Swing kid

It took many months, and multiple trips to the hardware store, but Zachary finally has a functional swing of his very own! Seriously, with how much he loves his swings, I feel bad for not installing it sooner. Meh had gotten the actual swing several months ago, and I lamely hadn't done the research or gone to the store to figure out how to attach it. Meh took it upon herself to hop over to the hardware store and pick up what looked like the correct parts. Upon closer reading of the directions and looking at all of the parts together, we had to return to the hardware store (and of course, as always, multiple times; the required hole was large enough that I had to switch from drill bit to spade), but finally had the right stuff for tool time.

The apple tree in the middle of our yard has the perfect branch for a swing - nearly horizontal, fairly thick, and out of the way of things to swing into. When Zachary saw the swing nearly complete, he got very excited - and then vocally objected when I still had to tighten a few bolts before the ride could begin. But a few minutes later, he was secured in his new swing and very happy to be rocking back and forth:



We've already used it multiple times. I'm hoping that this will give Meh one more tool to entertain the little man while I'm out of town at a conference in London all of this week (I fly out tonight). It's tough to be away from them for so long, though I'm sure much more difficult for Meh. Thankfully friends have offered to help watch him a few times, and my company's backup care will be providing a nanny for the days Meh works. But I'll still miss them very much and be happy when I get to come back!

Put a fork in it

More firsts for the little man! First, he decided he wanted to go for a drive; Meh watched him climb into his school bus all by himself.


Next, he ran around talking up a storm for Meh. Of course he quieted down as soon as the camera started rolling, but Meh did catch him saying several of his new favorite words; "H" and "wokka" are among his favorites.


And lastly (and the subject of today's post), while we've gotten him to eat off a spoon or fork that we've held out to him, he wasn't interested when Meh offered him sweet potatoes on a fork tonight. Until she tried handing him the whole fork:

Hooray for Zachary's first self-silverware-fed food!

Open door policy

When getting Zachary ready for baffy time in the evening, I often let him run around a bit upstairs ("let" generally means he escapes in varying states of undress) while I get out his pajamas, get the tub running, and so on. He often plays with toys in his own room, brings me books to read, comes to check on the tub and make sure the water is filling (he loves to put his hands on the edge of the tub and peer in, often even bouncing with excitement about baffy time), or plays with the sliding hallway closet doors. Of course, as he is a curious little monkey, if any of the other hallway doors are inadvertently left open, he's off to explore. A few times he's ended up in the bedroom going through our drawers, or in the office playing on the computer keyboard or music keyboard.

So to help keep him out of too much trouble, I generally check to make sure all of the doors in the upstairs hallway are closed. Last night, he ended up in the office for the first time in a few days, and I just shrugged it off as not looking closely enough to make sure the door was actually closed. But this morning, Meh brought him up stairs, and she heard him grabbing the office doorknob and and opening the door himself! Oh no, is any room safe anymore? Is it time to invest in more of those baby gates that even grownups can't open? Though he's been thoughtfully eyeing and fiddling with those as well...

Friends and Family Plan

It's been a non-stop last couple of days for the little man. From Phoenix, we headed onward to Tucson -- stopping en route at a very cute farm-owned restaurant (as apparently featured on Food Network) to meet up with Zachary's Uncle Josh and Meh's college friend J for brunch. We got there a bit early, so Meh and I took turns walking with Zachary around the green manicured lawn between the restaurant and its smaller coffee shop counterpart. Many people apparently bring their dogs to this restaurant (there's tons of picnic table dining right outside in front), and Zachary made friends with at least three dogs. Here he is meeting one cute dog that was all yappy until Zachary got close, then wagged and gave him kisses.

We met up with J and Zachary's Uncle Josh, and all ordered our tasty lunches and sat down to eat. Zachary's newest trick is eating entire sticks (or at least half-sticks) of cheese. A few days before, we'd noticed he was rejecting the cut up cheese squares, and Meh offered him a half stick only to watch it disappear into his mouth - nope, no bites, he just keeps shoving it in and chews it up. Brunch was super yummy, with scrambles made with all local (mostly on-site) ingredients and apple fritters. Zachary of course finished before us, so we took turns walking around the grassy area with him; eventually I wheeled him around in the stroller until he conked out for a short morning nap. It was so good to see Uncle Josh and catch up with J, even just for such a brief time.

