Attract Mode

Zachary's electronic toys are just a little too smart and self-aware, and it's starting to creep me out a bit. Here's what I mean: Zachary will play with a toy for a bit, then move on to another. Several minutes later, when we've both long forgotten about the previous toy, it will squeak, moo, sing, or otherwise try to remind Zachary that it wants to be played with. It's a tad sinister, because you think the toy would just shut itself off, but really it starts running a little timer (about 90 seconds seems to be the magic number) before it will try to guilt the child into playing with it again.

In video games, this is called the "attract mode" - if the game is turned on and the player doesn't do anything for a while, it'll go into a demo or a movie or otherwise try to entice you to play it. While I suppose this makes sense at the store, where you don't want demo games just sitting there at a blank or static screen, even this can get a bit overbearing at home; you've already bought the game, and presumably you'll play it when you're good and ready.

On the plus side, Zachary's electronic toys are at least fairly non-repetitive and even entertaining for the grownups. He has a little barn toy (with a magnetized back, so it can live on the refrigerator and provide entertainment during kitchen clean up time) with removable front and back halves of animals; if you match them up, it plays a little song. If you don't, it says what kind of silly animal you've made, and then makes a silly combination of sounds for the mismatched animal halves. There's also a 'radio' refrigerator magnet toy that plays a variety of songs with little animations on a rudimentary LED screen. It's hilarious seeing what they do with like ten by ten pixels; turning one off is all it takes to suggest a dog wagging its tail. And he's got an actual dog toy (which occasionally merits his "ah ah!" barking sound) that sings a bunch of songs and even asks how big Zachary is -- Zachary doesn't respond to that bit yet, though I'm sure soon enough.

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.

Snip Snip

Zachary and I were at a local shopping center doing errands this afternoon when we passed a children's salon. I'd noticed that the little man's locks had been growing longer; they were far below his ears and sometimes strayed into his eyes. "Why not?" I thought.

The place was empty, so we went in. A very nice stylist gushed over Zachary's cuteness (I could hardly blame her) and told me her son was also named Zachary, then proceeded to buckle the little man into a red car-shaped seat. She presented him with a bucket full of toy cars, and swiftly threw the smock over him. All was going well: Zachary flung cars, the stylist trimmed quickly with Edward Scissorhands-like finesse. Then, she reached his ears.

Zachary suddenly realized what was happening to his head, and began to wail. He would not be comforted, not even by the "Baby Bumblebee" song. Luckily, though Zachary screamed his red little face off, the stylist kept remarking, "Wow, I've never seen a kid cry so hard and keep so still!" The whole procedure took under ten minutes, and we left with a balloon, a lock of hair, a "certificate," and photos of an angry little man.

Here is the post-trauma pic (note the pacifying milk and balloon):

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.

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...

A goat says meh

It's been an action-packed weekend and Monday for the little man. Yesterday we went to a belated birthday party for Zachary's good friend T. Grandma and I met many of his old friends (not just figuratively; he's definitely the youngest [the baby?] of the bunch, though it's generally by a matter of weeks or a few months), and he carted himself around, only occasionally getting into baby toy traffic jams. The boys were all active and running/toddling around (Zachary's the only non-walker of the group), while the girls seemed to be shy and chose quieter and more introspective activities. Meanwhile, it was nice to see some familiar faces that I hadn't seen since that parent-baby class. And the kids are all so unique and different, it's so neat to see their different dispositions already showing themselves even without yet talking.

This afternoon, grandma, Zachary, and I were off to the zoo for the first time in a few months. Zachary spent most of the time in the stroller sitting straight up and actively trying to scooch us forward to see the next critter. Occasionally he was even paying attention to the featured animal when we approached, though he was just as happy to play with his water bottle, the stroller, or most especially the zoo map:


He particularly liked the sea otters (which garnered this smile) and the farm animals. He was 'dah'-ing happily at a pair of goats, who then let out a loud bleat, which he attempted to imitate back at them. It was hilarious and super cute. We also got to finally check out the zoo's excellent Zoomazium, an indoor playground facility geared towards young kids. There were snakes to pet, a stage for some more organized activities, and some impressive climbing areas for the slightly older kids. But Zachary was perfectly happy exploring the play area for younger kids, with faux tree trunks for toddlers to cruise around.

