Recount

Lately Zachary has been working on his counting, often commenting on toys, cars, flowers, cookies, and so on. Usually he does a fabulous job, pointing at each item, saying the number, and moving on to the next item. But sometimes he gets into a bit of a loop and comes back to the same objects. The other day he had something like 16 gears that he was playing with (by the way, hooray for that daddy favorite toy coming back into vogue after a long absence!), and decided to count them.

Z: "...twenty eight, twenty nine, twenty ten, twenty eleven..." (Again, actual number: sixteen.)

Super cute though. The weather has finally been starting to turn to "spring" on occasion here, so the boys spend increasing time playing out in the yard. Owen likes the swing on occasion (not nearly as much as Zachary), though he much prefers to climb up and down the mildly treacherous-looking stone stairs between the upper and lower yard.
He also decided that rocks looked interesting enough to try to eat; once I explained (and he had sampled one before I fished it out), he decided to instead pick them up and give them to daddy. Zachary for his part has rediscovered his collection of outdoor vehicles; occasionally there's even some nice sharing, though there are plenty of, um, "teaching moments". But by and large, they're having a great time in the great outdoors, and it's wonderful for the boys to get some good unrestricted outdoor play time in between our frequent stroller-constrained neighborhood loops.

Walkout

First, Owen set a new sequential steps record this past week:

In more recent news, it's Memorial Day weekend, which means the Northwest Folklife Festival at the Seattle Center! Meh's Balkan women's choir had performances both yesterday and today. (You can hear yesterday's here - scroll down to Dunava.) The boys, mima, and I accompanied her yesterday, hoping to have an improved experience over last year's rendition, where poor mima had to cut across the entire auditorium with a crying Owen right as the set started. This year things went much better; the occasionally sad kids were not Owen, and mima and he had a great time smiling and listening to mommy's group rock the Balkan house.

Zachary, on the other hand, wasn't a fan of the venue and decided as they were getting ready to start that he wanted to go "this way!", pointing toward the exit. So he and I ended up spending most of the set roaming around the outdoor food areas, watching the monorail arrive and depart, and listening to the bagpipes (which he liked much better) -- I did walk him back inside twice, but both times he insistently pointed back towards the great outdoors.

While Meh's group had been warming up, mima and I hunted for lunch with the boys. The "faire food" has certainly improved in quality there in recent years, and this time we stumbled upon a shockingly good vegetarian food cart. Unfortunately it's based in Oregon, so I may never find out the secret of their amazingly good vegan cheesesteak - I'm tempted to e-mail them and ask for the recipe. I was wearing Owen while we strolled Zachary, and he started making like a little bird when he saw me eating it -- I offered him some, and he proceeded to chow down on several goodly sized bites of mima and my shared sandwich (we also split a decent veggie reuben).

Tell us about it

The milestones keep coming fast and furious for Mister O. He's discovered the pushcart and likes to cart it around:
And he's taking more and more steps in a row -- 3, 4, even 5 on occasion.
He's also getting more and more communicative and expressive, picking up bits of words (my favorite, though I know it shouldn't be, is his "neh" with head shaking, which means "no"), pointing at various things and taking about them, crowing when he finds and removes his shoes and socks while in the car seat, giggling at my faces, and talking emphatically about Zachary ("zjada!") whenever he see him. I'm still quite particular to the way he smiles and says "mama" when he sees mommy after a day (or period of 10 minutes, whichever comes first) without her.

Meanwhile, Z continues to sing some pretty darn adorable songs that we don't entirely recognize, whether in the car, on the couch, in the bath, or at the dining room table. Some come from the boys' nanny, others from school, and occasionally they turn out to be songs we know but just didn't pick up on Z's artistic interpretation until he starts singing along with the music in the car. This one comes from school -- we think:

(You can also hear his rendition of the beginning of this song here.)

A Ferry Good Time

Meredith's choir had a special concert today out in Port Townsend -- and a ferry opportunity isn't one the boys like to miss, so we all came along. It definitely didn't disappoint, and both boys were excited by the combination of lots of vehicles, driving onto a boat, and getting to move real fast. The destination even added a trip across another of Washington's floating bridges (who knew they had more -- and apparently this one's the third longest in the world?).

The performance itself was a little more challenging, kicking off after we'd been there for a bit and the boys were starting to get antsy. Zachary was in particular displeased with both the applause and the other kids playing with toys that he'd claimed as his own, so there was a fair amount of juggling to try to hear bits of the concert without meltdowns and pushing. But all in all, the boys had a great time, and as usual, the girls were fabulous - we're looking forward to hearing more at Northwest Folklife later this month!

Mommy's Day

Happy belated mother's day to all of our motherly readers! Meh and mima had a busy (but hopefully fun?) one with the boys. Things kicked off nicely for the weekend with Zachary coming home with a card and flower that he'd made in school.

On Saturday, Z had swimming lessons, where he's now moved up to the class level where the parents no longer go in the pool with them. While he's been a little upset (so has the other little boy) at the beginning of the first few classes, he's been doing great once he gets over the initial transition. He does enjoy glancing out of the pool, making sure I'm around, and saying "Hi Daddy" (barely intelligible in the below):

On Mother's Day proper, mima and papa had us over for a lovely brunch before Meh had to work. The boys had a great time suh-nuggling with mima while she read one of Z's favorites. It was a very lovely time!

I'll close with this video of Owen, who continues to covet coziness enough to leave little doubt as to whose son he might be: