2 years, 24 weeks

We went up to see Grandma and Papa this weekend so that Rob and I could go to my 20 year high school reunion. Zack had a blast with them, and reportedly was very well-behaved while we were out Saturday night. The first thing Zack would say upon waking up--at 5:30 am--was "Where's Papa?" I finally convinced him that the only way he could play with Papa ever again was if he went back to sleep for awhile because Papa was still sleeping. (And I was so not ready to get up!) They had lots of fun pulling out Geoff's and my old Tonka trucks, picking up acorns and putting them in a wagon, and checking out Papa's shop. And there may have been a bit of jumping on Papa, too. But I don't think Papa minded.





He also got to play with his friends Kayla and Haley and see their dog, Amber, on Sunday, which was also lots of fun. He was a pretty tired boy by the time we got in the car to head home.

2 years, 8 weeks

A quick recap of Easter: We all had a great time. We had a lovely dinner for Mark's 85th birthday. Thankfully, Anna had the foresight to reserve a room just for us, so all the cousins could run around between courses and not get in anyone's way. I'm pretty sure that Zack was running the entire duration of the party! He had a great time with his cousins--this picture pretty much sums it up:

While he did not sleep the first night we were there (and in fact we had to go on a 1 am drive to calm him down), he definitely slept the 2nd night! He was tuckered out after all that running. Oh, and did I mention that he didn't take a nap? At all? Energizer bunny, that boy. We also had a lovely Easter dinner courtesy of David and Anita. Yummmm........

Last weekend we finally got to meet the daughter of my dear friend, Kristen. She and CJ visited and we threw a Meet the Baby party to reunite with her DC peeps. It was so wonderful to see Kristen and meet her little one. Zack wasn't quite sure what to do with a baby in the house. He's fine with older kids that he can play with, but a baby seems to be a slightly different story. He was very interested in her and needed to know where she was at all times. He'd do things like give her toys, then take them away from her. At one point when I was holding her, he came up and rolled around so his head was in her lap, and he just lay there as she poked around his face...

...and slobbered on his nose.

All in all, I think he handled it pretty well. And he still talks about "the baby."

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At the top of our stairs is a set of folding doors that open to our furnace, hot water heater, and a bit of storage. Zack decided he needed to be in there the other night, a decision that I didn't quite agree with. I removed him from the closet and closed the doors. He looked at me, gears turning, and then indicated to me that I should either go into his room or into my bedroom. I knew what he was up to, but complied. Sure enough, as soon as I was out of sight, he'd opened the closet doors and was right back in there!

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I made a coconut cake last weekend. Zack helped me make the frosting. He watched me use the mixer to mix it. He stuck his finger in the bowl to make sure it tasted just right. And when my back was turned, he helped to pour the can of evaporated milk all over the counter.

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He's continuing to develop and grow. He's using more words together at a time, and talks about things that have happened in the past. Watching him pretend is lots of fun--he holds a sock to his nose and he's an elephant; he puts the head of his penguin humidifier on his head and he's a penguin; he pretends he's sleeping. He's started to "read" the book Brown Bear, Brown Bear with us as we read it. He'll sit and talk himself through books all by himself. He likes to pick out his own socks in the morning. He rarely walks anywhere, but prefers to gallop, run, or elephant walk. He's taken to pulling a stool over to the counter as we're getting dinner ready so that he can help. He can now open the refrigerator, pull out the drawer, and get a piece of cheese for himself (I'm not sure this is a good thing, but an accomplishment nonetheless). I'm sure the gods will curse me for saying this, but he's been sleeping really well, too--going down without a fuss and sleeping through the night.

We've been loving the warmer weather and the longer days. We spend about 30-45 minutes outside each evening before dinner. He likes to pick pick flowers, dig in the dirt, and visit our neighbor, Cecelia. He has recently become fascinated with bugs and has no qualms about picking them up (though I suspect that the bugs aren't nearly as qualm-free). I'm rather certain that all those images of Dennis the Menace's mother picking odd things out of Dennis' pockets are going to become the story of our lives soon enough. I've already picked some rocks out of the washer. Luckily, he hasn't become as excited about his pockets as he has about bugs.

At least not yet.

1 year, 42 weeks: Snow!

It snowed on Saturday, Zack's first snow. On Sunday it was nice enough to go check it all out.

Rob and I were taking too long, as always.



We walked all the way around the block...

