COLOR in his cheeks!

Yesterday was a big day for Nicky. His Nana bought him his first pair of big-boy sneakers that really fit his feet perfectly. So we put shoes and socks on him and I took him outside with his Aunts and my mom to walk on the driveway. I'd been keeping him mostly inside up till now because we have so many fire ants in our yard and they're just everywhere. His sandals don't offer much protection, and up until recently he'd have been dropping down to crawl anyway. Not a good idea with fire ants everywhere you look.

But yesterday he learned how to walk fast downhill and slow uphill. We have a very slight incline in our driveway down to the street, and it was a lot of exercise for him compared to walking inside on a perfectly flat surface in the air-conditioning. After about 5-10 minutes he was worn out, sweaty and had rosy cheeks. So we waved bye-bye to his Grandmomma and Aunts and then I took him inside, gave him water, laid him on his changing table and ran a cool wet washcloth over him to help him cool off. I also woke Tom up from his nap telling him to come make sure Nicky wasn't having heat exhaustion or something. I mean, he had COLOR in his cheeks for God's sake! Tom officially things I'm a wacko in case you were wondering.

Nicky took a nice nap after cooling down, and shortly after waking we took him over to Grandma and Grandpa's for Sunday dinner. We had spaghetti on the porch, which was messy (mostly because Tom and I totally forgot to bring his highchair-oops) and then Tom, Nicky and JM went out to walk around in the grass and look at the horses. He had such a good time looking at the horses, and Spice let Nicky pet her.

I haven't seen the photos yet, but JM already called me to tell me she got some really good ones on the porch after dinner. And she took more while they were outside. The grass was high from all the glorious rain we've been getting lately, and I can just imagine how cute Nicky looks walking around in it.

Of course walking around in the yard also meant he once again had color in his cheeks, which meant I met them with a wet paper towel and a sippy cup of water the second they all came inside so I could cool Nicky down. I swear, I'm not really a freak, I'm just a little cautious about all this sweat and stuff. :)

Speaking of dinner, we ended up using one of Grandpas old belts to lash Nicky into one of the barstools and pulled him up to the table. That put him up a bit too high, but it worked pretty well. Once the spaghetti tossing commenced we figured he was full and cleaned him up a bit. And then turned the seat around so he could watch Mocha. Mocha is their new kitten. She's so adorable, and she was in her crate behind Nicky's chair. She's a new, rescued kitty, and she's blind in at least one eye, but she was having such fun playing with the newspaper and toys in her crate, and Nicky was just fascinated by her. He actually watched her happily while Tom and I ate dinner. It worked out really well.

And a side-note about teeth: I saw them yesterday, so it's official. He's got four teeth broken through and two more just about to come in. They're coming in in an interesting order with the left top eye tooth first, then the front right tooth next, and the other two coming soon. As soon as I can manage to get a photo (somehow, maybe with the cell phone or Nana's camera when she comes next weekend) I'll put it up for you.

And speaking of photos, JM gave me a CD of a ton of beautiful photos she took for the 4th of July this year. I'll get them up online soon!