Earplugs & archiving

Nikko woke up at 3:45a crying, for some reason. I went in and laid down next to him, went back to sleep. Ronin woke me up at 6:45a, then we all convened in the living room and then the kitchen. Ronin was playing with a car puzzle before breakfast and unfortunately, Nikko wanted it too. A fight was brewing, shrieking and whining was escalating. I could feel myself getting tensed up so I resorted to putting the earplugs in my ears. It deadened the din from the whining and I was actually able to function. Lots of resistance to eating breakfast while I tried to redirect Nikko from the concept of the puzzle. I don't know how it will transcend into school today, but I hope it doesn't. Maybe he needs to get away from us and be happier in school.

LATER ON...
Nikko's speech report: At least once a week I take Nikko to the office to do "hi" & "bye" to each person in office - today 1 hi w/o prompting. Automatic with giving high 5 each person. Spontaneous bye.

At home, I can get Nikko to say Hi or Bye with prompting. He will repeat what I say. When I say, "Hi, Nikko," he'll say back, "Hi, Nikko." That's how I know it's not working yet, but at least he's talking.

Pretty much after lunch I rallied the troops to go to Mom's house. They are leaving for the Philippines tomorrow and I usually stop by to say good bye, let the kids see them, and give money for our relatives. Everyone was in good spirits, and I even gained a new phone that was an extra from their recent family plan purchase. I got us home by 4:30, and Jenna had just pulled up her car to the curb while I was walking the kids inside the house. Nikko had a good session according to her, and he remained in a good mood the rest of the night. Except, however, regarding a piece of lychee hard candy that he got from Mom's house. He was carrying it around like all his other possessions, and at one point he wanted me to open it but I evaded him. While he was sleeping, I went in his room and confiscated it. I hope he forgets about it tomorrow. One last thing about the phone: as I switched out my SIM card from old to new phone, I realized that I wasn't able to retrieve any of the pictures on my old phone. They didn't show up on the new phone, no matter how I searched for it. I felt bad about it, and was going to give up the pictures entirely, when I was surfing the T-Mobile website for any clues and I saw that some of my albums on the old phone were visible online. I read further and saw that I could import the pictures from the old phone onto the T-Mobile website, then drag them to Facebook, and finally I could copy off FB and put on my desktop. When I started the "archiving" process, I realized that I had over 100 pictures on the old phone. Many were from when Nikko was a baby, less than a month old. There were pics of Ronin as a happy, chubby baby. Finally, Audrey was in the more recent photos. I think I had at least one phone change, from the Razr to the flip phone. Looking at the pictures made me nostalgic, and remembering fondly how precious my babies are. Aw.