[Nicolas] Cooker Baby

Nicolas is really enjoying his new school. he took two field trips this week - one on the streetcar to City Park to decorate the school's Christmas tree and one to see the new Disney exhibit featuring the new film, the Princess and the Frog, at the New Orleans Museum of Art. i picked him up today from his class and we walked down to the coffee shop on the corner for a snack. he was so excited to show me everything there - the free water, the pastries, etc., drawing a ton of attention and lots of smiles from most of the customers. he was in such high spirits and just seemed to put everyone else that saw him in a good mood. he had some banana bread and water and ran into Phil and Keith Frazier - leaders of the world-famous, awe-inspiring Rebirth Brass Band. they were gracious as we said hi, and then we headed out across the street to get a haircut. he was amazingly patient, managing to sit still for pretty much the entire haircut and entertain the girls in the salon. he said he wante...

Uncle Josh stopped by Saturday morning after playing a great show in New Orleans the night before. Nicolas loved seeing him and we even ended up skipping his nap so we could enjoy the visit. An hour after he and the band left, while I struggled to get Nicolas to consider taking a late nap (which was a no-win situation), he asked if Uncle Josh could come back. I said, "right now?" and he said, "yeah. i want him to come back right now."

nicolas had a great halloween school day yesterday. he went to his new school first where they had this thing called Trunk or Treat - volunteers park their cars in the school yard and decorate their candy-filled trunks, and the kids go around to each car: Then they had a pizza party and a haunted house, where nicolas encountered a werewolf and skeleton: Then mary took him over to his old school to see his old friends and say hi and have some cupcakes:

muscle man! , originally uploaded by nolafilm . they're celebrating halloween today at nicolas' school, so he's going as muscle man. he's just making sure he has his mask ready to go before leaving. and he's off:

first day of school , originally uploaded by nolafilm . nicolas started at a new school this week. here he is posing in his new uniform. the week prior he scoped out the new class: . it's a gifted pre-k program at a public school here. mary got him tested a while back and he did really well, so they recommended placement in this program. the class is a lot smaller. there are 6 kids total, including two adorable 4-yr old Japanese twin girls who seem to really like him. He played some music with one of them, Joy, on his initial scoping-out session last week: he'll get a lot more teacher attention and interaction and hopefully have a lot of fun learning at an accelerated pace. overall he seems to have transitioned just fine from his old school (a lot better than we thought he would, and probably better than we did). when we mentioned it to him on Tuesday he said, "yeah, i don't go to that school anymore". though we may go back there for just a bit tomorrow for their ...

Nicolas has been doing great. I was gone for the first 12 days of October, but he and Mary were totally fine without me. He took a test for potential placement in a gifted program and did really well. And he's been so well behaved and so much fun lately. he stopped by my office earlier this week and enjoyed listening to some music on our cd player there:

IMG_0701 , originally uploaded by nolafilm . we had a great weekend here - nona visited, nicolas cooked, helped us clean up and for the most part was just a perfect little boy. the few mini-tantrums and occasional, but typical 3-yr-old bossiness were overshadowed by his huge smiles and giggles and eagerness to help out whenever and however he could on sunday. it's amazing how much he thinks and how he thinks. we love watching him put things together in his mind and formulate great questions, concepts and theories. we took him to rock n' sake saturday night to celebrate mary's nephew adam's 18th birthday. the sushi there is fantastic, and the music - ear-deafening loud. it's not really my bag, but nicolas had a blast. he loved the beats and the food and was dancing in his chair while stuffing his face with snow crab and other rolls, all with a huge smile on his face. we were worried it would be hard for him to wind down that evening, especially after birthday cake,...

nicolas , originally uploaded by nolafilm . On a recent trip to Target with Mary, Nicolas spied this awesome costume for Halloween (and Mardi Gras if it still fits). since then he's tried it on a few times and had a blast being "muscle man".

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nicolas , originally uploaded by nolafilm . nicolas loves to help out in the kitchen. we made a really tasty dinner this weekend and he made sure we had just the right amount of seasoning.

some nights with nicolas can be a little trying (especially if he's tired or not feeling well, or just flat out uncooperative and ornery). others however, border on magical - at least for me. i can't think of a better way to end the day than with something as mundane as a bedtime snack and some honest, peaceful conversation. and of course the chorus from don mclean's american pie adds a nice touch too.

nicolas played some piano for mary early this morning while i made the most of my labor day vacation day and slept in. (warning: i loved this clip, but it's 3 minutes long and a bit avant-garde so feel free to tune out at any time).

nicolas loves to cook - we made some amazing guacamole together last month: guacamole-salsa , originally uploaded by nolafilm .

sorry again for the delay. everything's fine here. nicolas "graduated" to his new class at daycare, and is really enjoying it. too much work, too many other priorities have made updating the blog every week difficult. will try to post something at least every two weeks from now on (setting a calendar reminder). currently uploading some videos we shot in august and will post those here in the next few days.

during his stay with my parents, nicolas made some pizza. check out his tattoo, and note, this was before the new season of Top Chef premiered with all those inked-up chefs.

A crazy work schedule has kept me from updating recently, but all is well here. Nicolas is enjoying school 5 days a week - he read Goodnight Moon to his class today (he actually recited it from memory, but he is showing a huge interest in actually reading - sounding out letters in words, etc.) I got to spend the whole weekend with him and he even helped me out at my office on Saturday. He's been great and lots of fun - pretty much just bursting with all kinds of questions and great ideas about how to solve problems. I'll try to upload some recent pics and videos in the next few days.

last week was crazy for us workwise - mary's producing a jingle for one of her clients in the midwest and i've been pulling 12-14 hour work days during the week to try to meet a really tough early-August deadline. we put nicolas in school the entire week, but it was still a little tough for all of us. his school is closed this week and our projects are kicking into high gear, so to help out a bit (and as an early birthday present for my mom), mary met my parents halfway between oxford and new orleans saturday and let them take nicolas back there for the week. we got this email from my mom tonight about today's activities: From: -------@hotmail.com Subject: He is cracking me up! Date: August 2, 2009 11:03:25 PM CDT He asked me this afternoon if I had any documents. I had NO idea what he was talking about and so he told me he would TYPE them for me if I needed him to!!!! Tonight a sheriff's deputy drove down our driveway because some boys had been racing 4-wheelers arou...

during dinner a few weeks ago, nicolas had a brilliant idea: let's grow our own food so we don't have to go to the store all the time. he started rattling off all the different kinds of trees we should plant so i grabbed the camera as fast as possible, and then a common theme emerged and dominated most of the rest of our conversation. can you guess what it was?:

baaing on the rollercoaster from Jeremy Cooker on Vimeo . rollercoaster baaing

he calls it a griddle (with wheels): portable griddle from Jeremy Cooker on Vimeo .