The new week...

Monday-
Monday we were STILL without power! We spend the morning going to the Lowell Blvd and walking with Dawn, Savannah, and Carston. Savannah and Nikki played very well together, and it was heart warming to see them start to form their little preschool-cousin friendship! After the Blvd walk, we went to Horn Pond to see the ducks. The girl LOVES ducks! We ended the morning and the Alexanders, some of our closest friends. The Alexander children had fun showing Nikki around their home (and their neighbors yard). She LOVED the chickens in the neigbors yard. Unfortunately, she loved their yard a little TOO much. We ended up leaving early due to an EXTREME tantrum. Thankfully, we haven't any more like that one!(yet) After a nap on the ride home, she was MUCH happier... and the rest of the day was great. We realized that we had probably done too much... so we decided to be more mindful of that in the future! We went to Grammie and Grampy's house at night so everyone could get cleaned up(still no power)... and that helped us ALL feel a lot better!

Tuesday- Tuesday was really pretty uneventful. We got to meet Mark on Tuesday night... and Nikki ended up getting VERY wound up and overstimulated before bed. I had a bridal shower to go to, and Steve refused to let me stay home:-). I came back pretty late to find out that she had taken TWO hours to fall asleep. lesson learned... very very calm evenings from now on.

Wednesday- This was the first of the better days. We finally started to relax and spend more time on each activity. The first few days were so exhausting... kind of like a pinball always "pinging" here and there. We had a good but busy morning... no big tantrums! yay! and in the afternoon we played outside, colored, and watched movies with Savannah. I was actually able to sit for a few minutes and talk with Dawn, MUCH needed grown up time :-)

Thursday- Today was another great day, the only real tantrums she seems to have is with food. Nikki wants to eat... and I mean EAT all the time. She might try to pull the relish out of the fridge, or the teriaki sauce out of the pantry... and she gets MAD, and I mean MAD if you don't let her eat every time she wants too! You would think three HUGE meals and 2 snacks would be enough.. but... I guess not :-). We're doing our best to not letter eat too much, but not make her too mad at the same time. We have now put a lock on the pantry, and a clip lock might go on the fridge too. We hate to do it, but she gets more upset when she goes in and sees all the food. Oh, and we learned to make sure she doesn't see the groceries come in! In the middle of a mild tantrum we heard her say "meat! meat!" funny, but hard at the same time. Food continues to be our biggest negotiation and learning experience. We're hoping that the language acquisition and stable home will help her get over this fear soon... for her sake and for mommy and daddys!