Speech patterns

Both boys have been talking up a storm the past few weeks. Owen coos at us and chats with his toys and sheep (in between presenting us with giant smiles):



And Zachary has been reciting bits of his favorite books and nursery rhymes. Today he was alternating between "The Wheels on the Bus" (my favorite: his hand motion for "the baby on the bus goes wah wah wah" involves putting his hands over his ears), "I'm Bringing Home My Baby Bumblebee," and the second half of "Bah Bah Black Sheep":



Not shown here is how when he answers "yes" to questions, it's sometimes now coming out as "yes sir, yes sir, three bags full".

Meh's choir had a lovely concert this afternoon at Northwest Folklife. We got there just in time for their warmups, so Zachary, Owen, and I met up with mima and papa for a late lunch at the Seattle Center's food court. Alas, another set of performers was playing some seriously over-amplified bluegrass, which echoed around the cavernous space. I think Zachary was a little overwhelmed (and ready for naptime); he wanted to be pushed around and was occasionally saying "Shh! Shh!" As concert time drew near, we headed down into the performance hall. Friends J and S had joined us and saved seats, but Zachary didn't want out of the comfy stroller. And little Owen, comfortably asleep in mima's arms, got startled awake by the burst of applause as the choir came on stage. Poor mima had to dash out of the theater with him and didn't get to hear her daughter's excellent performance. But she (and you) can hear the recording here [scroll down to Dunava, under 'Slavic Choir Showcase']. Owen's first recorded, um, solo starts about 20 seconds in -- but the rest of the concert was fabulous!

Crib notes

Owen inherited Zachary's crib, but really hasn't had much of an opportunity to use it yet. His naps tend to be most effective when on us (when put down in a pack and play or bouncer, he maxes out at like 20 minutes, and often will wake up a bit angry), and at night, he's been sleeping in bed next to us (with one of those nifty bed rails keeping him from rolling out). Sure, in a pinch if only one of us is home, he would lie down and coo (or grunt and then cry) for a bit in the crib during Zachary's bath time, but using it for its own purpose? Nonsense.

But with sleep still at a bit of a premium in our house, tonight we decided to try to put him down in the crib for a bit to see if he would sleep for a while, particularly if preceded by feeding and swaddling. And lo and behold, we're 90 minutes in, and he's still down! No victory laps yet, and I know we'll still be up several times tonight, but it's still nice to see him adapting to one of many transitions on the path to his very own room, bed, and then life. Okay, now I'm going to go cry in the corner. :)



[Postscript: he ended up sleeping for 5 1/2 hours!]

Mama's boy

Zachary continues to talk about Owie, frequently coming over to him in his aquarium bouncer to turn on the music or ocean noises ("wah-wah! bubbles!"), and occasionally even saying 'niiice Owie'. Meanwhile, Owen continues to grow and share his bright smiles with all around him. Other than when we're in the car, he's generally happy and fairly quiet, except when making extra cute cooing noises, or grunting when, um, working on a "special project". He enjoys down time in his little dangling toy play area, as well as up time on mommy and daddy, and of course snack time on the boppy. After everyone always commenting on Zachary's resemblance to me (the jokes about "mini me" are nearly always followed with my height making me the actual "mini me"), it's been great to see Owen looking a bit more like mommy - and of course that means super cute! Meh pulled out some old baby pictures of herself; I'll have to scan some in so our readers can do a more complete comparison.

Zachary isn't just talking about Owen lately; he's started saying (in his cute "grab the first phoneme of most words" way) random sections from his favorite books, songs, and nursery rhymes by heart. Yesterday he was saying "bee ehm," and I couldn't figure it out. Today I decoded it when he added "miice in moon, ehm ehm ehm". He impressively moved on to N, O, P, and Q before getting bored. He's also doing a great job of trying to make us understand him -- taking extra caution (leading to perhaps an extra 10% accuracy) in his pronunciation when we just don't get it. I've even seen him change it up and try a synonym on occasion. Go little thesaurus man!

