McD's playdate and Bread

We survived the playdate @ the playland in the Mc Donald's on Higgins and Oakton. It was great seeing my friend Rhonda, who also has three kids that are close in age. Aidan is turning 4 on Sunday; Vivian turns 3 in January, on the same day that Elliot turns 2. They have piercing blue eyes, the youngest two are blond, and Aidan is supposed to be very unruly. He bullied Ronin a little bit for his Chick Hicks car, and Rhonda put him in time out twice, Vivian once. But overall it was nice to see our kids run alongside each other. Audrey wasn't running, of course. She slept on the way in, then ended up in the high chair munching on a graham cracker, and crawled at the end. Nikko tolerated his new company, let the kids crawl around him when he held up traffic in the playland stairwell. He tended to run back and forth between the stairwell and me, only stimming slightly that I could tell. Initially he explored a little interactive plastic house, but I expected more running from him, which he did. We got home later and chilled out for a few hours before going to mom's house for Chinny's birthday dinner. I put Ronin down for a nap in his crib and Nikko crashed out in the middle of the living room for about two hours. Since Audrey had slept on the way home, she wasn't close to napping so I took her into the kitchen and gave her a snack. The boys woke up later and joined us. I noticed this the other day but forgot to write it down, but today I asked Nikko what he wanted to eat and he signed More Bread. Later he signed Bread Please. I was amazed that Nikko remembered the sign for bread. We haven't used that sign in months! I praised him loudly for it and put some butter on his bread. I'm glad to see Nikko moving about. He seems to be recovered from whatever mysterious phase he was going through, not talking much and acting lethargic for those two days. He's jargoning again. Perhaps I should give the boys haircuts again tomorrow. I know that I want to make another trip to Target, to see if they have the fleece footed pajamas out, but I think that's a seasonal item that I'm not likely to see. Today Audrey showed me that she can take liquid from the sippy cup, so I'm thinking about getting more sippy cups from Gerber that are for her alone vs. Ronin's cup. Back to mom's house, Nikko wasn't really playing with any cars, just wandering back and forth between rooms. Denis was with us so he was able to help feed Nikko some nuggets as well as pizza, while I fed Ronin and Audrey some pancit. When everyone started singing happy birthday to Chinny, the room was really loud and I saw Nikko put his hands over his ears and start to protest. We sang the song twice, and the second time he put his hands over his ears again, jumped off Denis' lap and protested to the noise loudly. I really hope Nikko is not developing a sensitivity to loud noises. That would stink! If this is the case, I had better start reading up on all that hypersensitivity to noise. I usually skipped that part in the books because I didn't think it applied to my Nikko.