The Muhlestein Crew: Nicholas at 26 months

Weight: 33.2 lbs

Height: 34.5 inches

Favorite Books:

Dott the Fire Dog
I've Seen Santa
Snowmen at Christmas

Favorite Food:

Hot Chocolate (He is a little obsessed. I just add a tiny bit to a big cup of milk and he is one happy little boy.)

Big Accomplishment:

He finally learned his colors. For the longest time, he couldn't care less about colors or learning his colors. Now he finally knows them!!

Discipline:

We use to have time out in his crib. Now we just pull a kitchen chair in the middle of the room and make him sit in it. We have him sit in it for 1 minute. During the last ten seconds, we have him count to 10 before he can get out. Sometimes, he will just start counting as soon as he gets in the chair thinking that will magically get him out faster. Sometimes he comes and tells me when he has done something wrong, like touch the Christmas tree, and he will put himself in time out.

Speaking:

He is wonderful talker. People are always impressed, mostly because he is just more vocal than other kids his age when talking to strangers. He talks mostly in simple sentences now, but will say sentences with 4 or 5 words. Some of my favorite words and phrases because of the way he says them are:

"Oh YEAH."
"That's right Mommy."
"Thank you very much."
"Ozzie. Ozzie. Ozzie. Ozzie. OOOOOOOOzzzzzzzzzie."
"I run super fast."

Christmas:

We have LOVED teaching Nicholas about Christmas. He knows it is Jesus' birthday. He knows that Mary and Joseph were Jesus' parents. He does get confused about whether Joseph or Mary was Jesus' mother. He has learned about stars, wisemen, shepherds, and angels. I made him little nativity people that he plays with, and we use them to tell the Christmas story.

He has also learned about Santa, snowmen, Christmas trees, ornaments, elves, and Rudolf. We have a little elf living with us named Jack that watches Nicholas and tells Santa if he has been good or bad. When Nicholas touches the Christmas tree, he says, "Oh no. Jack's watching me. No touch Christmas tree. Time out chair." We also have an advent calendar that has 24 treats. He is always good at remembering to get his treat each day.

Nicholas also loves all the Christmas lights. He even has some colored Christmas lights draped on his bed that he calls his "Nicholas lights." He loves to have them on when he sleeps and when we read stories. He also has loved driving through different neighborhoods and seeing the lights on different houses. He also loves egg nog, Christmas parties, Christmas songs, and candy canes. Nicholas wants a bat and ball from Santa this year.

Nicholas definitely makes me laugh and sometimes cry. Here are a couple reasons why:

Joseph has taught him to flex his muscles and say, "Chicks dig it."
Nicholas has a good imagination. He likes to pretend he is sleeping or that his toys or puppies are sleeping. Sometimes he tells me, "Sleeping Beauty. Kiss. Wake up." I'll kiss him on the cheek and he will laugh hysterically.
We ordered too many size 4 diapers. Nicholas is way too big for them, but they are still doing the job during the day so I have been having him wear them. They are stretched a little tight so they remind us of a thong. Two weeks ago, he suddenly looked up and told me, "Oh NO!! Diaper popped." I thought he maybe was stinky, but I understood the situation when I saw that one of the tabs had broken. This has happened three times since, but he is always good to alert me to the situation.
Part of the reason Nicholas loves his new big boy puppy bed is that sometimes I forget to put his binkies up high and leave them on the bed. Then when I am feeding Lexi, he will go back to his room and suck on his binkie until I catch him. Sometimes I sneak up on him and scare him so bad because he knows what he is doing is against the rules.
Lately Nicholas, Lexi, and I have been playing store. I put a few items of play food out on the couch and tell Nicholas the price of the food. Nicholas then has to give me enough pennies to buy the food that he wants. He then puts the food in his wagon or his shopping cart. As the game goes on, he gets sick of counting out the pennies and will just give me all the pennies he has and takes whatever he wants.
Nicholas is very into drawing. We are working really hard at having him only draw on paper. When we go to the park, he spends half the time drawing letters in the dirt. Last week I was raking leaves on the side of the house while Nicholas said hello to Ozzie. The neighbors keep their convertible parked on the side of the house. Nicholas walked around to the other side of the car where I couldn't see him. He was only over there for a few seconds before I went to check on him because I was worried he was playing with the jug of blue windshield wiper fluid that he thinks is juice. Instead, I see him holding a rock. He looks up at me and smiles proudly and says, "I draw car." My heart sank. I picked him up and raced him inside. I told him it was SUPER NAUGHTY to draw on cars. I couldn't get too mad at him because I hadn't told him this before. He is just a creative, sweet two year old. I cried though. Not because it would be expensive to fix the car, but more because I felt doomed to follow that boy everywhere and never let him out of my sight. There is so much more that I need to teach him before he can be independent. Everything worked out with the car. Our neighbors were very nice about it and even laughed.
On Sunday, we don't let Nicholas watch anything but church movies. We tell him it is because it is Sunday and we need to think about Jesus. During breakfast on Monday (Nov 21), Nicholas smiled and announced, "Not Jesus time. Time for new Toy Story. Woody, Buzz, Jessie. Yeah!" He then clapped.
Nicholas is really good at praying. However, if you pause too long when you are helping him pray he will immediate conclude with "In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen."
If you sit by us during sacrament this is what you will hear Nicholas LOUDLY announce, "I take one bread. I take one water. I take sacrament. I think of Jesus." It is really so sweet you can't get too mad about the volume at which he makes this statement.
Nicholas recently has become scared of the vacuum. He will tell me, "That's too scary Mom."
He is having a harder time going to bed at night. He will come running out of his room and tell me, "I can't go to sleep." We will tell him to go back to bed and most of the time, he will run back to his bed and lay there. Sometimes he will try to negotiate. My favorite was when he told me, "I can't sleep. I sit on Mama's lap and watch Mama's show." I told him nice try buddy and sent him back to bed.
When Lexi was born, Nicholas' grandparents brought their iPads and Nicholas LOVED them. We bought one of the fire-sale touchpads, but the lack of games for it kept him from getting interested. When we put android on it with lots of games, he quickly became more proficient at using it than Mama. His favorite game is "monkeys", or Monkey Preschool Lunchbox.

Nicholas As a Big Brother:

Nicholas always wants to carry Lexi. He will try and then say, "I pick up Lexi. Lexi too heavy."
He is never mean to Lexi. He is fine with her taking over his crib and his old room. He is not crazy about sharing Mama. At first when I would feed Lexi, he tried whining and crying to keep my focus on him. Now, he has changed his tactics. He tries to get me to stop feeding Lexi by getting into as much trouble as possible. For example, today he went through the garbage, colored with pen on everything laying on my bed in my room, and dumped a cup of water.

I LOVE doing crafts with Nicholas. Nicholas loves it too. The hardest part is convincing Nicholas that we have to stop and clean up at some point. He is always so proud of his creations. (FYI: At first he wanted a pink castle birdhouse. He only settled for a green and blue castle birdhouse because I didn't have pink paint.)