Kissy-poo

(first grilled cheese half-sandwich - which he ate all of by himself)

Zander's newest trick is giving kisses. This is what 25.5 hours of labor was for! Simply the best. He's a terrible kisser (just kinda presses his face against yours) but considering the fact that he's less than 3 feet tall and barely speaks English - nevermind.

Zander loves to play with the stereo. We don't have a place to put it up higher but after a time-out or two, he now knows that NO means NO with the stereo. And when we put on music on the computer (because we're too lazy to change CDs in the stereo, heh) Zander is totally confused. He knows that the stereo makes music but the equalizer is not moving and the sound is coming from the other side of the room...whaa...?

He loves him some melon and blueberries. I think bananas have been surpassed.

He also loves musical books (see, it's all about buttons - the stereo, the books, etc). Don't get me wrong, he loves regular books too and carries them around all the time. But if we go to another kid's house he eventually finds the musical books and spends a large part of his playtime pushing the buttons. He had a Blues Clues musical book from his Aunt Chrissi for Christmas but it died. A couple weeks ago he brought it to me, put it down in front of me and pushed the buttons and looked at me with that question in his eyes - fix it, Momma? But no, it's dead dead dead.

Zander this week inherited a Fisher Price Little People playtimestationthing. It's large and makes noise and has a revolving road and stuff. It also came with a few of the cars and people. He really likes it. Mostly he likes pushing the button (do you see a theme here?) and dancing to the insipid song. Luckily I had a brain shield installed last year when that Leapfrog toy was in constant rotation and my sanity is preserved from insipid songs.

But Zander's alltime favorite plaything (other than me, hah!) is blocks and containers. He likes to put things inside of other things and he prefers it if there's a little bit of a challenge to it. We have a couple of different toys that are an enclosed bin with a hole in the top and balls or blocks or shapes that go into it. He doesn't get the intricate shapes so much yet.

More, there's more! Zander also loves to run through sprinklers and swim in pools. Bathtub, not so much - but I'm sure he'd like it better if we put more water in it.

Okay, I am off to get some baby kisses. Later, dudes.

(playing the kazoo)

chicken

A rare weekend posting to let you all know (because you are all still reading, right? even though I sometimes make you wait two or three weeks? but don't lay it all on me, I am not the only one with rights to publish to this blog...coughcoughMATTcough...).

What was I saying? Oh yes.

Friday night I gave Zander some of the chicken we were having for dinner. "Zander, have some chicken" or something to that effect.

And you know what he did?

He said "Chicken."

Awwwwwwwwwww!

See I had this idea that I would post a running list of his words as he aquired them but there are so many already and often just once or, of course, they're difficult to understand. So we'll just stick with the cool ones. Life's too short.

He's also running. Did I mention that yet? He trusts me so much he even runs around the side of the building AND OUT OF SIGHT giggling madly. I've lost a few pounds in the past couple months. Better diet or more exercise?

Pass the chicken.

(do you see the wicken gleam in his eyes?
he nearly climbed over one of the baby gates today.
mama mia!)

very busy boy

Zander has spent all morning fitting little wooden shapes into another wooden toy with holes and ramps (toys previously seen in this entry from last month). The two toys don't strictly go together but the shapes are small enough to fit through the holes if he angles them correctly. Very engrossing work.

We took a walk around our neighborhood this morning and THAT was traumatic, leaving his toys behind and having to do this other thing, but he got right back into it when we returned. He's a Very Busy Boy.

That being said, he just informed me that it's nap time. Without whining or tears or complaining. Ain't he sweet?

Here's a better picture of the yarn carnage from the other day:

There are also three balls flung over the baby gate (the washed out white object in the foreground) and couple by the front door, as seen in the previous photo. See the yarn wrapped around his leg? He giggled maniacally while I held him down to take that off. See the pile of tangled yarn? He created that. Matt and I may not be strictly neat people but we respect our yarn and do not store in such a fashion. I am still impressed, especially by the tangle of yarn. It took me over an hour to clean up - and all the while a delighted baby was flinging himself into my lap every two minutes.

PS - We LOVE the new and gigantic bookshelf from Ikea (see photo above). Although it dominates a whole wall - and we had to flip our whole living room to accomodate it - it opens the room up.

Where did we leave off?

Lots to say but I only have 8 minutes to say it because Blogger is going to have a scheduled outage.

The past, oh, three weeks have been full of fun and interesting things like hail, teething, three plane flights, many far flung relatives, and today a massive tangle of yarn. I was doing some work on the computer and the baby was playing by himself. Quietly. Yes, do you hear the music of doom? I look up after about 20 minutes to find our living room tented with wool yarn pulled from the nalbinding chest. I laughed until I cried. Zander seemed a little confused as to why I was laughing so hard. Gotta love that boy.