Bruce

Today Nikko was carrying around a plastic figurine of Bruce, the shark from Finding Nemo. Ronin and I were running around chanting some phrases from the movie like, "Here's Bruce-y!!” and “Dory, are you all right?” Nikko repeated some of those phrases automatically. After his bath tonight, I put him on the bed to change his diaper and he was saying, “Swim away! Swim away!” I was surprised because that wasn’t a phrase we told him to repeat. He must have recalled it from the movie itself, remembered that Bruce said that at one particular moment (it was before a submarine was hit with a torpedo). I’d like to think that Nikko’s memory is getting sharper. We have a long way to go to get him to speak independently, to have a conversation with no prompts, but I guess repeating phrases is the start. I hear him saying bits and pieces of things all the time; I think the ratio of repeating real words to his jargoning/babbling is 2:5. But it’s getting better, really.

After lunch and Audrey/Ronin naps, I took the kids to Woodfield Mall to visit a cell phone kiosk and investigate their cell phone covers and cases. Ronin was very antsy and Nikko kept getting in and out of the stroller. I left with a leather cell phone holster w/clip so I can put the cell phone inside and clip it to my pocket (or bag), or put on ear phones and put the cell phone at my waist to be truly hands-free. I didn’t like their style of cell phone covers so I’ll order one from amazon.com. I wanted to go to the new Whole Foods store in Schaumburg, but time was running out and I didn’t think the kids would be patient in a nice store. We headed to the Costco in Schaumburg because going to our regular one in Mount Prospect would have taken too much drive time. It still took some time in there because the layout was different from what I’m used to, and I didn’t get a chance to swing to the back of the store to get my stash of Coke. BOOOOO! Nikko kept trying to swipe my Costco card from my wallet, and ultimately he did end up with it because I didn’t want to make a huge scene. Dinner was half an hour late but bath and bedtimes were still on time. Nikko has school tomorrow, and Mouse goes back with him.