After the zoo, we had a few minutes before mommy wrapped up work, so I took Zachary and grandma up to the top of a tall building in which my company has offices in downtown Bellevue, where you can go out onto a patio and see spectacular views of the city. Zachary started whining, and grandma suggested it was that he was annoyed that he couldn't see said spectacular views from the stroller. Sure enough, I pulled him out and he was all smiles as he looked down at the city, lake, and Seattle across the water. From there, we all met mommy for Rosh Hashanah dinner at a restaurant that has at least a tentative apples-and-honey connection (in that they sell cheesecake that contains apples, and probably another that has honey). We all had a nice meal together, though Zachary got bored and full by the time they delivered his "kids meal" of a very grown-up Cheesecake Factory-sized grilled cheese sandwich. Ah well, tomorrow's lunch!

That's affirmative

For a long time now, Zachary has had basically two signs (in addition to his wide range of da's, grunts, and squeals) to help communicate with mommy and daddy:

1. Shaking his head (which he's done for ages, and signals "no"), and

2. Waving his hands wildly in the air ("all done", generally just for the end of meals)

In the meantime, we have one additional unidirectional signal that we give to him, though he's never done it himself - the "more" sign. We've both wondered at various times why we continue to sign it months after he would have started using it if he wanted to, but old habits die hard I suppose.

Anyway, what started as the funny answer to a question earlier this week has evolved into a more general third Zachary response, which the best I can tell means "yes". When I asked at lunch if he wanted more cheerios, at lunch today, he raised his hand in the air as if answering the "so big" question. This was clearly not the 'all done' or 'no' shake off. Throughout the day, he would answer my questions with either the shake off or the raised hand, so I think we may actually have established the word 'yes'. At the end of bath time, I asked if he was all done (he only sometimes uses the hand-waving in the tub), and he raised his hand. So I guess substituting one sign with another equivalent meaning indicates we've seen Zachary's first use of a synonym. Metaphors and similes will certainly be next.

Grandma is visiting this weekend! Zachary has been having a very fun time with her, smiling, laughing, and playing. The three of us went out for lunch (Meh is in the midst of a stretch of work and after-work activities), grocery shopping, and came home to have a walk around the neighborhood. Korby added to the, er, spice of the evening by escaping right as it was Zachary's bedtime. (First time in a while thankfully, and retrieved by one of our neighborhood fellow dog owners, who found him of course eating their dogs' food. At least he's consistent in his crazy food obsession.)

Recall how Zachary made crazy, um, going to the bathroom faces during lunch a few weeks ago? It was back during dinner tonight. Apologies for grandma's detailed commentary; listener discretion advised. Or something.

You must be this tall

Zachary's newest trick is to indicate his height when asked. As with many people of limited stature (*cough*), I think he perhaps exaggerates a bit, but hey, at least he's not bothering with fractions of an inch?

Clearly not born in a barn

Or is it 'raised in a barn'? Anyway, one of Zachary's favorite games is "open/shut". He finds a cabinet, child gate, or door, and starts opening and closing it. If one of us is around to offer commentary (e.g. saying "open" when he opens the object, and "shut" as he bangs it closed), that makes the game more entertaining, and he'll swing the door open and shut rapidly to see if we can keep up. Pretty complex rule structure, huh? The game only occasionally ends with a pinched finger - generally he's pretty good and careful about keeping his hands out of the way.

Lately he's gone beyond just opening and closing; when he walks up to an open door or gate, he simply must shut it. Sometimes it's after he goes through it, but just as often it's when he's still outside of the room that he was so interested in until this door thing showed up. Last night I was getting him ready for bathtime, and he was happily playing with a toy while I went to start filling the tub. I heard his door close seconds later -- I think he just wanted some private time. Same thing when he crosses from the kitchen into the music room - he has to close the child gate behind him (much to Korby's disappointment).

