Meh's bags are packed, she's ready to go

We're now officially into the red zone, with two weeks to Gooshie's due date -- and, as we've often been reminded, that due date being roughly plus or minus two weeks. Meh packed her hospital bag yesterday (which she insists means Gooshie will arrive late), and I've got to get going on mine as well. We've created our multiple plans for what happens if Meh goes into labor in the middle of the night, and have several friends generously on standby to watch the little man.

I've also been "grounded" as it were; I had a local conference in Seattle last week (and had to explain to the other attendees why I had an exemption from the "all cellphones must be switched off" rule), but I've passed off my talks for an upcoming London conference to other speakers, and have backup speakers on standby for a conference in San Francisco the second week of March.

Z and I performed our first experiment on Sunday with him sleeping in his big boy bed. He'd quite nearly fallen asleep on our drive home from lunch with mommy and running some errands, so I tried snuggling him and putting him into the new bunk bed, even turning on the new white noise generator we'd picked up on said errands. He happily smiled, snuggled with blankie, and squirmed a bit in the bed as if getting ready to go to sleep. I ducked out into the hall and quietly shut the door. Alas, two minutes later I heard the thumping feet on the ground, the door knob turned, and the little man was there smiling at me. He grabbed me by the hand and led me into his old bedroom, pointed at his crib, said "ba" (bed), and then waited for me to pick him up and put him in the crib. He was out cold moments later. Ah well, I guess the next step is blackout curtains for the new bedroom.

The Last Supper Revisited

The countdown continues, with 16 days left until the midpoint of the statistically probable due date. Hm, perhaps not as dramatic as just saying that we're two days from any time now! With that in mind, we wanted to have a special date night before meeting Gooshie -- and that took place last night, where we went with friends J & S to a very special Valentine's Day-themed dinner at The Herbfarm.

The Herbfarm remains as wonderful and amazing as the first time we were there, which appropriately enough was right before Zachary was born. (Meh was pregnant the second time as well, which means she still has never gotten to enjoy their flights of wine or any less-than-fully-cooked meats!) The food was incredible, the service excellent and friendly, and I'm still always extra impressed when the proprietor/host is able to talk his way down the row of staff members and introduce each by name, background, pedigree, and random accompanying trivia. We of course also took a stroll to visit the Herbfarm's resident 'recyclers', Basil and Borage, who wagged their tails and happily ate some of the leftovers from the little pail we brought with us; talk about a charmed life!

I'm a bit embarassed to admit that one of the most entertaining bits for me were these little self-enclosed hand boilers (glass sculptures filled with a colored liquid that expands and boils up to a top compartment when you put it in the palm of your hand). Which is not to say the food wasn't incredibly amazing, as was the company -- hooray for a very special date night!

House Hunters

Huge news from the east coast -- Mima and Papa are looking to move out to Seattle! The idea had been tossed around for a few months, and this weekend they took a first big step, with a brief visit to start looking for homes. We all got to hang out together in the mornings and evenings, and somehow in between they managed to see something like 30 properties during their three and a half day visit.

There were a few promising options, including one that we stopped off to check out late in the afternoon of their last day before taking the little man down to a play area at the mall and dinner at his favorite digs. One option there hadn't been available to investigate on the spot, so Zachary and I returned there yesterday afternoon with the realtor. Zachary did a great job, happily looking around without getting into too much trouble. The only hitch was when we came back up the elevator from checking out the parking garage, when he decided it would be fun to push the 'emergency assistance' button -- whoops. But the property's realtor was right there and she assured us it was all fine.

Tell me about it

Zachary's labelling skills continue to develop, with new words (or at least semblances of words) every day. Yesterday he and I went to a friend's housewarming party, and he had a great time with her dog ('dah-dee!'), petting the dog and saying 'niiiice'; grandma would be so proud. For breakfast, he now specifically asks for 'mik' (milk), 'cha cha' (Cheerios), and/or 'kah' (Kix). If I ask him whether he wants something, he'll say 'yessss' (though no is still either a head shake or 'all done'). More and more objects in his daily life have names too - 'house', 'sahss' (socks), 'sha' (shoes, and also sheep), 'pah' (pants), 'dah' (down), and others.

Oh, and he has a favorite new word for when his toy airplane propels itself into a wall, or one of his cars or trucks decides to express itself via Newtonian physics:

Thirty Days

We're down to the final month (plus or minus two weeks or so) until we get to meet Gooshie! We're all both excited and a little nervous, and keep trying to remember what things were like in the early days; if only we had a blog or something to compensate for the sleep-deprived loss of short term memory. Zachary still doesn't really indicate that he gets it, though he's got to notice that he simply can't always be "up!" in mommy's arms. Not that daddy can sustain that for extended periods either with our 30-pound little man!

Which brings us to nicknames -- what becomes of "little man" when there's another, well, "little man"? Will we recycle names? Share them between both boys? Come up with new options for Gooshie? Only time will tell; this reminds me of our question of whether Zachary would still ever go by Ziggy after he was born - didn't happen. In the meantime, the preparations continue; we took a tour of the hospital last week (this time we're using the one 10 minutes from our house rather than hiking into the city) and got a feeling for where and when to go. Meh has weekly check-ins with her midwives (with their ongoing ban on kids due to cootie spreading concerns, Z and I have stayed home, so I still haven't gotten to meet any of them), and everything has been looking on track so far. (Ptuh ptuh ptuh!)