A blessing on your head

Zachary has developed a bit of a cold -- it's my bad, I had one last week, and now he's caught it. He's long said 'bessu' (bless you) when he sneezes, and that now also appears to apply to coughs. But perhaps more entertaining is that he's saying it to whatever happens to be nearby when a sneeze/cough occurs. 'bessu milk', 'bessu high chair', 'bessu airplane'... He's been blessing the entire house lately.

Sandy's time has at long last come. No, I'm not talking about mima, but my 2000 Toyota Corolla (tan, hence the name). The brakes were again making concerning noises (only 6000 miles after they were changed) and a fair amount of additional work was going to be needed to keep her running, so it's time to investigate a new vehicle. I'd still been rooting for an electric car or another plug-in hybrid, but the options are still pretty meager in those areas -- particularly for what should clearly be a family car at this point. Tomorrow I'll go check out the options, but the current front-runner is the impressive 7-seating Highlander, which from my measurements will still somehow fit in our garage.

Mima and papa continue to settle into their house; we're looking forward to meeting them tomorrow morning for brunch! Zachary and Owen visited again on Thursday, and Zachary allegedly got to pet Lola -- he was very gentle and said "nice" and "woof woof" in between giggling at her.

Changing of the guard

Grandma flew home early yesterday morning, and this afternoon mima and papa arrived from their cross-country drive all the way from Florida! They were accompanied by their fearless chihuahua Lola, which Zachary reportedly excitedly called "Yo-la", then followed around saying "dah-dee" (doggy), "ah-ah" (arf-arf), and "niiiice". She steered clear of him -- go figure.

Mima and Papa's boxes and second car should be following in the next day or so, but for now it was nice to have a day together with the family! Interestingly, Zachary has taken the opportunity to renew his interest in our family photo album, with increasing name accuracy:


In other verbal news, Zachary's been really rolling on his ABCs. He even does the "now I know my ABCs" bit, despite getting a little bored in the videos Meh caught. My favorite part remains "L-M-N-O" coming out as "Elmo".

Big tiny man

First, a video of Owen with grandma - he had a great time with her during her visit!


As usual, I hopped over to the little man's room when he started talking this morning (at the actually reasonably civilized 6:45 am). We snuggled in bed for a bit with his kitty, Elmo, and blankie, and he started whispering the ABC's -- the whole song, including the "now I know my ABCs" ending. He had all of the letters down, except that L-M-N-O came out as "Elmo". Definitely a one-track mind!

Grandma left very early this morning -- we had a wonderful time with her and hope she had a great Mother's (and Grandmother's) Day with us! We spent it first at swimming, then a tasty lunch with Meh (both she and grandma scored gift cards from the restaurant for the occasion), a lovely family stroll along a local trail, then an afternoon barbecue with friends D & D and their boys N & B.

Owen had his two-month checkup today. Meh took him while the little man and I hung out at home reading books and listening to music ("mahsah!"). The doctor allegedly took one look at Owen and pronounced him a "moose baby" (an ironic match to one of Meh's childhood nicknames) - but a very healthy and happy one at that (well, until he got sad from the multiple shots):

Weight: 14 lbs 7.5 oz (97th percentile)
Length: 23 1/2 inches (75th percentile)
OFC: 15 3/4 inches (50th-75th percentile)

Definitely a big -- though very cute -- tiny man!

Sight Reader

Zachary has a(nother) favorite new book for us to 'read book again'. (Incidentally, he's added substantially more 3 word sentences, including 'bessu dahdee' [bless you daddy], and even a 4-word sentence: "Want eat high chair!") In the book, a little girl pig decides she's going to be a one-girl band. Halfway through the book, her 'band' (consisting of pots, pans, etc.) is together, and there's a giant fold out of sheet music. From the first time Zachary read the book, he's readily identified that page as "mah-sah!" (music). Smart little music man! I expect an analysis of the score's chord progressions within the week.

And speaking of music, last night was the premiere of one of my orchestral compositions by a wonderful Seattle orchestra! It was a piece I'd first sketched out several years ago, and had just wrapped up literally as Owen arrived; I recall working on final parts a day or two after we got home from the hospital. Meh, Owen, and grandma (who flew in yesterday from Michigan) all came to the concert, which was unfortunately past Zachary's bedtime. And our friend J (who used to nanny for Z) came with her nearly Owen-aged daughter M; they were all joking about the babies' first chaperoned date. The kids did great; I heard someone squeaking a bit from the rear of the hall during my piece, but it wasn't even them. Meh reported that the loud bits started Owen a bit (it's a very 'live' hall), but he didn't cry or anything. The piece went really well and I was so honored and excited that the orchestra played it; I'm looking forward to hearing the recording soon!