Another recent open/shut development: today I dropped a little toy into his rocket car's trunk while he was playing the open/shut game with it. The next time he opened it, he held it open long enough to fish the toy out before continuing the game. Then when he opened it again, he dropped the toy back in. There could be some complex choreography starting up soon - is Zachary's next stop Stomp?

Home from the range

Home at last, and for good! Well, for two weeks at any rate. The rest of my trip to Texas was a combination of productive (Austin, Dallas meetings and conference) and a good opportunity to catch up with friends and family (Austin, Fort Worth). I did get to have dinner with my hurricane evacuee cousins in Austin (at a tasty seafood place), and they were certainly handling things in stride. Hopefully in the next few days (if not already) they can head back home, where another cousin who stayed reported there was thankfully minimal damage. The rest of my conference went really well too; one of the highlights was an event called 'Iron Composer Texas', featuring 3 competitors who were trying to produce just-in-time sound effects and music for a video game played live by two volunteers from the audience, and who were then judged by 3 'American Idol'-style judges. (The contestants had been allowed to prepare a musical keyboard full of sounds, and were given a 'secret ingredient' at the event that they had to incorporate into the performance. The secret ingredient was of course cowbell.)

After the conference, I drove back up to Fort Worth for another meeting as well as further catch-up time with friends M and K. I met M at his university, where I got the full tour of the school. Their football stadium was completely open, so we even got to walk out onto the field and speculate as to whether one could touch a goalpost (answer: not with our combination of height and jumping skills). I also picked up a Horned Frogs (their mascot) little t-shirt for lil man, though they had a pitiful 18-month selection, so he got his very first "2T" shirt. Hopefully it'll fit him, or will at least by winter time (aka today, but more on that in a bit).

Thursday night we met up with several other friends (one of whom I'd known since elementary school) for a tasty dinner at an all-vegan restaurant. I was astounded by the selection; it's so much easier when there are only 1-2 things on the menu that I can eat. Oh, and they had hilarious names for their faux meats and dairy: bacun, san'iches, cheez, and i-scream. We actually passed on the desserts to enjoy them at another restaurant next door. It was great to see everyone, enjoy a good dinner together, and get a little bit caught up on the news.

Friday, M and I went to breakfast at the Paris Coffee House. The name is perhaps a bit misleading, this is the epitome of a great southern diner. And I think this place is the antithesis to the vegan restaurant; when I ordered eggs and biscuits, the waitress quizzically looked at me and asked suspiciously, "No meat?" Same response when M bypassed their bacon, pork sausage, and other beefy entrees. But the biscuits were excellent.

Random musings on the Lone Star state:

• They've got a serious love of concrete there - the number of freeways alone is pretty impressive (even the major north/south freeway I-35 breaks into I-35 W and I-35 E branches hitting both Dallas and Fort Worth, leading to interesting directions like 'take I-35 east north'), and I lived in LA. Now overlay multiple freeway labels (at one point the road I was on seriously had five freeway names, including interstate, business loop, Texas state route, turnpike, etc.), extensive service drives ('frontage roads'), giant ramps, and cloverleaf entrance/exits, and you've got a recipe for 79,000 miles of public roads. Yikes.


• "News" stations get pretty scary between Austin and Waco. I was trying to find some news, and heard this unbelievably biased and racist story criticizing employees who had gone on strike at their company for not letting them move their break to sunset during a religious observance. Here's a somewhat less biased version (less biased from FOX news?), but the radio version talked about the workers not being or becoming 'American,' and stayed about a half step from suggesting these workers were militant extremists.


• There's apparently a large and tourist-promoting Czech community in the town of West, Texas. (Yes, that's right, not West something -- just West, which is actually in northeastern Texas.) I don't think I've ever seen highway signage before for a Shell gas station telling you to stop and try their kolaches. T and P, take note for the next time you're in Texas. :) I asked friend K, and her history of Texas class paid off -- she had good detailed info on why Czech and German communities moved to the middle of rural Texas in the mid 1800s.