We'll close this entry out with a video of one of Zachary's sources of constant entertainment:

Meh-ternity photos

Yesterday we had a return visit to an incredible baby/family photographer who had shot some wonderful Zachary pictures back in 2008. We'd met in that parent-baby class (she has a son just about Zachary's age, and now a younger son too) and she was starting up her photography business. A year later, she's in full swing, and even has her very own studio adjacent to her house. (This is apparently her secret to baby photography; the space can be climate controlled to a nice warm temperature, the babies can crawl around on a variety of cozy fuzzy rugs, and then conk out when she puts on a white noise generator.)

The photo shoot was fun and mellow; Zachary did great, running around and playing with Thomas (you'll likely notice the tank engine in all photos of Zachary), and the pictures of Meh are of course beautiful. We even made the photographer's blog. Hooray for beautiful pictures of my beautiful wife, son, and son-to-be; we're looking forward to seeing the final results!

Better get used to these bars, kid

Zachary's bed is built! I wrapped it up yesterday morning by hammering 60 plastic nails into the cross slats -- yes, as fun as it sounds, especially when the nails are both stubborn and right up against the edge of the bed frame. But once it was done, the mattress was hoisted up into the bed (first the bottom and later the top bunk), and Zachary immediately had to explore. He's just a little too tall to stand on the bed without his head hitting the slats for the top bunk, but he had no trouble climbing in and out of bed. We had snuggle time while watching the planes (comfortably visible from the bottom bunk), though he wouldn't quite go to sleep with the eternal dogfight in progress. Still, he's definitely enjoying spending time in his soon-to-be new room!

Who's the fairest?

We of course have plenty of pictures of the little man around the house. But it wasn't until yesterday that Zachary started looking at one of his baby pictures and saying "Zaza" (his name for himself) and then "bah-bah" (baby). Meh said he spent quite a while looking at (and talking about) himself.

The transition of the guest room to Zachary's bedroom is back on track now that we donated the futon that had been occupying the office. Today the guest bed made its way into the office, and Zachary and I continued putting together his bunk bed. Well, really I put the bed together while he ran around on his mattress playing with a truck, a plastic hammer (too bad I didn't actually get to the hammering part yet), a book, and of course talking about the circling airplane mobile. He was actually a little concerned when he walked into the room and there was no "ba" (bed) to be "up" in, but he got over it pretty quickly, and climbed around the bed frame as I assembled it. Still to come: his snazzy new Swedish dresser, rearranging some bookshelves, and painting his room's back wall.

Quick story on the paint -- Meh and he went to Meh's favorite home improvement store to pick up paint yesterday. He was having a great time looking around and up at the warehouse roof, of course particularly enjoying it when Meh took him through the ceiling fan section (alas, none of them were actually functional). She ordered the paint and picked up a few other paint supplies while it was being mixed. When Zachary showed interest, she showed him (and told him about) the paint brush. He picked up on the brush aspect and started trying to comb his hair with it, smiling the whole time. Silly little man!

English man

Zachary's been gradually developing more and more words over the past few weeks that are actually understandable -- even by those who don't speak Zachary. Unmistakably English words include: "on", "off", "up", "yeah", "eat", "socks", "cookie", "house" and "bus" (the last two often with a cutely elongated s, and now accompanied by pointing at the book or vehicle in question). There ae a few close ones as well -- "bah-bah" (baby, though also his favorite blanket), "mah-mah" (mommy), and "dah-dee" (doggy).

He's also been improving his sound effects -- sorry, I'll take the blame for that one. Here's his howling wolf (followed by his favorite 'AH-wah', which is his take on a panther growl, and must be followed by a 'rewr' and mommy or daddy tickle. The book is totally optional for this part.)

To the point

No need to make up my own milestones this time: as of yesterday, Zachary has started pointing. Granted, sometimes he opts for his thumb or some kind of gang symbol rather than the preferred index finger, but it's certainly making it easier to communicate and ask him what he's talking about. This morning, we were reading him a story and he was saying 'fafa!'. When we couldn't figure out what he was talking about, he pointed straight across the room to his giant fire truck puzzle. This has been followed by him reading several of his books and pointing at several objects while identifying them in Zachary-speak.

A few days ago, he and I went to the park and there was some kind of impromptu dog convention going on, with owners and dogs everywhere. He got very excited and happy, and hopped over to the doggies while saying "dah-dee!" One tiny dog gave him a big sloppy kiss and he thought it was very funny; he then was very good about petting the soft dogs very gently and carefully. One of the owners offered to let him feed her pooch a cookie (dog biscuit), and my immediate worry was that Zachary was going to recognize the word and try to eat it. But he was already off and running down the forest path towards more dogs a little ways away.

Say it soft and it's almost like praying

One of Zachary's favorite books at the moment is this board book about Chanukah. We often have to read it 2 or 3 times (after which time Meh and I can invoke a parental veto) before bed and naptimes. I generally ask Zachary what he wants to read, and he's got a few words relating to various books -- "ba" for the Berenstain Bears, "fa-fa" for Frances, "pah" for More Pants, and now "ha-ha" for that Chanukah book.

However, I think he's picked up that when I pronounce Chanukah, there's a very non-English sounding kh sound (or ch, Ḥ, ח, or whatever) at the beginning of the word. And sure enough, in the last day or two, when he asks for the book, he very clearly has started saying "ha-kkkkha!", with a big old guttural accent on the second syllable. Cute little Hebrew-speaking man!

You can pick your friends...