Anger Management

Like any proper 2-year-old, Zachary occasionally gets the tiniest bit angry. For a while, this led to tantrums, with sometimes semi-scary throwing of self onto the floor, screaming, crying, hitting mommy and daddy, and so on. But we've been watching him start to learn to control his temper a bit in a pretty cute way: if he's starting to get upset, saying bye-bye to various objects and asking us to take them away will sometimes help calm him back down. So despite his enduring love for Elmo and kitty, he'll occasionally start to get upset, say "bye bye Elmo", hand him to us, and watch us put him away -- the same occurs with toys, books, milk, juice, and even occasionally (gasp) blankie. Of course, sometimes he's just too upset and starts asking us to say bye bye to things like doors and windows, and when they can't be "bye bye"'d, the waterworks begin. But still, hopefully this is the first step to the end of tantrums? Well, until the teen years at least. :)

Today was Zachary's first day of school! Well, a pre-preschool program at least. One of the requirements was for each child to bring their own backpack, so this weekend we went shopping for one. We offered Zachary the ultimate choice (for him at least): an Elmo backpack or a Thomas one. His choice was clear, and today he got to try it on and then wear it to class!

Three little words

We're already back into the routine here: Zachary is up by 6 am, we occasionally snuggle for a bit, and then he's ready to come downstairs for breakfast. Owen joins us as well so mommy can get a little sleep. Very occasionally, we all go back to sleep for a bit - alas, not this morning. But there was an exciting moment when we got downstairs -- we read one of Zachary's favorite books, and when we were done, he looked up at me with his first three word sentence: "read book again". Truly the son of a librarian -- go Zachary!

Owen continues to smile and coo and interact with us more and more. Baffy time continues to be super cute - he's initially angry when we put him in the water, but as soon as he's modestly covered by a washcloth, he's very happy and kicky. Like his brother, he does really prefer to be up -- and not just on your shoulder, but with some kind of altitude sensitivity that requires you to be standing as well. And the car continues to be a, well, rough ride.

Sunday was Meh's birthday! She and I had a very nice date night (sadly, she had to do the organizing by herself since I was in Japan beforehand) at a new-ish restaurant with Mr. Owen accompanying us in his car seat. He slept through the appetizers, but decided he wanted to have some dinner as well and ended up needing some "up" time during dessert. But it was still a wonderful evening with the best wife and mommy on her birthday - happy birthday, Meh!

The sincerest form of flattery?

I flew back home yesterday from my brief trip to Japan (though I'm not sure if "brief" is quite how Meh would describe it!). The conference itself went great, and the rest of the trip was an interesting adventure of long flights with drunk and/or rude seatmates, yummy sushi, entertaining Japanese sweets (Men's Pocky or lamb caramels, anyone?), and of course many meetings. While in Tokyo, I did get to speak with the family several times via our favorite chat software. Zachary several times eagerly said "deh-ee!" before running back to play with his toys.

While I was gone, Zachary apparently picked up a new, um, word. After hearing Owen cry several times (usually related to car rides, which he seems to hate nearly as much as his brother once did), Zachary has started saying "Nahhhhhhhh...". It's generally preceded by a cough (since Owen often sputters a bit before the crying starts), and it might almost be cute if he didn't also do it while Owen is crying. But I've thankfully been seeing mostly the opposite from Owen since I got back -- he seemed genuinely happy to see me, and we even got to see some of his excellent giggles!

Evensongs

Just to follow up on our last post (I realized that, though it was almost exclusively about Zachary, the pictures were exclusively of Owen - go figure), here's Zachary in action with the seatbelt for Owen's downstairs seat.

