I eat my Reese's with the wrapper on

It's Zachary's second Halloween! (Wow, was the first one really already a year ago?) Meh is very serious about this holiday, and thought, planned, and crafted long and hard for our costumes. As I know everyone was waiting with baited breath, here's the costume reveal: Zachary went as Peter Pan, and mommy and daddy complimented him by going as Wendy and Captain Hook. Despite the seemingly obvious parental tie-ins, Zachary was still mistaken for Robin Hood or Link on multiple occasions. Ah well. As to pictures, alas, we forgot to bring the camera to my office's Halloween party, though one of my coworkers took some pics - will post them when he gets them converted, hopefully over the weekend.

My office does a great job with Halloween, and I've always thought it's the best possible candy-collection opportunity for kids -- most people bring in a giant bowl of candy (often the full-on bars, none of those 'bite size' things), and you can go office to office much quicker than door-to-door in a silly neighborhood. Plus there's none of that weather stuff to get in the way; it was pouring rain much of the day. Oh, and people start to go home early (or have to work), so they often just put their candy bowl outside of their office door, so you can even skip the 'trick or treat' bit.

Last year there were crazy arts and crafts for the kids in our cafeteria - face painting, pumpkin carving (including some crazy professional ones looking like character's from that year's top video games), and of course snacks for all. This year, the building next door went way beyond: the entire second floor of offices was literally transformed - walls and ceiling were covered in dark black tarps, the hall side lighting was covered with red-colored gels and spooky cutouts, ghosts and ghouls were hanging from the ceilings, and some people had created entire ghoulish scenes in what used to be their offices. It was all totally family friendly (no gore or anything like that) and super cool! The place was jam-packed though, so we couldn't stay long.

Zachary toddled around (generally freeform, though sometimes holding onto one of our hands, or in my case, Captain Hook's, um, hook) for quite a bit. We were occasionally able to get him to successfully pick up one piece of candy from a bowl (rather than many, and rather than something out of the hallway garbage cans), and from there once or twice he was able to put it into his bag (rather than over his shoulder or onto the ground). Granted, the candy haul was mostly for mommy and daddy this year -- I tried to offer him a candy corn and he wasn't a fan, and of all of the candy he picked up, only the gold foil-covered mini peanut butter cups went briefly into his mouth (with foil on of course; Meh and I both each found one cute little set of tooth marks when we unwrapped and ate them later that evening).

When we got home, we made a valiant attempt to do some proper trick or treating, but by the time we got him back into costume and bundled up to go out, it was getting too late; we abandoned our plans on the driveway and instead had a 'spooky' bathtime with a fun Halloween-themed cup for the little man to play with. Incidentally, that's become one of his favorite toys - I plunge it into the water top-down, then tilt the cup until the trapped air bubbles start coming up. He thinks that's really fun (generally showing his happiness with smiles and splashing), and has even occasionally replicated the feat (in between filling and dumping the cup in the tub).

In the past few days, we've wrapped up the use of baby bottles entirely (we'd only been using them for his bedtime snack at this point anyway); hooray for no more five-part bottles to disassemble, clean, run through the dishwasher, hand dry, and then reassemble just in time to use! Plus the trusted sippy cup is much more efficient for the little man; he's able to gulp down his evening milk in just a few minutes now, before snuggling up into bed, pulling the blanket over his head, and heading off to his own little Neverland.

Wipe out

Last week, we were down to two boxes of wipes from the giant Costco crate (each crate boasts 704 wipes), so I made a mental note to stop by Costco and pick up a new box. The three of us did just that last Sunday, with Zachary happily chatting through the store and looking around at all of the bulk goodness.

This weekend, we used up the last few boxes from that previous crate, and I happened to be back at Costco with Zachary. Yup, you guessed it, I forgot and picked up another crate. Anyone for 1,408 wipes?

Throw not, want not?

While it was cute when it started (and still certainly is, at least in most scenarios), Zachary's desire to throw everything backwards over his shoulder was leading to a few near misses during play activities with other kids, and even a few wood block impacts on poor mommy (somehow I managed to generally dodge them). Thus, we've embarked on one of our first attempts to correct/adjust/alter/redirect behavior. Let the pavlovian analysis commence. We try to keep it positive, and it's pretty basic for now -- when he throws food, there's a verbal reminder that it's meant for either the tray or his mouth, and a series of throws generally means the end of mealtime. And during playtime, when he throws non-soft objects (books, hard toys, and of course those wood blocks), we similarly try to remind him how to play nicely with them, remove the tossed toy from the mix, and offer him a toy that can be thrown: bouncy balls, his puppets, and his soft football - though on this last one he appears to prefer if mommy does the throwing:


These efforts appear to be leading to some improvement in the throwing, but we may just be staying vigilant enough to keep potential projectiles away from him after he launches them once. On the plus side, though he sometimes whines at the directions, he doesn't seem to care much that the toy is out of the picture. He's always ready to go toddle off to some other object, or even our legs; running toward us, grabbing our legs, and giving us a big hug is one of his favorite activities. Thankfully he hasn't made an attempt to throw us over his shoulder yet - perhaps that'll be a few years down the road.

