Thanksgiving

We spent Thanksgiving in Orlando at aunt Anne and uncle Butch's place, like last year. We had a wonderful time with the Flinns, aunt Theresa, aunt Lucky and Kevin, and in the end everyone thanked us for bringing Nikolas along--he was the life of the party! He was constantly running around the house, playing with cars and balls and trying to sneak out to the pool area that was strictly forbidden. In his room he figured out how to turn on the TV and even found the 'play' button for the DVD player to watch Bambi. And of course he chatted with everyone. The usual Thanksgiving meal didn't appeal to him too much until ice cream appeared--then he stuffed himself beyond belief.

On the drive back, Robb sang him a song and when it was over Nikolas said, 'Good job, daddy.' He is a comedy... A few days later, after he had fun feeding me some apples and cheese from his tray that he didn't want anymore, he said, 'Good job, mommy'!

Counting and reciting (and going down the slide)

Nikolas said, 'I love you mommy' and 'I love you daddy' (daddy taught him)!
He is stringing words together now: 'daddy auto' (daddy's car, when he sees it in the garage),
'daddy kuci' (daddy at home), 'daddy kapa' (daddy's hat), 'necu bobe' (I don't want blueberries),...

He is finishing lines of songs and poems. I tested him with about 5 poems that I often recite to him, and he finished every line! Yesterday I pointed to each finger on my hand waiting for him to count to 5, and he did it. That was the first time I heard him count in Serbocroatian. He's already been saying 'four, five' in English to denote counting, and usually for multiples he would use what sounds like the French ' deux'.

As for any boy, it's not all about academics. Here is Nikolas loving the slide at his friend Kyle's house:

trains, legos, music...

All of a sudden, Nikolas started acting older than I've been used to during summer. He rediscovered Lego blocks and now loves stacking them (he has a few Lego cars on which he stacks blocks as high as possible and calls them trains or trucks). He also enjoys stacking wooden blocks that have been sitting in the living room for the past 6 months and he is finally playing with them now. The train tracks that he wasn't all that interested in when I bought them a month ago are now his regular game first thing every morning: he'll put them together and then push little trains along them.






Today he went down a slide completely on his own. He didn't even wait for me to stand next to the slide. He used to be afraid before and I had to hold his hand as he slid (he'd always smile at the end!), but now he is brave enough to go alone. He even went down a longer slide in Jyoti's apartment complex where I absolutely didn't expect him to go even in my presence.

He finally says 'lopta' when he refers to a ball. He's been saying 'ball' forever now and just wouldn't use the Serbocroatian version. Yeay :)

Now the best part: he started singing and dancing (ok, turning in a circle) to the 'ABC' song. He will sing a few parts correctly too, like 'HIJK', 'QRS' (though he says 'cute' for Q), 'W'. He refers to the song as 'HIJK'.


And then there is the 'Old McDonald Had a Farm' song. He has a toy that sings this song and makes different animal sounds. He'll never skip singing 'E-I-E-I-O', and he also repeats all of the animal noices, making me laugh every time, it's too cute! We recently started going to a music class where he listens to songs, taps, plays little rhythm instruments, dance.... the first couple of times were not very successful as he wouldn't participate (he still wants me to dance with him in my arms when the music comes on, with the exception of the 'ABC' song), but now he relaxed a bit and he will listen to the stories and songs attentively, and even tap, clap, and play the kids' instruments.


We both got a cold these last few days and have runny noses :( But the important part is that Nikolas just learned how to blow his nose so I could wipe it. I put a pillow in his crib for the first time to elevate his head and let him breathe more easily, but he still seems confused about what it's doing there and won't sleep on it.

Halloween

Our little Thomas the Train on the way to the faculty kids Halloween party at UF:

With so many people and so much happening at the event, Nikolas was a bit dazzled, but he enjoyed the games and especially his outfit (this is the first hat that he didn't even try to take off).Back in our neighborhood we went trick-or-treating for the first time!
Although he doesn't know what candy is, he grabbed handfulls and put them into his pouch.