Words? Not exactly. Important things to say? Most certainly.


More exciting milestones that aren't really milestones but I'll claim them anyway: tonight when I said we were going to have bath time and should clean things up, Zachary took one of his Thomas playing cards that he'd been carrying around, and put it back into the appropriate box. Crazy. Then he was trying to figure out where to put a car he'd been playing with, and I suggested the pushcart full of the other cars. He ran over and dropped the car in. Alas, I couldn't get him to help me disassemble his Lego masterpiece (which today was easily three feet tall); he was already at the bottom of the stairs asking me to open the gate so we could head upstairs.

While he thankfully hasn't had a serious cold in a few weeks, we've discovered that Zachary actually understands the concept (if not always the logistics) of wiping his own nose. He was never a huge fan of us trying to wipe for him, so when he had a runny nose a few days ago (and was scrunching up his face to avoid the drips), we offered him a tissue and he was able to wipe it himself. Of course, soon afterwards he decided that tissues were much more fun to shred into increasingly tiny pieces, but hey, it's a start. Tonight, he had a bit of mucous on his nose during bath time. I tried to brush it away, but Zachary wasn't really interested in my hands being on his nose -- so I tried to novel approach of asking him to wipe his own nose. And voila, he did, and it was gone. Perhaps we can scratch that one off the list of dirty jobs parents have to do? Well, until Gooshie at least, so at least a reprieve for a month or two!

Barefoot, pregnant, and in the kitchen

Happy 2010! In addition to being the new year, today is my birthday. Yes, it's fun that my birthday is brought in with fireworks and a ball dropping, though it also apparently meant a missed tax break for my parents (sorry mom!), and of course means potential birthday parties are either competing with New Years Eve parties or friends' hangovers or ongoing vacations the next day. :)

Suffice it to say we didn't actually stay up until midnight last night. Consulting with other friends with kids, it sounds like surviving to 'east coast midnight' (that is, 9 pm PST) is a feat in and of itself. That said, we were of course woken up by our pyromaniacal neighborhood's traditional midnight fireworks display; somehow Zachary did manage to sleep through the crackles and booms, much as he did for the Fourth of July.

Anyway, I wanted to just do something mellow and low key for my birthday, so this morning we had a fabulous brunch/open house. It was really great, with many friends coming by, as well as quite a few kids -- Zachary did great sharing his toys, and I had a wonderful time; it was so nice to fill the house with our friends and get to catch up after not seeing many of them for some time. Meh had aimed to keep it mellow and low key as well, which of course still meant an incredible spread of freshly-filled cannoli (when I discovered they were back after a long absence Costco, I actually had grabbed and wrapped up a box for Meh for Chanukah -- it was fun to surprise her with a wrapped gift in the freezer), a wide selection of bagels, vegetables, fruits, two quiches, and of course Meh wanted to make me the birthday cake of my choice.

Cake-wise, I really had no idea this year, and wasn't sure how we'd top the yumminess of the past few years, which had featured Meh-made apple-caramel cake (2009), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cupcakes (2008), and a DeLorean cake (2007). Breaking out of the (cake?) mold, I opted for a lemon meringue pie, which was of course amazing, and apparently had been Meh's special recipe to create for papa's birthdays when she was growing up. Zachary wanted to be "up!" as the pie was being created yesterday, so the step stool came out so he could watch the mixer. While he doesn't yet help in the kitchen (or spend much time playing with his own wooden kitchen, other than occasionally shaking his toy salt & pepper shakers like castanets), he's hugely interested in anything involving the KitchenAid.

And yes, to the title of this post, Meh had her shoes off while she was slaving over the pie (made entirely from scratch, even the crusts!). Have I mentioned I have the best and most dedicated wife in the world? Happy birthday to me indeed!

Swing Kids

I'll let our readers decide if this activity indicates a future of sewing, performing vascular surgery, or if we're really just reading too much into it:


Zachary has long engaged in what I had thought was called parallel play, but according to Wikipedia (the source for all that is true and verifiable in the world), is actually more like solitary play. That is, even if there are multiple kids in the room, they're all pretty much playing by themselves. The parallel aspect I guess is that they occasionally do notice what the other kids are doing, which can sometimes lead to the other kids' toys looking more fun and getting taken. (Zachary has actually always been great about that, rarely taking a toy, and generally just moving on to another toy without getting particularly bothered if a toy is taken from him.) He's also engaged in parallel play with us for quite some time, asking for lego help, playing piano with us, and bringing us his moo-ing cow puppet to 'play' for him. More recently, he's figured out how to make it moo himself, and (equally impressive to me) he will make it moo in the correct rhyhtm for the various songs it cycles between!

Anyway, this is a really roundabout way to talking about yesterday, where we had an early glimpse at cooperative ('associative' per Wikipedia) play. After some successful shopping errands, we stopped at the train park on the way home. Zachary was again insistent on staying on the sidewalks until I pointed out the swings, at which point he made a beeline for them, disregarding the lack of a paved path in their direction. Silly man.

Anyway, a few minutes into swinging time, a little girl and her dad came over and she got in the adjacent swing, facing the opposite direction. The two of them proceeded to smile, laugh, and even occasionally pseudo talk to each other as they crossed paths. Zachary kept calling her "ba-ba" (baby) even though she was about his age, and he thought it was particularly funny when they ended up swinging in synchronization in opposite directions. It was very cute to see!

Quick footnote: We get a weekly e-mail about some typical developmental milestones, and it's often spookily on target. Sure enough, this week's talked about the beginnings of shared play.

9 1/2 Weeks

We're at 66 days and counting until Gooshie's due date! He continues to be very active, with much kicking and squirming. Last night we were feeling kicks every few seconds, and it seemed perhaps a bit too rhythmic -- until Meh guessed that we were more likely noticing tiny baby hiccups.

Zachary continues to not entirely get the big news, or that he's going to be a brother. Still, the changes are starting to add up to something for him; we've begun the move of objects and furniture that will create his new bedroom. He does seem to love his soon-to-be room, often asking that we take him upstairs just so he can watch the Snoopy and Red Baron dogfight mobile. And that's not the only thing involving endless circles that he enjoys, as demonstrated today at the park (while modeling his Thomas boots and new red mittens):

Tonight we did half of a "traditional" Jewish activity for Christmas, meeting some friends for dinner at a local Chinese restaurant. (They'd come from the other half of the tradition: going to see a movie. I don't think Zachary's quite ready for that yet, though we did try watching a bit of Finding Nemo on DVD with him today. Alas, he wasn't really interested in hanging around for it.) Zachary brought in one of his favorite books, and he and I had a very exciting communicative moment. He was looking at his book and saying "sha!". I couldn't tell what he was saying, so I incorrectly guessed a few times. When he shook his head, I asked what he was pointing at, and he grabbed my finger and pointed at the swing in a picture. I know this isn't such a huge thing, and it's better communication-wise if he points with his own finger and all that, but it was still a very exciting event for him to make the extra effort to directly tell me something!

Sing Off

Zachary continues to love music -- except if we sing along. He'll look at us, shaking his head very intently (sometimes while smiling, other times with a stern look on his face), and even occasionally make a little vocalization of disapproval. Yup, we've got our very own Simon Cowell.

Today we had a lovely day out with the little man. First we met friends D & D with their sons N & B at the local franchise of our favorite chain breakfast spot. Everyone had a nice time, though Zachary ignored most of the food and spent much of the meal playing with his blue car ("boo-bah!") or making eyes at a foam cutout of a girl ("gah-gah!") from his oversized foam book. She's already his second love; we caught him smiling broadly a few weeks ago at the Sun-Maid raisin lady. Before and after, he really wanted to take a walk, so we strolled around the (not yet totally chaotic) shopping mall and adjacent park; he even got to put a coin into the Salvation Army bucket (after being drawn in by the fascinating ringing bell of course), while mommy stopped off here to pick up some tasty slices of princess and lemon chiffon cake to enjoy later.

For lunch, we were back out on the road, meeting friend R for lunch at Ruby's. Zachary was again very happy about the train, though sitting just below the tracks, he couldn't see it when it was on the near half of the loop, and occasionally got upset when it disappeared around the bend.

Afterwards, Zachary wanted to take a stroll (and I do mean a real walk; no strollers were harmed in the making of our journey), so we all went over to the huge plant store/greenhouse right across the street. He enjoyed looking at all of the varied and brightly colored plants, but particuarly liked the ceiling fans in the store, as well as all of the fountains and other water features.

The Great Escape

Zachary has finally discovered that you can actually *ride* (rather than just push) the red rocket he got way back for his birthday (as in, the day he was born).

In the past few weeks, we've been starting to prepare for Zachary's transition to a big boy room and bed. Meh has done a fabulous job sketching out our rooms' dimensions and virtually rearranging furniture as we plan out the guest room merging into the office/craft room to give Zachary his own room. One of the first Zachary touches in his future room was that Snoopy/Red Baron mobile we assembled with mima and papa. He frequently peeks into his soon-to-be room and happily says "ah-pah!" (airplane), and also spends occasional snuggle time just laying on the guest bed looking up at the circling cardboard planes. I don't think I ever posted his initial reaction:

On Thursday, the three of us went to everyone's favorite Swedish flat pack store to choose a little man dresser and bed -- and as it turned out, also bedding (they had some pseudo-crayon truck/bus/car patterned duvet covers; Zachary looked at one, said 'bah!' (bus), and we knew we'd found his set). As usual, they were out of stock of one thing that Meh wanted for the office, so Zachary and I queued up a return trip today while Meh was at work. Zachary had a great time on both occasions, particularly enjoying the lighting and kids sections of the store (as well as when I'd give him a little countdown to a speed boost in the cart). After we got back, I started putting together his new bunk bed while he snuggled on the guest bed with his cozy new duvet (definitely a winner!) and watched the airplane mobile. He got a little drowsy, so we read some stories (this one has become a recent favorite, often requiring 4 or more sequential readings) and I put him to bed for his nap.

Zachary naps often involve audible thumps (squirming around to get cozy) and occasionally even a little talking (to himself or his blanket?) that can be heard from downstairs. However, today's nap featured some unusual and unidentified sounds, so I decided to sneak upstairs and investigate. No sneaking was necessary though; as I reached the bottom of the stairs, I saw him smiling down at me from the top of the staircase. Yup, it took 2 1/3 years, but he finally escaped the crib and was apparently waiting for me to notice him waiting at the top of the stairs.

As a short term solution, Meh is removing the bumper from the crib (we suspect he was using it as a boost up), but I think we'll be moving him to his big boy bed a little sooner than we'd thought - perfect timing that I just happen to be assembling it today!