Then we were off to Tucson. The hope was that the little man would sleep on the drive, but not so much - he was up and talky, though he was happy to listen to music. It's funny, we made a new Zachary mix CD (I think his third or fourth at this point) to bring along on the trip and give to our friends, and Zachary seems to clearly dislike the tracks on there that he wasn't already familiar with. Kind of a misnamed CD when he vetoes half the tracks!

We arrived at friends T & P's house, and Zachary immediately made himself at home playing with his new friend J's toys while we brought in the luggage. J for his part was happy with the new company and perfectly willing to share all of his toys. The two boys were so cute - when I'd read a book, they'd both come over and watch together. J even called out the names (in Czech) for some of the objects in the book. At one point, he was so happy with the story that he gave Zachary a big hug. The two boys then went tumbling to the ground and both were crying - it was sad but so cute and sweet! They were right as rain quickly enough though, and had a really nice afternoon together while the grown-ups got caught up. Well, the moms at least -- my ear hadn't really unpopped from the plane descent and I was getting concerned about what to do if it was still blocked on our flight out, so P graciously took me over to the local urgent care center to get it checked out. Not much more than an hour later, I was grabbing 4 tasty prescriptions at the local pharmacy - functional health care, crazy!

There was even shared baffy time on the first night, though Zachary was clearly exhausted from the trip and didn't always have his happy face on despite all of the fun bubbles and some familiar-looking bath toys. That leads us into the one challenge for Zachary on the second leg of our trip -- I think there were so many fun toys and exciting places to explore that he wasn't really interested in the whole sleeping thing. In fact, he would only take his nap sitting in J's stroller out in T & P's back yard! But we all had such a nice time together, and it was so good for the boys to get to play with each other.

The boys were both up bright and early on Monday, so we took them to the park after breakfast. As usual, Zachary's favorite part was the swing, as illustrated by this excellent picture T got of him. Then T & J, Meh, Zachary, and I drove into the city to eat at mommy's favorite college sandwich shop. The food was still as excellent as Meh had remembered, even if she noticed the prices had gone up a bit. The boys enjoyed their own lunches, though of course Zachary wrapped up before us and wanted to walk around the parking lot and alleys behind the restaurant. From here, we met up with my old college friend C and her young daughter T at a neat outdoor park. Being a public park in Arizona, it actually had a giant water feature area, with buttons you'd press that would apparently turn on a bunch of sprinklers and dumping water buckets and such. However, it being 'winter' even here (and actually a bit chilly with all of the wind), the water was shut off for the season. Still, the boys had a great time running around the playground and up and down the stairs and slides.

We had grandiose ideas about taking T, P, and J out for dinner, but Zachary's aforementioned napping challenges caught up with him and he was ready for bed early. So after (solo) baffy time and some quiet snuggling and reading time, he was out cold, and we ordered in pizza and had a nice "grown-up" (e.g. silverware-free :)dinner together. The next morning it was already time to head back up to Phoenix to catch our flight -- after one more visit to the playground, where Zachary began to master going *down* stairs while holding onto a rail. He slept most of the drive up to the airport, which we knew meant we were in for an awake flight home.

For some reason we can't quite figure out, Zachary loves driving in shuttles and buses. Phoenix has this enormous overgrown separate rental car center connected to the airport by bus service, and he was smiling and laughing from his car seat as we took the bus both ways. I've also got to share one of my favorite moments of the entire trip - on our way back to the airport, every time the bus stopped for a traffic light or stop sign, Zachary would sign 'more', and then get a big smile when the bus started moving again. So cute!

The return flight was pretty exhausting, with a little man who wanted to be moving around and/or entertained from the moment we approached security to our flight touching down. He did let me put his cute new headphones on him for a good 5 seconds before he pulled them off; the rest of the flight time was trading off between mommy singing, daddy changing, mommy feeding, daddy feeding, mommy playing, daddy playing, mommy reading, and daddy reading.

While we had a wonderful trip and were so glad to get to see our family and friends, we were all grateful to be back in Seattle and ready to be home. This morning, the little man even went back to sleep when I brought him to bed at 6 am, and we all slept in until a little bit after 8 am. Such a luxury!