Last night mommy's choir had a fabulous concert featuring something like 30 separate songs. They were wonderful, and I was equally impressed that so much of it was strictly memorized - there's a skill you never have to exercise with orchestral music! Zachary had a babysitter, but Owen and I ventured out to his first concert. The performance venue even had a "baby/loud child" room. Alas, the baby room's PA system speaker was broken, so we could barely hear when we started off in there. Thankfully, Owen conked out almost literally as the concert started, so we snuck back into the main hall and enjoyed the entire first half, including some excellent mommy solos. He got a snack at intermission and then was a little more fussy/squirmy for the second half, requiring us to hang out in the hall and kitchen pass-through area. But we could still hear okay, and overall I'll call it a successful first concert for tiny man!

Tuesday I'm off to Japan for the rest of the week, my first long trip away since our family became four. It will be difficult to be away for so long, though I'm certain much more challenging for Meh to be taking care of the two boys by herself. I wish we could all go together, though I'm not quite sure how Zachary would respond to a 10.5 hour flight! Thankfully several friends have offered to come over and help out, so at least there will be a second grownup to even the odds a bit from time to time.

Click It

One of Zachary's favorite pastimes lately is to look at his baby brother and call out "Oh-wee!" He's particularly interested in peeking up at him if he happens to be in the pack and play, is getting a diaper change, or is being worn by mommy or daddy. He even alternates talking about Owen and the coveted Elmo as the two boys face each other in their little seat-belted chairs at breakfast time.

On that topic, Zachary has recently discovered the joy of seat belts. He long loved snapping things together: legos, trains, his juice bottle's flip top, and plastic containers. A few days ago, when I put him in his "high cha!" for breakfast, he started playing with the safety harness, and was particularly pleased when I helped show him how to attach the buckle. Ever since, any time Meh or I approach something that buckles, it's most certainly been clicked into the connected position by the little man: Owen's car seat, Owen's baby papasan, the ergo baby carrier, shopping cart belts, and so on. He hasn't shown a desire to detach them yet (though the end of meal time often involves one or more rounds of daddy unbuckling Zachary just so he can rebuckle himself).

This morning, Zachary was saying 'juh juh', and I couldn't figure out what it was until I saw that Elmo was being bounced up and down (yes, still by his giant plastic eyes) in rhythm with the words -- "Jump!". His make believe continues to develop, with a "ha" (hello) as he picks up his toy phone before bringing it to us to chat with whoever is on the other line (oddly, still mostly telemarketers). He also has a new more consistent word -- a short but very endearing "no!" has generally replaced "all done" when the context is more about whether he wants something or disagrees with one of our suggestions.

I don't want to hex it, but tonight marks the fourth night in a row of zero crying when we put Zachary to bed. He still occasionally gets up and wanders around his darkened room for a minute or so, but I'm definitely hoping that this indicates the return of the 'happy to be getting into bed' little man who used to look forward to snuggling into bed with his blankie at the end of the day.

Starts with C

I still haven't quite figured out what the overall theme or goal was (other than apparently some kind of charity fundraiser?), but Meh and Owen went to Cupcake Camp on Saturday with friends S (of J & S) and J (of the entirely different couple S & J). They had a lovely time even though it was a bit of a madhouse, with originally instructions to "take as many as you like" eventually backing off to "please limit yourselves to 6 or 7" when people started abusing the system and snatching cupcakes by the box. For shame! But there was a wide variety, a few competitions for taste, Seattle-theme, and even "youth" entries, all of the major stores were represented, and over the past few days I've thankfully gotten to sample quite a few of the ones Meh brought home. Yum!

In other news, on Sunday morning, Zachary was snuggling on the couch with mommy and Owen (this often involves him deciding that the best place on the couch to be is between her and the closest armrest; so he squirms into place and she and Owen have to scoot over), his blankie, and Elmo. He smiled, looked at me, and said (I kid you not) "Cozy!" No repeats since then, but hooray for Zachary discovering one of his parents' favorite words!

Mild Manners

Another milestone for Zachary: when I gave him his milk this morning for breakfast, he signed an unprompted "thank you" before accepting it, and another one when I poured his Cheerios. Meh reported he's been doing this more and more often for her as well. Interestingly, the phrase itself remains out of his vocabulary; it's the one thing he continues to sign without attempting to pronounce.

