Heavy lunch

No idea why this was the case, but today at lunch, a SWAT vehicle belonging to the county sheriff was parked out in front of the boys' burger joint of choice. Z and O were beside themselves and almost couldn't be bothered to actually go inside and eat. A sheriff did go from table to table and give them sheriff's badge stickers, so that was another bonus. We'll leave it as an exercise to the reader to sort out what exactly the sheriffs do for rescues that utilizes tactical armored vehicles -- but the boys certainly weren't complaining.

Halloween is just around the corner, and while Z is talking about it nearly constantly, O has been living it even moreso, existing in full try-on-your-costume-practically-every-day mode. Actually at one point he decided he wanted to change costumes, but tough, we already picked yours out kid -- you can make your own if you really think a late audible is the way to go. Anyway, this morning, he was in full dress up mode. First he cobbled together bits of his Jake and the Never Land Pirates props, plus his British soldier pajamas, and declared, "I look like a soldier pirate. But also a bit like a captain."

Then, and I do not exaggerate here, not five minutes later, he'd done a full outfit change to his official Halloween costume, to imposingly stalk around the house.

Granted, he still hasn't actually seen these Power Rangers in any form, but that doesn't stop him from loving this costume -- until of course he decides he really wants to be a Transformer (which he also hasn't seen).

Tomorrow's Their Wedding Night

Yesterday was the wedding of friends J and L in beautiful Montecito at the posh Biltmore Four Seasons. It was a lovely occasion, full of music, laughter, dancing, glorious weather, impromptu performances, a documentary, and more -- more on that in a bit. Mima and papa graciously watched the boys, but it was a bit early for L to try to go cold turkey with a bottle, so the three of us jetted down to Santa Barbara for the weekend. On the plane, L had herself a lovely snack of cheeks of mommy.

Each morning we were there, L was up crazy early, so I tried to let Meh sleep a bit by taking the little girl for extended strolls around the downtown and all the way down to the beach. Sometimes she dozed again, other times she crowed or raspberried, but it was nice, relaxing, and peaceful. During the day, in between the ceremony rehearsal, we also got to catch up with friends (some of whom I hadn't seen since college) -- and L got to enjoy her very first dip in a warm salt-water pool overlooking the ocean at an equally luxurious beach club opposite the hotel -- she decided she liked the taste of the water and had a lolling tongue for the remainder.

The rehearsal dinner was a joyous affair, with a women's ukulele group serenading the bride and groom, followed by a few toasts; Meh had contributed immensely to my own effort in this regard, a (thankfully pre-recorded) duet performance altering the lyrics to a certain recent animated film number that the boys might have been watching on auto-repeat back in Washington even while we were at the dinner. It was appropriately silly and self-deprecating to get some applause, and the main goal of entertaining the bride and groom was (hopefully) accomplished; while I suspect I should probably pull it down at some point, for now it can be found at this link. L was a hit of the dinner, wearing the fabulous outfit you see here and smiling/cooing/screeching happily at everyone she met.

The wedding day arrived and was again just perfectly "them". The hotel had sourced a very nice babysitter so Meh and I could go to the kid-free wedding, and as a wedding party member I think I was there starting at like 9 am. The last piece of music before the ceremony itself started was the fabulous Muppets Take Manhattan's "Somebody's Getting Married". The ceremony featured multiple references back to their favorite lyrics, and the officiating rabbi had been director of my college Hillel when I was there. The reception was no less excellent, with beautifully decorated tables and a cascade of loving dedications to the happy couple: a faux documentary telling the story of their meeting that J's friend T had made (L, meh, and I had contributed a few clips remotely from Seattle), a surprise rendition of a number from "A Chorus Line" by the bride and her acting friends [they had done a recent production], first dances with the parents and in-laws, and warmth and joy all around.

The weekend was capped off with a goodbye brunch the next morning -- as if the weekend couldn't be topped, the brunch took place at the same beach club overlooking the Pacific, and as we were sitting there eating, a pod of dolphins decided to start leaping and frolicking in the waves outside. Perfect! Congratulations and mazel tov once more to J and L - more pics here!

