Nick the Zookeeper

Santa brought Nick the Little People Zoo for Christmas this past year. It is a really neat toy where you can place the animals on a platform and it will tell you what type of animal it is and what sound the animal makes. You can collect animals lost of animals to live at the zoo and Nick has about 15 animals. He plays with it all the time. The other day Jeremy and I were on the couch and Nick wanted us to play with him. Being almost 6 months pregnant I really wanted to find a game we could play where I wasn't going to have to get up and down off the floor or be crawled on by a toddler. Nick had begun to be able to retrieve his ball or car when you asked him to get it. So I decided to ask him if he could go and get his lion cub. To my surprise, Nick walked over to a pile of about 10 animals and on the first try picked up the lion cub and immediately brought it over to me. Jeremy and I clapped and made quite a fuss over him getting it correct and Nick was very pleased with himself. We thought maybe it was just a lucky guess, so we asked "Nick can you go find the hippo?" Low and behold he walked back to the pile of animals and brought the hippo, boisterous applause ensued. We continued this game and Nick went 6 for 6 on guessing the right animal, at the end when there was 2 animals left and he was unsure as to which one was correct he smartly just brought both ;) We have been playing the animal game a lot lately and he now can get all 15 right on the first try and with most make something resembling the sound the animal makes as he brings it to us! It has made us very proud of his intellect and also very aware of how much he is understanding about the world around him even if he can't fully communicate. It is time for all of us to mind our Ps&Qs so Nick doesn't pick up any bad habits :)

Do you speak toddler?

Nick is very ready to communicate with the world, and talks a lot (I wonder where he gets that from?). The only problem is that most of us don't speak toddler. Nick finds it very frustrating that we all don't understand exactly what he is trying to say all the time. Below are some words Nick has mastered of the English language, along with some words from his own toddler language, Nickenese.

Ball- This was one of Nick's first words and most definitely his favorite. He uses it to refer to anything spherical, not just traditional balls. For instance mommy's pearls are balls, watermelons are balls, grapes are balls, etc.

Shoe-It is not surprising given my affinity for shoes that Nick has mastered this word. This word began the day we made a big fuss over getting him his first pair of big boy tennis shoes from the New Balance store. He not only says this word every time you put his shoes on, you can also request that he get his shoes and he will retrieve them.

Dog- Team Upton has three full-time canine members along with additional part-time dog members so Nick latched on to this word pretty quickly, plus the D sound is fairly simple to make for children. We still have to work with making him say the g sound at the end, but every morning when Grady and I go to get Nick up he points at her and says "dog." He also begins saying dog as soon as we get to Deenie's house and he hears Nora barking.

Cow-Recently while reading his Farm Peekaboo book from Aunt Kim, Nick was pointing to all of the animals and calling them dogs. I realized we should begin trying to identify the animals for him and have him try to say what they are. Cow was difficult because of the cah- sound, but he got it. Now he runs to his little people cow at Deenie's and says cow. The only problem is the cow at Deenie's and the little people giraffe he has at home are the same shape so he often calls his giraffe a cow, but giraffe is outside of his linguistic grasp right now.

shi shu- This phrase is usually accompanied with a pointing finger. We have determined that it roughly translates into "what's that?" since the point finger usually indicates Nick wants you to tell him what he is point at. This is one of his favorite "questions" to ask. We are well on our way to the 500 questions a day asked by most toddlers :)

tsk-This word translates (to the best of our knowledge) into this. He points of hold something he wants and when you ask him, Nick what is that? He usually responds tsk. Either that or he is constantly disappointed in something I am doing and saying tsk tsk.

Ah-Oh- This precious phrase of Nick's definitely corresponds to "Uh-Oh." When Nick spent some time with Aunt Betty last week, he would dump out his crayons on the floor and Aunt Bet would say "Uh-Oh, Nick lets pick them up." Now Nick will go Godzilla on his toys or a tub of crayons immediately followed by "Ah-Oh." He thinks this game is hilarious...thanks Aunt Bet ;)

Team Upton Takes Pepper Place Market

The outdoor farmers' market held on Saturdays at the Pepper Place is one of my favorites in the city! It is where I went last year for all of the locally grown food I used to make Nick's baby food. My mom often going with me, but we always end up seeing a lot of friends. Nick and I are regulars to the market, but this Saturday Jeremy was off work and decided to join us. He also decided it would be a good idea to take Grady (the market is very dog friendly and always has a large canine presence). I have to admit I was very skeptical about taking Grady. She is a really good dog, but at age 4 she can still be very rowdy...

When we arrived Grady was very excited and doing about how I expected on the leash, which is not great. She has never had to walk on a leash and so she is not really accustomed to it. But to my surprise after about 5 minutes and the market, encountering a lot of people and other pups, she bacem very calm, she was letting lots of kids pet her and dogs sniff her out. She even made friends with a 130+ lb Shiloh Sheppard. By the end of the day we even heard other people remarking about how beautiful and well behaved the Airedale was being, and they were actually talking about OUR Grady. I was very impressed with her!

Jeremy ate his way through the Pepper Place market. The market is great about having samples set up at all the tents. Jeremy had some delicious Canebreak Gouda, goat cheese, and Monroeville sausage. They also have several breakfast options, Jeremy had BBQ pork and grits from Jim & Nick's, I had a grilled croissant and Nick and Jeremy shared a cinnamon sugar scone from the coffee shop. Finally Jeremy tried out a Popsicle from the new Steel City Pops. They create gourmet Popsicles that are all natural and delicious, Jeremy had the Strawberry flavor. We met up with Aunt Glo (a part-time member of team Upton) at the market. When we got over to the musicians, she got Nick out of the stroller. He made a beeline towards the music. I think she was surprised by how fast he has gotten. We all danced a bit to the music before grabbing our produce and heading home! This was the first stop on our family Saturday Funday.

Team Upton returned home to take a group nap. When we got up, we had leftover BBQ for lunch and I fried up some green tomatoes (they have been on my Southern Woman bucket list). They were really good considering they were my first attempt. We went to the zoo, complete with Splash Pad time for Nick. We also got to see the new elephant who is joining our herd of elephant bachelors, we will now have 4 African Male elephants. We finished up the day picking up Davenport's pizza for dinner. The perfect end to a perfect day!

Nick Rides Grady

Since before Nick was born, we have jokingly talked about how Nick would one day ride Grady, our Airedale, much like I rode my Airedale, Stella, growing up. Since Nick was born Grady has been extremely protective, loving, and patient with Nick. He has pulled her hair, chased her around the house, and even used her head as a stepping stool to reach the sofa. So it was only a matter of time before Nick mounted Grady for riding. That happened today. The first time he straddle the Grady she was patient and simply laid very still, Nick lost interest and moved on. However a few minutes later, Nick remounted and grabbed her ears as though to say "Giddy Up Grady." Grady was less than pleased and bucked Nick off. No one was hurt and a valuable lesson learned, perhaps when Nick is a little older the riding will be more feasible :)

The Target Meltdown

Nick has hit the age where we have Chernobyl like meltdowns over the slightest things. We now often experience a screaming fit complete with writhing around on the floor because Nick cannot have the remote control, cell phone or other item he wants. While unpleasant these events at home are one thing, but it was only a matter of time until something like this was going to happen in a public venue. A few weeks ago we had our first event of this nature. Nick and I were out at one of our weekly shopping trips to the target (they have amazing deals on diapers) when Nick began the meltdown process. For those of you that have been through an experience like this, you need little more description, but for those of you who don't have kids or they haven't hit this stage yet, I will try to paint you a picture. All of a sudden your child begins uncontrollable screaming, on lookers begin shooting you nasty looks, or worse begin talking about you and your child to whomever they are on the phone with or with in person. You try to pick your child up out of the buggy to comfort them when they become completely limp. It is like passive resistance. They suddenly they begin flailing their arms and legs erratically. I always said I would never be one of those mom's who has to leave an establishment because of their child pitching a fit...needless to say I was WRONG.

I pick Nick up on my hip, he is in a Superman like positions still kicking and screaming the whole way out of the door. We get outside to the sidewalk and put him down (we are both crying at this point). I look at Nick and say "Team Upton needs to pull it together! We only have two diapers at home and have to go back inside to get more. We are on the same team, Team Upton! Please, please, please stop crying!" I don't know if it was the shock of seeing me crying but with a few quivers of the lower lip, Nick stopped, reached his hand up to hug me, let me pick him up and head back inside. FULL DISCLOSURE: In addition to the diapers and other items, Nick did get a cookie and a new ball, but importantly we were able to check out at Target.