• Overheard on the radio: "It's going to be unseasonably cool today: 83 to 87 degrees." By contrast, Seattle is 55 degrees today. And rainy.

A huge thanks to M and K for hosting me; I had such a nice time visiting some of their haunts and getting to know their city a bit!

I Don't Like Ike

The Scoot road trip continues; about 12 hours after returning from Orcas Island, I was back on the road today for a conference in Austin -- this is hopefully my last business trip for quite some time, and likely my second-to-last trip overall for the rest of the year. Boo on the timing; Meh worked today, so it was a bit of extra stress on her dealing with my company's backup care scheduling that I would've preferred to avoid (well, along with all of the travel to begin with).

The flight was uneventful and I arrived in Dallas/Fort Worth in time to meet up with friends M and K (friend S joined us for a bit) for a tour of their cozy home and a late lunch. (Random story: an entire large family walked in and sauntered to the table behind us. And I do mean sauntered -- the kids were all in powder blue cowboy jumpsuits and boots, complete with jangling spurs. Wow.) We then enjoyed some authentic Texas gelato at their favorite local market, where I picked up snacks for the drive down to Austin. Then I was, as they say, "on the road again..." (Sorry, couldn't resist.)

Any whining I've done in the last few weeks about challenges dealing with Zachary in one-room hotels and cabins seems completely inappropriate and out of place now. The drive down didn't give much hint as to damage from Hurricane Ike, other than frequent digital freeway signs warning people not to drive to Houston, and a few seriously angled (but still intact) telephone poles along the side of the road outside of Waco. M and K reported that the previous day, when Ike had passed through Fort Worth, it had spun down to mainly rain and a bit of wind. And Austin itself seems to have fared pretty well too.

However, the story changed dramatically when I pulled the car into the hotel -- the lobby is crowded with families, children, and lots of dogs. (Thankfully, the hotel appears to be dog friendly -- there were even bowls of dog biscuits up at the check-in counters.) As I'm guessing is likely true throughout the city, the hotel is filled with folks fleeing the hurricane. It sounds like power won't be restored to some areas for a month or more, so they may be here with nowhere else to go.

After talking with members of my extended family (from a Houston suburb, and who ironically evacuated to a hotel I must have just driven past on my way into Austin), it perhaps doesn't sound like it's quite so dire for those who evacuated ahead of time. My cousins sound like they're faring pretty well, and we're going to try to meet up this week. But still, I can't even imagine such a life disruption. Everywhere I've lived there's some kind of natural disaster waiting to happen - tornados, earthquakes, volcanoes, etc. But despite the fact that hurricanes at least provide some warning, they still seem the most terrifying -- Zachary's Mima and Papa are so brave to deal with these storms year after year!

Island life

Once more (and theoretically for the last time this year), Zachary got to travel with us on a trip. But this was not a cross-country trek, nor even a flight down the coast. Nope, just a quiet holiday getaway with friends J & S (and quite a few other friends as well who joined us the subsequent day) at a lovely retreat on the gorgeous Orcas Island in the San Juans.

Car travel was enoromously more straightforward and comfortable for all of us. Zachary got to sprawl out in the back seat -- well, in his car seat still, but it was certainly more comfortable than an airplane. And his stuff certainly sprawled out over the backseat and trunk. While Meh and I easily packed into less than a suitcase each, he filled ours, a few backpacks, canvas bags, and introduced a few additional items to lug to the cabin (in particular, his pack and play; at least we didn't have to deal with any "death cribs" this time around). The journey also featured the happy return of the ferry ride; Zachary still loves them, and was happy and talky throughout the journey. Plus he cruised around the deck fence with mommy and daddy.

The trip itself, while perhaps not 'relaxing' in the traditional sense, was still a very nice slowdown from our other travels and even at-home life. We stayed in a cute cabin overlooking a meadow (and with views through the trees down to the bay that was the resort's namesake) where deer and bunnies kept popping up to graze. Zachary didn't show tremendous interest in them, though a few other guests' dogs had him pointedly saying 'dah' and smiling at them. Another milestone relating to canines - while reading his favorite doggie book, he responded to Meh's renditions of the dog sounds by repeating a similar dog 'whimper' noise, and the next day was making other dog-like sounds.

We had a nice combination of hiking (we walked around a beautiful lake), exploring (driving to the top of Mt. Constitution to take in stunning views of all of the San Juan islands -- apparently you can even see as far as Victoria on occasion), strolling through the cute sea-side communities (we even found the cozy Orcas Island Library - complete with hand-painted ceramic shelf labels), and enjoying some seriously good food. The weather was glorious, and the scenery simply couldn't be beat. The pictures pretty much speak for themselves:





Zachary did amazingly well, though of course sleeping in a one-bedroom cabin was a challenge (we went to bed when he did, though those 5 am wakeups were tough) and 'late' dinners (e.g. 6 or 6:30 pm) tended to push his patience a bit. I'll share one other possibly slightly off-color, but utterly hilarious story of our trip. When we arrived on the first day, we all went out to lunch together. Zachary was enjoying and talking about his lunch happily in the (nearly empty) restaurant - one of the benefits to showing up before the big tourist weekend rushes. Then he started making this crazy smile and freezing in place. We figured out that he was just straining to, um, use the facilities (do diapers count as facilities?), and while in the past this has gotten him red-faced and clenching his hands out in front of him, this time it was accompanied by a crazy half-squint/half-bug-eyed grin that just had us all in stitches as he repeated it about 10 times during lunch. J caught a video; I'll have to post it when we grab a copy.

No more tears?

As a hopeful sign that Zachary is fully back into his routine and comfort zone, I was able to put him to bed tonight without any crying -- while I was in Japan, Meh reported that he was taking a while to settle at night, so maybe he just feels more settled with the whole family together again?

Today also marks the day Zachary turns 13 months old. Yes, I've got to update the stats counter on the blog to start counting in months instead of weeks at some point. (And then soon enough we'll just be counting in years - crazy!)

Skin conditions are a natural part of being a baby (most parents we've talked to have confirmed that 'baby-soft skin' is somewhat of a myth/misnomer). Zachary had a little baby acne thing going, so today I took him to the doctor and they gave us an antibiotic. Thus far I've got three complaints:

1. Why does it have to be pink? Okay, fine, it's "cherry flavored", but does that really help 'sell' the taste experience to Zachary? All this means is that we stain his pajamas, the floor, and our own clothes when we administer it. Clear would be just as effective medicinially I suspect.


2. The dosage is 6 mL. The pharmacy was kind enough to give us a dosing syringe -- but with markings only up to 5 mL. So yes, it takes two draws to get the proper medicine out of the bottle, by which time he's again squirming free.


3. Children's medication is always ridiculously sticky. This is icky twofold -- from #1 above, we end up getting it on us (and Zachary around his mouth, on his clothes, etc.), and secondly, even just drawing it from the bottle, you end up with a syringe that's sticky inside and out. So now I'm fishing around for kleenex or wipes for Zachary, myself, the floor, and the syringe.

Changing Zachary is becoming more and more of a challenge - he hates being laid on his back and is constantly trying to roll away. Meh has mastered the art of the standing and crawling changes, but I'm still too afraid of, um, something rolling away onto the floor when I open the moving diaper target. For now I have to resort to distraction (toys, songs, and tummy raspberries) to get him to somewhat stay still, but I suspect this won't last much longer...

Eat your booty

I got back from Japan yesterday morning, and the little man and I got to spend most of the day together. Zachary already seemed different than when I had left - even more interactive, playing, and verbal. He also now has a fifth tooth coming in (bottom right-of-center, for the inquiring grandparental minds). He was singing for mommy this week while I was gone:


A somewhat new food in Zachary's cuisine since I got back is what Trader Joe's used to call Pirate's Booty (really? a Wikipedia entry? What doesn't that thing cover?!), but recently replaced by their own brand of (suspiciously still maritime/treasure chest-themed) 'Unburied Treasure White Cheddar Corn Puffs'. He loves them as a snack or at dinner time, though he still hasn't quite figured out the whole "biting off a piece" concept, and stuffs them into his mouth whole.

This leads us into a review of his current dietary state in general, which is an occasional concern, such as on our recent trips to NY and LA (where we went to fruit markets or grocery stores to stock up on Zachary-friendly cuisine). Apparently any hint or mention of a child being a 'picky eater' is taboo and actively discouraged by the child care folks in the know -- at our otherwise consistently supportive parent-baby sessions, Meh was actually chided at the final graduating class a few weeks ago for even suggesting such a thing within earshot of Zachary. Wha? Anyway, here's my current understanding of his eating standards:

1. Finger foods must be consciously grabbed by Zachary. Anything placed in his hand or inadvertently dragged/brushed in passing is unacceptable and elicits hand shaking until the item is flung in a random direction.
2. Items must not be sticky or gummy, since this may lead to violations of #1. ("Wet" appears to be okay, since his favorites include fruits.)
3. Spoon-fed items must be accompanied by live entertainment (and occasionally by a second spoon that he must hold). The choo-choo train and Jaws theme are his favorite delivery mediums.
4. Items with complex textures are not generally acceptable. This has been proven thus far by pizza, waffles, and quesadillas that included more than just cheese and a hint of carrots.
5. Items must more or less fit in his mouth whole; biting off a piece is unacceptable. (There was a hilarious example last week where I gave him a rectangular Japanese rice wafer we'd gotten. He insisted that it must be eaten in vertical orientation, so he was getting frustrated and having issues trying to chew it while it propped his mouth open.)

Of course all we can do is continue to offer these other foods; as our doctor reminded us, it's pretty uncommon for a child who has been consistently offered foods to starve. And Zachary certainly is doing fabulously with the foods that he does like; tonight he ate about a half of a quesadilla, a small bunch of grapes, a few mommy-picked blackberries, a handful of pirate's booty, apple sauce, and one and a half rice cakes. Korby got the honor of eating the rejected pizza and late quesadilla and grape bits; I think he's looking forward to mealtime more than Zachary is.

Today, Zachary took 3 quick little steps in a row! He was cruising around and then holding onto mommy, and she backed up - he responded by walking back over to her and grabbing her skirt. I tried to replicate it with daddy, but he preferred to just keep crawling towards me, which was its own brand of fun entertainment for the little man; we had a few chase daddy around the kitchen sessions this afternoon while mommy was at work.

Home is where the layover is

The remainder of our Los Angeles trip just flew by - it was so good to see so many friends and to be able to celebrate with R and M on their wedding day, though both Meh and I looked at each other on our drive back from the SeaTac airport and simultaneously sighed 'home'. That was last night. Today I'm off to Tokyo for the third and final installment of this year's Gamefest conference. Never a dull moment!

Wrapping up our LA trip, Monday morning we headed off to visit one of Meh's oldest friends C, along with her husband M and their two young sons. Zachary was moderately fussy, but locked onto the excellent large ceiling fan they have in their family room and became happy. We had a nice breakfast with them and tried to get caught up, though eventually my cat allergies got the best of me (didn't actually see the kitty though - usually they sense these things and do everything in their power to be all cute and pettable, forcing me to pet them with pens and such to avoid the direct contact) and we had to make an escape.

Then it was back into the city for lunch from my favorite kosher deli. Between the young children joining us (we got to see friends T & S and their daughters M & R) and the potentially large party, we elected to do takeout. (I also pondered the fact that Zachary's favorite lunchtime food is actually dairy, and thus likely wouldn't be allowed in the door at the deli.) Friend J graciously hosted us, and friends (M and C) and family (Aunt K) came by and joined us for various amounts of time. Friend M brought Zachary a cute onesite and an excellent cushy football toy branded from his daddy's school - fight on!

