[Nicolas] Cooker Baby

You may recall a recent post where we ate at Baru - a great little Columbian tapas restaurant near Nicolas' school, with excellent food and a bongo in the bathroom to boot. Well, we went back this past Friday, and not only did the friendly wait staff remember Nicolas, they had a great time talking to him. They even got a kick out of him yelling "i have to go poopie!" at the top of his lungs after dinner. we think it was just a (funny and admittedly slightly embarrassing) ploy to get to the bongo in the bathroom, because once he realized it wasn't in there he was less motivated to actually go poopie, and much more ready to go look for that bongo. not only did we find it outside (the staff had brought it out on the sidewalk for him to play - I assume for the tables outside and the people waiting for a table), they asked him to play it. which he did, and really well too. when we asked where they bought the bongo and explained we were looking for one for Nicolas' birt...

Nicolas and I spent the late afternoon of St. Patrick's Day in beautiful City Park. It was a gorgeous day, and we were able to get in some swinging, some tree climbing, and some good ol' City Park duck and goose feeding. we even got a nice visit from one of the City Park swans: what a great way to spend St. Patrick's Day in New Orleans!

lately we've been taking advantage of the extra hour or two of daylight, the gorgeous spring weather here in New Orleans and our close proximity to City Park as much as we possibly can. earlier this week we spent a late afternoon in the park feeding the geese, ducks, and even one of the huge swans - look for a post on that later this week. and this morning we headed over there for a school fair. nicolas wasn't too thrilled about going in the museum to talk about schools, but he totally enjoyed the inflatable jumpy thing outside. he had so much fun jumping and running back and forth in there. it even had a very steep slide that he tried a couple times. after we got out he spotted one of the Saints' mascots - Sir Saint. He had gotten totally freaked out by him earlier when he walked by the jumpy thing, but he kept asking about him too. When we saw him out on the park lawn, Nicolas couldn't stay away.Can you blame him? Look at this thing: we followed sir saint around for a...

ah, if it were only that easy. upon finishing his 3rd consecutive round of antibiotics to combat a persistent ear infection, Nicolas ended up with a cold yesterday. we know, it's all part of the deal when you're a kid in day care, but i'm so frustrated by this antibiotic bandwagon that pediatricians seem unable to abandon. is that really the best we can do? kill ALL the bacteria, including all the good ones, and hope that the bad ones you have aren't drug resistant? so far the bad ones are 2 for 2 in the resistant category - at least in one ear. we'll see how they fared after this last round. unless of course this cold he just caught leads to yet another, brand new ear infection. and then i guess we'll start all over again. on the lighter side of things, he kicked a 103+ fever that he had last Thursday and Friday, and despite his cold is feeling pretty chipper. he was even chipper during most of his current ear infection, as evidenced by this clip from a couple ...

not only does new orleans have some of the best restaurants in the world, the one we went to last night after picking nicolas up from school has a bongo [!] in the bathroom! we were rocking out in there. then we headed over to an art show preview at our good friend jonathan ferrara's gallery. the art was really amazing, but the gallery was a little too loud for nicolas, so we didn't stay too long. we'll go back later in the month when it's a little quieter so nicolas can enjoy the art.

beautiful weather, equally-beautiful (and nearby) city park lured us away from the costumed crowds in the French Quarter. We played on the playground, ate some lunch, and took in the scenery.

nicolas and i went to the monthly totally vegan potluck yesterday, and fortunately every third home in new orleans seems to belong to a musician. so nicolas got to play some real live bongos! and some congas, and a banjo, some guitars, a fancy washtub bass, and a ukelele. thanks mike and michelle (and woodes) for being such awesome (and musical) hosts!

marching band dance: "moppin' up" on some throws:

endymion 2009 , originally uploaded by nolafilm . nicolas loved endymion. sure it was crowded and there were drunk people everywhere (tons of them peeing on our house a block away), but once those beads and throws started flying we had the time of our lives.

nicolas got some sleep last night, and even slept through the 6:30 am "sound check" from the endymion party a block away that woke me and mary up. our neighborhood has been completely overrun by drunk, chain smoking college kids desperately seeking bathrooms. fortunately our makeshift fence and a sprinkler in front of the alley seems to have deterred most of them from using our house/yard as one. heading out to endymion now. hopefully nicolas will enjoy it. here he is practicing last night on the ladder we got him:

whew, this was (and is still) a rough one. it started at 4 am with nicolas crying, waking both of us up. his ears hurt, his tummy hurt, and he was seeing things (like frogs) flying around his room. we called the pediatrician and she suggested we bring him in at 8:30. mary stayed up with him until then and he actually started feeling better around 7. he came bouncing in where i was sleeping to wake me up too. mary took him to the doctor and turns out he has a double ear infection. :( despite that, he seemed to be feeling okay for much of the day. but he had no nap today (except for a very short catnap in the car), and has been bouncing off the walls since 7 tonight. i'm thinking maybe it's a reaction to the antibiotics? sadly, he screams his head off whenever one of us leaves his room (and doesn't stop screaming like he normally does), so mary's back in with him now, but we're just hoping he'll finally conk out from exhaustion. he's literally been up for almo...

bath time is almost always fun with nicolas. sure it's a struggle to get him in the bath, and even harder to get him out most times, but it's all worth it when he treats us to a song:

nicolas imitates droopy:

from last week:

despite his cold, and somewhat dreary weather, we had a fantastic weekend with nicolas. he helped us make pancakes on saturday, and then today we went to the audubon insectarium. he loved this crazy bee game near the entrance, and the underground exhibit with all kinds of big fake bugs and beetles and all the real bugs were fun too, especially the roach exhibit: he was a little scared by the noisy fans and double door entrance to the butterfly exhibit, but really enjoyed it once we were in there for a bit: his favorite part of all? the huge butterfly lollipop mary bought him at the gift shop on the way out: here's a a couple excerpts from a short interview we did with him on the ride home:

i picked nicolas up from school on wednesday and we stopped by sucre on magazine to get a king cake for my dad's birthday. once inside the shop, nicolas could barely contain himself, so i let him pick any dessert he wanted. thankfully, he picked one of the free strawberry macaroon samples, and enjoyed it for the next several minutes while holding lammie:

nicolas helped me bring the cats to the vet for their annual checkups this week, and we also got his lamb Dixie up to date on her vaccinations. thanks dr. dunn and the awesome cat practice staff (stephanie and chelsea) for making nicolas feel at home and for getting Dixie vaccinated.

we celebrated new year's at our home with good friends. here's nicolas with harley an hour or two before midnight. she was so sweet to him - and her big brother jake was great too. no matter how crazy things get with work and the economy, you can almost always rely on your friends. especially in new orleans. happy new year everyone!

we had an awesome Christmas at my parents' house. nicolas had a great time. here's a four and a half minute phone call between my mom and him. she's pretending to be Mr. Fox and he's pretending to be Henry, a red-striped rabbit that Mr. Fox wants to put pepper on and eat. this is based on a book by Ellen Christelow called Henry and the Red Stripes