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Nicole bumped her head on Thursday. She had been playing with a blanket on her head when we heard a loud thump and a cry in the hallway. Her head swelled so quickly that it was as if you could actually see it getting bigger and it was very scary looking. I started to panic. The swelling was so abnormal looking that I started imagining the worst, like perhaps she had cracked her head open or something. We were contemplating a run to the ER when we did some quick research on the internet and discovered that it probably wasn’t a big deal. We checked for signs of a concussion and found none. Plus, by this time she had stopped crying and noticed some candy which she promptly requested.We gave her some Tylenol and she refused to let us ice it. Within 10 minutes, the swelling had gone down some and by the next morning you could hardly tell. I keep waiting for the entire side of her face to turn purple, but so far her hair mostly covers it and it’s hardly even noticeable.

Nicole is a funny girl.  She loves to cheer about stuff.  She usually says “Yay!” followed by some noun.  Yay!  Shoes.  Yay!  Dog.  Yay! Tree.  Yay! Rain.  Yay! Bird.  Yay! Hotdog!  And when she watches something like Baby Einstein, she cheers about everything she sees.  Yay! Toy.  Yay! Cow.  Yay! Water.  Sometimes I like to try to get her to cheer about things that people usually don’t cheer about  Yay! Sitting., other times I use it to get her excited about something I want her to do.  Yay! Vegetables.  Yay! Sharing.

Nicole likes to dress-up.  She gets the dress-ups out and puts on a hat then wears the hat the rest of the day and cries if it falls off.  Or she’ll wear a purse around her neck for hours.  Recently, she was putting dress-up shoes on everyday and often putting them on her hands and her feet.  She doesn’t dress-up in order to play out some scenario or pretend that she is someone else.  She just puts dress-ups on and then goes about her day. 

She also likes to carry things.  When she wakes up in the morning she emerges from her room with her arms full of any combination of stuffed animals, dolls, and books.  Some days I think she’d carry her stuffed George around all day if I’ll let her.  I have to pry it away from her at times when we’re going to the gym.  She recently noticed a stuffed bear that I had in the garage in a pile of things to donate.  Now, every time she goes out to play, she carries the stuffed bear around the entire time she’s outside.Another thing about Nicole that makes me laugh is that she calls every baby and doll Ila.  The kids were watching a documentary called Babies that was about 4 babies from different parts of the world (Tokyo, near Mongolia, San Francisco, and Africa).  The first scene was in Africa and the baby started to cry.  Nicole said “Oh, no Ila.  Ila need a hug.”  The next scene was of the baby in Tokyo and Nicole said “nother Ila.”  Throughout the entire movie, she continued to call every baby Ila.