The Name Game

Yesterday was Owen's well baby appointment back at the hospital's postpartum center. It was somewhat surreal (and certainly a source of deja vu, as we'd visited this same post partum center with Zachary in tow 2.5 years ago) to be back 48 hours later, but everything was looking great and the staff had some good ideas for us. They also have a fabulous shop full of baby and new mommy paraphernalia, so Meh went to town while I watched Owen snoozing away in the snap n' go carseat. I got to overhear a few other parents checking their youngsters in, and there were no Owens (we've gotten many compliments on the name, as well as a few inquiries on its increasing popularity; fear not, it still isn't quite in the top 50.)

It just so happened that we learned that earlier the same morning, Zachary's nanny J (whose son T is just about Zachary's age) had given birth at the same hospital - talk about close pairs of kids! Congrats to J and A on their new daughter!

Early modelling career

Our Flickr stats over the past few days have blown away previous measurements; 916 pictures were viewed yesterday alone - yikes! No pressure to take good pictures or anything. But if ours weren't compelling enough, I absolutely encourage folks to check out the amazing ones we had professionally taken this morning. (This link is to a sampling of the first few; we're looking forward to getting proofs in the next few weeks!) K had done an incredible maternity shoot back in January, and we'd scheduled a baby shoot for after Owen arrived. Due to schedule challenges, it had to either be today or not for a week and a half -- so off we went with Owen while mima and papa took Zachary to play and have lunch.

The baby shoot was even more wonderful than the maternity shoot had been. She keeps her studio at a very cozy 85 degrees so the babies can be snuggly and warm, and Owen slept through much of the session, generating some great and cozy photos along the way. The only thing we weren't able to accomplish was one of her "signatures", where the baby is placed in a suspended sling and hangs out cozily for some mid-air modelling. Owen was a little too active (even when half asleep) for that to work out this time around.

Oh, with the guess-Owen's-due-date poll now closed down, I just wanted to report back on the results. One person of our 14 entrants did guess the correct date - congratulations! Whoever it is can come visit Owen at their leisure and change the diaper of their choice. Or something. I actually noticed that a second entrant "guessed" 3/8 after he was already born and announced; we'll have to expunge that one from the permanent records. :) For those keeping score, guesses were:

3/2 (1)
3/3 (3)
3/4 (4)
3/5 (2)
3/7 (1)
3/8 (1 + the aforementioned expunged vote)
3/9 (2)

Thanks for helping us count down to Gooshie/Owen!

Oh brother

Everything feels like it's in fast motion with Owen! The hospital staff had been great and very supportive, and it was nice to stay in the same room through the entire experience. Meh and I even found time to watch most of a movie early yesterday evening. But 30 hours after arriving at the hospital, we were still ready to make our way back home this morning. The rear-facing carseat was reinstalled, Owen was dressed in his first actual non-hospital-issued outfit, sitting in his car seat (unhappy like his brother once was, though some gentle swinging seemed to soothe him - already a bit of a difference!), and the rear-facing car seat snapped back into the base.

Next, Owen's first true test: meeting his brother. I'd visited Zachary last night and given him bed time, but he hadn't seen mommy since bedtime on Sunday. So she went in first and was greeted with a giant hug. I followed subtly with Owen in the car seat. Zachary didn't really pay attention to him -- until he was in mommy's arms. Then suddenly he really wanted to be up, and daddy just wouldn't do. He was distracted short of a full meltdown, but so begins a hopefully short-lived rivalry. Later on while Meh was feeding Owen, Zachary again decided her lap was where he needed to be, so there will definitely be some, ah, "learning opportunities" to explore in the coming months.

Once again a huge thanks to friends J and S, who had watched and entertained Zachary for nearly two straight days (starting again at the delightful time of 2:30 am on Monday). We've got so many wonderful and supportive friends to help us during this enormous life transition!

Mima and Papa had fortuitously pre-scheduled their flight to arrive at noon today (this despite not voting for a date on the blog poll!), so I went to pick them up soon after we got back home. They were of course delighted to meet their second grandson and get to play with their first, who correctly (more or less) identified them as 'mama' and 'papa' and was happy to see them. And the "relearning" has begun - I assembled two pack & plays today and stocked them with all of Owen's goodies (though alas, size 1 diapers are still too big, so I'll have to make a run to the drug store tomorrow for N's).

Welcome, Owen Lev!

We are delighted to announce the arrival of Owen Lev Selfon! Owen was born this morning at 7:34 am. The stats:

Weight: 8 lbs 5 oz (3784 grams for the metric lovers among us)
Height: 21.06" (53.5 cm)
OFC: 13.58" (34.5 cm) [that's the head circumference]
Apgar: 8 (@ 1 min), 9 (@ 5 min)

Friends J and S graciously answered our 2:15 am wakeup call to stay with Zachary, and we arrived at the hospital a little after 3 am. Four hours (and a lot of mommy work) later, we got to meet Owen in person. He's already had several quiet alert periods, looking around and being super snuggly, and objecting vocally (but very cutely) to the typical poking and prodding that hospitals impose on newborns.

The bris is still to be scheduled, but for right now we're just excited to start to get to know him. Zachary will likely get to meet his brother tomorrow, and we've already been told that everything is looking great and we'll hopefully be able to go home tomorrow morning. Thanks to everyone already for all of the well wishes!

On the seventh day...

Six days have come and gone since the due date, and while Meh is increasingly uncomfortable, Gooshie apparently isn't ready to meet the world quite yet.

Lately we've been focusing on trying to stay within a few hundred feet of each other; even when Meh took a hill-less shortcut home from a walk to the park yesterday (the stroller wouldn't make it) while Zachary and I took the main path, I was a bit worried until we all arrived back at home. So it was a slightly bigger worry for me to drive off into the city last night for my orchestra's winter concert. Yes, the cellphone remained in my pocket, though in the end the question wasn't whether Meh would have Gooshie but whether I could actually make the concert in time - traffic was unusually atrocious and I ended up not hitting my seat until two minutes past the starting time. Thankfully a full audience meant we started a good three minutes later.

On the ball

Gooshie's very first crate o' diapers (along with some slightly larger diaper reinforcements for Zachary) arrived yesterday afternoon -- a mere 16 hours after I ordered them, what's their secret? Anyway, after I unloaded the contents, Meh had the excellent idea to use the remaining empty box to try out a bag of ball pit plastic balls she'd picked up for the little man. Suffice it to say he loved it:

This morning, Meh checked in with her midwives and got to take a non-stress test. Everything is looking good with Gooshie, who from the subsequent ultrasound apparently already has "some" hair. Color and amount still to be determined!

This afternoon we all went to lunch and then ran some Zachary and Gooshie-related errands, walking across a large outdoor shopping center. (Later we graduated to carting; Zachary pointed at one, said "kaht", and was very happy to be placed in it.) During the on-foot portion of our walk, we spotted the Seattle Humane Society's adoption truck parked at the mall, and Zachary said "bus!" while happily running up to it. First he was licked by one of the tame rescue dogs welcoming everyone to the bus, and he was very happy and giggly about that. Then I tried to point out the various cats in the transparent windowed bus -- but he was already off like a shot to the pet mobile's front passenger side door, where he commanded it to "open!" and then started climbing up onto the step and knocking on the cab door while saying "nah-nah-nah" (knock-knock-knock). Such a cute little man!

Three and Out

(Or should that be three and in?) It's day three of Gooshie watch 2010, and already 50% of our poll-takers are proven wrong; that Gooshie is certainly one tough bookie. I've taken to staying home starting today (a two-and-a-half year old is exhausting even if you aren't nine months pregnant!), though impressively, Meh still went to work. Zachary and I visited her as part of a very full day of reading books (often the same ones repeatedly), playing at a park near mommy's work, grocery shopping, and a Scandinavian shopping and lunch trip (I had to force myself to eat his super-tasty macaroni and cheese when he declined).

Today I also ordered some old standbys from Zachary's early days - Butt Paste, some extra-gentle wipes, and perhaps most importantly, a crate of size 1 diapers. The room transition also continues -- we've been doing more and more of the bedtime routine in the big boy room, until now everything short of actually going to bed takes place there. That step will likely wait a bit, but it's good to see how smoothly he's made the transition (even if after bathtime he still tends to run naked into his own old room before remembering that the clothes, books, and story time are the other direction).

Dated Materials

It's here! Today is Gooshie's due date. No news yet, but to keep things interesting, I've opened up a poll (see it to the right) where you can guess Gooshie's birthday. Winners get to, um, meet Gooshie? But so does everyone else of course. :)

The (Extreme) West End

Zachary's new bedroom continues to come together, with a new shelf (yup, another of the ones that had finally taught me the value of attaching shelving to studs in that mildly disastrous guest room incident) now populated with some of our favorite items from friends and travels, including a Muji "city in a bag", a group of fun wooden toy buildings shaped like London landmarks. Meh had also picked up a cute wall decal of a London double decker bus (from a UK-based Etsy-listed artist, no less) that we mounted right inside Zachary's door. He came to check it out and was very excited by the "busssss" and its wheels. The decal came with all of the numbers, so you could specify the bus number. I of course took on the challenge of figuring out the most appropriate route for his bus. The "ideal" route (which hits both Trafalgar Square [near the hotel we typically stay at], Oxford and Piccadilly Circuses, and Golders Green/Finchley [where our friends N & S live]) was the unluckily number 13, and while we aren't particularly superstitious, that just seemed unnecessary for Z's room. So we instead opted for the route number that matches Z's month and day of birth, the number 8, which still reaches Oxford Circus, Tottenham Court Road, and St. Paul from its origins in East London. Nothing like a little piece of the East End on the Eastside -- of Seattle, that is.

Turn the lights down low

Another step towards transitioning Zachary to his own room: last night I installed a dimmer in his new bedroom. The previous binary on/off switch had been a problem over the last few days; his clothes have made the move into his new room, and when I'd try to get him dressed while (sadly) it was still dark outside, there was either random guesses as to clothes or brief flips of the light. For his end, Zachary likes to turn on the lights and then squint/smile/hide his eyes. Alas, he's started doing this in our room as well, which is not exactly the best way to open your eyes at 5:30 in the morning.

Big shoes to fill

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

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

At the tone, the time will be...

Most mornings, Zachary wakes up and starts whining or talking to himself at six o'clock, plus or minus one minute. (Seriously, that's a solid internal alarm clock!) I bring him into bed with us for a bit, where he snuggles, occasionally talks/whispers about blankie ("ba-ba! niiice! sah! [soft]"), and, on extra special occasions, falls back asleep for a bit. This was not one of those mornings, but it was almost as cute, as he decided to act as a one-minute snooze alarm: when he sat up, he spotted my alarm clock and started reading the digits. We got a new readout pretty much every minute, though he was pretty insistent that 1's were I's. Was it more impressive that he kept at it, or that we remained immobile lumps until he gave up on us and climbed out of bed at "seis tah fah" (6:24)?

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: