Tag Archives: Nicole
Nicole’s Sunday Book
Awhile ago I was evaluating our books to determine which ones to keep and I came across this tattered old book. It was missing all of the little characters that slide into little slots throughout the book. It seemed like the perfect candidate for the trash, but I got an idea to adapt the book so that perhaps it would entertain a child in church. 
I printed out little wallet sized full body pictures of the kids and laminated them. 
I even went so far as to changing all the characters in the book to my children. I changed every character except Bear, perhaps one day I’ll be ambitious and change him to Mom or Dad. 
It didn’t work as well as I had planned, not only did it not entertain her for as long as I had hoped, the skinny little family member cut-outs kept slipping deep into the slot causing Nicole to cry out in frustration as she tried to retrieve them and before long, all of the pictures I had made were missing (the pictures above are the second set that I made) 
When Zach was called into the bishopric, I racked my brain for ideas on how I could keep Nicole entertained without him. I pulled this book out and made new family inserts, but was carful to make inserts that couldn’t fall completely into the slots and get lost or stuck. A week or so later I got the idea to add some of Nicole’s favorite cartoon characters (Curious George and The Man in the Yellow Hat). 
The last addition was a big hit. She spent the entire meeting on Sunday happily playing with ‘George’ and ‘Hat’ as she called them. She made them dance and hug and sing.
Keeping Kids Quiet in Church
Lets face it, that hour of Sacrament meeting is challenging on Sunday morning when 
you have young children, possibly when you have older children too, but I don’t know about that yet. I spend a lot of time and energy fretting about how I can keep my children in their seats behaving well and for the most part we don’t do too bad. Having Zach on the stand now has presented some new challenges and I have not completely figured out how to deal with our children without him. So this particular blog post has two purposes:
1) To keep a record of how things are now, including a record of how they used to be and how we came to do things the way we do them and
2) To solicit ideas on how to improve the way I do things.
Nicole’s X-ray
I finally got around to scanning this picture. This picture shows the break best, but you can see more here.
A short video of Nicole, just because
I was trying to take a new video of Nicole moving around with her new cast on, but she didn’t really go anywhere. She just kind of wiggled around. I did however capture her trying to read this book filled with addition and subtraction problems.
I didn’t know that she recognized numbers yet, but whether she actually saw the numbers on the page that she named or just recognized that they were numbers and started saying numbers, I don’t know. I suppose it’s a silly video to post.
Ambulatory Nicole
Here are some videos that I took of Nicole learning to move with her leg splint:
Here she does some climbing:
Here is a still picture with her cast:
So far she seems much happier in the cast. I think it’s less painful for her.
Injury Update: The Grisly details
We’ve been on the phone detailing injuries to families for the last few days, but I know we have some close friends and family members who get their updates here, so for the benefit of them, as a proof for compensation after a traffic injury and for our written record, I will write the details of the injuries sustained during our car accident on Friday night. Since the pictures are a little gross, you will have to click the ‘Read more’ link at the bottom of the page to read about them and see the pictures. If you follow us in a reader, I’m sorry because you may not have the option to skip looking at the entire post.
Paying Attention
Note: I know it’s probably a little gauche to blog so soon after an event like this. However, I want to get my feelings sorted out and writing is a good method. Might as well update everyone while I’m at it.
I left the house this morning in a somewhat grumpy rush. Often I’ll forget my morning prayers during my usual routine, so I’ll pray in the car before I pull out. I was in enough of a rush this morning that I only really prayed for two things; that I’d be safe and my children would be safe as we traveled about today.
For some reason, my attention wandered and I did not see that the light was red. We got hit on the driver’s side, smacked a pole on the passenger side, and wound up where you see us. As we were smashed from side to side, I was calm; I’m generally calm enough when these things happen, but I felt for some reason that things were fine. I had reason to doubt when we saw the children.
