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!