The flight back (Zachary's 24th! I'm feeling I should start tracking these on his stat sheet on the right column of the blog) was thankfully smooth, though on this plane our so-called "bulkhead" seats were really just regular seats right behind the first class row, with a little curtain - no bulkhead, and thus not much real extra space for ground exploration for the little man. Still, he was so tired from the weekend's activities that after I changed him (in a restroom that, hooray, finally had a changing table), he conked out on mommy pretty quickly, and slept through to the landing. Hopefully Zachary will adjust back to his regular schedule smoothly -- he was such a good little boy during all of our summer travels this year!

Bridal trails

Continuing our LA trip adventure on Sunday morning, we had a tasty breakfast at one of our favorite LA breakfast joints. (As with New York last week, I was astounded to arrive at a generally popular and crowded restaurant and have it be virtually empty - then again, we were there by a little past 8 am.) Well, my breakfast was good at least - Meh had some kind of super-rosemary in her eggs that she said tasted like either perfume or window cleaner. Yum. Zachary again dissed eggs, toast, and even most of the fruit bowls that Meh and I had gotten - so it was another breakfast of mostly just grapes and Cheerios for the little man.

After breakfast we headed onward to meet up with friends M and L and their daughter C for brunch/lunch. (Our visits really do seem to center on eating opportunities, no?) Zachary played while C tried to interact with him, and the adults kind of sort of got to catch up in between playing with the kids. But it was again so nice to just spend some quiet mellow time in our friends' home and hang out. Zachary was a big fan of their mini-kitchen toy set, and played with plastic eggs as well as a few of C's other toys (drawing some concern from her at times) and walking around with their little plastic walker. Lately I've noticed that when Zachary finds a toy that he likes, he'll sit on the ground and drag it around himself in full circles. Meh says he's done this with his blocks as well; not sure what exactly this behavior signifies, but it's cute to see him do it with such focus and thoroughness.

Then we headed back to the hotel, the little man taking a cute little nap in the car en route, and waking up smiley like so. We had a little extra time before the evening wedding, and it was another fairly hot LA day, so we attempted to go down to the pool with the little man after our success at C and L's yesterday. He was very happy to be getting in, but quickly started to shiver once he was actually in the pool - looks like it wasn't heated to his liking, so we ended up bailing on that plan, drying off next to the pool and just enjoying the warm weather for a bit.

Meh and I had a wonderful time at the wedding. The venue was the Los Angeles Equestrian Center (several horses crossed the road in front of us as we entered - yes, to get to the other side), and it was beautiful, with a gorgeous shaded alcovey outdoor area with a waterfall for the ceremony, and a great room with band and excellent food for the reception and celebration.

We arrived a bit early so I could rehearse the last of the music with the musicians, and Meh took the opportunity to snap some nice pictures and catch up with some wedding party members. The ceremony was lovely, and I hope that our music added to the experience. It was special for me to be able to play some of Meh and my wedding music again, in addition to some pretty melodies that had special meaning for R and M. When arranging music for a wedding processional/recessional, I generally put in a few potential spots where the music can loop, since you never know how long a procession will take. (Hm, I guess it's like video game music in that way.) This was one of the first times I'd actually needed to use all of the 'loops', with the large wedding party and extended processional path.

Then I got to put the viola away and enjoy the wedding festivities. One fun tradition that you can't get enough at weddings is the concept of entertaining the bride and groom through shtick and props. Of course, the weddings these past two weekends have certainly demonstrated that in spades; friend E had brought a bunch of 99 cent store (though perhaps not for long?) props, including some silly glasses and hats that made their way around the table. My hat was deemed a cute option for Zachary, so we kept it. Pictures in the next post I'm guessing.

A huge huge thank you to R for babysitting him while we went to the wedding; she did an amazing job with what sounded to be a very cranky Zachary while we were gone. We got back to the little man sleeping soundly in his crib (don't worry, he woke up several times later that night), and were so thankful that R took such good care of him and let mommy and daddy celebrate at their friends' wedding!