Independence Day
I reflected back to July 4, 2004 during testimony meeting today. That year, the 4th also fell on a Sunday, it was when Zach blessed our first Child.
Our celebrating mostly took place on July 3rd this year.
Video = While throwing Snaps, Isaac shows off his missing tooth, Jackson shows off something else.
We lit sparklers during the day and then again at night. Nicole held one too, but when it started the “popcorn†phase, she dropped it in the grass and ran away. 
The kids enjoyed chasing parachute fireworks.
Poor Nicole was scared of all the fireworks. She hid under my chair or hugged me or Aunt Dee whenever she saw Zach approach the launch site. 
She was even worse in the evening. She spent the majority of time under my chair, mostly with her face buried in the grass and her feet sticking out the front of the chair. A few times she sat in my lap and hugged me. When I tried to turn her around, she gripped the back of my chair over my shoulder and wouldn’t let go. I had her facing towards the fireworks once, but she covered her eyes the whole time and refused to look.
Decorate your own fruit pizza
A movie (Shaun the Sheep) helped pass the time until it was dark enough to light more fireworks
After fireworks we drove home. A good time was had by all and luckily, bedtime was simple: 
To nap or not to nap?
Nicole is at that age where naps are becoming more irregular. It seems too soon, but here are the details:
- On days she naps, it takes her hours to fall asleep at night when she doesn’t nap, she falls to sleep quickly and easily
- She often gets very grumpy for the last hour or two before bedtime with no nap, but sometimes she’s just fine.
- If she falls asleep in the car, but wakes before I lay her in her bed she will not nap, even if she was exhausted and only slept for 5 min.
- It is very difficult to get her to fall asleep during the ideal naptime. I’ve even resorted to trying a movie nap, but it hasn’t worked.
- She will fall asleep for a nap if I put her in her bed with a movie on around 4 which means she wakes up shortly before bedtime and that doesn’t work well.
This picture is from today when she fell asleep on the floor in her room, watching a movie at 4:00. She woke up as the other kids were going to bed. 
What would you do?
Dress-ups
Nicole has been walking into the living room wearing other people’s shoes so frequently, that I thought she might enjoy playing with the dress-ups.
She put everything she could possibly put on, notice how she is trying to pick up a 3rd glove to put on.
Once she was all decked out, she didn’t smile and dance around, she just started playing blocks with everything on as if nothing was out of the ordinary.
Charlotte put on her ballet slippers and picked up two purses and announced that she was “a mom with slippers on.†I was proud that she dressed up as a mom instead of a princess. 
Then she was a mom with a tail.
Isaac put on a tiger hat and tail and he was done.
Even Ila participated, although not really by choice.
The End
Really Nicole?! Again!
It’s a good thing she’s so cute. . .
. . .because otherwise she’d be in a lot of trouble right now. . .
This evening, Nicole followed me into the bathroom and sat on the little potty pretending to go. I handed her a piece of toilet paper which she used to “wipe†her diaper. After putting the kids to bed, I discovered this:
That’s right. It’s the entire roll of toilet paper unrolled and filling up the toilet with the empty roll on top. Thanks, Nicole!
Insomnia
For some reason, Nicole has had a rough time sleeping the last few nights. She usually sleeps all through the night with no trouble (except for maybe a little trouble falling to sleep sometimes).
It started with her crying in her bed at 1:30 AM two nights ago. That night I went in and calmed her down, but it wasn’t 5 minutes before she was crying again. I spent the rest of the night trying to help her go back to sleep. She’d seem to nod off to sleep, only to wake up after only a few minutes crying and needing to be consoled again. Finally morning came and I gave up trying to help her fall asleep and gave her breakfast. 
