Moving On Up

Nico has had some major changes lately. First, about a month ago, the little man graduated from speech! His SLP evaluated him again in mid-July and Nico's receptive score went up (which had already been above the mean) and his expressive score sky rocketed to be above the mean! Both Lauren (the SLP) and I were so incredibly proud of Nico and the hard work he has put in. I know Nico will miss speech therapy. He really enjoyed going and loved "playing" with Lauren. We do go back for a final evaluation in January to make sure he has been making progress on his own.

Another change is that Nico has moved up to the next class at his school. He is now in the Early Preschool II class. We had Meet the Teacher Night a couple of weeks ago, which was fun. There was face painting, train rides and snow cones for the kids. This past Monday Nico had his first day with Mrs. Short and Ms. Mouton. Although, he absolutely loves Mrs. Cooth, his EPS I teacher, he was looking forward to moving down the hall to Mrs. Short's class.

Monday morning, this mommy was more nervous than her little guy. I walked Nico into the classroom and he went straight over to his friends and got started in the activity. No tears....at least not on Nico's part, just a "bye Mommy." My little man sure is growing up and I couldn't be more proud of him.

Here are a couple pictures I snapped on the way into school on Monday morning.

Potty Trainng

The last few weeks since returning from our last out of town family trip, I have really tried to buckle down on potty training with the little man. After just a couple short weeks and just being consistent in the training, Nico is now potty trained. We had to make some sacrifices, such as staying at home during the day instead of going out to do fun things and even camping out downstairs to stay off carpets, but it was worth it...of course candy and stickers also help! It was pretty tough getting Nico to poop in the potty, and this little smarty kept me to my promise of buying a big red car for him once he did poop in the potty. Sure enough one morning, Nico surprised me, did his deed, came running into tell me what he did and then exclaimed he wanted his big red car. We were then off to Toys R Us for a big red car. Nico is very proud of himself and I love watching the excitement and the pride in himself when he pottys and then shares it with us. Mommy and Daddy are also very proud of our little man; he is growing up so fast, but so beautifully. We couldn't have asked for anything else.

Family Pictures

Last week Nico's older brother and sister, EJ and Amber, were both in town, which is now a rare event. We took advantage of this and got some much needed and overdue family pictures.

Swimming

Sadly, this mom fell short and Nico did get the chance to take swim lessons this year. However we have gone to the pool a few times in the neighborhood and whenever out of town we took advantage of the pool. Nico enjoys being in the pool and loves water. He is still a very cautious boy and will certainly not go under water on his own will or just jump right into the pool. Hopefully, next year I can get it together a little better and Nico will be able to take some swim lessons. Here are a couple of videos of Nico swimming with Daddy.