Raisins, the new FS

We had a quiet day, as the days before preschool will probably go. Denis came home from work early and we made a trip out to Costco. Nikko was really giving me a hard time for some FS until I suggested that we pick up some raisins and open the bag in the store. Nikko seemed to accept this instead of FS, so perhaps raisins will be my go-to snack for him. I HOPE! The only problem is I can tell he doesn't love them as much as he loves FS. Guess I better keep a small arsenal of them handy for future outings. When we came home, the boys wanted to play outside so I put Audrey down in her crib for a minute and joined the boys at the swingset. Nikko doesn't always go down the slide. He liked to walk in between the poles near the swing or to venture by the monkey bars. Ronin is crazy about the monkey bars and wants us to hold him up all the time. Nikko sees this and wants to be held up too, but he can't hang on as long as Ronin can. Nikko would be holding almost 40 lbs, so it's no wonder he lets go! He gives me great eye contact when I try to hold him up to reach the bars. Before dinner, Denis went to martial arts class so I hung out with everyone until it was around 7p. Audrey got a bottle while I fed Ronin some pancit and Nikko some leftover pizza. He actually didn't finish it so I gave him mac cheese which he ate just fine. Before I knew it, both boys were falling asleep in their seats! I didn't want them to, but it was incredibly hard trying to wake them up so I let them sleep until 8p. Luckily, they didn't have problems going to bed after baths. I guess Ronin's nap was disjointed this afternoon (probably didn't sleep when I left him in the room) and Nikko didn't nap all day, but I'm surprised that they were tired enough to sleep since the only excitement was going to Costco. And the backyard after that.

Nikko has a red long sleeved shirt that he saw in the clean clothes basket. He carried it around and was trying to step into it like a pair of pants. No amount of reasoning with him was making him deter from putting them on, so instead I took the sleeves, wrapped them around his waist and tied them. For some reason, Nikko looked down, patted the shirt that was snug around his waist, and seemed to accept that this was an OK form of wearing that shirt. He continued to wear it this way for the Costco run and into the evening, repeatedly coming up to me to retie it if it became undone. Nikko's got some idiosyncrasies that I hope will pass as time passes. On the verbal route, we're still at zero words. But I'm really interested to see what happens if I can keep moving forward with pictures. When Nikko sees a banana in another picture, he'll either point it out to me and wait for me to say Banana or he'll bring it right up to my face and wait. This recognition is a good thing, but I wonder what other pictures he'll begin to associate with the real thing. His shoes, perhaps?