Connecting the dots

One recurring feature of the televised Thomas and Friends is a connect the dots puzzle segment. A bunch of dots (admittedly making a pretty obviously train-shaped object) are placed on the screen, and then an animated pencil starts connecting them. You're supposed to try to guess which of Thomas's friends it is by the time the pencil finishes; I can never tell which engines are supposed to have longer profiles or taller steam funnels or whatever, so usually it's just something to pass the time between the sketches. But Meh reported that today, Zachary looked at the unconnected dots and said "seisss" (that's his word for 'six'. Also the Spanish one; see, he's already multilingual!) When the dots had finished connecting, it was indeed Percy, who's got a big six painted on his side. Coincidence?

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.

Faux-reos

Not that there's ever really a need to schedule an event as an excuse, but Meh has been baking up a storm for today's holiday cookie exchange. I think she ended up with like seven options, and friends brought many of their own as well. It was a fabulous time, and everyone enjoyed both the treats and playing with Zachary. For his end, Zachary had a great time, particularly of course with friend J. Eventually there were some nice polite requests from the little man for Thomas, so we had to put on everyone's favorite televised, semi-animated tank engine. Incidentally, we proved that it's not just Meh and myself; as the show came on, the adults sitting on the couch were all inexplicably transfixed too -- it's clearly hypnotic for grownups.

One of the many hit cookies of the party were these "faux-reos" Meh made (someone later suggested we instead call them "moreos"), giant oreo-type homemade cookies with fresh cookie cream in the middle. Tastiness. There were also a wide variety of other cookies prominently featuring caramel, chocolate, nuts, various butter/sugar/flour combinations, and even a pumpkin one that Zachary actually sampled. (Yes, he was the only one at a cookie party who found apple slices to be the most attractive item from the presented options.)

It's also the first full day of Chanukah, which means lots of dreidls and other fun decorations have been tastefully placed throughout the house by Meh. Zachary has a favorite dreidl that plays "I Have a Little Dreidl" when it spins fast enough, and he loves watching/making mommy or daddy spin it. If it stops, he'll smile and look expectantly at it and/or us, saying "sha!" ('spin!' I guess?) until the top is back up and playing its music again. His favorite present thus far (not counting a few early gifts he got from mima and papa when they visited for Thanksgiving) appears to be a superball direct from London, courtesy of Uncle B:

Dental records

Two days after our own mommy/daddy tag-team visit to the grownup dentist, Zachary had his checkup today at the pediatric dentist. They're really wonderful there, with lots of fun toys (many of whom are stuffed animals with extra prominent teeth of course) and kids even get a prize coin at the end of their visit to put into vending machines filled with super balls, necklaces, and other little trinkets. Alas, all of this remains lost on Zachary, who was unhappy from the moment we walked in, and mostly hysterical through the exam itself. We had one moment of hope when they mentioned their swing-arm mounted TVs had two channels, one of which had Thomas -- but alas, at that particular moment, that channel was actually playing an episode of "Bob the Builder". I felt extra bad for the other kids around us, who must've thought he was getting a root canal when about the worst that actually happened was a mirror in the mouth.

On the plus side, the dentist reported that he's now got all of his teeth except a top left second molar! New recent words include "chacha" (cheerio), "neck" (like it sounds - and he points to his neck as he says it), "kah-kees" (cookies, finally distinct from crackers), "gious" (juice), "fafa" (fire - he was staring at the fireplace the other day saying it again and again), "yata" (?), and a word for raisins that I can't quite transliterate. Oh, and did I mention he's getting all domestic? Meh found him helping fold laundry:

By the numbers

Zachary continues to love his numbers and letters. In the past few days, the number 2 in particular has been a favorite during the day, being carried around the house (he's got a 0-9 puzzle) with the occasional comment of "tah!" (two), and in some cases even out of the house on walks and to the grocery store. He and Meh started counting his toes earleir this week, and he was very excited to discover that he had ten of them. For bath time, he's got 0-9 magnets, and an orange five is consistently the favorite there. Even his alphabet and letter cookies will often double as toys once he's had his fill; yesterday, mima, papa, Meh, Zachary, and I went to the U-District Farmers Market, where he held onto a number 4 cookie for a good half hour. The market itself was fun if a bit small this weekend, with lots of fresh veg, yummy baked breads, farm-made cheeses, and flavored hummus and other bean dips (including a vegan bacon-flavored one?).

Back to the numbers, my favorite remains counting the 14 stairs in our house, which we count as walk down every morning. Usually if I speak quietly to him as we sneak past mommy's bedroom door, he'll count them in a whispering voice, which is extra cute.

Zachary's been having a blast with mima and papa during their visit, occasionally calling their names questioningly when they're not immediately visible to him. He's been particularly snuggly in the afternoons with mima on the couch - super cute!

A rooster says meow

Mima and papa came bearing many gifts (so many, in fact, that I think this was the reason they had to check their actual clothes suitcase -- which promptly missed their connection, though it thankfully arrived the following morning). One is a classic mobile (and by classic, I mean circa 1960s, and last used by Zachary's uncle J as a young child) of Snoopy and Woodstock on their flying dog house in an eternal circling aerial battle with the Red Baron. It's got real working propellers and little lights that are supposed to be the guns; we've all been gradually assembling it, and will hopefully hang it up in the guest room (soon to be Zachary's room). Zachary's favorite gift of the moment is a seriously sturdy diecast battery-operated Thomas. He's about ten times heavier than Zachary's previous wooden Thomas, but the battery operation makes him a hundred times more fun. Thomas has even pulled Thomas around the track a few times, in addition to freight, egg crates, and New York subway cars.