...and then took a breather when we got back home.


He thought it was pretty cool and didn't want to go back inside. A fact that he broadcast to the entire neighborhood.


On the other hand, I was freezing and headed inside before the guys, so that I could start the hot chocolate, another first for Zack.

I think he enjoyed it.

1 year, 39 weeks: Randomness

Peekaboo!
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Caught red (chocolate?)-handed!!!!

Mommy made chocolate chip cookies for me!

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He likes to help Daddy.

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We were sitting at a table waiting for our pizza at Mia's Pizza on Saturday. Zack had been playing with his "meow meow" (stuffed cat) while we were sitting there, but I lost sight of it. I asked him where it was. He looks straight at me, gleam in his eye, slowly lifts the cat from his lap to above the table, and says, "Peekaboo!""

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What, don't you like fried trucks?

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This was the conversation at dinner the other night:

Rob: Do you want more pasta?
Zack: Nooooo. (what I can't quite capture here is the way he grins and makes fish lips at the same time)
R: Do you want some juice?
Z: Nooooo.
R: Do you want some fruit?
Z: Nooooo.
R: Are you cute?
Z: Noooooo.
R: Is that your Mommy? (pointing to me)
Z: Noooooo.
R: (pause)
Z: Nooooooo.

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Sunday night before dinner, this little guy crawled up on the couch with me, stole my water bottle, and made himself comfy.


Then he snuggled up next to me.


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I think I've mentioned before how much our neighbors, Ed and Cecelia (Cessy), love having Zack next door. The feeling is mutual. Whenever the doorbell rings, Zack says "Cessy!". Whenever the telephone rings, he says "Cessy?" When we go for walks, he likes to stop by and see Cessy. Now that it's dark by the time we get home, we don't see Cessy outside as much as we used to. We'll occassionally walk over and knock on the door and visit for awhile. Zack has not hesitated to make himself right at home and kind of has a routine when he visits. He needs to hear the cow cookie jar Mooooo, he needs a Ritz cracker, he has to play with the gourds on the coffee table. He is no longer allowed to play with the phone.

Since Sunday was the first day the sun had come out in quite some time, Zack and I went to the playground after his nap, returning just as the sun was setting. He, however, was not finished outside and wanted to take a walk over to see Cessy. I knew they had company, so I told him not tonight. Well, he was persistent and started climbing the fence to get into her yard!

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One morning this past weekend we all woke up a bit late and were slow to get going. I was puttering around in the kitchen getting the morning started, waiting for Rob to come down to cook eggs. Zack was a little cranky so I gave him some juice and Cheerios to tide him over. He quietly took them over to the couch, climbed up, and sat there groggily (as groggily as he looks) eating and drinking.


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And finally, a glimpse of his after-dinner behavior--spinning and dancing.

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, 32 weeks

I'm not quite sure what happened but we didn't take many pictures the past few weeks. But things have certainly been happening. Our little guy keeps growing and developing and amazing us. I'm constantly shocked at how much more he understands than I realize.


This morning he banged his finger while I was putting him in the carseat this morning. He held his hand, said "Ow" and held his finger out for me to kiss. It was apparently 2 kisses worth of Ow.


This evening we were upstairs. I was putting together an under-the-bed box, and he was putting a toothbrush in another box. He decided he needed to check out what I was doing. I told him the box would go under the bed. He immediately squatted down and looked under the bed. I think he may have been disappointed in finding only dust bunnies.


He can follow two part instructions. He will pick up his water bottle and put it on the table when we're getting ready for dinner. He throws his diapers away. He heads right to the bathroom when I say it's time to wash his hands, then carries his stool over to the sink, and puts it back when he's finished.

He is enthralled by putting things in containers and taking them out again. And putting them back in. And taking them back out. Ad infinitum. For example, when I saw Deb last weekend she gave me my birthday gift early--a lovely necklace. Little did she know that she was also giving Zack the best gift ever--the gift bag and card board necklace box, complete with the artist's card. He saw it sticking out of my bag as soon as I walked in the house and was then occupied by it for ever. Take the box apart, put the pieces in the bag. Take the pieces out of the bag, put them just so on the tissue paper. Put them back in the bag. Rinse, lather, repeat.


He knows what the telephone ringing means ("Helloooo!"). He's even realized that Rob has a different ring on my cell phone than other calls ("Daddy!"). He's figured out what the doorbell means, too.

He's very affectionate, giving kisses to his bear, to his fox, to dogs that he meets on the playground. After I bring him into bed with us in the morning, he crawls over me, starts giving Rob lots of kisses and, of course, says "Hellooo!"

We usually go to the park or go outside for a walk after I pick him up from daycare. The last walk we took was about an hour long and we went all the way from the back door to the front stoop. There were SOOOO many things to look at and to put in our bucket, take out of our bucket, put back in our bucket, dump over our head--leaves, horse chestnuts, tulip poplar pods. There were ants crawling on the sidewalk. There was a stoop to sit on. It was a good walk.

We joined the local YMCA, mostly so that we'd have a place to take him swimming and to start lessons. Rob took him for the first time last weekend and said that he had a blast. We may have a fish on our hands.


His appetite is as good as always. The past couple days he's been doing really well eating off of his plate and out of a bowl without dumping anything on the floor (I'm sure I just jinxed that.). He's pretty good at stabbing food with a fork, but we're still working on the spoon. He hasn't quite figured out that he can't turn the spoon upside down on the way from the bowl to his mouth.

He's got 4 molars, the 4 front teeth on the top and bottom, and is working on all 4 canines.

We got him a potty, so that he could start getting used to the idea. Here's what he did the first time it was in the bathroom--he marched right in with a book and sat down.


He's a bit of a problem-solver, too. He carries stools to different locations so that he can reach things.


It's getting harder to take pictures of him, both because he moves so much and because he's interested in the camera. The other night we were sitting on the floor and he had to inspect the camera.

So I tried to show him how it worked by taking a picture of his bear. He was pretty fascinated by the way the picture showed up on the camera and then wanted to see the other ones that I'd taken.

1 year, 23 weeks

If you look very closely, you'll see a rabbit outside in the grass, above Zack's head.

This rabbit was outside eating munching grass while Zack was eating his dinner the other night. Zack spotted it and thought it was pretty cool. Then he started pointing to his toy basket--to his bunny rabbit, which he's holding in this picture. What I think is pretty cool about this is that even though he doesn't play with this stuffed animal much, and it certainly doesn't look much like the rabbit outside, he made the connection all on his own. For the next several nights, he also kept looking out the window, looking for his dinner buddy, but the bunny hasn' t been back since.

The little master is also a big fan of getting wet. The other night it started raining after dinner, one of those lovely summer rains (Don't fear--there was no lightening involved). He noticed that it was doing something out there, so I asked him if he wanted to go outside. Of course he did. It took him a few seconds to adjust to all the water falling out of the sky, but he clearly decided it was pretty cool.

He's also a big fan of "helping" to water the plants. At first he'd just stick his hand in the spray of the hose, but he's since gotten bolder and will now walk in the spray face first. Over, and over, and over again.

Unfortunately, I keep forgetting to bring the soap outside.

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The words keep coming. As do the tantrums. They're not horrible, but there's definitely a lot of frustration going on right now. We can usually avert them by acknowledging what he wants and his frustration, then redirecting him. It's also helpful that he understands "Nighty night", so a lot of things go nighty night when it's time to move on to a different activity, or if he's got something that he shouldn't have anymore.

He's started to sing along to things now, to his toys that have music or to the radio. Hopefully he'll take after his Dad when it comes to playing music and carrying a tune and not to me!

1 year, 17 weeks

June 15, 2009---a day that will live in infamy, hereafter forever known as the Day of the Great Toilet Paper Massacre.


Luckily, the culprit...
...was caught red-handed.

1 year, 16 weeks

A few weekends ago Zack charmed the cashier at Trader Joe's and got a balloon, his first, for his efforts.

Obsessed doesn't even come close to describing his affection for this thing, even if it did shake his world view a bit when he let it go and it went UP rather than down. He carried it with him all day and pitched a fit when we tried to take it away for meals.

It went everywhere with him.


It finally popped later that night, surprisingly with no tears.

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One of the best things that Silver Spring did when it rejuvenated itself was to put in a fountain in the center of downtown.

During the summer it draws kids of all ages. We took Zack for the first time this past Sunday. We weren't sure about it at first, since he was the youngest kid there. Silly us--he held his own.



These were all taken before he got a face full of water. He felt the need to inspect one of the fountain openings up close and personal--and then the water came out. All he did was sputter and cough, though--no tears! And he went right back in.

After our fountain experience, we went and got ice cream. Yummm!