Home Suite Home

It's Zachary's first long-distance journey of 2009! After a record-setting first year and a half (where we noticed the difficulties growing exponentially as he got older), we've been trying to be a bit more cautious with number and duration of trips. So naturally this year we waited until the end of January to get started. First up for this year: a five day trip to the copper state. (Copper? I had no idea, despite the odd coloring of that star on the Arizona state flag.) We're visiting our friend S yesterday and today in Phoenix, and tomorrow we head down to Tucson, where we're looking forward to Zachary getting to meet our friends T & P and their son J (who's a month older than Zachary).

The flight to Phoenix was actually pretty good -- we invested in this incredible contraption that we'd noticed some other smart traveller parents using on previous trips (after originally thinking the wheels must be some cool built-in feature of a travel-focused stroller), and towing the car seat through the airport turned from an awkward head-balancing act to a combination mobility device / entertainment system for Zachary, who laughed and smiled whether being toted behind or in front of us -- he was especially a fan of the moving walkways. Once we got to the gate, Zachary wanted to spend the whole time walking along the window and watching the plane that we were going to get on. (We valiantly tried to ignore the fact that he kept pressing his face to the glass, and alternated between that and touching the dirty base of the window with his hands.)

Things only really got tricky as we boarded -- though the car seat trolley itself was narrow enough, the car seat widened out too broadly to go down the aisle. So here we were, me with Zachary and shoulder bags, and Meh with a roller bag and the car seat. We had to quickly ditch the roller bag, bring back the car seat, and then Meh had to fight her way back upstream to reclaim the bag while I got Zachary more or less settled. Onboard, he did really well, eating his lunch, chatting a bit, and then going to sleep for most of the flight.

Zachary appears to prefer his privacy - we opted for a suite-configured room this time so we could actually stay up and read (or carry on quiet chats with friend S) while he went to sleep in the family room. And for once, things even went to plan -- Zachary went to sleep with no fuss in the hotel's pack and play. As a bonus, the room has a full kitchen, which is awesome for the little man and his penchant for perishables (milk, fresh fruit, etc.). Oh, and it gave him his favorite toy so far on the trip: the paper towels stored under the sink.

Today we did two excellent activities (in between three tasty meals) with friend S: a visit to the very cool McCormick-Stillman Railroad Park and a tour of the Desert Botanical Garden, which currently has an impressive exhibit of Chihuly glass sculptures similar to the one we saw at Kew Gardens in London a few years ago. (Wow, I think I've just set a new record for number of hyperlinks in one paragraph.)

First, the train park, which puts the 'train park' near our house to shame with its 5/12 scale (Really? It felt smaller than that...) fully functional steam locomotive that totes kids one mile around the entire circumference of the park, which is an impressive set of playgrounds, fields, and picnic areas. There's even a little tunnel towards the end of the train ride (though thankfully minus the trippy Willy Wonka tunnel images I was reminded of as we approached). Zachary enjoyed his time on the playground, and monkeyfied through most of the actual train ride. He was ready for a nap pretty soon afterwards, so we skipped the carousel and the even smaller scale train we saw traversing some gardens on one edge of the park. But we did get to enjoy one of his favorite pasttimes before the train ride:

After relaxing back at the hotel for a bit (where we checked out the pool (too cold) before opting for the hot tub, which the little man enjoyed thoroughly), we were off on a drive to the desert (no really) to visit the Desert Botanical Gardens. Definitely a different experience from botanical gardens in more temperate regions, but in some ways that made the striking colors of the Chihuly glass stand out that much more. Zachary conked out as we walked into the entrance, so we got to enjoy all of the exhibits with a sleeping little man. He woke up as we arrived back at the entrance area, so we enjoyed tea and snacks together -- then the little man walked around and kept wanting to check out the cactuses up close and personal.



All in all, a wonderful few days visiting with our friend S - thank you so much for your hospitality, for hanging out with and accompanying us to all of these wonderful places, and definitely for suggesting and sharing such excellent food recommendations for our entire visit (did I even mention the tasty veggie place on the night we arrived?). Thanks for everything, S!!

An inconvenient tooth

Zachary frequently sticks his hands in his mouth as part of his self-soothing techniques (hey, I guess if it's between that and thumbs or pacifiers...), so it's hard to tell if he's ever actually teething. But last week, he seemed to be doing it more often, drooling, and then we noticed what looked like a bit of a bump, which later turned into a somewhat scary-looking big bump, which magically disappeared the next day -- and still nothing underneath. He'd been stuck at eight teeth for quite some time, so we knew that others would be coming at some point.

But finally this morning, he does indeed appear to have the beginnings of a tooth in the rear right quadrant. No idea if that's a molar or bicuspid or what, but tooth number nine is on its way! I'm also happy to report that he's finally been showing a food interest in some of the items he had long rejected -- we'd been marking ticks on a piece of paper on the fridge for each time he declined a specific food (since all them baby experts say to just keep offering the foods, and 'eventually' the kids will spontaneously decide to try them, or at least get bored of you continuing to offer things that they put off to the side of their plate). On the third attempt, he finally got interested in pizza (a slice of cold daddy pizza no less), and scarfed down nearly a slice while I enjoyed mine -- our first shared dinner! And on at least the fourth attempt (I really think we'd tried this more than four times), he decided that the pasta Meh offered him was indeed acceptable. So now, joining the fruit, cheese, quesadilla, and rice cake groups, he's sampling the flour-rich carbs group. Let's wait to see if this configuration shows up on an FDA food pyramid...

The age of aquarium

This weekend was what has been a rare confluence of late: both Meh and myself being off work and us actually being able to leave the house. Granted, it was still pouring rain and there's still some serious flooding further south and north (many thanks to family and friends who inquired after our safety; beyond a somewhat swampy backyard and soaked groceries, all is okay here), but we had the opportunity to actually go do something as a family. So we hopped in the car and met up with friends K and J and their daughter N at the city's aquarium.

I hadn't been there in years (I think the last time I was there was to play a wedding reception in the very cool 360-degree underwater dome), and Zachary had never been. K and J smartly recommended we get there at opening time; as with other attractions that I'd never even considered but are perfectly baby-friendly, the aquarium was packed with strollers and young kids by the time we left about 90 minutes later. Zachary wasn't happy in the stroller, so he got down and ran around -- occasionally even in the direction of the exhibits. By contrast to N making happy noises as she saw new creatures, Zachary was generally less interested in the cute puffins, sea otters, colorful fish, and other marine life than things like stairs and doors (often to the exits of exhibits). They do have got a neat glass-walled tide pool at Zachary height, and he could reach up and into the tank. He would then pull his hand back out and try to 'give' mommy handfuls of water. So thoughtful!

The Sound of Music

One of the constants in Zachary's life is music. Seriously, the kid loves his tunes -- from morning to night, he's always engaging with a wide variety of musical styles, devices, and people. When breakfast ends, he immediately runs over to the fridge and starts playing with his 'fridge DJ' and 'Old MacDonald' music makers. When he gets bored playing with his toys or reading stories for the twentieth time (the first nineteen times he always seems ready for another rendition), I'll ask him if he wants to listen to music, and he perks right up and runs over to the gate surrounding our stereo system, eagerly waiting for me to turn on the tunes. Then he gets a big smile on his face as the first song starts, whatever it might be (we learned long ago that 'shuffle' is our best friend). Throughout the day, he'll run over to the piano (either our regular upright or his little one-octave piano toy), play some notes, and look at us and smile. His favorite part of Sesame Street seems to be the songs, particularly the introduction to Elmo's World. Even on the road, when I put on a CD or a music radio station, he bursts into a wide smile. (Talk radio often gets him chattering along with the radio.)

When we ourselves sing or just say the word 'sing', Zachary himself often makes a little singing noise of a descending major third. Other times, he'll just stand or sit quietly and listen to some of the calmer tunes in his musical collection; in the afternoon, if he wakes up particularly angry from his nap, turning on music and snuggling with him on the couch is a good way to get a smoother and more relaxed wakeup.

For Chanukah, Zachary got a big drum filled with other instruments (which we filled with even more instruments from his existing collection). While he occasionally takes out a shaker or xylophone, he seems happy just carrying around the drum sticks and showing them to us; his preferred actual instrument appears to remain the piano -- in addition to his voice of course.

Pirate Soup

We didn't really buy Zachary Chanukah presents this year, mostly because we knew he'd be spoiled by mima, papa, and grandma. However, I saw this little kitchen on one of my favorite toy websites, and I knew that I... oh, I mean Zachary, must have it. It came the other day, and I put it together all by myself! Zachary's favorite part is the carrot that velcros together, so you can "cut" it with the little knife. He likes to pull it apart and carry the pieces around the house. Here he is checking out his new kitchen:





Then, yesterday, I found some pirate soup cooking on his little stovetop:



I have to admit, I added the mushroom (for flavor).