With a lovely turkey dinner behind us, we headed yesterday to the Bothell Country Village, a faux-frontiery/Santa's villagey group of buildings that host lots of stores relating to fabric, stamping, papercraft, antiques, confectioners, and even a few tea rooms. Oh, and apparently a large family of chickens and roosters live there as well; we caught a few snuggling for warmth outside of the toy store, and later, the roosters were strutting around crowing at each other. Zachary thought this was hilarious, and kept occasionally meowing back at them:



The village also has a 1/4 mile 'train' ride (several carts that get pulled around by a golf cart), which Zachary laughed and smiled at when it drove past, as well as a duck pond, where he quacked and smiled at all of the ducks swarming kids feeding them breadcrumbs. And they also have a park with some fun play objects -- a carousel-themed merry go round and a community created pirate ship. Zachary had a great time walking around in the sandy (and from the rain, a bit muddy) hold of the ship, and Meh enjoyed opening up the treasure chest "hidden" in the main deck. He probably had the most fun at the tea house though, where we warmed up with hot drinks while Zachary played with magnetic letters and numbers on a giant board as well a large (what else but) Thomas train track.

Guess who's coming to dinner

Thanksgiving is tomorrow, and we'll be having a full table of family and friends joining us to enjoy turkey, stuffing, cranberries, potatoes, and of course the traditional Thanksgiving challah. Zachary's mima and papa arrived last night, and were happily surprised by some other secret guests who met them at the baggage claim: Meh's brother J and girlfriend S had flown up from Texas several hours earlier.

Zachary's been having a great time playing with family; even a few days before people arrived, he'd been bringing me our little flip photo album, and correctly identifying papa (a flawless "papa"), mima (which he pronounces "mama"), and Uncle Josh (uh-kah, or occasionally UH-kah-jah). Today we all went for lunch at one of Zachary's and our favorite eating establishments. Other than an ongoing demand for refills on his bottomless milk, he had a good time, and we all enjoyed a lovely meal together. Afterwards, Zachary got some wild running time at his favorite mall play area, and the adults got to do a brief bit of shopping while he took a post-play stroll.

Tonight the cooking has already begun (well, Meh had started even earlier than tonight), and tomorrow we're looking forward to celebrating with friends and family!

The Plush Menagerie

It's turned out that one of the gifts I ostensibly got for Meh in Japan, a plush Jiji cat from Miyazaki's Kiki's Delivery Service, has actually become one of Zachary's favorites. He'll snuggle with Jiji and meow, trading off the meowing with saying "ba" ('bear') to a teddy bear grandma brought from the UK, moo-ing for an all-American (that is, made in China) plush cow, and hissing at a sensory snake that friend S made for him -- yup, his very own stuffed menagerie.

That said, he's also a big fan of the JAL toy airplane I got for him. Today I finally broke down and installed some batteries to see what that 'on/off' switch was all about, and Zachary was mightily entertained:


On Friday, Meh and Zachary met me for lunch at the local chain diner. Zachary hadn't been there in a long time, and he was more than beside himself with glee ("Ga-ka! Ga-ka!") at the fact that they run model trains throughout the restaurant along ceiling-suspended tracks. His children's menu/placemat also came with a pair of those blue and red polarized "3D" glasses. I put them on (mildly amused by the blurry images that only sort of popped off his menu), and then gave them to him. He actually imitated me and put them on himself, and thought it was really funny to look at daddy through the red filter, then the blue one. The glasses and trains made for a very happy meal indeed; his favorite ceiling fan establishment may have serious competition.

Splitting hairs

The time had arrived once more where Zachary's hair was getting unweildly and tangled, so this afternoon we hiked over to the salon with the fun truck-shaped barber chair. Alas, our streak of pseudo-happy haircuts ends at two; his reception was more like how Meh had described some of his early haircuts, with unhappiness, standing up in his seat, and lots of "all done". In the end, he ended up sitting on my lap for the cut, with me trying to stay out of the way of the scissors and clippers, and with each of us wearing a smock and yet still somehow getting hair everywhere. Still, you can't argue with the results; he's got a smart new little haircut now, and I've got yet another excuse to throw out my old wool jacket -- the stylist was very nice and lint-rolled it for a good five minutes, but I'm not sure if she was grabbing more lint or just pilly wool bits.

Good Morning America

From 8 hours ahead of Seattle time to 7 hours behind (well, technically 17 hours ahead) in four days - yikes! I'm almost done with my Tokyo trip, and will head back later this afternoon.

London was hectic enough (and the time zones didn't really align) that I didn't really get to chat with Meh and Zachary; we just left e-mail messages for each other. But from here in Japan, we were able to get a video chat session going yesterday. Little man kept smiling at my image on the screen and saying "dah-dee!", and Meh and I got to catch up a bit during his mealtime as well.

I'm actually at the airport right now, having picked up some surprises for both Meh and Zachary. Hint: cute papercraft (Meh), stuffed animals (Meh), and airplane-themed items (Zachary) are involved. Looking forward to seeing them in a few hopefully brief hours, where I'll arrive at like 6 am this morning -- gotta love backwards time travel due to the international date line. Yup, it's going to be another long day!

The longest day

Long distance trips continue to be challenging with a two year old at home - well, I suspect quite a bit more challenging for Meh with me gone, but still, I miss my family and want to be back home as soon as possible! So when I had business trips this and next week to London and Tokyo, I found myself diverging from coworkers, who mostly were doing one continuous trip, and instead booked some mildly abrupt itineraries to minimize the time away. Today was the tail end of trip number one, where I ended up spending less than 48 hours in London. Somehow this involved being booked on the very first flight of the day out of Heathrow terminal 4, which meant a 4 am GMT wakeup and a 4:20 am cab ride for a 6:20 am flight. On the plus side, I got home by early afternoon. On the minus side, I won't be home from teaching my class tonight until after 10 pm PST, which means 26 hours of being awake. And Zachary will likely be up at his usual 5:30 am tomorrow, so no recovery time in the forecast. Next week onward to Japan for a nearly-as-hectic repeat performance - eek!

We've been experimenting with "timeouts" for Zachary, mostly when he gets frustrated (or overly tired) and starts swinging his amrs in our direction and "hitting" us. The timeout generally just means sitting in a chair for a few minutes, talking to him about how we don't hit people, and then redirecting him to another activity. I'm not sure if this is a good sign or not, but Meh reported that in the midst of a mild tantrum yesterday, she asked him if he wanted a timeout, and he pulled out the chair and sat in it all by himself! Here's the tail end of his self-timeout:

Stowaways

I've arrived safe and sound in the United Kingdom for a very brief business trip, where I went directly from the airport to a meeting, then travelled onward to my hotel and a few more meetings, and somehow still managed to find the energy to grab the taxi-to-train-to-subway back into Central London to have a tasty dinner with friends N & S. It was so good to catch up with them; I'm now back on the train back to the countryside where my hotel is, mildly dreading the early wakeup tomorrow for more meetings. And Thursday I'm on a super early flight back home -- fun times!

A quick story to share - as I unpacked my bag this afternoon, a tiny little sock tumbled out of one of my folded shirts. I chuckled at the reminder of Zachary, and then proceed to find two more tiny socks hiding in some boxers. Silly little man socks!

Speaking of the little man, before I left, we grabbed this video -- he continues to enjoy feeding us foods that he's not interested in. Every so often he'll actually start to give us the food and then psyche us out and take a bite himself, but not on this particular occasion:

A sugar-free Halloween

It's Halloween! Meh has been lamenting that while this is arguably her favorite holiday, she hasn't really gotten to properly celebrate it for the last few years. In 2007, Zachary was too young to trick or treat (though he and mommy trick-or-treated earlier in the day at my office, and a few days before he and I had cheered on mommy at a Halloween-themed 5K run). Last year, we again did the office walk, and even attempted a proper evening trick-or-treat; he made it all the way out the front door before laying himself out on our driveway. This year, the office trick-or-treat didn't work out schedule-wise, and we made some progress getting out to actually trick or treat in the neighborhood, but still, um, not quite there yet. Here's a comparison between 2007 and 2009:
Okay, honestly, it wasn't *that* bad, and things actually went pretty well. We made it out of the house, down the driveway...

...and to our next door neighbor's front door. Zachary even successfully knocked (you might make out his "na na").

Unfortunately, they weren't home yet; that's what we get for trying before 6 pm. And from there out, he really just wanted to walk on the sidewalk. Any attempt to divert him up a driveway to actually trick or treat met with sadness; even when we had to hop into the street to go around a parked car, he was unhappy. Still, we did complete one loop of the neighborhood, with the little man in his super-cute lion outfit and holding our hands while we occasionally called out Halloween greetings to a neighbor or two who waved to us from their front door.

Earlier in the day we all went to Jump Planet, basically a giant warehouse packed with those inflatable moonwalk things. They were piping in fun Halloween music, and Zachary and his friend N had a great time -- he spent much of it crawling around rather than actually jumping, though he thought it was really funny when I'd bounce near him. Oh, and he loved the giant slides that allowed him to tumble down them way too fast.

A very full (yet paradoxically candy-free) Halloween for a good little man!

A very special episode

Zachary continues to love everything Thomas, in particular the televised version. Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately?) our Tivo appears to only pick up one episode a week, so he's been cycling between the same few for his one TV show per day. This week's has easily become the new favorite in the collection, featuring Zachary's favorite non-Thomas character, Harold the Helicopter. Usually he just does the flyover at the beginning of the show, but this time he was in several stories and even had his own mildly creepy children-performed theme song -- Zachary just kept smiling and saying 'haha' again and again. Here was his reaction to the episode a few days later:

The most startling thing about this episode was that it's apparently from the most recent season, where the model trains with puppeteered eyes and non-moving die cast model human characters have suddenly all been replaced by either computer-generated faces or entirely computer-generated scenes. Thomas suddenly has a moving mouth and cheeks that Zachary finds hilarious even when Thomas is just talking and not particularly "cross" or "getting into trouble".

Bringing in the harvest

Zachary and Meh went to the pumpkin patch yesterday with their toddler group. Z had a great time, and was totally in love with the hay ride in particular. They carpooled together with Zachary's nanny J and her son/Zachary's friend T; apparently the carpool was T's suggestion! In addition to farm animals, hay, and arts & crafts, there was also a giant barn slide that Zachary flew down way too quickly (he loved it particularly when he launched off the end of the slide), as well as pumpkin picking; Meh and Z returned with a lovely specimen that we'll carve later next week.

