighborhood pool. This summer I decided to bypass the swim lessons and purchased Nico his own baby wading pool. I thought this would be a great way get him accustomed to being in the water, outside bath time, again. The first time we put him in it, he cried and screamed, but with some role modeling, thanks to cousin Mason, Nico decided the pool was a great idea after all.

To continue the water story saga, today we decided to take Nico to Nrh2o water park. This is a fantastic water park geared towards families and they have lots of areas for little ones.

Unfortunately, a few weeks ago while Nico was playing outside, Daddy and big brother EJ were fixing the sprinkler system when Nico got a nice good spray right in the face. I say this, because it apparently made an impact on him, and Nico wanted nothing to do with anything at the water park, especially the areas which contained any kind of sprinkling or spraying of water. Thus, the first hour of being in the hot sun was chalked up to trying to console a crying and scared little boy.

What stopped the crying you ask? This key did. This is the key to the locker we rented, but as soon as Nico got a hold of it, the world was right again. All the crying stopped and Nico suddenly had some courage to try some new, fun and wet things.


Nico was finally able to enjoy the lazy river both sitting on Mommy and Daddy's lap in their tubes, and being in his own baby tube. He also surprisingly had a blast in the big wave pool, even with the waves splishing and splashing. We will definitely be going back soon so that Nico doesn't forget how much fun it was to play around in all the water.










And we left with a very tired and happy little boy; I mean just look at that smile! Today turned out to be a great day!

Planes, Trains and Automobiles

The last month or so Nico has become a real fan of all modes of transportation: cars, and trains, but mostly airplanes. We spend a lot of time outside since it is Nico's favorite place to be, and being that we live near a small municipal airport and near a military airfield, he has lots of opportunities to see airplanes flying high in the sky. When Nico sees an airplane flying he becomes so excited, pointing, yelling and jumping around. Take a look at this video (Please excuse trhe big trash pile! We cleaned out the garage recently.)

Mother's Day Weekend Part 2

We really packed in the fun last weekend, so I had to break this blog up into chunks. Mother's day morning we all woke up semi-early (I mean how do you not get up early when you have a 17 month old?) and went to Cafe Express for breakfast! I had no idea they even served breakfast, but it was so yummy and a great way to start our day. After filling our tummys full of good food, we walked across the Town Square to let Nico run around, chase birds and climb up and down stairs in the plaza.







Later that day we ventrued back into the city and took Nico to the Children's Museum of Houston. I had not been there since I was a kid, and boy did Nico have fun. A 3 story building filled with activities which make kids think, think, think and of course play, play, play. There are separate playing and exploring areas for those 35 months and younger, the "TotSpot" and those who are a bit more stable on their feet and cognitively developed. "Floworks," which is the water play area was a great spot to watch the kids splash around and get drenched by the constantly moving sprinklers. Nico loved playing in the simulated town the museum had, which is called "Kidtropolis, USA." This section had a grocery store, a veterinary clinic, a cafe the kids could pretend to cook in, a car and an ambulance to play around in, a bank and many other spots. I think my favorite was the art studio, where Nico was able to try his hand at painting for the first time. Next time you are in Houston and you have kids, the Children's Museum of Houston should definitely be place to stop in at.











After a long day of running around the museum, playing, crawling and making lots of discoveries, Nico was very tuckered out. A great ending to a great weekend was Ed making his famous Italian Macaroni and Cheese for us! I want to send out a HUGE thanks and an I love you to both my mom, otherwise known as Gigi, and of course my wonderful husband. You both made my Mother's Day weekend awesome and helped me keep my mind off of "things," and on Nico.

Mother's Day Weekend-Part 1

What a fabulous Mother's Day weekend I had! I can say that I definitely needed it too with so much that has been going on. Ed, Nico and I drove up to Houston on Friday for a long weekend with Gigi. On Saturday, after a little visit with my grandfather, we went to the Houston Museum of Natural Science to ventured into the Cockrell Butterfly exhibit. Since Nico loves all things that can fly right now, butterflies were right up his alley. We were a little apprehensive when the ticket lady said we were not allowed to take the stroller in to the rainforest area, but Nico surprised and impressed us all. He climbed up and down stairs independently, led us all around the winding paths, and was careful where he was walking. Being that there were hundreds of little flying friends, Nico was constantly reaching out to pet some of them. Lucky for the butterflies, Nico was just not quite fast enough.









After the butterfly exhibit, we walked just across the street and took a ride on the Hermann Park train. We did have to wait just a little bit of time before we could climb on, but Nico had some quality time to look out for airplanes and birds. The train was great fun and Nico is now well aware of what a "choo choo train" is. Needless to say, it was a long day...for everyone.

Future Musician

As I have shared many times before, Nico loves music. He loves to dance to music, listen to it, tries to sing to it, and now he is trying to make music! This is a great video of him going back forth between playing the guitar and the drums! I think I may have a future musician on my hands.



This second video is another cute one of Nico "dancing." This time Daddy turned on Dancing Robot and Nico got his groove on! Look at the excitement on his precious face!

A Little Stubborn

Did anyone know that Nico is a little stubborn? Well, in case you were not aware, he is. I have been modeling and prompting three signs to Nico since he was an infant, and he has finally decided to start using two of them consistently. This is very convenient, since Nico has stubbornly decided he is not going to talk right now, and he will when he is good and ready. He understands just about everything we say and ask him to do and is soaking in new information like a sponge. It is very exciting to watch! Nico is constantly pointing at things, especially when outside, and asking in his own way for the names of them. He then gets excited when he sees those things, like birds, trees and airplanes, over and over again.

Here are some videos of Nico signing "eat" in the first one and then "more" in the other two.