House Arrest / Prison Break

At long last, the snows dumped on us by one of the worst winter storms in Seattle's history -- and certainly in the ten years that I've lived here -- are receding from our driveway, lawn, and most importantly, neighborhood streets. Meh and Zachary had been pinned at home for nearly a week; I myself had gone to work one day (only to barely get the car back up the iced-over office driveway on the way out) and done a few grocery runs, mostly ending with the car abandoned at the base of our driveway. Meh attempted to go to work on Friday, but couldn't drive with the deep snow on our street. When she headed out on foot for the bus stop (itself four blocks away on an alternate snow route), there was no sidewalk to use (the snow having been plowed up onto it), and cars were having difficulty keeping control when she tried walking on the street, so back home she went.

Finally, the cabin fever got to be too much, so I put the chains on my car (for the first time ever -- and this counts my entire upbringing in Michigan) and we all went up the street to the grocery store together Friday afternoon. I think the drive was even more stressful for Meh than her cabin fever: at one point she just put her hands over her eyes, though I didn't think my driving was that bad. :)

The roads were still sloppy (and our own street and apparently much of Seattle mostly inaccessible) yesterday, so Meh had to cancel a date with a friend for proper tea at her favorite (favourite?) tea house. As a substitute, Meh had the brilliant idea to prepare afternoon tea for the family at home. There were homemade scones, sandwiches with the crusts cut off, sweets, and of course a lovely pot of freshly brewed tea. Zachary actually ate several bites of scone (I think the jam that I put on it helped a bit), though he preferred cheese and veggie booty to the sandwiches and sweets -- not that I'm complaining, more tea for Meh and myself!

It was wonderful to just have a relaxing afternoon all together, and really despite the week's stress of the ongoing bad weather and the occasional light flickers that had us thinking the power would be the next to go, it's been a nice opportunity to all just snuggle up at home. It's been Chanukah as well, so we've gotten to enjoy lighting the candles, sing the blessings, and watch Zachary tear open and play with the wrapping paper (often ignoring the actual presents). Tonight, the 8th and final night of the holiday, I finally caught a video of his response to candle lighting:



With the temperatures rising (inside of the house as well - we finally got our original circa 1970s attic insulation updated yesterday) and the snow finally starting to melt, today we were again ready to brave a different kind of inaccessible/inhospitable environment: the post-holiday shopping mall. Despite the chaos of finding a parking spot and the crazy jam-packed nature of the children's play area (which is even smaller than the one at our local mall), we had a nice lunch and stroll around the mall, and Zachary even took the rare stroller nap while mommy found a few cozy things on super-duper-extra-discount post-holiday sale.

I saw the sign

Many months ago, Meh read a book on baby sign language, which cautioned that a baby being exposed to signs at 10-12 months could take "2 to 3 weeks" to start actively making those signs, though toddlers over a year old are in "prime imitation" period but "may take a few days to a week". Or in the case of Zachary, perhaps many months or even a year?

While we'd gotten him to more or less sign "all done" by waving his hands in the air (as discussed in this previous entry), he never signed "more" -- he'd instead make a guttural "ahhh" sound when he saw more cheese or fruit being cut up in front of him, which communicated his point effectively. Yet for many months now, we've kept futilely signing it at him, more out of rote repetition and habit than anything else.

So it was with incredulous surprise that Meh saw him suddenly and cautiously sign "more" during dinner last night when he wanted more of his favorite quesadilla - he successfully repeated it several times, and we captured one rendition in this video:



Then he again signed 'more' when Meh was reading books to him, and once again when they were singing and playing! So even though the first sign took an eternity, he appears to have already leaped to an understanding of the concept beyond the realm of food. We've pulled the signing book back down off the shelf to see what other words we can teach him, though I'm not sure how interested he'll be when he's already starting to speak a few bits of actual words.

The Kosher Omnivore's Dilemma

Seattle is a pretty tough town to keep kosher in -- or at least to be a kosher meat-eater in. There are no kosher meat restaurants in the city; the few that have opened in the past have gradually reduced their hours to impracticality and then folded. I don't think the kosher hot dogs at Costco really count, since there are questions about the buns, and there's the cheese/pepperoni pizza and non-kosher chicken being served right alongside it. There are no kosher butcher shops. A small handful of grocery stores (all more than 20-minute drives away from our house -- and that's when there isn't tons of snow like we've got right now) offer kosher butchers in-house. Typical grocery stores don't offer any pre-packaged kosher meats (heck, even kosher hot dogs are at times hard to find). Even Trader Joe's, which had started suddenly stocking a decent variety of pre-packaged beef and poultry, has more recently backed off their inventory.