Meanwhile, the animal noises continue - here he is imitating Korby and then a snake (er, not pictured):

Old blue eyes is back

This past weekend, another mommy (I think her child is just a bit younger than Zachary) came over to the house do a little photo shoot of the little man -- she has her own photography business and is building up her portfolio of children's photography. Naturally Zachary was his photogenic self, even if he was pretty ready for his nap by the time the shoot was wrapped up. The photographer was wonderful - super friendly, engaging, patient, and of course had a great eye for good pics of the little man! More pics to be posted on our own site when we get the CD, but here are a few that made the portolio.

Why did the Zachary cross the road?

To get to the park, of course. A rare warmish (or at least sunny) Seattle day and Meh had the excellent idea for us to walk to the park. And no, 'walk' didn't mean Zachary in the stroller - for the first time, the three of us walked hand-in-hand to the park. Well, part of the way at least; we eventually switched to carrying and shoulder-riding. Still, he seemed very interested and happy in the walking while it lasted, and was smiling and looking around.


Unfortunately our local park doesn't have a swing (he loved the ones he'd been in in the past), but it does have several playground sets, including one designated for 2 to 5 year olds. Yes, he's ahead of the curve. After he tried to climb the stairs on it, Meh put him up at the top of the curvy slide, and he slid down several times, loving the ride.

That dishwasher-fresh taste

As Zachary's nanny is out of town this week, I "worked" from home today. I'll put that in quotation marks, because I had vague notions of getting things done while the little man napped, but his naps were inconsistent (and Korby occupied my time during those brief intervals) and some of the work I had planned to do was somewhat time-oriented. So I ended up in a conference call right as Zachary was at his chattiest. Thank goodness my phone has a mute button, though on a few occasions when I was really trying to punctuate a point I did let Zachary's agreements come through over the phone as well. Hopefully I didn't get the mute/unmute reversed though, since I was occasionally trying to respond to Zachary's comments or otherwise interact in a way that might come off as humorous to my coworkers.

It was fun spending the day with a little walking man - he'd come over to me to check in and/or give my knees a hug, then walk back away (often collapsing back down into a crawl if something of interest was far enough away) to explore and/or play. And while everyone has their personal habits and quirks, here's a rather weird one that came on today for Zachary: he decided that he really likes to lick the dishwasher. I can't tell if it's just a preference for the smooth stainless steel texture or something else, but pretty bizarre, and pretty darn funny. Well, funny until we decide to analyze it enough to get all paranoid about what kinds of household cleaners might be getting used on the dishwasher...

Walk like a man

On day 433, one of the biggest early milestones of all has occurred - from early trials of a few tentative steps (and as I mentioned, sequences yesterday of four and then five), Zachary has moved on to actual walking! Here are two videos Meh caught today:




Zachary still enjoys his crawls and of course the Mickey walker, but it's a brave new day. Meh reported that one of the targets today was Korby, who was too busy cleaning up dropped bits of Zachary lunch to notice the figure walking toward him, and was mildly surprised when the little man reached him.

Walking and talking? Piece of cake. Meh caught him holding this conversation (filled with some pretty unique verbalizations) with his jogging stroller:

Fifty-two pickup

Zachary's new favorite game is dumping out objects from boxes and baskets. But he does it in a particularly charming way (well, charming until the tenth time you pick everything up), flinging them over his shoulder like so:



Last night the game even extended into dinner, with the end result being mushy peas, carrots, and of course quesadilla squares and various fruits all over the ground behind him. I later found a particularly mushed pea flattened on the wheel of his walker. Ew. Needless to say, Korby was a big fan, though his tracking is getting a little sloppy in his old age, and I had to point out a few missed items to him. We'll have to see if Zachary is superstitious and starts tossing salt over his shoulder given the opporunity.

If you're wondering, only on rare occasions (for instance, when he feels bath time is nearing an end) will Zachary do the opposite and actually put objects into a basket.

Yesterday Zachary took 4 steps (ending in a fall) and then later 5 (ending in a cruise). He still definitely prefers crawling or using his walker - though he also now uses his radio flyer rocket ship, walking around to the front of it and pushing it around backwards. Silly little man.

Standardized testing

While I was out of town last weekend, close friends J and S watched Zachary for the day while Meh's choir had rehearsal and a performance. And S happened to have a college assignment to give a young child a standardized development test, so Zachary was a perfect candidate. I'm sorry I wasn't there to see it administered, though then again, I presume the caregiver's presence could affect the results? The Bayley-III test (wow, look at all of the crazy gadgets it comes with!) tests in cognition, language, motor skills, and other areas, and everything gets boiled down to a series of 16 scores that can range from 1 to 19 (8-12 is average). He doesn't yet excel crazily in any areas, but he scored within or near the average in most areas. If you're wondering, his top areas was 'LS' (leisure), so he definitely is good at playing!

Outside of testing, Zachary's newest trick is more proficient vocal responses to questions. If you ask what a chicken says, he says something like 'cluck!' (I think it's more of a "qua", but you be the judge...)

A dog still says 'ah!' in his opinion, but even that's certainly pretty consistent. In other news, Zachary now has a seventh tooth. I don't even recall when it finally came through, but it's part of his ever-frequent smile now. This weekend mommy's in the midst of her long work stretch, so it's guy time! I'm looking forward to spending some quality time with the little man -- even just running silly errands is more fun with him in attendance.

Lights out

Zachary's small motor skills continue to refine; after baffy time, we often ask him turn off the bathroom light on the way out, and it's so cute to watch him carefully grasp it between his thumb and pointer finger and flip it off. In the living room downstairs, we've got a wall plate with three separate switches (only two of which appear to do anything; an electrician guessed the third was never properly attached) at convenient Zachary height. Meh noticed the lights flickering on and off today, and only a minute later realized the cause:

Can I count this towards miles?

Today I headed back home, though not without a minor airport adventure to cap off the trip. I got to the gate respectably early, and other passengers gradually showed up. Naturally, they made an announcement about two minutes prior to the scheduled boarding that the plane was having mechanical trouble. But never fear, there was a replacement plane ready for us -- at the opposite end of Detroit's mile-long main terminal. So off we all went, enjoying a crowded ride on the fancy express trams that go back and forth the length of the terminal. This of course delayed the departure by an hour. They started to board, and I got settled in at my seat. Then I noticed they weren't boarding anymore. An announcement 5 minutes later clued us in -- this plane had a mechanical problem as well, but there was a third plane, and this one would really be able to take us to Seattle. Oh, and it was back down by where the first plane had been. It was at this point that I started wondering if we could request frequent flyer miles for all of the walking we were doing with bags in tow.

Finally, and with another hour delay added in to allow the crew to make it back down to plane #3, we were able to board, take off, and make the long flight home. Which was jostled around by constant turbulence for most of the four-plus-hour flight. The consolation prize? Not even peanuts, just the opportunity to buy $3 packages of M&Ms. Ah, the glamour of air travel.

Okay, enough whining! I was very very happy to return home to a very smiley little man and Meh. It was so good to see them both again, to get to read Zachary his bedtime stories, to have dinner and a quiet evening at home. Hopefully I am indeed now staying local for the rest of the year.

Can you hear me now?

One thing I didn't mention yesterday was another milestone for the little man that occurred in my absence, though I was a participant and remote witness. I've of course continued to stay in touch with Meh and Zachary, following their day's activities through phone calls when possible and practical with that pesky three-hour time change. During past trips away from home, when Meh said "talk to daddy!" and held the phone up to his ear, Zachary would sometimes smile when I talked to him, but then either looked around the room trying to find daddy, or reached out to grab the enticingly glowing cellphone. But yesterday, and again today, my "dih-dah dih-dah!" (modelled after his lovely original song) was actually met with a happy "dah-dah, dah-dah!" on the other end of the phone. He only did it once per call, and then apparently just smiled at the phone some more while listening, but it was wonderful to get a reaction and to communicate with him for the first time on the other end of the line.

A time to gather stones

Grandma flew home on Wednesday; I followed yesterday, joining my brother, bubbie, aunt, uncle, and close family friends for my dad's unveiling ceremony. I led the brief service (psalms, a few prayers, the actual unveiling of the grave marker, and kaddish), and family and friends contributed their own memories and feelings about what was of course a difficult day for all of us. Hard to believe it was already almost 11 months ago. Of course, no Jewish event would be complete without obligatory food, and there was a nice spread (nope, no shiva cake this time) back at our place while we all caught up on the current goings on with our friends.

The weather was quite lovely, so after the lunch wrapped up and our last guests had departed, my aunt, uncle, and I took my mom's dog Gus for a walk. Wait, who am I kidding? He took us for a walk - he's a 70+ pound yellow lab. Gus is pretty much the complete opposite temperament of Korby - very calm, patient, not food obsessed in the least (there were so many plates, trays, and even dropped food that he totally ignored), other than making sure he always has a full bowl of food. (Korby is more concerned with maintaining an empty, licked-clean bowl.) When the bowl is empty, Gus paws it around to let us know it needs to be refilled -- though he'll just check to make sure it's full, and leave it that way until his next meal.

Tomorrow the rest of the family heads back to their homes on the east coast, and I'll head back to the west coast on Tuesday.

This old house

Economic downturn? "Bah!" says Zachary; he's enjoying his very own new digs this week.

It started with his latest shipment of diapers, which arrived Wednesday in a giant cardboard box. Of course, why restrict the fun to the actual functional goods when we know how he loves to play with the box itself. (And trust me, boxes are certainly more fun than trying to diaper the little man.)

So he was crawling in and out of the box, and I propped it up on its side and closed the two flaps with him inside, and he found that hilarious. But then Meh had a go with scissors and tape, and quickly transformed the box into Zachary's very own playhouse. He was of course wary of the roof (as well he should be in the damp climate of the northwest), but appeared to appreciate the furnishings:


And today, he actually wandered inside to perform his very own inspection (such a knowledgeable new home buyer, and at such a young age!) before signing the paperwork. Now if we can just find someone to finance a mortgage...