Owen is one month old today - happy first month, tiny man! This morning was his checkup; Zachary and I stayed home while mommy and he visited the doctor. He was mildly sad about a shot, but did great otherwise. And all of the stats look good too:

Weight: 11 lbs 5.5 oz (90th percentile)
Length: 23 1/2 inches (90-97th percentile)
Head circumference: 38 1/2 cm (50-75th percentile)

We also learned a random bit of trivia - it's apparently very common for babies to break their collarbones during birth, and while they hadn't detected it in his initial doctor visit, Owen apparently now has the tell-tale little clavicle bump. The pediatrician said it clearly isn't bothering him and there's nothing to worry about -- she even said that by the time he's one year old, the break wouldn't be detectable even on an x-ray. Those resilient kids!

It's just gas

Owen continues to develop a pretty variable series of expressions, including big smiles, serious frowns and, um, I don't even know what to think of the picture to the left, other than "No how you doin'?" But he's got a great series of actual smiles, frequently culminating with a big, wide open grin. He of course also looks cute while he's asleep - often developing little smiles in the middle of dreams that I'm guessing are still pretty topic-limited. Even when he does cry, it's generally more of a tiny goat-like "nyeah!".

Today also marked the arrival in the mail of those wonderful professional photos we had taken of him when he was two days old. It's amazing how much he's changed in just a month! You can check out the full collection, in both black-and-white and color no less, here. We're so delighted with how they turned out, hooray for Keri's great eye. I'm still a huge fan of the ones she took with him wrapped in a cozy yarny fabric; it reminds me of a formal judge's wig, and I keep thinking of him banging down a tiny gavel and saying "guilty!" when I look at it. That, or that perhaps this image could be the backing of some future Owen-based paper currency?

Feed your imagination

Make believe hasn't really been Zachary's cup of tea; when we give him his cellphone toy and pretend there's someone on the other end of the line, he generally smiles at us, puts the phone to his ear, and then gives it back when it's silent. Similarly, Meh's attempts to introduce dolls have generally failed, with the doll being often carelessly discarded nearly immediately. (Meh was particularly worried about Zachary's would-be response to Owen when, a few weeks before Owen arrived, an introduced cabbage patch kid went soaring across the room into the toy bin -- nice arc, Zachary!)

So it was great to see Zachary rediscover his Elmo doll two days ago, bring him to bed, talk frequently about "Elmo!" (yes, he says that correctly), and carry him around in place of a toy car for a bit. And it was particularly fabulous at breakfast yesterday, when Zachary started offering Elmo some Cheerios and juice with no prompting or encouragement from me! I caught a video of his repeat performance this morning:

We'll kind of ignore the fact that he sometimes holds Elmo by his giant eyeballs - ouch!

Wine and dine

Happy Passover! We had really two really nice seders this year, including hosting our own for the first time in a few years for a small group of friends. Since even an early start would easily roll into Zachary's bedtime, on the first night we had a babysitter (who reported again that he went to sleep in his big boy bed fairly smoothly, with minimal objection), and took Owen along with us for a lovely evening with friend I and her parents. Among their other guests were friends S, D, their 4-year-old G, and their baby boy E (who was due several weeks after Owen but ended up arriving a bit earlier!)

On the second night, we kept things small at our house, and started our seder at 5:30 so Zachary would have a shot at experiencing it. (Huge thanks to our guests for showing up so early, as well as for bringing fabulous foods to share!) Impressively, we managed to get all the way through to the festive meal with Zachary still awake (it helped that we used the "New Selfon Haggadah", a one-pager I'd put together a few years ago covering the major traditional requirements) -- he melted down as the matzah ball soup came out, so I took him upstairs for bath and bedtime. Before that though, he was actively involved at the seder, pointing at the seder plate ("sah-sah") and talking about the matzah ("mah-sah") that we served him (he declined to eat it). His favorite by far though were the items associated with his plush seder plate, in particular the "glass" of wine.

This morning, coming down the stairs, Zachary again spotted the plush seder plate set, and was haapily labelling it as 'sah-sah'. Hooray for successful and positive holiday experiences!