It's against this backdrop that friends J and S mentioned a few months back that they were looking at going in on a kosher meat 'co-op', where you place somewhat large bulk orders for a monthly meat order that the co-op organizes. As these are bulk orders, J was looking for other people interested in splitting the results -- and we said sure, why not. But since it's possible (if not always practical) to get chicken and beef from those few grocery stores I'd mentioned, J wanted to order some of the more, er, exotic meats that the co-op offers: various kinds of bison and elk. Bison pastrami? Why not, and we placed the order -- a month or so later, it came in, and I came home from J's with a large box of meats to fill our freezer with.

Since then, we've cooked almost all of the meat, and it's been mostly quite good -- bison burgers, elk meatballs, elk burgers, bison meatballs... Okay, clearly my preparation options for ground beef are a bit limited. :) But only the elk steak, which only papa was brave enough to actually prepare during their recent visit, was disappointing -- not due to papa's preparation; the meat was just (what else but) gamey. Our only rule in this regard is that Meh doesn't really want to know what kind of animal it is before she eats it.

This is all a long-winded way towards setting up yesterday's lunch, where I pulled out the last package of our order of bison and made buffalo burgers for Meh and myself -- ostensibly under the fear that the snow and windstorm might knock out our power, so we should prepare our perishable foods. These burgers were particularly tasty with some fresh sage mixed in (leftover from the tasty turkey papa had made during their visit). As we try to do whenever we're actually eating at the same time as the little man, Meh cut a small piece and put it on Zachary's plate. He looked at us, grabbed the piece of burger, and actually ate it. Meh and I resisted the urge to cheer or otherwise be outwardly excited, but subsequent pieces offered to him went in the mouth as well -- it was great to see the little omnivorous man eating some mommy and daddy food and enjoying it.

White Chanukah

The snow is falling here in Seattle, and it doesn't appear to be letting up. It's almost at the level of our deck in the backyard, and rising. I guess we will be having a white Channukah tonight! The library was actually closed today (shocking, usually they expect you to brave the treacherous roads or else use precious vacation time), so I am able to stay home with Scoot and Zachary and cozify.

Cozification means different things to different people. To me, it's staying in my PJs all day(including fuzzy socks), reading (at least during Little Man's nap time), and baking. For Scoot, it's not putting in contacts, playing Xbox, and participating in Facebook's Wordscraper, a Scrabble-like game. For Zachary, cozification means carrying various odds and ends around the house, such as the ladder to his pirate ship, plastic cups, his key, and/or one sock. Cozification also involves snuggling to keep warm, of course!

Since Chanukah starts this evening at sundown, we are thinking of making potato latkes, even though they stink up the house. Other Chanukah delicacies that I have never made before are called sufganiyot, or jelly doughnuts. These involve yeast, rising twice, and even more stinky oil frying. So instead, I made the next best thing: sufganiyot cupcakes.



Happy Chanukah!

Annie ooh

I've mentioned before that one of Zachary's favorite toys is a magnetized refrigerator 'radio', with a button to cycle through songs and a dial to choose between "classics" and a few other genres of original and arranged music. This week, Zachary discovered the dial, and is exploring songs beyond the ABC's and Old MacDonald. His favorite by far is a song called "Annie Ooh", where the happy face of LED bulbs is mirrored by his own smile and laughter at the lyrics. Here's a somewhat tame reaction I grabbed today:



The little man is 500 days old today - incredible how the time flies! He and I had a nice day running a few errands in between the earlier snow flurries this week and tonight's impending winter storm (which the National Weather Service has incidentally created a narrated powerpoint deck for, no less. That they felt the need to define what a blizzard is was my favorite part). He was especially happy at the bank, walking around and smiling up at everyone while I deposited checks -- he only made one run for it around a corner, but the teller was too amused to mind me having to momentarily duck out mid-transaction. The two of us also tried for a Costco run, but alas, that winter storm warning had everyone in the area raiding the store for supplies, and we turned around before we were even able to make it to the parking lot.

