The whistle / The Nikko dance

After I put Nikko on the bus this morning, I packed up Audrey and met up with Denis and Ronin, who had already left to drop off the Honda Civic at the Honda dealer to do some oil change stuff. They all came with me to an annual doctor appointment at Northwest Community Hospital. The saving grace for Denis was the portable DVD player, which captured the kids' attention. We got back in plenty of time before Nikko's bus came. He was in good spirits, and I wonder if he will miss going to school next week because he'll be on spring break. In his backpack was a small bag with a purple whistle-toy that unfurls, and a little yellow frisbee. It was the birthday of a girl down the block. Ronin immediately grabbed the whistle and blew into it, the purple tail curling and uncurling, spit flying from his lips when he didn't close them completely around the tube. Nikko wanted to try it and when I gave it to him, he started to chew on the tube. I tried to show him how to blow but Nikko wasn't understanding what I was doing. He just wanted to put his teeth on the tube. I saw him manually unfurl the purple tail, but he kept pushing me away when I tried to help him. I gave up, hoping that he didn't tear the whistle apart in frustration. He took off for a few minutes and I went back to my business in the kitchen. Then he came back in and was blowing the whistle correctly, unfurling the tail. I praised him with a loud HOORAY! and he was very pleased with his accomplishment. Ronin got envious and kept demanding the whistle back so I had lots of redirecting to do.

Nikko can eat a LOT of peach slices. I thought he was going to be on a mandarin orange kick, and sometimes he is, but peaches seem to be the big winner lately. I don't mind giving him peaches, but I do worry that he'll eat so many that he'll hurl. After his lunch of a few nuggets and lots of peaches, he was running around the kitchen furiously. For a few seconds I watched him and started thinking that he was doing the Nikko dance, something I hadn't seen in a few weeks. That means he was stimming. This was evidenced later in the afternoon during Ronin's nap, when I was sitting on the couch next to Audrey trying to get a nap since the boys had early wakings again (5a for Ronin, who fell back asleep, and then 5:45 for Nikko who probably dozed but ended up being awake next to me, by the way. PLEASE, NIKKO AND RONIN, SLEEP UNTIL ANY TIME AFTER 7A!!!). Nikko was really restless, jumping off ottomans and the couch, running in circles and taking dives onto blankets that were on the floor mats in front of the couch. He was also loud at times, shrieking and making unintelligible noises in short bursts. There were some moments when he seemed to be doing a Nikko dance to a familiar song, but the way he was crashing into the couch I thought to myself, "This kid needs a padded room." The OT sent home a sheet of activities for preschoolers to do during spring break so I may have to give them a try.

It was around 6p that we decided to take the kids out to dinner at Portillo's/Barnelli's and then go pick up the car from the dealer. We were running late against our bedtime schedule, but I guess we have to try to be flexible. We won't always be able to get the kids in bed by 8:30, but it felt kind of weird to run so late when in actuality we got the kids to bed in time for their OLD schedule, around 9:20. Back to dinner, we put the kids at the table in the same formation we did when we went to CiCi's pizza on Valentine's Day: Nikko next to Denis, then Ronin at the foot of the table, then Audrey next to me. I took Nikko up to the counter with me to order food. He was looking around at everything, being a bit antsy so I had a hand on his head quite a bit. I gave him a straw to hold and he started waving it around like an airplane. His body was doing lots of little jerky movements and I was surprised to observe all this because I think he's been in a state of calm for more than a few weeks, lately. Could it also be that I haven't taken him out other than Costco or school, so he hasn't been challenged by the outside environment of unpredictability as much? That doesn't explain the Nikko dance at home, however. Regardless, he was very well-behaved at dinner, as well as the other two. There were some older kids behind me putting some tables together and I noted that it was a big party of late teen/early 20 somethings? having dinner together. And they were surprisingly quiet. I caught from a sidelong glance that all the kids at the big table formation were using sign language. Audrey thought they were really funny, waving their hands every which way and she tried to mimic their waving hands. It made me more aware of Nikko, who was sitting facing them, when Denis was prompting Nikko to say, "Drink, please, Daddy!" Nikko said Drink, signed and said please, and eventually said and signed Daddy. The sign for Daddy is an open sideways hand putting the thumb on your forehead. Nikko's version is putting the pinky finger on his forehead instead, but we all know what it means. I don't think anyone at that kids' table was paying attention to Nikko, but I felt a little kinship toward them regardless. As I anticipated on the drive home, Nikko fell asleep because it was 8:15, his now-regular bedtime. We had to wake him up when we got home, unfortunately. Thankfully, Nikko was still very tired and by bedtime I sat with him a little longer until his eyelids got heavy and he fell asleep.