Nicholas Maravillas’ Blog

Love,

Nicholas

Here are some picture of our playing in the rain adventures.  Nicholas wasn’t phased a bit!

And now some silliness caught on tape!

It’s a bird, it’s a plane, NO! It’s Nicholas!

We’ve been a bit blah in the Marvelous household this past week.  Nicholas woke up with a nasty cold and fever on Sunday and is still congested.  And he is such a good sharer that my throat was sore and yucky for a couple of days.  Luckily, Matthew got away germ free.  We ended up taking Bubba to the doctor and he said that he probably caught it when he came for his check-up not even 4 days prior.  Great.  Anyways, in the midst of our yuckiness, we have caught a few cute pictures.

For some reason, he decided that some of his toys needed to be washed.

Do you think he has enough books?  This doesn’t include the rest that were spread over the living room floor and in his room.

Nothing makes you feel better like strawberries dipped in chocolate pudding!

Well, maybe reading a bus book with Daddy makes you feel even better…

We decided to take Nicholas to one of those kids’ salons to get his haircut today.  We went to a regular place a few months ago and it went… okay. But we were thinking that with the tv’s and stuff to look at that he’d be more at ease.   It started off alright.  He wasn’t screaming which was a step up from the last time.  But he wasn’t enjoying himself by any means.  The stylist did the best she could with a squirmy toddler. Although we think she went a little clipper-happy at the end.  Hopefully his bangs will grow out soon!  It isn’t the best cut, but let’s face it, we could shave his head bald and he’d still be adorable!

After the haircut and some errands, we stopped for lunch.  Nicholas helped his daddy put his sunglasses back on.  Sort of.

Love you!

Nicholas (and mommy and daddy!)

We went back to Marbles today with Daddy this time. It was so much fun! Everything is better with Daddy. Nicholas’ favorite was still the bus but he also enjoyed the water fun more this time around. He ran around like a wild man, same as the last visit, and wouldn’t sit still for any length of time. Well, until it was reaching lunchtime and then you could tell he was getting tired. Only then would he stay at one thing for more than 2 minutes. He explored a little more this time around and played with the ambulance, mail truck, grocery store and kitchen areas. Lots of pictures as usual so enjoy the favorites!!

Thanks Grandma and Grandpa! I LOVE the bus book!

Nicholas visited Dr. Powell this morning and is doing great!  Here are his stats:

weight: 25lb 13oz, 50th percentile (this is a big jump from his previous 20th percentile just 3 months ago!)
height: 33.75 inches, 85-90th percentile
head circumference: 19.75 inches, 95th percentile

So our little string bean is rounding out a bit! He is doing very well as far as fine and gross motor skills. He is also doing well in in social development and communication. I think he could be more advanced in speech but he is still within the range of normal. Plus his comprehension is excellent so the doc wasn’t worried. It didn’t hurt that when he walked in, Nicholas was sitting on the bench reading a book to me. He said, “well look at that precocious little guy!” And no, that wasn’t staged! Nicholas just loves to read!  He said to keep trying time-outs for the biting and continue our polite ignoring of his tantrums.  He did assure me that both are normal and a phase.  I can live with the tantrums, but man the biting thing is getting real old, real fast. Oh, and he was impressed that Nicholas puts himself in time-out after biting someone, without being told or walked over there.  I’m not so impressed though, I want to keep that power! But I suppose its not about me, now is it?

One almost scary thing did come up during his exam.  Dr. Powell heard a quiet heart murmur. He said it is considered a ‘functional murmur’, more specifically called a Still’s murmur. Meaning it doesn’t affect how the heart functions in pumping the blood or Nicholas’ overall health. So he’ll monitor that at future check ups, but for now doesn’t think he needs any other follow-up care. He said he should grow out of it. Whew! Oh, and no shots today! That always makes for a nice doctor visit.  Overall, he is just perfect and doing well!  We go back in 6 months for his TWO year check up!

We stopped at Chick-Fil-A on the way home to play and have lunch.  Nicholas just adores the playarea there and running around with the big kids.  They completely ignore him, but he doesn’t notice and loves to chase them around.  He is getting braver and climbs up the stairs all by himself now.  He hasn’t gone down the slide alone yet, but I am sure he will soon.  He ate all 6 of his nuggets, plus some of my sandwich.  I am not sure they make kid’s meals with more than 6 nuggest!! Plus some fries, a fruit cup, goldfish and a cereal bar!  The boy sure likes to eat.  While we were there, I took him into the bathroom to change him.  The changing table was in the handicapped stall, so we went in there and I locked the door. I changed Nicholas then put him down so I could do my business.  Not 10 seconds after I put him down, does he unlock the door!! Mind you, I am a bit ‘indisposed’ and he is trying to escape!  Luckily no one else was in there and he stopped when I call him and even locked the door again.  I had to laugh afterward but was panicked there for a minute!  He likes to keep me on my toes, that is for sure!

Nicholas’ Nana and Papa came this weekend to celebrate Nana’s birthday a bit early.  Luckily, Nicholas was feeling much better!  He was pleasantly surprised when he woke up from his nap on Friday and saw them.  They brought him a really neat race car toy.  He can ride the race car, but it also came with two smaller race cars that go down a slide from the dashboard and out the front of the car.  He just loves it!

And not only did they bring him a race car, but Papa drove his work truck down to work on our a/c unit. Nicholas adores all big vehicles such as trucks, buses, bulldozers, garbage trucks, excavators, etc.  So when he saw Papa’s truck out front, he was psyched! Papa let him “drive” it, honk the horn and check out all of the tools in the back.  He thought he was some big stuff driving the truck.

Nicholas gave his Nana an early birthday gift yesterday… he called her “Nana”!  This was especially cool for her and just made her melt but made Matthew and I excited because it shows he can now move his tongue up to make the N sound.  Oh, and he calls a banana by name now too! We’re still working on Grandma, Grandpa, Papa and Oma. It is hard to practice because when I say their names, he looks for them and I feel bad for getting his hopes up.

We had cake and homemade cherry vanilla ice cream last night to celebrate Nana’s birthday.  Nicholas was a much bigger fan of the ice cream than chocolate cake.  I am not sure how I feel about that. I don’t know about any child of mine not liking chocolate cake! We’ll work on him… but overall he is eating much better and acting more like himself.  We are so happy! Tomorrow is back to the normal routine of work for us and Ms. Irene’s for him.  He goes for his 18 month check up on Wednesday and his post-op appointment with his surgeon on the 22nd.  So far, so good!

I’ll end with his latest trick. Mind you, we never taught him this but after 18 months of watching us do it he just picked it up.  Too funny!

and thank goodness for that!  After a good night’s sleep, we are all feeling better today.  Nicholas woke up happy and has been okay so far.  A little fussy now and then but nothing snuggling and Tylenol can’t fix.  He actually ate some lunch- 3 chicken fingers, cheese, a ton of cherries and some pudding.  That was more than he’d eaten since Wednesday.  So, here’s hoping that yesterday was the worse and we are on the fast track to recovery.

The first picture is of his “tough guy” pajamas.  He was under the spell of Noggin when I snapped the picture.  We watched a lot of Blue’s Clues yesterday.  I think I have had my fill of that dog to last about 6 months!  The second picture is of him today at lunch. Feeling better and eating away!  He would have rather played with the spaghetti (my first lunch offering) so we moved onto chicken fingers.  I like this one because you can see that he is able to lift his tongue now.  We have already noticed a difference in his speech.  He says “bus” more definitively now and with less of a lisp.  Yay!  We’ll try raspberries later.

Nicholas had his tongue-tie clipped this morning at a local surgery center.  We had to be there at 6am for 7:30 surgery time.  Nicholas didn’t appreciate being woken up at 5:00am but who does really?  Luckily when we got to the center, so did the garbage truck!  That was a hit.   He also entertained the other patients waiting by running around and babbling to them.  And before you say it, YES I took pictures at the surgery center.  I was on the fence about it but thought I may regret it later on.  This blog is his “baby book” really and we want all milestones documented.  Even the not so fantastic ones like his first surgery.

We got signed in and then taken back to pre-op.  The nurses were really, really nice and accomodating.  I suppose they do a lot of procedures on kids there.  After talking with the nurse and the anesthesiologist we had to get Nicholas into a little hospital gown.  With Looney Tunes on it no less! Poppy would have approved.  Nicholas wasn’t a big fan.  He even tried to put his shirt back on!  But after a minute he got back up and wandered the aisle, stopping to say hi to the other patients waiting for their surgeries.  Since they’d all seen him since 6am, he had made a lot of new friends.  He even got a sticker… well 5 actually.

He was in surgery for about 15 minutes before the surgeon came out and told us it went really well.  He told us that Nicholas didn’t cry, or smile, but was calm and looked around before breathing in the strawberry-scented happy gas.  They actually asked us what scent he’d prefer!  I suggested chocolate-chip cookie but they only had fruits and bubble gum flavors.  Then a few minutes later we were called back to recovery and found our little man snuggling up with a very happy nurse.  They all commented on how cute and adorable he was.  Like we didn’t already know.  He gulped down some juice and off we went.

The numbing medicine must have worn off right about when we got home because he flipped out!  We gave him some pudding and after two bites he just started to cry and move around.  From there it went downhill.  Way downhill.  Like straight into a ditch.  He flailed around, wanted to be picked up, wanted to be put down, crying, putting his hand in his mouth, wiping his eyes, coughing, etc.  Poor guy was hoarse by the end of it.  He looked terrible with swollen, red eyes.  It must have hurt and felt so strange.  Plus he was also super tired from being woken up early and having a stressful morning.  After about an hour of hysteria, we decided to try a car ride.  15 minutes into our scenic drive around rural Holly Springs he conked out and is now asleep in his crib.  We’re hoping that he’ll feel better when he wakes up.  No post-op pictures yet… he wasn’t in the mood.  But have no fear, there will be later.  He is sporting his “tough guy” pjs!

Thanks again for all the thoughts and prayers for our little guy.  It means a lot to us to know that so many friends and family members were thinking of him this morning.  We love ya’ll!