Nikita's first snow

Nikita has seen snow before, but last Sunday was the first time he actually REALIZED it was snow. I took Nikita out to play in the yard a little bit before my bookclub. He was completely decked out in his winter gear, but of course, insisted on taking off his mittens. He was really annoyed when he realized that snow would stick to his hands, and he couldn't shake it off.

Igor was working at the synchotron in Chicago for his crystallography project this past weekend, which meant that he slept for a total of 2 hours over 4 days. I didn't get much more sleep (okay, about 5 hours a night) because for one of my classes, I had to comment on 10 first drafts of the final paper (about 15-20 pages each).

But we finally got the car back last week, so Nikita went on a number of outings last Saturday: his "swim" class at the YMCA, and the library to choose new books. Interestingly, he was more interested in playing with the roller coaster bead maze (link is to something similar; the one we saw was from Kinderworks in Portsmith, NH) at the library. Something to consider for Christmas.

Since Igor was out of town, it also meant that I had to dance with Nikita. "I want to dance" is probably one of the first things Nikita figured out to communicate. Now, I love music, but dancing with Nikita means putting him on my shoulders and bouncing on an exercise ball. Igor has completely spoiled him. When he is off my shoulders, he dances by bouncing up and down. But this weekend, I noticed that he started to sway from side to side while bouncing. At this rate, he'll be salsa dancing in no time!