1 year, 36 weeks

Last Saturday was a little rough. Rob was away, it was rainy, and Zack had the sniffles and wasn't sleeping well. After waking up very cranky from a not-very-good nap, I decided that we might try something new. It worked. He was totally amused by seeing doggies on the TV and he forgot his crankiness.

He was also amused by me whacking my head on the windowsill. I much prefer the former rather than latter form of entertainment, I have to say.

Things got better from here on out, if not primarily because I remembered the joys of Motrin.

Sunday dawned much better, complete with an appearance by the sun! This was perfect timing as we had a Halloween party to go to.

Zack was one of his favorite things--a dog.

The best part of the costume? The tail wags when he walks!

That's him being shy and afraid of jumping right into things. Or not.


He loved the bat balloons and kept walking off with them.


One of the boys was dressed as a soccer player, complete with soccer ball. When Zack saw a couple older boys playing soccer, he got so excited and ran right over to them. And then picked up the ball and started walking away with it. I had to intervene and apologized to the boys, saying Zack didn't understand yet. The one boy said, "He doesn't understand because he's 1." Yeah, that's pretty much it.

We had a little parade and then all sat on the stone wall. The younger kids all had a look of "what are our parents doing to us now?"

Zack was quite happy to play with the other animals...I mean kids, too. That's a lion next to him.

This whole thing took place about 10 minutes from home, but he fell asleep almost as soon as we got in the car to head home! He had a much better nap that day!

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On other and assorted topics, he has a new phrase that just cracks me up. When he wants to go somewhere, especially outside, he marches to the door, saying "Let's go......Hut 2, Hut 2." The first time he said that I nearly fell over from laughing so hard!

And, I think he might be working on having big feet. That's no optical illusion--his feet really are that big compared to mine.


I hope all you ghosties and ghoulies have a Happy Halloween!

1 year, 35 weeks

Hi there.
Zack would like to show you his new vest, fresh off the needles. The entire time I was knitting it, I was convinced it was going to be huge. Yeah. Not so much. Clearly my brain has not caught up with how much he's growing. A pair of pants that fit him about a month ago are now officially too short. Sigh.

Dad got him a balloon when they went grocery shopping last weekend. If he could sleep with a helium balloon (or, more accurately, if we'd let him sleep with a helium balloon), he would. Balloons are just the coolest thing!


Didn't you know, bananas taste better when your feet are on the table?

Maybe that's your problem, Grandpa. You haven't been eating bananas in the proper position!


And these impish looks you see here? We get those A LOT lately.

Here he is in action. Unfortunately, the film ends a bit prematurely because the camera's memory card filled up, but I think you can get the idea.




He now gets up on his chair at the dinner table all by himself. He was ignoring books for awhile, but now has a renewed interest. He'll grab a book or magazine, climb up onto the couch or the bed and just sit looking through all the pages. Last weekend we sat on the couch for a good 30 minutes looking through a book, him pointing out things he had words for ("banana," "quack quack," "woof woof," "ball," "balloon," "hoo hoo hoo (monkey)") and he'd point and say "Whasis? (What's this?)" for things he didn't know. He doesn't have to be looking at his books, either. He's perfectly happy looking through a clothing or furniture catalog pointing out the dogs and what not.

He seems to be having some night terrors again. He'd had mild ones before, during growth spurts. But wow, last night he had a doozy. And he's got a set of lungs on him, let me tell you! I feel so bad because there's not much Rob or I can do until he snaps out of it. I hope that whatever is developing in his brain right now if finished quickly!

The other night we were outside before dinner and we ended up popping into Ed and Cecelia's house to say Hi. (Well, actually what happened was Cecelia was outside at the same time, took Zack by the hand and led him inside, and I followed.) While Zack was making himself at home, he discovered their phone and started dialing. It started to ring on the other end and rather than place a call to Zimbabwe on Ed and Cecelia's dime, I took the phone and hung up. Or rather I tried to hang up. I hit the red button, which on our phone stops the call. Turns out that's not universal. On Cecelia's phone the red button is the emergency button that automatically calls 911. The same button that I was hitting repeatedly trying to hang up. I finally realized what I was doing and really hung up. But the 911 operators were doing their job and called back. They weren't convinced by Cecelia telling them that all was OK. Oh no. They needed to send an officer out to make sure that everything was OK. It was at this point that I started digging a hole to bury myself in. Zack and I stuck around to help explain things, but it was taking awhile. Just as I decided to head home, we noticed that the patrol car had parked at the corner. I opened the door just as the officer was about to knock, at which point I think I jumped about 10 feet in the air. Thankfully the officer was very understanding of the situation and even ran the lights on the patrol car for Zack. The moral of the story? Beware the buttons of red!

1 year, 34 weeks

Last weekend we went for a walk at Brookside Gardens. Autumn is very distracting for Zack because there are LEAVES!!!! That need to be picked up!!!! So we'd be zooming along and then come to a screeching halt because a particular leaf caught his eye.



He likes to pick up leaves, pods, and horse chestnuts at home, too, where he puts them in his bucket and carries them around.

He has mastered the slide at the playground. There is a slatted ramp (rather than a ladder) that he's gotten very good at climbing, and then he goes down the slide all by himself. He's rather proud of this accomplishment.

We went to a different playground the other weekend where the slide did have a ladder. He got the hang of that pretty quickly, though needed a little help. This skill quickly generalized to our fence at home, which he now tries to climb when he sees that our neighbor, Cecelia, is outside. He climbs up, she grabs him, and then he goes and explores her yard. So far, he only seems inclined to do this if she's outside. If she's not outside, he looks at me and says "Where's Cessy?"

The past few days haven't been very conducive to being outside, but he's still got energy to burn. After dinner he goads us into chasing him. And really, to hear him laugh like he does, I'd do a whole lot more than chase him. There's nothing like his wonderful laugh.

He's started putting two words together. "I sit" when he wants to get up in the chair. "Where cheese?" when he's left his piece of string cheese somewhere. "There cheese" when he's found it.

He has also become a procrastinator when it comes to going to bed. He needs one more stuffed animal, one more trip downstairs, one more swipe at brushing his teeth. And then he sits in his crib playing for awhile. And then screams when his objects of affection have jumped out of the crib--which they seem to do on a regular basis.

And what are his objects of affection? These guys, right here.


Bear is the ring leader and has been for awhile. Fox was recently re-discovered at the bottom of the toy basket and is now one of the Chosen Ones. And as of the beginning of the week, this book also has to be in the crib when it's time to go to sleep and is often toted around. There are other items that are carried around as well--he'll often hand me things to carry downstairs for him, so that his hands are free to maneuver the stairs--but these are the necessities. He's starting to practice things with them. He offers Bear cheese before he himself takes a bite. Bear and Fox give each other kisses, and give Rob and me kisses, too. He lets them drink from his sippy cups. We have to draw the line at Bear washing his hands and getting a bath, though.

I'm somewhat convinced that he's only excited to see me when I pick him up from daycare because he knows I'll be taking him home to see Bear, who gets a bigger hug and kiss than I do.

1 year, 33 weeks

Zack is making a guest appearance at the other blog this week. Go check him out.