Love is an open door

Diapers are of course a constant in the house with L, and as the supply depletes, I use our trusty bulk mailing website to restock. This time around, there was an extra discount when purchasing two giant uber-economy-size boxes. I only had to ponder momentarily, as she definitely goes through them quickly enough (occasionally they even protect her clothes, but apparently only if we happen to both hear in time and when she's not wearing anything cute. Otherwise it's doomed to get soiled.)

This is a rather roundabout way of setting up the explanation for the boys' new favorite toy, the giant cardboard box that the two giant boxes of diapers arrived in -- which Meh stood up on end and O declared was a door to a secret room containing his treasure chest. He then proceeded to decorate it with stickers, markers, and crayons. Meh found an unused pair of Ikea doorknobs (take that, Ikea hacks), and voila; both boys now enjoy stashing treasure and occasionally themselves inside.

Hot pants

O wanted Elsa pajamas; Meh found "sisters forever" fabric featuring both Elsa and Anna, and made a pair of fabulous pajama bottoms. With his choice of top from his existing collection, O has declared that he is now "Lightning Elsa Anna McQueen."

Rollover plan

A first for L today -- Meh was giving her some tummy time on a play matt in her room while organizing and hanging up more of L's clothes (yes, the collection continues to grow), and when she looked back over, L had rolled over onto her back. Go L!

How dry I am

Meh's excellent anniversary present to me was to replace our aging (we couldn't remember, but it's wholly possible it came with the house) clothes dryer -- even grandma was excited to hear the news, having experienced its raw awesome non-drying power when she and J watched the boys a few months ago, and probably spent the entire week trying to dry the same load. The new dryer was delivered and installed yesterday, a space-age top-loading device from what is apparently the major appliance manufacturer of New Zealand. It's already run through two loads and (gasp) successfully dried clothing. Crazy, I know. I'm also a fan of the lint collector, a little scoop that you just pick up and shake in the garbage like a dustbuster - no scraping or pulling out debris. It's a fun device with a host of interesting sounds (not loud, but sounding like a little Cessna motor is spinning up) and a wonderful gift - it even fits the bill for the traditional ten year gift of something made of aluminum. (Again, where do they come up with these things?!) Thank you Meh!

Changing of the Guard's Pajamas

While my Europe trip was mostly running around catching trains, flights, taxis, and subways, I did get a morning off to do some shopping. I picked up an excellent cookbook recommended by friend J, which is not yet available here -- Meh has already made some fabulous meals from it, and we've both enjoyed some of the divergences of cooking language ("blending" in the UK is apparently "whizzing") and metric conversions. Of course I restocked our depleted tea collection. And on the morning of my flight, I hopped over to the Royal Mews to pick up these excellent pajamas (pyjamas) for Zachary. Sorry, no bearskin hat this time. The collar is a pretty snug fit for our big American heads, so Meh may need to do some surgery on it to make it easier to get on. But such a cute little royal solider man; we anticipate he will be fully engaged for the royal wedding in a few weeks.

If the shoe fits

We're still recovering from our trip to DC, but I'm already packed for another trip; I head to Europe later tonight for a week of meetings and a conference. But we did have a lovely family day today, heading to the mall for some shopping and lunch. The main stop on the shopping trip was for shoes; Zachary had once again outgrown his, and we decided it was time for O to get his own first pair of actual non-soft-soled ones. Z ended up choosing a pair that was identical to the shoes he'd had before his current pair ("want blue shoes"). Owen thought getting his feet measured was funny, but wasn't as much of a fan of actually trying on these toe movement constricting things.

He is, however, most certainly a fan of mommy's cooking and baking:

Big shoes to fill

Zachary's love affair with shoes continues. While not yet at Carrie Bradshaw levels, he'll frequently bring us a pair of his own to put on -- even if he's already wearing another pair. Yes, even in the house; we've tried to establish one or two pairs as 'indoor-only'; I feel like Mr. Rogers or something. Yesterday while I was at work, he brought mommy a pair of her shoes (this in itself is generally entertaining, as grownup shoes are pretty bulky for a little man) and said "mama!", then brought her a pair of mine and said "dada".

Here's an illustration of him using his shoes more or less as intended - for wild running, and on a track no less:

Swimming cap

The Thomas obsession now extends even to his clothes; Zachary got a super cute pair of boots (wellies) for Chanukah last night, and kept walking around, looking at his feet, and exclaiming "Gaka!" (his word for 'Thomas') This morning, I'd left the box out (which of course has pictures of Thomas on it), and he found that to be another entertaining toy.

