What Nicole's Been Up To

Some new things Nicole’s into lately:

• Using silverware. This makes me torn – obviously it’s a great step towards her being a fully self-sufficient eater but man, it takes SO much longer than me feeding her or her using her fingers. She’s gotten insistent however on using a “moon” (spoon) for everything.
• Becoming a picky eater. This is very frustrating as Nicole has always been a diverse eater. Suddenly she snubs some foods she used to really like such as blueberries, shrimp, & broccoli. Why she’s suddenly smitten with blackberries is beyond me too. The babysitter said this normally happens around 2½ and is a phase that lasts about 4 months and is suddenly past. I don’t want to make her a separate dinner than us as I want her in the habit of eating what we’re eating, but some nights I fear she hasn’t eaten enough because she promptly announces she’s “all done” after only the chicken is gone. I refuse to make her mashed potatos every night as her veggie. The child needs some green.
• Cartoon names. It’s because we let Nicole watch less than ½ hour of TV a week at our house that I'm surprised she knows a bunch of cartoon character names. The TV is on all day at daycare (there are kids of all ages who watch various shows and it’s on for background noise) so apparently Nicole has picked a lot of it up. Though I’ve never seen an entire episode of any of these shows she will say the following by name when she sees them: Spongebob, Dora, & Pooh. I'm sure knows more but I haven’t been there when they’re on to hear her to wildly cheer when the theme song plays.
• Animals. Mackenzie gave Nic a zoo book for Christmas and we read it several times a day every day. It has flaps that show different animals doing different things so we open each of them as we go page by page. She’s learned penguin, walrus, and flamingo as new animals from the book so far.
• Lining up toys. Another new activity that makes me groan because she does it in the bathtub with all of her wet toys that inevitably put lots of water OUTSIDE of the tub and onto me/the floor. I name each as she puts them up and knocks them down but I'm never overly excited when this new routine begins starts over for the night.

When Viki comes in this weekend we’re making a trip to IKEA to look at bedroom furniture for Nicole. She’ll be moving down the hall this spring and the furniture in that room won’t cut it for forever use. Still working on a new theme for the room but it might be dependant on what gender the new baby is – if it’s a boy the nursery might go “jungle” at which point Nicole’s room won’t be “zoo”.