Two little words

Another milestone today - Zachary chained together his first two word sentence this morning! The trivia answer that will live alongside Graham Bell's first telephone phrase is "Wah-gah ah-pah" (Legos open.) One small step... And in parallel to improved communication with us, Zachary has been far more approving and patient with his new brother, whom he refers to as "Oh-wee":

Sleeping for Zachary in his big boy bed continues to gradually improve too, with generally a minute or so of crying before settling down to sleep; I've snuck in a few times over the past few nights to confirm that he actually does sleep on the bed (versus the floor).

Meanwhile, tiny man (as we've begun to call him to differentiate from little man) continues to rotate his time between sleeping, soiling his clothes (we've capped at like six outfit changes in a day), and spending increasing time in that quiet alert state, looking around at everything with his big eyes. Yesterday, he even started to occasionally smile! I caught this shot of him with mommy; we're not sure if the happiness was influenced by the tasty matzah rocca in the background of the shot that Meh had just baked.

Bedside Manner

Our success with transitioning Zachary to his new bed last night was astounding - he cried and got up once or twice, but when I put him back down, he settled down and was sleeping very quickly. Meh reported similar success with today's nap.

Alas, the third time was the, ah, opposite of a charm; tonight after bath time, cozy book reading, and lights out, it was time for extended meltdowns. Here's how it played out, roughly forty times:

1. Put Zachary in his bed. (Optionally tuck him in.)
2. Walk out door.
3. Shut door.
4. Hysterical crying, thump, Zachary runs to and opens door.
5. Sees mommy or daddy and returns toward his bed.
6. Repeat from the top.

We tried several variants, but quickly settled into the "no socializing" mechanical repeat so he didn't think it was a game or that he was getting attention from it. Eventually #3 turned into leaving the door cracked, and that seemed to help; he very gradually settled down, and Meh was able to sneak away, though we were afraid to make noise downstairs for the rest of the evening with his door open.

On the opposite end of the Zachary happiness spectrum, today was also his last day of swimming before spring break. He had a fabulous time, particularly when they pulled out a mid-pool six-step-up slide. He climbed up it and, daredevil that he is, almost tried to lean back and pitch himself into the water the hard way (smiling all the while). Thankfully the instructor was at the ready, and he instead came down the slide, flying into the water with a giant grin on his face. He did great with backfloating, and there was even a bit of "swimming" across the pool that went well, always followed with giant hugs.

For the last few weeks, we've wrapped up pool time with shower time - partially to rinse out some of the extra chlorine I'm sure they put in pool water used by a bunch of young kids, partially because Zachary was, um, doing things that justified the use of extra chlorine (cutting at least two lessons short with water diaper incidents), and mostly because he loves holding the shower nozzle, talking about the "wawa" (water) and how it's "hot!"

I'll close with a video of Zachary's newfound love of (or at least demand for mommy performances of) Balkan folk music:

Empty chairs at empty tables

I forgot to mention, we gave Owen his first 'real' bath on Sunday (previously we'd opted for the sponge route). He was quiet and happy with it, even nearly falling asleep at one point.

Last night marked the departure of mima and papa, so our local family is once again down to four -- but only for a little while, as mima and papa will be moving out to join us in a few short weeks!

Last night also marked the return of Zachary escaping his crib -- this time after being put to bed (rather than nap), and this time as a recurring event. Friends B and J had generously brought us dinner, but I spent much of their visit upstairs trying to get him down. I started by actually snuggling him into his bed, but he kept grabbing my arm and wanting me to stay with him. Eventually he went back into his old crib. I snuck downstairs, but heard his door swing open moments later. We started just doing the "minimal feedback" thing of putting him back in bed without saying anything, smiling, etc. It was perhaps the low double digits before he finally did conk out for the night; I had to sneak a peek slightly later on to confirm that he hadn't just gone to sleep on the floor of his room. In the meantime, I took the opportunity to flip the doorknob on his new room so the lock is on the outside -- hopefully we wouldn't ever have to lock him in, but if he's exploring his room rather than sleeping, I wouldn't want him to lock us out! Tonight Meh has choir, so I think we'll make an attempt to switch him to his new room and big boy bed.