Zachary's winter quarter of swimming wrapped up today, and the kids all had a great time playing, swimming, and walking a semi-stable foam board before jumping to their parents. They even managed to mix in a bit of, um, boating?


Unfortunately, the next quarter's Sunday classes were already booked when I went to register; we landed with a weekday morning, which unfortunately I won't be able to attend as frequently. It was so much fun being able to swim with him this quarter, and he gets so excited from the moment we park the car at the fitness center!

Chanukah continues, and tonight we had friends J and S over for an earlyish dinner of latke tastiness; I even made an attempt at zucchini latkes in addition to the traditional potato ones. J and S brought some yummy foods too, and after more action-packed Zachary and J roughhousing, we put the little man down and had a nice mellow evening with friends.

Affirmative action

At last, a video of the "yeahhhh", as well as his newest variant, a slightly 'sh'-y "yessss":


Grandma is visiting for the weekend, and Zachary has been having a wonderful time with her - lots of reading, listening to music, playing with a new sound-making book that grandma brought, and she even handled bath and bed time on Thursday while I taught the first lecture of my class. Today we all went out for breakfast, where Meh optimistically ordered Zachary some chocolate chip pancakes. He helped himself to many melt-in-your-hands (and face, mouth, bib, etc.) chocolate chips, and made a spectacular mess mushing them and the melting butter around on the pancakes, but the big news was when he actually picked up a piece of pancake and ate that too. Just one, but hey, we'll take it! Meh had some excellent pumpkin pancakes, grandma had coconut ones, and I stayed with the classics.
Afterwards, we went to the grocery store to pick up a few things, and Zachary had a fab time driving around in one of those car-shaped shopping carts (it was red - "wah!"). He prefers if there are two steering wheels that he can direct simultaneously, and was happy through the entire store visit. I, however, still struggle to drive what amounts to a double-length shopping cart, and almost hit a display or two. I blamed it all on the steering of that cute little man in the driver's seat.

Lady of the lake

When we returned from Greenfield Village on Tuesday afternoon, Zachary wasn't much interested in a nap. So with a warm partially cloudy afternoon winding down, grandma suggested a boat ride. (Fresh from winter storage, Uncle B, Grandma, and I had brought the boat through the narrow tunnel to grandma's dock earlier in the weekend.) Meh had been concerned that he might not like having to wear the life jacket, having complained loudly when his swim class had made him use (a likely already damp and cold) one. But he was happy as could be, and was kicking, waving, and making happy noises as we boarded the boat. This quickly settled down to total vegging and drowsiness - that was a very relaxed little man! We had a nice low-speed ride around the lake (I took a turn at the wheel, though Meh declined), appreciating the pretty homes and the plethora of geese, ducks, swans, and herons; someone even had a pair of peacocks strutting around in their backyard - pets?

Wednesday was another rainy day, so we decided to try a trick from our Seattle playbook and head to the local mall. Furthering the use of the playbook, we had a lovely family lunch at the mall's somewhat newly arrived Seattle staple, whose cafe Meh and Zachary have frequented with friends, but was new to grandma and myself. A quick stroll later, Zachary ran around like a mad man at their play area, which featured a bizarre assortment of (I'm not making this up) candy and medical-themed climbing toys. Says the website by way of explanation:

"The newly refurbished play area features a health and wellness theme in which children can skip, frolic, and step along the ribbon of gauze to the mending Teddy. Healthy messages teach healthy lifestyle to even our youngest visitors!"

Yeeeeah, I'm not sure about the healthy message of Wonka-sized lollipops and melting creamsicle slides. But anyway, regardless of the representations they were going for, Zachary had a wonderful time running around with grandma in hot pursuit. Energy somewhat abated, he even let grandma and mommy shop for some cute new clothes for him while we toured the mall.

Grandma had mentioned a few times earlier in the week that she really wanted to babysit and let us have a date night. This was our last night in town, and Zachary was having a wonderful time giggling, laughing, and signing 'more' to grandma, so we took her up on the offer. We left in the midst of playtime (to what we learned later was only the briefest of Zachary objections) and got to have a nice, quiet, and relaxing dinner together in a cute nearby town's even cuter main street Italian restaurant -- Meh judged its tiramisu to be among the best she's ever had. When we got home, grandma reported that Zachary had had a fun evening of playing and even a mostly happy bath and bedtime. We're so glad that he's gotten comfortable and acquainted enough with grandma over the past few days that he trusted her with the cherished and sacred routine that has often left him in tears with other non-mommy/daddy participants in the past. That, and maybe he's starting to accept small amounts of change in his schedule? Nah...

Today was homecoming day; it was overcast again, we had a few hours, and the mall was on the way, so we went back to let Zachary play again, and enjoy one last bit of Michigan cuisine (hooray for orange cream coolers!) before heading for the airport. The only glitch was that the airline had auto-upgraded me (but not Meh or Zachary) the night before, and then of course gave away my seat. They didn't have two extra first class seats available (darn!), but the gate agent was able to do some shuffling and get me back into the same seat. Zachary slept for perhaps 45 minutes of the flight and was a crazy active man the rest of the time, wanting to climb between his seat and mommy and daddy's laps, and occasionally walking the aisle. With no real nap for the day, he was pretty much running on fumes, but seemed to mostly keep in a good mood.

It was so good to be able to visit with family and friends for the week, and huge thanks to grandma for hosting us, dealing with various baby- and schedule-related challenges, researching fun things for the little man to do, catering multiple parties, babysitting for our night out, and just being grandma! Thanks also to Zachary's Uncle B for flying in for a coordinated visit, and to all of our family and friends for making the journey out to grandma's house to visit and catch up.

Little man was so excited to be home, running around and smiling, laughing, and playing. His bathtime and bedtime were both happy, but I'm wary of what time he'll think is appropriate to wake up tomorrow. Meh's already asleep and I think I'll be conked out soon enough too!

Poop deck

Seattle's crazy early summer heat wave continues! Yesterday, Zachary's nanny J took him and her son T to a nearby water park (e.g. a giant paved park with a bunch of fountains and sprinkler-like things - and on a day like yesterday, a lot of kids). As J told us later, he was the brave one who walked right up to a gurgling fountain and giggled while batting at it.

Temperatures peaked at over 90 degrees today, the second straight day of record highs. Meh and Zachary went to toddler group, where apparently they had a new record attendance to take advantage of the refreshing air conditioning. The theme was cooking, and the day's art activitiy was decorating a potholder. After Meh showed him how to do it, Zachary actually did a great job of pushing rollers, stamps, and his own hands into the paint and potholder, creating a lovely art nouveau/abstract post neo-impressionistic melange with subtle hints of fauvism. Or something.

After they came home, Meh and Zachary kept cool in the backyard. Meh filled his new little pool, and also suggested he help maintain the excellent garden Meh has been establishing with a cute little watering can. Rather than risk wet clothes, it was naked outdoors time! This was a fabulous idea, and the little man had a great time running around buck naked and watering (generally more by shaking the watering can than tipping it over).

Alas, one unforeseen result: Meh heard a grunt, and before she could respond, the little man had pooped on the deck. Oh, and while she cleaned it up, he made a wee on the lawn. I'm giggling, but also feeling a tad guilty that she had to deal with the cleanup and a naked gardening man without me.

A Minor Diversion

We're in Florida! Zachary, Meh, and I braved the journey to scenic West Palm Beach to visit Mima and Papa, as well as (let's see if I can enumerate them fully) nanny (Zachary's great-grandmother), poppy (Zachary's great-grandfather), Aunt K, Uncle H, and Aunt M. Oh, and we met cousin E as well, as part of a gala family barbecue dinner at mima and papa's house this evening. But first, on to the epic adventure that was our journey to the Sunshine State.

Unfortunately, none of the airlines seem interested in plotting a direct route from Seattle to the Palm Beach or Fort Lauderdale airports. Not that these are gigantic hub cities or anything, but still - shouldn't every other city in the country have a direct line to beaches and sunshine? The only real 'direct' option is Miami, which is still about 2 hours to Mima and Papa's house, and has fares that truly reflect the non-competition, going for $650+ when I checked months in advance. So every time we visit, we get to enjoy a different airline's hub city and a few extra hours tacked onto the journey. Sometimes this is actually a nice break. Not so this time.

