Great Weekend Visit

This past weekend we had my parents visit from Colorado for 4 days and had a great time. Zack recognized them from their previous visit 3 months ago and excitedly referred to them in three syllable names as "Ol Da Da" and "Gra Me Me". Some of the highlights include a trip to the Children's Discovery Museum and Happy Hollow in San Jose. Zack really enjoyed the tennis ball and water ball exhibits at CDM. At Happy Hollow the Zoo part was great, expecially the goat petting pen. Zack made sure that all goats were not just petted but also hugged. The Capybara exhibit was also very interesting to Zack, he laughed at them quite a bit.

Zack has learned how to open doors and gates with latches now, and doorknobs are not far away. He is learning and using very specific words now like "teapot", "pinecone" (thanks Ol Da Da), and "tennis". However the "terrible twos" are one their way as evident at dinner last night. Zack's attempt to feed applesauce to himself was more a of game. He would put the spoon between his lips and blow, spraying applesauce everywhere, and then laugh and laugh. We tried not to laugh too but we failed.

The end of innocence?

Zack turned 19 months yesterday and we've now had our first time-out. He's been running around like a crazy boy having fun, but, he's just as likely to run away from us as run toward us. The problem has been developing around Zack's treatment of Tobey. He's been occasionally hitting him with toys and just started kicking the dog. He is throwing and kicking a ball well, it is just that those actions are translating to the dog. What doesn't help is that if Zack makes Tobey squeal in pain, he laughs because it is a funny sound. Tobey has been very forgiving in all of this which is fortunate. However, we've started to take time-outs with him when he doesn't listen to us. The challenge there is trying to keep a toddler still for 30-60 seconds. That is just as hard.

Baby got a new pair of shoes

Zack got great mileage out of his 5 1/2 StrideRite shoes, but they were getting more and more difficult to put on so we brought him into the kiddie shoe shop expecting to get a size 6. Well, his feet measured at 6 1/2 and it is suggested that you buy a size up, so we got size 7 1/2 shoes! They look a bit bigger than the old ones, but Zack can run around in them just fine with no tripping. Now the only question is what to do with the old ones. Bronze them? Toss them over a neighborhood telephone line? Encase them in lucite? Turn them into a dog chew toy?

Giraffe Television

A few days ago when Zack was having difficultly going back to sleep after waking up around 11:30pm (teething?) we brought him into our bedroom to watch TV to distract and relax. We settled on the Discovery channel, and they were doing a segment about extreme animals featuring the giraffe. Zack regognized the giraffes, saying "Jaffe", and was very captivated. However the show ended at midnight, and Zack wanted more. He then started signing "more" with his hands, this is the first time he has used the concept of "more" outside of a food consumption context. He then repeatedly made the hand motion and said "More Jaffe TeeVee". We were amazed, but unfortuantely couldn't carry out the request since that was it for shows on tv with giraffes. Fortunately he didn't get TOO upset about it. But since then he has signed "more" and said "More toys" when he can't find the toy to please his current liking.