The entire next day she seemed sleepy, but wasn’t able to nap. She had moments of being fun and perky, but she kept laying her head down on the couch or on my lap. When she did nod off, she’d wake up crying after only a few moments. She walked slowly, her lids seemed to droop, and it looked like she was developing dark circles under her eyes. When bedtime came she went to her bed and just stood there staring at her bed as if unable to muster the energy to climb in. I tucked her in to bed thinking she’d happily sleep the night away, but she didn’t. Soon she was crying again. Zach and I both went in to calm her at different times. I even said a little prayer next to her bed. Zach took her to our room with her water bottle and Curious George. I slept on the couch (I was exhausted from being up all night with her the night before). I was hopeful in the morning because I hadn’t heard her cry, but later that evening, Zach reported that she woke up repeatedly.
She spent the second day similar to the first. She was tired the entire day, but couldn’t really nap. She fell asleep briefly at Kid City (child care at the gym) and when I looked in the windows I saw her in someone’s arms, not playing with toys. The entire day she wanted nothing more than to be held and read to and she was cranky.
When dinnertime rolled around she was so exhausted and grumpy that she refused to eat dinner and laid on the floor crying. Zach picked her up and put her in her bed to calm down, but when he looked in again, she was sound asleep. It’s now 5 1/2 hours later and she’s still sound asleep.
Could she have been having nightmares? She doesn’t seem sick in any other way.
Oh, Man!
Here’s a little Nicole clip to go with the Ila clip that I successfully posted moments ago.
For some unknown reason, Nicole just started saying “oh, man†and I thought it was cute so I got out my camera. Maybe she was saying it because she was really tired from waking up repeatedly last night, who knows what happens in the brain of a 2-year-old?!
Curious George
Nicole’s favorite show is Curious George, and by favorite I mean it’s the only show she’ll watch. She hands me the remote and says either “George, where are you?†or “Ready, Set, Go!†I can’t decide which I like better. The last few days she has been carrying around Curious George books constantly. She doesn’t just carry the books around, she sits in my lap and says “hands†so that I’ll hold the book in my hands and then flips through pages, only sometimes allowing me to read each page completely.
This picture is great because in it she’s watching Curious George, with her stuffed Curious George next to her, and she’s holding two Curious George books. 
She insists on sleeping with the plush Curious George every night. She lays right on it and often carries it around during the day, it’s already needed to be mended twice!
Water?!
Nicole had so much fun swimming yesterday, that she really wanted to go again today. She put her arms in this swimsuit and walked around the house crying “water, water†
It was a clever communicative idea, but even falling to the floor crying didn’t get her to the pool. 
Poor little thing, maybe I’ll take her tomorrow, I’m thinking I might join a gym with a pool that can babysit my other kids while I take them swimming one at a time. 
Ready, Set, Go!
This is a fun little video. Listen for Nicole to say Ready, Set, Go! and then laugh her little head off.
Names and why they be what they be
We had an assignment on the Cochran family blog to write about what inspired the choices we made in naming our children so I thought I’d share what I wrote here as well. What I thought would be a short post, turned into a rather long one.
Our first boy was going to be David Hyrum Cochran. I still like that name, but after I got pregnant, Zach had changed his mind about the name and we had to start all over with ideas. We used to discuss names in the car and I specifically remember that we were driving down I-15 when one of us came up with the idea to name our son Isaac. 
I think it was my idea, but I think that Zach thinks it was his idea. We thought the meaning was perfect since it seemed like we were finally getting the promised blessing of having a child after a long wait, just like Abraham and Sarah in the Bible. The name means “he laughs†in reference to the joy that Abraham and Sarah felt when they found out they were pregnant. Later when I read the scripture again, it seems like they were laughing because of how old Sarah was when she was pregnant, but for me it will always be about the joy. We thought we’d call him Ike, but we never have.
In all of our names we discussed, there were several people we wanted to honor in our son’s name. We considered using a grandfather’s name. We also considered adding a name to honor President Hinckley, but at first we ruled out both Gordon and Hinckley. Obviously we changed our minds and gave him the middle name Hinckley. President Hinckley was the prophet during most of the important things that happened in our lives at that point and we felt impressed and inspired by him.
Charlotte’s name came from Zach. I was initially opposed to the name because of a strong 
connection I had with that name and the story of Charlotte’s web. We continued to discuss the name and the association softened enough that I started to really like the name. I liked that it was unique and still recognizable.
I think I came up with the middle name. I remember thinking about family names and wanting to honor Charlotte’s grandmother by giving her the same middle name. At that point I didn’t realize that Rose was also Charlotte’s great-grandmother’s first name.
Nicole’s name also came from Zach. Zach left work early to go to her ultrasound and he said 
that as he got into the car he thought to himself, “it’s going to be a girl and we’re going to name her Nicole.†I was initially opposed to the name because I thought it was too common. I loved how unique and familiar Charlotte’s name was and wanted something along the same lines as that, but eventually (while I was in labor and couldn’t think of a name I liked better that he’d accept) Zach convinced me that Nicole was not a common name for her generation. I wasn’t initially thrilled with the choice, but the day Zach blessed her I changed my mind. I remember him saying in the blessing how her name was in remembrance of Christ’s victory over death (Nicole is a french form of Victoria which means victory) and that brought tears to my eyes.
We chose her middle name Kate because it sounded good with Nicole and we wanted something more interesting than the common middle names like Marie and Lynn (no offence to Heidi or anyone who named her).
I assume everyone knows by now who we named our Ila after. I always liked her name, maybe it was partly because I loved my grandmother so much. I felt close to her and yearned
for more time with her throughout my life. I actually tried to get Zach to agree to putting the name Ila in Nicole’s name, but we couldn’t come up with a first name that worked with Ila as a middle name and we weren’t fully convinced that we should use it as a first name. We really struggled with finding a name for Ila. Zach liked the name Mellissa, but I couldn’t be excited about that name. We toyed around with several names and didn’t have a strong idea about what we wanted to name her. Jane was a name that I liked and was possibly at the top of my list for first names.
Out here you have to set up an appointment with the hospital and register before going into labor. The first step is to set up all of the billing information. As I was giving my information to the lady she asked me about names and if we’d chosen a name yet. I told her that we hadn’t and she continued to ask what names we had been thinking about. I told her the list of names that we had discussed and somewhere in that discussion, I said that I had wanted to use the name Ila, but I couldn’t figure out a name to go with it. Jane was also one of the names in that group and the lady suggested the name Ila Jane to me. I instantly loved it and even told her so. I wondered if Zach would agree to it, I was almost too afraid to ask because I was so excited about the name. I honestly could not wait to tell him the idea, but was very nervous that he’d reject it at the same time. That night I presented the name to him. I told him that me and the lady at registration had decided on a name for our baby and that I wanted him to think about the name while I showered and then I’d come back and he could tell me what he thought. When I came back into our “wood room†after our shower, he instantly agreed to the name without further discussion. I was so excited, but also afraid that he’d change his mind at the same time. 
We agreed not to tell anyone about it before she was born.
Someone asked me what we were naming her just after she was born and as I said the name Ila, I instantly felt like maybe it wasn’t the right name, but after telling a few more people it started to sound right again and by the time I left the hospital I was feeling good about the name. When my mom came she told me that we were at the hospital that they had taken my grandmother to after her stroke and that my grandmother’s room was even on the same floor.
As time has gone by, Ila’s name has increased in significance to me and I find myself more and more pleased with our choice. I know that my kids will all know about my grandma and that as she grows, Ila will want to know about the woman that she was named after. The name is unique enough that she’ll probably be asked where it came from throughout her life. I love that by using her name, my grandma will be remembered for generations more in a very personal way by Ila and by Ila’s children and maybe even by Ila’s grandchildren!
An unexpected consequence of naming her after my beloved grandmother is that I become emotional about hearing her name said in frustration and I have this increased desire for everyone to love her. There is a connection to her name in that desire that I can’t entirely explain because I know she’s a different person, but it almost feels like when people love Ila, they also love my grandmother.