Talk to your food

Sometimes Zachary just has so much to say - I wonder what's actually on his mind and what he thinks he's communicating. Or maybe he just likes the noises he's able to verbalize with his mouth? Anyway, he was particularly talky during dinner tonight, and we captured these two fab videos in between fistfuls of messy but tasty blueberries.





More iciness on the roads tonight, so our intended date night had to unfortunately be scrapped. Even just driving a few blocks up the street for food supplies, there looked to be sheriffs assisting a car spun out in a ditch right outside the grocery store -- fun times. Tomorrow night a big winter storm is supposed to blow in; blow being the key word, with heavy winds expected in the late evening. We're concerned about losing power for the third year in a row. One of these days I'll actually succumb and pick up a generator, but for now, we'll just have to hope for a bit of luck with the gusty wind and all of our area's electric lines right up against trees...

Snow day

We had such a nice rest of mima and papa's visit - the only unfortunate part was that Zachary was indeed sick, and then Meh and I were, and apparently mima and papa got home from their flight and had it as well. We're so glad Zachary got to spend time with all of his grandparents in the past month. Meh has also prepped our decorations for Chanukah, and Zachary loves to watch a spinning dreidl. You can almost see his inner struggle every time we spin the top as to whether he should grab it or let it spin some more.



Yesterday it didn't snow during the day (and just a bit in the evening), yet the local schools were worried enough to do a preemptive school closure based on the forecast alone. But today we woke up to weather that actually justified schools being closed (though in the distance, I hear plenty of happily screaming students that made the trek to the junior high behind our house, likely for the superior hill sledding it offers). Yup, an inch or two of snow and more freezing weather means it's a snowy and icy wonderland. We're of course grounded to the house with all of the treacherous hills around here and likely poor driving conditions. This didn't stop us from introducing Zachary to snow (as well as heavy coats, hats, gloves, and when the gloves wouldn't stay on, paper clips sealing the ends of his extra long sleeved coat). He had a great time walking around in it and hearing it crunch under his feet, though I couldn't get him to take any interest in the decent snowballs I was able to make from it. He did get his own first winter driving experience, as his little mechanized schoolbus just spun its wheels on the snowy/icy porch when he walked over to it and pushed the button.

Anyway, here's one small step for Zachary-kind:

Shore leave

Mima and papa (poppa? popa? there's been some debate over the spelling, though we think we've settled on papa) came to visit for the long weekend! We've been having a wonderful time, though Zachary has at times been fighting teething, a cold, and maybe something else, leading to an extremely sad/angry first afternoon and evening with his grandparents. They actually didn't even get to see him for a few hours - first he was at class with mommy, so the three of us went out to lunch at one of our favorite restaurants and introduced papa to their always tasty tomato soup and grilled cheese. Then we came home from the restaurant and Zachary was taking his afternoon nap. And when he finally woke up, he was very unhappy for most of the afternoon and evening.

Nonetheless, mima and papa wanted us to get away for a night - so the next night (with only 24 hours of orientation, no less!), the two of us waved goodbye and headed out for an overnight trip to a lovely lodge/spa about a half hour east of the city, while mima and papa stayed and played with a very happy little man. We didn't really have any worries about the three of them having a great time together -- the morning and day had been really nice, with lots of laughing and giggling. We were more concerned with the weather forecast, which was calling for the rare Seattle snow followed by crazy cold temperatures.

It was already snowing when we headed out, though thankfully it wasn't sticking. The snow got a bit heavier as we approached the lodge - Washington's mountainous geography can make for some dramatic weather changes in less than five minutes of travel. But we arrived without incident and got settled in to our warm and cozy room with a large wood burning fireplace, which overlooked the falls. It started snowing a bit heavier and actually sticking, but when we checked in with mima and papa, it wasn't nearly as heavy back at home.

Dinner was incredible; the restaurant there has a giant cozy fireplace, and somehow we were the only ones seated in front of it. We were actually sitting at the exact table where Meh had 'proposed back' to me six and a half years ago. Some carrollers came around, and Meh asked if they had any Chanukah songs - they were all excited to respond yes, pulled out their carrolling books (of course this was the one piece they didn't have memorized :) and did a really nice arrangement of "Oh Chanukah".

The room was super cozy -- they even had a "menu" of specialized pillows you could request complimentarily (is that a word?). We got a down-filled full body pillow and a lavendar buckwheat pillow. Again, cozy. I successfully managed to start the fire without lighting the rest of the room or myself (savor the minor triumphs), and we had such a nice relaxing evening. Breakfast the next morning was amazing as well -- the restaurant served tableside hot chocolate, with super fancy chocolate, whole milk, and vanilla all heated in copper pots on the spot, before being poured into a large ceramic pot and mixed with a molinillo (Mexican chocolate frothing whisk -- talk about a specialized kitchen appliance). And yes, Meh did get to enjoy their 'honey from heaven' when she asked for honey on her biscuits, drizzled from a dizzying height above the table. (The server said usually they use a step stool to stand even higher.) Thanks so much to mima and papa for giving Meh and me such a wonderful opportunity for husband and wife time!

We returned home to a once more happy Zachary, playing with mima and papa. We had a hard time getting him to even look up and acknowledge our presence; he's quite taken at the moment with his brand new animatronic Tickle-Me Elmo "Extreme". (Who knew Sesame Street could get extreme?)

Stair Master

Zachary has conquered the art of climbing stairs! It's so cute to watch as he approaches the stairs, looks back at us, then walks/crawls up the stairs one by one, occasionally grabbing onto the railing as a break. Going down them still isn't something that interests him; even the single "step" down from our wood-burning stove's base to the ground is often enough to strand him there, where he whines until we come and help him down.



Of course with the stairs now an area of interest, we installed a gate at the top of the stairs. I only afterwards noticed the bold print on the gate's safety label saying "not for use on stairs." Ah well, it's more of a general barrier than something for him to actively push on, so until he masters (or at least shows an interest in) descent, we should be okay just keeping him supervised on the rare occasions when he's in the upstairs hallway. He's much more interested in going into upstairs rooms and closing the door behind him anyway.

New vocalizations in the past few days -- the "w" and "y" sounds have become increasingly fun for Zachary to say. He likes to say "wawa" and "aya" and hear you repeat it, but "wocka" is his favorite; is he training to be the next Fozzie Bear? Zachary has also started repeating the word 'cookie' and 'cracker' (more or less accurately) when mommy says it. Yup, he's definitely our son!

Mad about cookies

This weekend, Meh had the excellent idea to host a cookie party. I'd never heard of such a thing, but the concept is brilliant -- you and your friends all bake a bunch of cookies, then bring them all to the party and exchange recipes and cookies. Everyone got to enjoy Meh's baked goods (as well as those of our friends), so what's not to like?

Zachary apparently disagreed though; while he was happy (and seemingly all recovered from being sick earlier in the week) all morning long, as we approached the cookie party, he wouldn't go down for his afternoon nap, and spent the rest of the afternoon and evening angry and needing to be held and entertained by us. Fear not, we both managed to sneak in a cookie here and there. (Meh even offered one to Zachary; he took it and fed it to her, I suspect without too much complaint on her part?) I'm hoping this is just the tail of his earlier sickness and that he'll be a happier little man again soon.

Blanket statement

First of all, a very grateful thank you to everyone who has expressed their condolences for Korby. It's been a hard beginning of the week, as I keep finding myself doing and seeing things that remind me of Korby. Zachary too seems to know something has happened; he walks around saying 'ah ah' and sniffing, and at one point Meh said he was shaking Korby's kennel door. The house is just very quiet, and food is far too safe on counters.

Zachary's actually been even a bit more out of sorts than that; he developed a low-grade fever that lasted for several days and kept him quite unhappy. We thought it might be related to his teething (Meh said she could see some of his rear molars starting to come through today), but after a doctor visit, it was diagnosed as likely roseola. Sure enough, today the fever broke and now he's mister rash. Still uncomfortable, and I was sorry that Meh had to deal with him being so unhappy for the past two days. When Zachary is uncomfortable, he loves to snuggle with a soft blanket (no, he doesn't appear to have a particular "favorite blanket" or anything like that) -- he'll carry it around, then put it on the floor and throw himself onto it, occasionally covering himself with it. Meh caught this video of the phenomenon today:



On the developmental side, Meh and he were cleaning up yesterday from the day's playtime activities, and he actually started putting items into a box (usually he's pretty focused on taking them out) -- in this case, his blocks into their container. When he ran out of blocks, he started trying to stuff his books into the box as well. Hooray for mister clean up! When the blocks are actually out, he still isn't really interested in stacking them, though he continues to enjoy knocking them down when grown-ups try. Here's a video we caught of him and grandma this weekend: