NILL FAMILY news

Alexander Michael is 2.5 today! Let’s talk about him 🙂

Alex is very spunky and happy, except when he’s not, and then things are very, very bad. He is either smiling, laughing and goofing off or crying and whining. He’s always been like that. But I’ll tell you, you cannot beat smiling/laughing/goofing off Alex. He is a little charmer.

As far as stats go, I don’t have any height/weight info, but he’s really getting heavy. Like, I-can-no-longer-comfortably-hold-him-and-walk-very-far heavy. He’s in a solid 3T for clothes, just graduated to a size NINE sneaker, wears a size 6 diaper and climbs out of his crib on the regular. Who is this gargantuan kid?

First tattoo: Batman, left forearm.

Skillz: He can scooter and poop on the potty. Not at the same time.

Chipped teeth: 1 (of mysterious origin)

Toy obsession: Magnatiles. It’s actually incredible how much he plays with these. He’s not so much in to the trains like Ashton was, then again those are all in the basement now that I think about it.

Big brother Ashton: “AH-tee”

Favorite word: “Me.”
Second favorite word: “No.”

Favorite phrase: “No Mommy. Me, me, ME!”
Most often heard: any time I try and do something for him. Which is often.

Other “words”: water is “WAH-wee”, open is “OH-pee”, dogs are all puppies or “PAW-bees”, bunnies are “hop hops”, Legos are “woe woes”, swords are “hi-YAHs”, ketchup is “tup-tup”…some of his other phrases are impossible to even write out how he makes them sound haha. He still has EI once a week and speech every other week, but he’s really not making much progress. He does try, very much so, but a lot of it is barely understandable even by us. He has his 1 year EI evaluation next month so it will be interesting to see what they propose.

Currently attends; Miss Tammy’s Playschool, 2 mornings per week

Favorite foods: honestly this depends a lot on whether he is hungry or not. But he will most always eat a hot dog (or something resembling a hot dog, like sausage or kielbasa), and garlic bread. He loves garlic bread. Who doesn’t.

Looking forward to: a big boy bed. He loves to lay in Ashton’s, they play “bedtime” and turn off the lights, say shhhhh and close eyes. Which is funny, because real bedtime is nothing like that. Joke’s on me.

Mostly likely found: wherever Ashton is, or close behind.

Best friend: this is a tie between Addie, the 18th month old that lives on the corner of our street (I think because he can say her name, conveniently also “AH-tee”), and Kayleigh, our 9 year old next door neighbor. Here he is trying to woo her at dinner.

Kayleigh also happens to be Ashton’s love interest. I don’t see this being a problem at all. You know, later on.

Sleep: I always shoot for an 8 pm bedtime, but after all the nonsense involved it’s usually 8:30 pm along with Ashton. He still takes naps in the afternoons.

Signature “handshake”: a fist bump for the right hand and a high five for the left hand, done simultaneously.

Bet you didn’t know: Jason and I considered naming him Ames. I didn’t give Jason the green light and so we settled/chickened out and named him Alexander. We’ve regretted it ever since. If we thought it was a reasonable thing to do, we’d change it. But it’s not.

Hopes and dreams: presidency of the Clean Plate Club

A lofty aspiration, considering his brother also eats everything in sight.

That about covers Alex’s highlights at the ripe old age of two and a half. On to three! But not too fast 🙂

This is it! We’ve nearly made it! Our two kids are in school. Of course this means two tuitions plus our nanny every month (insert face with X’s for eyes), but we’ll make it work by selling all of our stuff. Signing Alex up was technically optional, but we found the cutest spot for him and everything fell into place: the schedule (2 mornings a week), the program (play-based), and the location (right over the Natick/Wellesley line). Plus he’s ready for a little structure and socialization so we couldn’t not send him. His first day was today!

