A shrimp under the barbie

Friends J & S had a lovely end-of-summer barbecue yesterday afternoon. Meh was working, so Zachary and I went together after his second nap of the day. He was a bit fussy when we arrived -- still waking up, a bit overwhelmed by all of the people, and as I found out later, busy, um, producing something at the time. So we headed past the amazing spread, out on their back elevated deck, and then down the stairs to their excellent now completed backyard. After a bit of clinginess, Zachary was happy to get down and run around like a madman. First he spent a bunch of time running around on the paved area directly under the deck, glancing back at me, smiling, stomping his feet, and collecting and brought daddy each of the many pine cones that he found.

Then it was free range Zachary time. When he reached one particular tree, he touched it and then craned his head way back to smile up at the top of it. And when he found the wooden fence, he started leaning up against it in a super-cute way. A few other guests had brought their dogs; Zachary hadn't gotten to spend much time with pooches since last seeing Uncle Gus at grandma's house, and he learned that dogs make other sounds besides "ah ah":

Today's milestone: Zachary's first crying-free haircut! I took him back to the place we'd gone last time, and he was in an excellent mood beforehand. Two little girls were ahead of him, and I was nervous that mood would wear off by the time it was his turn, but he was satisfied to play with a giant basket of toys (first putting back the animal toys the girls had left out, then finding each and every car in the basket) and with a giant magnetic blackboard covered with colored letters and numbers. When we got to the haircut, he brought one die-cast car along, and I plopped him into a truck-shaped barber chair. He played with the wheel and buttons, but when the scissors started, I could see he was potentially ready to be unhappy. The stylist was way ahead of me, bringing over a giant tub of cars and trucks. The little man spent the rest of the haircut sorting through and playing with the wide variety of vehicles. There was even a Harold the Helicopter, which prompted Zachary to say one of my favorite new little man words: "ha ha". (He says this every time he sees Harold in one of his Thomas books.) Zachary was happily distracted through the whole cut, only occasionally raising a hand to try to grab the comb (succeeding once), and giggling a few times as the scissors and comb tickled the back of his neck. Such a good and cute little man, and now he's got a smart haircut in preparation for visiting bubbie, aunt I, and uncle S this weekend!