One big problem I have with the hub and spoke model is that you end up flying to arbitrary locations that may or may not be even remotely close to a straight arc from departure to arrival city. We at least are usually able to avoid the ones that are obviously in the wrong direction (though a friend once explained how this is a great way to exploit the airlines via mileage runs. Honestly, I fly enough that I don't want to invent additional flights just to get more miles.) This time, we picked scenic George Bush Airport in Houston. Unfortunately, we also picked a week where the airport would apparently be fully shut down multiple times due to thunderstorms -- and yup, we got to enjoy one of these events.

Zachary for his part was amazing on the flights - happy, talking up a storm, playing with his toys, and eating occasional snacks in between walking up and down the aisles with us. We did have a wardrobe malfunction, where his outfit leaked onto mommy pretty early into the first flight, creating some early stress (only one backup outfit) and discomfort (no backup outfit for mommy) that was a good preview of the stress of the extended delays that would ensue. As we approached Houston (on time), the captain came on the PA, announcing Houston was closed due to thunderstorms, and we were going to do circles for the next 30+ minutes waiting for it to open. When it didn't in 60 minutes, we were rerouted to Austin to refuel. Of course, every other plane heading for Houston had been rerouted as well, so we sat on the tarmac waiting for the 2 fuel trucks on duty that day to deal with the thirty planes sitting around us. 90 minutes later, we were done refueling, and had to wait for clearance to land in Houston before we could take off. 30 minutes later, we were back in the air for the short flight back to Houston.

By this time, the crew had exhausted most of the onboard supplies (not to mention themselves; an attendant had to waive his right to go off duty 16 hours after starting his shift, in order for the flight to not get scrubbed in Austin), including drinkable water. So Zachary got his first taste of fizzy water with a splash of juice. The faces were precious puckers and shivers of surprise(unfortunately not photographed), but he clearly wasn't a fan. We landed in Houston to an obvious state of bedlam - lots of cancelled, delayed, and still-not-arrived flights. And here came the second problem of the hub & spoke model: when every flight connects through a single city, late incoming flights mean later outgoing flights. Our own outgoing flight (due to leave two hours before we'd landed) hadn't even arrived yet.

Zachary still handled things pretty well, first strolling around in his car seat's wheeled adapter and then taking the adapter itself for a push around the terminal. But even he was totally fried and eventually needed to be held by mommy while she sang the same song over and over. The flight finally arrived, unloaded, re-boarded, and left, and Zachary again did very well and even slept a bit (in between more wokka wokka-ing) as our now long haul to Florida wrapped up a little after 3 am, more than 4.5 hours after we'd been scheduled to arrive, and 15+ hours after we'd headed to the airport. Oh, and here's a time lapse set of videos of Zachary's in-flight commentaries:





We all slept pretty late today; even Zachary wasn't up until 10 am. He's been very happy to see mima and papa, and has played a lot with them and their fun toys (including a toy piano that he plays and sings along with in a very cute way). And when the family arrived for the barbecue this evening, they brought his new favorites of this trip: pushable cars and trucks (did you expect something else?), both finger-sized and Zachary-sized! Through most of dinner he was pushing his Spiderman pushcart around the patio, to the delight of the guests. He was still pretty exhausted and was ready to crash before folks had left, though I think we'll get to see nanny and poppy again later in the week. A wild and full first day!

Straight on til morning

We got back the Halloween pictures from my coworker today, and they didn't disappoint! Full album here. Nobody had told me that my faded jeans and wristwatch were detracting from the Captain Hook aura, but then again, I suspect most people were basically just looking at the little Peter Pan (who again was mistaken for Robin Hood, Link, etc.) man.

As to our Halloween candy stash, somehow we're already down to Smarties. I blame Zachary.

Self-rising

The rest of Zachary's photo shoot pictures have arrived! I've uploaded the full album here -- once more huge thanks to Keri for these beautiful images. A few folks have expressed interest in the Halloween pics a coworker graciously took; I'm hoping to see and post those in the next few days.

Hearing about people waiting in long election lines for today's presidential election, I started to wonder today just how long Zachary would have been happy in that scenario. I'm not sure by the end of the 3+ hours that some people had waited that he would have actually allowed us to get in for voting. Thank goodness for absentee ballots!

