Verbatim

Overhead not last night but the night before:

(I am washing dishes. Zander is in his high chair finishing dinner. Matt has gone upstairs for a moment. Zander twists his head to look over his shoulder in the direction Matt has gone.)

"DAD! I'm done!"


Later....

(I am laying on the floor playing with Zander. Zander gets a little rambunctious and starts whopping me on the head.)

I say, "Ow, you're hurting me. Do you want to go to bed?"
Zander replies, "No, mom."


Later....

(Zander is so rambunctious that we take it outside. I casually pull up a few weeds and take them to the treeline for disposal. Standing by the porch steps, Zander shouts to me with incoherent anxiety.)

I say, "Don't worry, Zander, I'm coming back."
Zander cries out, "Come back!"

Seriously. All this in one night. We've been able to tell for a while that he's saying full sentences - he's definitely got the cadance down and lots of sophisticated sounds but 95% of the time (he talks a lot!) it's mumbo-jumbo. My favorite is the second one because it was a conversation and not just an outburst or possible mimicry.

And now, another picture-essay:

(The Engineer)

(The Horticulturalist)

(The Warrior)

(The Gourmet)

(Okay, maybe not so gourmet.)

One more shelf

Oh gods, not one more shelf!

A few months ago we bought a large shelf from Ikea. You can see it in photos from this entry. It's five squares by five squares. Zander has taken over the bottom two rows (things are no longer arranged quite the same as seen in that photo). Baskets of yarn and video tapes dominate the middle row. The upper two rows have delicate things like a tea set, photographs, books, and projects. Yesterday Zander discovered the videos - just above his head in that photo. They are . . . just . . . almost . . . beyond his . . . reach! Of course the ones he's trying to pull down are the kids videos.

I really don't want to give over one more set of shelves to the baby.

Even as I'm writing this, he's managed to dislodge the slightly larger clamshell case of the Wiggles video, carefully take the tape from the case, carry it over to the stereo, and try to find a place to put it. I went over and asked him to give me the video and then I put it in the VCR for him. He's quite pleased with himself. I have to say, so am I. There was no flagrant abuse of the VHS tape which I can't say was the case a few months ago.

While we're on the topic of children's television, yesterday afternoon Matt put The Wrong Trousers in for Zander to watch and the boy was completely riveted. That's my son! Good taste in movies! Sometimes he and I watch Spongebob Squarepants in the afternoon, right when I'm needing my own nap but Zander has just woken up and won't go down until bedtime - and lately Zander gets screamingly excited about the Spongebob theme song. Hah!

Just now he's dancing along with Captain Feathersword. What a good boy. His love-affair with music and dancing continues with increased passion and energy.

In other news, Zander has his 15 mo. check-up later today. I got up this morning and started making a list of his words and I realized that "ball" is not among them. For some reason, this was not acceptable to me but Zander was up to the task. Between getting up at 7:30 am and before we got home from our walk at 9:00 am, he learned how to say "ball." Genius, I tell you.

(Hippie baby gets ready for his first night out camping next weekend)

Book fiends

Two posts in one day, I know! But I saw this picture and couldn't resist.

Zander, 8/2/06

Me & my mom, 1979 or thereabouts

E I E I O !

We've been getting a lot of mileage out of Old McDonald this past week. Zander likes to try and sing the chorus of E-I-E-I-O.

I started giving him milk and cereal in a bowl with a spoon. He loves that. He doesn't actually use the spoon to great effect but the meal gets eaten one way or another. For a couple weeks it was cheerios but lately I've been giving him mini frosted shredded wheats because that's what I eat most days and he whines at me for shredded wheat (he's got that demanding pointer finger down) after the cheerios are gone. In my laziness, I am skipping the cheerio stage. If the boy wants to eat shredded wheat, who am I to say no? The cutest part? He sucks the milk out of the shredded wheat before chewing it up.

This morning - being a humane 70-something degrees Fahrenheit outside - I did some gardening for the first time in two months. Zander understands weeding - you pull plants out of the garden. He thinks, I can do that! And so he can. Mostly he pulled on the chives, which of all the non-weed things in the garden, can certainly take the abuse and they are non-toxic and tasty to boot. (Come to think of it, I doubt anything in my back garden is toxic since it's all herbs... plus the rose, which has thorns.)

Then came the watering. I watered the herbs and the rose and the vegetables and the baby. He wasn't in full-on waterplay mode because he actually wanted to take a nap so he didn't get wet enough to even warrant a change of clothes.

Speaking of waterplay. Zander was jamming last night in a friend's paddle pool. Matt is opposed to the pool because he doesn't want to store it. Although I would prefer a durable hard plastic pool, I am willing to compromise and get an inflatable one so it will pack down smaller. Are you reading this, Matt?

Zander LOVED the kiddie pool! And I love it because, unlike with the sprinkler, he wanders off less and doesn't get me wet (picking up the sprinkler and moving it).

In a few more days he will be fifteen months old. Which means he has an appointment to see his doctor. We're sure he has gained no weight in three months although he is something like six inches taller and lots more smart.

Headlong At the Playground

From 7/24/06
I'm sure none of you care but I do so I have to make it clear that I have very little control of photo layout within Blogger. I am so sorry that this little photo montage is rather SPLAT all over the page. Ugh. Oh and you can click for bigger pictures. As always.

Hunkered down for day three of our brush with the surface of the sun. It's noon right now so it's just starting to get interesting. Monday and Tuesday I thought the heat wave was going to be over Tuesday night but this morning I turned my computer on and found out that it was going until tonight now. I didn't turn on the computer at all yesterday after blowing a fuse by doing nothing other than sit on the couch and read a book. But I am such a child of the '90s, I cannot live without the computer for another twenty-four hours. That and I have a mondo deadline I need to work towards. On the computer.

But you didn't come here to read about all that, did you?

Hm. I just tried to load some photos but Blogger is blogged up. Everything electronic is a little slow today. Oh well. Whatever. I could return to the couch and read the last chapter of the book I started yesterday morning. No, no, there are other things to attend to. Stephanie Plum will still have a bomb strapped to her stomach when I get back to her in a few hours.

Zander got to meet up with his buddy Sloan this weekend. Sloan is a smidge older than Zander and they are very cute to watch together. They still kind of ignore each other in that way that babies do. But it's amazing to see another child making the same hand movements and walking in the same way and getting excited about the same toys - kinda of puts your own little genius into perspective. Children have distinct personalities and preferences but they are not THAT original.

Matt and I think that Zander' s career aspirations currently amount to musician or... well, Matt says astronaut but I'm not sure where he gets that other than his lost childhood dreams. (Yes, he went to Space Camp and everything!) Zander continues to add to his dance repetoire. He twirls, he twists, he bounces. He hums a lot, he might even be trying to sing. I am dredging my memory for all the little songs I knew from grade school music class... because I used to wander around the house and yard as a child singing songs to myself. I used to know a lot of songs. Anyway, it's a great diaper changing tactic. And I used it to soothe him before putting him down to sleep when we were staying at the hotel in Utah last month. And, in general, whenever we feel like having a good time. I also got out a musical bug toy handed down from his cousin Connor - Zander gets it now. Buttons and music. There's nothing more this kid could ask for.

Still talking lots. Having garbled baby conversations. I said last night that when we go in for his 15 mo. checkup in a couple weeks, if they ask me what words he's saying I'm going to have to suggest they ask what words he's NOT saying. I give up on that list I started a few posts back.

And there's been a whole lotta pointing going on. Now he just needs to learn those famous toddler words: What's that?