Bedroom Transitions
I previewed a room transition that we had started, but it didn’t go as planned so we had to change things around a few times to get it right, but I think we’re finally settled. For the sake of family history, I will be thorough, so this might be a long one.
My late nights were starting to wear on me so we decided that it was time to start teaching Ila to sleep through the night and to go to bed at a decent hour, but I didn’t want to do that with her sleeping in the living room. I also didn’t want to subject any of the kids to her crying so we decided to try moving Nicole into Isaac and Charlotte’s room temporarily with the plan to move Charlotte to Ila’s room once Ila was settled into a good sleep pattern. 
Since Isaac is in school and here in Tennessee they start early (he leaves at 7:20 each morning for a 7:45 start), we thought we’d make the transition over a weekend. On Friday morning I rearranged Isaac and Charlotte’s room and moved Nicole’s bed in. Our first trial of the arrangement was naptime. I put Nicole down for her nap and she fell asleep perfectly! I was hopeful.
We usually put Nicole down to bed at about 7:30 and she had been perfect at staying in bed. She’d be in there for hours just reading and singing and eventually she’d fall asleep. On the few occasions she dropped her water bottle or another essential item out of her bed, she’d cry for someone to come help her, but she’d never get out of bed. She hadn’t even gotten out once since moving into a regular sized bed. It wasn’t for lack of ability, because she would climb in and out of her bed during the day to get something or pretend to sleep.
We had recently started a tradition of giving the kids a movie night in their room on Friday nights so our first night of the transition was movie night. I actually thought it might make the transition go more smoothly, but it was the opposite. Nicole started getting out of bed to get library books (which we don’t like her to have in bed for fear she’ll ruin them) and other things. She seemed to think it was great fun to laugh and play and climb into Charlotte’s bed with her and although she never left the room, she would not stay in bed and she would not calm down. Somehow she eventually went to sleep after hours of misbehaving.
Night 2 we thought might go better since it was not movie night and would be a more traditional bedtime routine. Unfortunately the results were much the same. She was out of bed constantly and was noisy and playful.
Ila on the other hand was doing great. She didn’t cry for too long falling asleep or in the middle of the night and it was so nice not to be up past 11:00 settling her down only to wake up with her again in the middle of the night. Nicole’s loud yelling woke Ila a few times which confirmed my notion that Nicole and Ila couldn’t share a room at this point.
I was particularly worried that we’d broken Nicole’s perfect bedtime behavior of never getting out of bed and I didn’t know if we’d ever be able to get her to revert back to it. I wondered if we should put everything back the way it was, only I really wanted to stay on track with Ila’s new sleep schedule.
We decided to try swapping beds. We moved Nicole over to a spot against the wall and put Isaac in the middle. He had been the calmest on previous nights and had even fallen asleep amid Nicole’s craziness. Unfortunately, this plan didn’t work either. It’s too tempting when the beds were as close as they needed to be for a leg or arm to travel over to the wrong bed and Nicole was still getting out of bed frequently.
Frustrated and desperate for a fix, we finally decided to try another re-arrange. This time we moved Charlotte into Ila’s room and put Isaac and Nicole’s beds on opposite sides of the room. I was a little worried for Charlotte to sleep in the room with Ila since she was still crying to fall asleep at bedtime and during the middle of the night, but we decided to give it a shot anyway. 
After a few nights of bedtime with the evens and odds* together, I think we can say that it’s finally working. Charlotte has had no problems sleeping in the same room as Ila. We have a fan running in there to dampen the noise, but Charlotte sleeps right through Ila’s crying. Nicole is still a little loud and silly at night, but she has been staying in bed and Isaac has been falling asleep fairly quickly.
*{evens and odds = even numbered children 2 and 4 (Charlotte and Ila) and odd numbered children 1 and 3 (Isaac and Nicole)}