The big Zachary news here in the last few days is that the walking is more and more often preferred to crawling. He has also started being able to stand up from the middle of a floor with no clingable surfaces around. Now that the hands are no longer needed to help with propulsion, he's trying to figure out just what to do with them. Sometimes he holds them out flat behind him, and it almost looks like he's doing a little Superman impersonation. More frequently, he'll run around shaking them in front of him. Here he's got a prop to help him out:



Meh reported that he was also using this sock to wipe the windows. Not a bad idea with all of that Korby breath on those sliding doors...

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.

Sew Cute

A few weeks ago, my friend L (mother of baby E) and I decided to have a talent exchange: she would teach me to sew pants for Zachary, and I would teach her to bake cupcakes. I went to her place and she very patiently taught me how to read a pattern, cut the fabric, and sew the pieces together using her sewing machine. Zachary even obliged by taking a marathon nap, so that I almost finished the pants (made of pirate fabric, by the way). I didn't quite get to finish them, though, and ever since then I had been thinking of how the next time I saw a sewing machine on sale I would snag it. Nevermind that I have no idea how to really use one.

I was finally sent over the edge when a mother posted the link to a site with instructions to make your own baby sling on our support group's listserv. Well, I was on a mission. These slings are around $50 (or more!) to buy, and it looked too easy to pass up! I thought I would just go buy the fabric, then beg L to help me sew it at her place. Off I went to the fabric store with Zachary in tow. I picked out some fabric, and was entertaining Zachary by "peepee teepee"-ing in his ear while the sales lady cut it for me, when I saw that they had a sewing machine on sale. I took it.

When I got to the car, I called Scoot and the conversation went something like this:

Me: "Hi, don't be mad..."
Scoot: "Do I ever get mad?"
Me: "Okay...I bought a sewing machine."
Scoot: "Oh, cool! I can show you how to use it."

Is there anything my husband can't do??? And how many women can say that their husbands taught them to sew?

I really need to teach L to make cupcakes...to regain my domestic dignity.

Zach in the Hat

(We'll just keep rotating the 'Zach's and 'Zack's in these post titles, just to keep things interesting, and our nickname objectivity intact.)

Well, one good hat photo deserves 3 more - so today mommy made sure to get pictures of Zachary in several other cute hats that he's gotten from friends over the past few months. He's honestly worn all of these before, but we didn't have the proof to show to all of his generous fans/clothiers. Thank you all, and enjoy!

Grandma arrives tomorrow, and we are very excited to be spending the weekend with her. She's actually going to get two opportunities to babysit; she volunteered to let Meh and me have a date night on Saturday night, and then she scheduled her flight to ensure she could take the standard Monday evening babysitting shift. Thanks grandma!

We'll have to see if Zachary recognizes her; he laughed and laughed at (with?) her during her last visit, and has chatted with her via video conference on many occasions since then. He seems to be starting to understand that the screen represents another person; he's smiled and looked more directly at both her and mima on the computer screen during the most recent few video calls.

Meanwhile, Zachary's hand-eye coordination continues to improve. Well, maybe not based on this cute movie Meh captured of him playing his xylophone.

But honest, his grabbing at toys, books, envelopes, and anything within reach on the floor, tables, our laps, etc. is becoming more and more sure. He's definitely working on these small motor skills first (as to large/"gross" motor skills, nope, no crawling yet -- and even rolling over remains pretty rare, though he's certainly big on dancing and bouncing), and making the most of exploring the world with his hands (and then of course placing the world in his mouth).

Zacklander

Our son is a male model. At least that was Meh's first impression based on the photo on the right, which she took of him in a super-cute outfit he just got from one of Meh's coworkers. I think I share that impression too, though I'm certainly not biased. We've actually caught ourselves looking at baby clothes catalogs and commenting that some of the infants just aren't, well, cute!

Some friends of mine actually had their kids do some modelling. On the plus side, you get great professional photos taken of your children. And it likely certainly helps fund their (education / first sportscar / hobby-of-the-week) as well. On the minus side, definitely feels a little weird and potentially exploitative. But perhaps that's just me? Anyway, I think Zachary will stick with the amateur modelling. That should keep him Olympics-eligible as well when cuteness becomes a recognized sport, which we're working on for 2012.