First computer

Here is a pic of an old dell laptop that barely has enough memory to run windows XP, but i reconfigured for Zack to use. I removed the keys for all the F1, F2, Ctrl, Alt, etc. and left the others so that he wouldn't get himself into too much trouble. He loves it and loves the simple web-based games we've found.
When he wants to use the computer, he'll say "Tickle Elmo" or "See Froggies" which are two fun keyboard-only games to play on Sesame Street website

Sick Day

And boy, was it. For some unknown reason we all got sick early this morning and were miserable all through the day. Zack threw-up at 1am in his crib, and after we woke up we both felt bad too. Jen spent the rest of the morning sleepig on the floor of one bathroom and I spent it sleeping on the floor with Zack in the other bathroom. There is nothing that makes me feel more like a dad than to be caring for and sleeping with a little guy who keeps throwing up every 2 hours.
It's pretty sad watching a toddler throw up and seeing him not care anymore because he'd been doing it off and on for the last 12 hours. The secondary problem was getting rid of his hiccups afterward, since drinking water would be kept down. Accidently bumping his head on the wall is the only thing that worked so far.
As Jen said "I used to think the worst thing was throwing up, but now I know the worst thing is throwing up while hearing your son throw up too."
Anyway, he was very happy and seemed healthy tonight, Jen and I can't say that unfortunately.

First time ice skating!

Zack really really wanted to try skating when we all went up to Squaw Valley. He wanted to have skates on his feet and after we started out in the corner of the ice he said "Skate with big people" meaning he wanted to go around the rink with everyone else. He was a champ and didn't get upset at all, except for when we stepped off the ice too early after a few rounds, and he said "More Ice Skating". I thing someone may get skates for x-mas...

First Conversation

Zack is now 22 months old and in the final stretch toward turing 2. Yesterday I got a call from day care reporting that he took a big tumble off a bench and hit his head on the gravel. He was fine by the time I arrived, so on the way home in the car, he said at some point,
"Zacky fall down."
"Oh, you fell down today?" I asked.
"Yeah" Zack said sheepishly
"Did you bump your head?"
"Yeah...Zacky Cry"
"Oh, did you cry?" I asked.
"Yeah" sheepishly again.
"That's ok, its OK to cry. Are you happy now?"
"Yeah!" he said more excitedly.

Also, he is starting to say phrases and more correct sentences. Yesterday he said "Fire truck in the castle!!!" which is the first complete use of a prepositional phrase I can remember after he put his toy fire truck into a barn silo that looks like a castle. When we went outside last night, he commented, "It's dark".

How to eat meat

Zack is a carb-loving baby and it has been more and more difficult to get him to eat anything other than bread-related foods and certain fruits. However this weekend we had a breakthrough and we were able to get Zack to eat a whole slice of meatloaf by using the following techniques:
1) tell him it is chicken. chicken seems to be OK, and when it it cut up to look like little chicken bits, it is just like "dark meat", right?
2) play hide-and-seek with the piece of food, but tell Zack to hide it in his mouth. He will stuf the piece in his mouth and then eat it and quickly exclaim "all gone!"

Draw Face

From the Funny Story of the Day dept:
We all went our for dinner at Applebees last night and Zack was having fun with the crayons, scribbling on the kiddie activity placemat. There was a section that had a blank ghost with the instructions to draw a face on the ghost. We said to Zack, "Zack can you draw a face?" Then he proceeded to bring the crayon up to HIS OWN face, closed his eyes, and tried to scribble on his cheeks and nose. He then stopped, smiled and said "Draw face!" We couldn't stop laughing.

New Criblets:
Tickle Treat - Trick or Treat.
Oat Email - Oatmeal, Zack's favorite breakfast food. He started saying ee-mail for Oatmeal, and then realized that it wasn't quite right, so he added "Oat" a few days later, but kept "ee".

His pronunciation is great except for a few expections, like "Oat-e-mail", and "Budder-boon" (balloon)