Nicholas Maravillas’ Blog

Turns out our little man is “on the spectrum” of asthma.  I didn’t know asthma had a spectrum like autism, but I guess it does.   Here’s a little background to catch you up… Nicholas has had a cold that leads to wheezing just about every month since Halloween.  It always follows the same course- sneezing one night, wake up the next day with a stuffy/runny nose, cough by day 3 and wheezing by day 4.  That is followed by a trip to the pediatrician who prescribes nebulizer treatments with albuterol every 4 hours (even overnight) for 36 hours then taper to every 6 or as needed as well as an oral steroid for 5 days.  Fortunately, Nicholas has become all too accustomed to the routine and even sleeps through them at night.  He hates the oral meds (they are nasty!) but he takes them like a champ.

We went back to the doctor this morning for a recheck from his latest bout last week.   He sounds much better than he did on Wednesday which is great.  He ended up getting 4 treatments within 3 hours that day.  Two back to back at home which didn’t do a thing, hence the trip to the doctor’s where he then got 2 back to back there.  Poor guy’s heart was racing with all that albuterol!  Plus he doesn’t take them as well at the doctor’s office as he does at home so we essentially had to hold him down for 20 minutes to do them.  The wheezing didn’t stop completely but improved enough to send us home with instructions that if he got worse before he was due for another treatment in 4 hours, to take him to the ER.  Thankfully he did fine the rest of the day.   I am hoping with spring arriving and warmer temps we can get outside more and be around less germs!  This winter seems to have been a tough one for a lot of kids around here.

The doctors still think there is a good chance that he will outgrow it, just like I did.  We really hope so or at the very least sticks to only flaring up when he gets sick.  Poor kid can’t just get a stuffy nose like other kids.  And maybe all this has helped build up him immune system so once he starts school and gets older he won’t catch as many bugs.  So that is the latest news on our little man!

- Nicholas knows every letter of the alphabet!  He doesn’t sing the song, but he can recognize each letter by sight and some by sound too.  Which we feel is more important anyways.  We have this laptop toy to thank for his learning.  He’s had it for about a year and “studies” his letters using the phonics game at least once a day.  He repeats the sound of each letter then pushes the correct one almost every time.  We also use a peg puzzle with all of the letters.  When we point to one, we say something like “C. For Cat”.  He has learned most of those too so when you ask him a letter, he’ll point to C and say “cat”.

- He gets so very frustrated when something doesn’t work for him.  i.e. if he wants to connect two pieces of train track and they don’t go together right away, he gets so mad and lets out a scream/whine/cry.  Sometimes he chucks the disobedient toy across the room.  We are trying to teach him not to sweat the small stuff!

- He wears size 6 diapers, 3T shirts and 24 month pants.  Although his pants are getting shorter so he’ll move up to 2T in certain brands.  In some brands, like Carter’s, he can still barely wear an 18 month.  So weird.  He is still wearing his size 7 sneakers but they are getting snug.

- Favorite things include Curious George episodes, grapes, his trains and building tracks, Chick-Fil-A (aka “eat and play”), being outside, pizza, juice boxes and wrestling with daddy.

- He still refuses to say 3.  He counts things as “1, 2, 1″ and sometimes “4, 5, 6″ but will NOT say 3.  He can actually count 2 things too.  We were at a stoplight and a couple buses drove past.  I didn’t say a word and he announced, “two buses!”.

- On average, he sleeps 11 hours a day.  He falls asleep somewhere around 8pm (even if we start bedtime at 7pm) and wakes up anywhere from 5:30am-6:30am.  I don’t go get him until 6:30 though, in the hopes that he’ll get the hint that 6am is too early and he’ll go back to sleep.  So far he hasn’t but at least he is happy and just chit chats.  This is yet another reason we are dreading moving him to a big boy bed!  He naps for an hour exactly in the early afternoon.

- He climbs up by himself into his booster seat at the dining room table each night for dinner.

- If he eats enough of his dinner, he gets “bears” (chocolate teddy grahams) and some fruit.  Before he eats even one bear, he gives one to me then his daddy.  Then he chows down.  Such a sweetheart!

- He’s learning more and more colors and can tell you when something is red, blue, green, yellow, orange, purple and brown.

- He is putting more and more sentences together.  His latest is “what ____ doing?”, fill in the blank with whoever is in the kitchen.  He is very interested when anyone is in the kitchen!  Also, he very proudly yells, “watch this Mama!” as he stands on something that he shouldn’t be standing on about to jump off of said something that he shouldn’t be jumping off of.  Lately its been the wipes box that he jumps off of.  Better than the couch I suppose.

- At least one 2 year molar has come in on the bottom right.  He won’t let us get a good look to check for others.

- He is 2 years, 2 months and 2 days old today.

Nicholas got another haircut today!  His hair seems to grow pretty fast, his last trim was at the end of November and it was already out of control.  Poor kid because he HATES having his hair cut.  He hates the combs, sitting still, the clippers, the buzzers, the cape, everything about the process.  Lollipops and trains don’t even help.  Luckily we’ve found a very patient, sweet lady at a local place that tolerates us!  She does a really good, fast job.

Before pictures-

After pictures.  Please excuse the applesauce on his chin. -

We spread out the Valentine’s fun all week this year!  Nicholas was invited to two parties, one on Wednesday and another on Friday.  He ended up with a lot of cute valentines from his friends… but his favorite is still the Cars one that he gave out!  Although his good friend, Connor (pictured below) also has a love of all things Cars so he got the same valentines!  Nicholas also got some awesome things from his grandparents, including a new choo choo, a George book and chocolate goodies!

We spent the actual day today just hanging out at home.  We had some fun with pancakes this morning, got pizza for lunch then Nicholas worked out with Matthew and I in the afternoon.  It was so funny to watch him kick and try to do jumping jacks along with the cardio video!  I made braised short ribs with risotto for dinner.  It was actually pretty good!  We all exchanged valentines, including a Monster Truck box of chocolates for daddy.  One guess who picked those out!  I got my surprise on Friday- a beautiful little potted rose bush from Matthew.  I just love it and it was such a sweet surprise!  All in all, it was a great day!

At his 2 year check up, I had to fill out a questionnaire to track Nicholas’ development. Things like is he saying 2-3 word sentences, picking up small objects like a bead, stacking 6 or more blocks, etc. One section was about problem solving and asked if he went to get something to stand on if he couldn’t reach something he wanted. He wasn’t at that point so I checked “not yet”. Well, he is now! First it was the box of wipes but today he chose a slightly less sturdy stepstool. But he was so darn cute about it that I had to take his picture!

I have to laugh that the post after I say how much Nicholas is learning so fast and just how smart he is, is this video… I just love this kid.

It hasn’t been too long since his 2 year general update, but Nicholas has made so many strides in his language since his birthday that I wanted to note them.  He seems to have improved so much in such a short time.  We can actually have fairly coherent conversations with him.  I swear he does something new every day.  It is so cool!

- He is saying things like “where Zoë is” and “there she is!” all the time.  ”Is” is a new addition to his vocabulary.

- He is regularly using “I” in sentences to express his wants.

- He is saying his own name! This may not seem like a big deal, but he has referred to himself as Bubba for as long as we can remember.  That is his nickname but we don’t want him going to school telling the teachers that his name is Bubba.   Anyways, I pointed to a picture of him today and asked him who that was, to which he replied “Nih-s!”.  Granted its not that close to Nicholas but its not Bubba!  We think he even referred to himself as “me” tonight too.

- He’s repeating us more often which is so cool!  Still not “love you” but we keep trying!

- His enunciation is improving everyday.  He usually calls Thomas the Tank Engine “dom”.  But the other day he added an “as” making it “domas”.

- He is learning so many letters!  I think he can recognize all of them, but definitely knows certain ones better than others.  He can even tell you a word that starts with a certain letter when you point to it.  I.e., if you show him an “M”, he will say “M. Mama!”.

- He can count up to 2 objects.  He starts over after 2 (1 bus, 2 bus, 1 bus) and seems upset when we suggest going on to 3.  Maybe when he turns 3 he’ll be more open to the idea.

- He is really getting to know his colors too.  About 95% of the time if you ask him to point to a certain color he will get it correct, but he doesn’t always say the color when you just ask “what color is __?”.  But he is getting better with that.  Especially if the object in question is orange.  He will always tell you when something is orange.

We really are so proud of how far he’s come and just know he’ll keep learning and growing!

It was yet another cold, rainy afternoon here in NC, so to pass the time Nicholas and I made cookies.  He is very eager to help us nowadays with anything- emptying the dishwasher, cooking, sweeping, etc.  so I am always trying to think of things he can safely help with in the kitchen.  I decided to put him in charge of the flour today… what made me think that would be a good idea, who knows.  We moved his table to the kitchen and I set him up with a pyrex cup, a measuring cup and a big mixing bowl with some flour in it.  He happily dumped flour in and out while I mixed the wet ingredients in the stand mixer.   When it came time to add the flour, I helped him actually measure and dump it into the mixing bowl.  We ran out about 1/2 cup short, so I got a new bag out of the pantry.  Nicholas tried to close the lid of the newly filled flour canister, but it was too heavy and too close to the edge of the table.  It fell.  Crashing into many pieces and taking about 2 pounds of flour with it to the floor.  First thing I hear, “uh oh, mess!”.  I reply, “yes honey, its a mess!”.  I love this kid.  Anyways, I quickly swept up most of it to get rid of the sharp ceramic pieces and we finished up the dough.  Then Nicholas had to add the chocolate chips.  The most important part!  He took his time to make sure every single chip made it in, he didn’t even eat one!  First he used a spoon, then his fist but soon realized that just dumping the whole bowl was the most efficient way to do it!  We scooped the dough onto a cookie sheet then he patiently watched them bake in the oven.  He even helped me clean up by wiping his table and sweeping.  He is such a good boy!  Afterwards, we both enjoyed some of our delicious creations!

We finally got some real snow here in NC!  As opposed to the 7 flakes we had back in December.  I’m not sure on the official totals but it looks like about 5 inches here. Anyways, we stalled all day before Nicholas asked repeatedly to go outside.  Snow is pretty but we aren’t fans of the cold!  However, Nicholas insisted so we bundled up and ventured out. He refused to wear a hat or his mittens at first. We finally got the mittens on when his hands were so cold they hurt but he would only settle on a hood.  That was better than nothing I suppose.   Luckily his Grandma and Grandpa brought him snow/ski pants last year and they fit him perfectly now.   He also sported his rain boots!  He looked so darn cute.

He walked a lot better in the snow as compared to last year but when he fell down, he couldn’t get himself back up.   I think the mittens hindered him a bit!  We walked around and met up with our neighbors Gillian and Morwen. Nicholas gets giddy when he sees other kids so he was thrilled to see them. They laughed while Matthew scraped off his car before we headed inside for hot chocolate.  Or in Nicholas’ case, warm chocolate.