Today Zachary received a surprise in the mail -- a postcard from Uncle B of a "wah cah!" (That's "red car" to the rest of us, a fabulously shiny Italian one that's apparently part of the MoMA collection.) He spent much of dinner holding onto it, smiling, and talking about his shiny red car. Who needs toys when he gets such entertaining pictures in the mail?

Cars and trucks remain Zachary's very favorites. Though he loves several books about being an older sibling, it's still the pages that incidentally have depictions of toy or real vehicles that get the most attention from him. He even likes to talk about helicopters and airplanes in the morning when he wakes up and I bring him to bed for a family snuggle -- in between cracking himself up. We're not sure what precisely makes him giggle, but somehow he manages to pull off 'cute' even when it's far too early and still dark outside!

Gender neutral

One bit of data we didn't mention about the 20-week ultrasound was that it was our first opportunity to find out Gooshie's gender -- if we wanted to. We'd debated this for quite some time; for Zachary, we'd elected to be surprised, and it was actually quite the experience when, the moment after he was born, the doctor held him up and asked me to call the gender; I somehow sputtered "It's a boy!". On the other hand, finding out would help set our minds at ease as to whether we'd need a whole new wardrobe (not that many of Zachary's newborn clothes were particularly gender-identified), whether our growing collection of Zachary's old non-infant clothes should be held onto or donated, and whether we'd need to be preparing ourselves for a bris versus a baby naming soon after Gooshie's birth.

It wasn't until we headed to Thursday's ultrasound that we decided to find out, though only if they could be really certain one way or the other. And roughly 5 seconds into the ultrasound, they were - it's (going to be) a boy! We even got a great image printout saying "It's a boy!", with the mouse pointer indicating the, um, source of the certainty.

Gooshie in 3D

When we were getting ultrasounds for Zachary (Ziggy at the time), I recall there were fancy clinics you could go to, pay extra money, and have this new-fangled extra expensive technology that would generate glamour shot 3D models of your baby. While that might be interesting for dropping the wireframe model of your baby into the latest video game simulator, it seemed a little unnecessary when we got perfectly cute actual ultrasound still images. Two years later, the technology is apparently a bit more standard -- today was our 20-week ultrasound, and they generated a 3D image of Gooshie's profile, alongside the more traditional images.

Everything is looking great; an approximate weight of 12 ounces, which is apparently 30th percentile. Gooshie was wiggling around during the ultrasound, but we got to see all the proper limbs, tiny fingers and toes, and of course a cute face that Meh thinks already looks different from Zachary's. Zachary and I hung out next to mommy for most of the appointment while Zachary played with his yellow car (which for some reason he kept talking about as 'wah kah' [red car]), though eventually he got a bit stir crazy, with repeated 'Ah dah!'s [all done] leading us to go play in the waiting room. I had him in stitches moving around a magnetic car in one of those closed hollow tables with magnet paddles that you use on the table's underside; he'd say 'go', and I'd hesitate just long enough to surprise him. This boy loves to get startled!

Halftime

It's hard to believe, but we're already at 20 weeks! Meh continues to be amazing with simultaneously handling a little man and growing Gooshie at the same time - I miss them all so much whenever I have to be out of town for work.

Thankfully, I'm back for a bit now, returning home late last night with prezzies in tow. For Zachary, I brought wooden model subway trains corresponding to those his Uncle B takes to work every day in New York; he loved the C train and was happily carrying it around this morning. To help out with communication (and to start to teach a few limits on some activities), Meh has taken to placing a Thomas the Tank Engine trading card on the fridge. When Zachary wants to watch Thomas (usually by saying "Gaka!" -- though I thought this was grandma a few weeks ago?), we go to the fridge and give the picture to him, explaining that this is his one ticket to watch Thomas per day.

This morning the process played out right after breakfast; Zachary ran to the fridge, grabbed the Thomas card from the fridge, brought it to me saying "Gaka!", and we went in the other room to happily watch one episode, with blankie, MTA train, and Thomas card in hand. His smile alternated focus between the TV and the playing card, and he happily called out "wawa" when the train went over a river and "haha" when Harold the Helicopter swooped past on the screen. Afterwards, the playing card goes away for the day (hidden on the counter).

Zachary's been learning his numbers and letters ever since we brought out the magnets when grandma was visiting (even on the first day, he'd already nailed 1, 7, and 8). In the bathtub, he plays with 0-9 and is getting most of them, and he still counts up to fourteen as we walk up or down the stairs. Tonight I was giving him alphabet cookies after dinner, and when I pulled out an 'N', he more or less correctly identified it (well, as "em"). Meh had better success while I was out of town:

Are you my Daddy?

Nothing reminds me how lucky I am not to be a single mom than when Scott goes out of town. How do those women ever shower??? I have gotten in only one since Scott left last Thursday, and that one occurred while Zachary stood outside the shower door holding up his socks and crying. I swear there was still shampoo in my hair when I got to work.

We did get to have a brief video chat (riddled with technical difficulties) with Scott, during which Zachary looked at him on the screen and said "Dada!" This made Daddy very happy!

Today I took Zachary to a fall festival at a super cute place in nearby Bothell that I didn't even know existed. He wasn't as turned on by the ponies and train ride as I expected, but he did enjoy the huge spread of Thomas the tank engine toys that the little toy store put outside for the kids.

When we got home, I baked cookies, and Zachary helped. He enjoyed playing with the dough on the mixing paddle, and picking chocolate chips out of the batter. He put his hand over mine when I cracked the eggs, and he even tried to put the measuring cups in the batter, such a helpful little man!

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.