Labor Day weekend had its ups and downs this year. There are a lot of holidays like this where we really have no plans due to Jason’s work schedule but luckily, the boys and I were able to stay busy! And enjoy the weather; it was absolutely lovely. Heading into the weekend everyone was squawking that Hermine was going to dump all kinds of rain on us, but it held off until Monday evening. We spent all three days outside, beginning with:

1) the Home Depot kids workshop. This is a regularly scheduled thing on the first Saturday of every month, a drop in event from 9-12. It’s always on my calendar but we have never gone…until NOW! The project was “back to school whiteboards” and they had all the paint, tools and supplies out…the sound of all the hammers going was deafening.

A closer look at Ashton’s masterpiece shows his name written completely backwards.

Perhaps our “let’s wait another year for kindergarten” decision was a good one haha.

2) Wayland Town Beach part 1. We went after naps and were the only ones there!

It was really warm out so it was nicer than it looked.

3) Sunday brought some errands with Jason and nothing really picture-worthy. After he left for work, I took the boys to Toys R Us and we bought remote control boats. Pause for effect.

After loading them with one zillion batteries, it was time for Wayland Town Beach part 2. Alex’s boat crapped out almost immediately and we had to launch a rescue mission.

Ashton actually succeeded in pushing it back to the dock where, bizarrely, Alex kept kissing it.

But Ashton’s little yacht was solid and kept him busy for an hour. There were several “THIS IS SO AWESOME”‘s and lots of jumping up and down 🙂

So that was Sunday.

4) When we woke up on Monday Jason was already gone so we hit a new (to us) playground in Framingham called Cushing Park. I wish I had known to bring bikes or scooters, there were huge wide paths and the play area was really neat.

I wish I had gotten more time out of this place but when the boys decided they were ready for a snack, that was it because we had to walk all the way back to the car. So there they were, in their carseats chomping away and it was about 11 am and I thought “Sigh. Now what?”

5) The what became…Honeypot! We went back for more blueberries because why not, we’re crazy.

 I knew the season was just about over, and we could have done apples, but there is plenty of time for apples still. Plus if I’m out in an orchard I need to have my sweater and boots on and it needs to be slightly chilly and feel like fall. It just does.

Alex, again, just ate and ate. He got right down to it.

Anyway, the usual pics…

until Alex grabbed my phone and took a few of his own! These are the ones that weren’t of the ground, his foot, or my butt.

Ashton and I turned the blueberries into muffins when we got home/while Alex napped.

6) Jason got home around 4 pm on Monday and, drumroll please, it was time for the weekend’s encore. It looked like this! No training wheels!

Yesterday afternoon I put Alex in the toddler seat and rode with him on my bike right behind Ashton, loops and loops around the neighborhood. We had so much fun! And I thought, my gosh, I have a five year old who is riding a bike! Whaaaaaaat! I think I know what I’ll be doing a lot of this fall…

As the years tick by on this blog, I’m noticing I basically do the same post roughly every 365 days. There are the school posts, the holiday posts, the vacation posts, the woeful winter posts, etc. At this point I could say to myself, hmmm, what month is it? August? And it is a virtual certainty that, besides Ashton’s birthday, there’s a blueberry picking post in the archives. Yep.

Followed by a trip to Wayland Town Beach to cool off with a swim. Not a bad day 🙂 I tell you, I should rename this blog “My life as a cruise ship director”. SO MANY ACTIVITIES! NEVERENDING ACTIVITIES! Come, embark! Our current passengers only complain about the snacks, which I have pledged to improve upon. Join us and please, call me Skipper.

Ahoy.

There’s been a quite a delay here on this post! We usually take the third or fourth week in July for our family vacation and this year was no exception! However, the house we have rented on Block Island for the past couple of years was not available, plus we just renovated our kitchen which was a sizable chunk of change, so we played it easy. Instead of BI (like in 2013, 2014 and 2015), we headed to Long Island for a week with Grandma, Grandpa, Uncle Chris, Aunt Lizzie and Cousin Owen (aka Jason’s family – I mean, they’re my family too…you know what I’m saying).

Of course the weather was beautiful and we fell into our vacation routine straight away. Breakfast, pack up the lunches and the car, head to the beach, come home and go in the pool. Whilst floating, agonize over the most important decision of the day which was always “What should I drink right now?” Once that was behind us, the rest of the evening sailed on by.

Ahhh it was perfect. Jason and I got out to do some shopping and on the last night we got all dressed up and went out for dinner. Other than that, I think we were in our bathing suits the whole time!

Here is the part where I cringe though. I use Dropbox religiously and uploaded half of my pictures (ahem, like 200) and then once they were “up”, I deleted those 200 photos from my phone to make room for more. (And yes, I deleted the deleted folder.) This is the story of my life. Turns out the Dropbox upload never completed, and I couldn’t restart it because I had already deleted the pictures with no way to recover them. So I only have pictures from the second half of the week 😦 I took some of Jason’s though, and here is how things went in general. A week full of wet bathing suits, sunscreen, sand, water, turtles, minnows, fishing, crabs, snails, swimming and shirtless dinners (uh, the kids). Per usual, no award winners, but that’s my life haha. Except maybe this thread on Alex’s first time boogie-boarding! I die.

Liz told me one day that there was a (deceased) turtle stuck in the lattice under the deck. Apparently it had tried to crawl through but had gotten stuck and had been there almost a week. I was beside myself, I just kept saying how bad I felt for it and finally, because I could not stop thinking about it, sent Jason in to get the body. Well he poked it and IT MOVED!! It was alive!! We gave it some water and I tried to feed it some lettuce (not interested) and Ashton and Owen had a quick play with it before we set it off into the woods.

I was so happy, I can’t even tell you. To be stuck in some lattice, unable to free yourself? What a way to go.

Moving on, in no particular order and not needing an explanation like the turtle picture did. the rest!

The last of the “Ashton turns 5” series – his birthday party! I haven’t really thrown a big party for him since he turned 1 and 5 seemed like an worthy milestone age to go for it again. It was pretty easy to settle on a Lego theme – he loves them and the decorations were simple (squares and circles and primary colors). Or so I thought! I admit, I probably did too much work and spent too much money on this party But I had so many ideas and such fun doing it that I got carried away.

I found the invitations on Etsy (naturally):

It took forever, I’ll be honest. Folding all the tablecloths to different sizes and getting the color pattern evenly dispersed, gluing the plates on, etc. The good news is I have since posted it on the local facebook yardsale site (for free) and someone came to get it for their preschool!

* The tables: we had green and blue linens, I made giant legos by wrapping boxes and gluing spraypainted foam circles on top:

 And filled glass vases with some megablocks for the centerpieces.

* We had big printouts of Lego guys that we mounted on cardboard – here is Alex with the whole army before they went out:

* We cut out Emmett’s face for a photo op:

Ashton had helped me punch the circles and stick them on the bags with glue dots. The actual favors varied depending on the age of the child – everyone got things like fruit snacks, glow sticks, and a Lego lollipop, but the younger kids got a “Build a Magnet” kit, which was a Lego plate that I glued a magnet to and filled the bag with loose legos so they could assemble it themselves, and for the older kids that could follow instructions, a little kit that made a car or vehicle. By the end, kids had failed to notice that they had a bag specifically for them and were just grabbing them, so who knows who actually got what. Sigh. Oh also, every kid got a cute little Lego party bracelet when they arrived (also Etsy, duh 😉 )

* Had enough? I even put Legos in the hand sanitizer!

All I wanted was one nice family picture but it was the most hectic 2 hours and this is all I got at the end:

All about Ashton at age 5! Where to even begin??

Mainly Ashton is all about the questions these days. The questions are constant, the likes of which were fully illustrated not long ago in my tooth fairy post. (The latest doozy: “Where does the sun go when it sets?” Nothing is ever an easy answer!) But it’s really fun and funny (sometimes) because his questions/comments of course reveal how he thinks about the world. For example, our main shtick with dinnertime is that if he eats his chicken/pasta/whatever, he will be a member of the “Clean Plate Club” and he will be big and strong and able to touch the ceiling like Daddy. This idea seems to be very appealing to a five year old (and a two year old actually). Now after every meal they reach their hands in the air to see how much closer they are. Really, they do. It’s cute and heartbreaking. But the other day, after a playdate:

“_______ must not eat their dinner because every time I see them they are small.”

“Yep I guess. Some are big and some are small. And they have different eyeballs, different chairs, different houses and different hearts. But they better start eating if they don’t want to be small.” 

Speaking of eating, Ashton really only takes issue with peas. He doesn’t willingly eat a lot of things so there’s still some prodding, but he’ll try things when I ask and generally I don’t worry about him subsisting on air and crackers, which is the phase I’m in with Alex. I truly never thought I’d see the day where Ashton not only eats all his broccoli, he eats it first! 

Five years old has brought a lot more independence with things besides food but not in a bad way. He’s just his own little person now! Let’s dive in…

5 year old pedi appointment:  He did NOT want to go to the doctor, he was very worried about shots. He really kept fretting over it and I said, “How about we don’t go to the doctor, how about we go to the… pediatrician?” “What’s the pedia-matrician?” “Kind of like a doctor, but they tell you good news about how big you’ve gotten from eating all your dinner and give you a sticker AND maybe even a lollipop.” 
“Oh. What if they tell me I’m too big?”
I’m telling you, this kid and his doozies! We walked in and he said “Is this where I was born? No? How was I born then?”

Height: 46.25 inches (97th percentile)
Weight: 46.6 pounds (84th percentile)
Shots: None
Vision test: Pass
Hearing test: Pass
Family jewels: 2

Shoe size: 12
Clothes size: 5

Other goodies:
Favorite toys: Legos (Lego birthday party post is next) and his remote control (“remote co-no-trol”) monster truck for the backyard. 

Biggest obsession: his wallet, which is filled with expired gift cards and Chuck E. Cheese tokens. He carries it everywhere.

Favorite movie: Kung Fu Panda

Hero: Jason (obviously)

Little brother: “OW-wex”

Speech: As you can see by Alex’s name, not perfect when it comes to pronunciation and he lisps on certain sounds. But he chatters away, knows a zillion words and has full on conversations easily so it’s really just about the sounds, which I’m told are all still within the normal range for his age.

Allergies: He passed his peanut challenge this past winter and this fall we have almond, pistachio and hazelnut scheduled. Egg and sesame = still there.

What I love most about him: how, when he gets really excited/thrilled (like discovering something is eating our garden tomatoes and coming to tell me) or is waiting for something to happen (like to see if his monster truck will flip or watching me finish up a lego set) he jumps up and down a little. He just can’t contain the exhilaration.

First (and on-going) crush: Kayleigh, our 9 year old neighbor. He regularly hugs her and tells her he loves her, and even invited her to sleep over. When she asked “But where would I sleep?” he looked at her like the answer was so obvious: “With me, in my bed!”

Things that make him cry: not a lot. If he works particularly hard on something and Alex wrecks it, or if he really gets hurt, but even then I have him walking it off after a good hug. He’s generally very tough. He did cry when I told him we needed to go to the doctor to get the infected splinter out of his foot. I couldn’t get it and he looked at me and said “It is going to hurt?” and I told him honestly: “Yes.” And he cried. That was a hard truth to tell 😦

Recent skills: learning to swim! He can sputter and splash his way from one end of the pool to the other without a floatie. It’s not pretty, but he does it! More importantly to me, he’s not scared to try. He really does everything – he bodysurfed and let the waves crash over him in the ocean for a solid week during vacation (still need to post on that!), he picks up bugs, traverses the monkey bars, jumps off things that are higher than I would prefer, scooters and rides his bike over roots, rocks and steps to see what will knock him off, and even tried salmon. 

Would rather do anything than: make Santa mad

Stops everything when he hears: Shut Up and Dance with Me, Sugar, or Uptown Funk. 

To describe Ashton in one word (by me): Explorer
To describe Ashton in one word (by Jason): Active
To further describe Ashton in more words (by me, because one never cuts it): An optimistic, kind little boy with lots of friends and a general sense of what’s right and important and what’s not. He’s adventurous but also gentle and his teachers and anyone who watches him say he’s just so good.  I’m really, really proud of him.

Biggest challenge: getting a decent picture of this amazing, nearly 4 foot tall human being. Seriously it’s impossible.

Up next: TK with Mrs. Cooney starting Sept 7! No kindergarten just yet- the cut off date is August 31 so he will be the youngest or almost-youngest in his class. In Natick they go from 8:30-2:41 pm with one short recess. While I know Ashton could keep up academically, in my heart I’m just not ready to send him to school 5 days a week to sit at a desk for 8 hours. I’ve yet to hear any stories where a child being held back was detrimental so we’ve decided to do just that. If things drastically change, we can send him straight to first grade after this year as kindergarten isn’t mandatory in MA.

What he did on his birthday, August 3rd: 8/3 was kind of a lead up day to his big party on 8/5. They had slushies at camp, but Jason had to work so we didn’t really have a special dinner and we didn’t sing Happy Birthday. The kids (Ashton, Alex and Kayleigh, who is over a lot) had hot dogs outside per Ashton’s request, then popsicles and then opened a couple of presents.

Nothing compared to that whoopee cushion, which I picked up at the last minute. I mean, they all laughed so hard for so long.

Potty humor is always a hit.

Alex had a difficult time in that it wasn’t his birthday (“Me! I…TWO! MY bir-day, ME!”) and cried a lot when Ashton had presents and he didn’t. Ashton got annoyed and I overheard him say “OW-wex! Stop it! You only get two birthdays a year and this one isn’t one of yours! It’s one of mine!”

I object to two birthdays a year only because they are already growing up too fast. Five year picture attempts in all their glory!

We love you Ashton!!

So let’s see. We have one full bathroom on the main floor of our house. It is quite small but nonetheless I am very happy to have it! It works really well for guests (the guest bedroom is on the main floor also) and I like that it is located kind of out of the way/in a private spot. When we moved in, it looked like this.

Very plain, VERY white. The floor tile also left a little to be desired and the grout was a dingy tan.

Because this space is pretty small, I thought it would be nice to have a glass shower, one that would open things up a bit because there are no windows. Realistically, something like this:

I also thought, if we are taking out the tub and making the shower space smaller, we could squeeze in some built-in storage on one side:

Jason and I have lived first in a condo, then in a house in Watertown, and now in Natick, and we have had a bathroom in all three places that is this style. Beadboard is a nice upgrade for how easy it is to install (easy for Jason I mean. NOT me. Can you imagine?? I have zero interest in learning how to use tools. Or the grill.)

Step 4. This step actually was me though. Gulp. The tile floor. We knew we were not going to pull the tiles up and were told we could not reglaze them. We briefly considered going right over it with new tile but the toilet had already been replaced and it was too complicated. I bought a Miracle Grout Pen thingy at Lowe’s and started painting.

After

Sink corner before:

After:

After:

 Thanks for the memories little downstairs bathroom! Those new colors sure look good on you! 🙂

This is just a quick little happy birthday shoutout to my first born…Ashton, you are FIVE today! And you love everything in the whole world except peas. Peas are very distressing for you. Other than that, you are the most excitable, curious, energetic, wondrous little boy and we love you so much!!

I’m behind on blogging because we’ve been on vacation (forthcoming post on that), we have spent a lot of time re-doing our downstairs bathroom (forthcoming post on that too) in time for Ashton’s big 5th birthday party, two days from now (forthcoming post on that too (too)).

Another quick one…HAPPY BIRTHDAY ASHTON!! Be back soon!