Chapter 1: Less Than Mind-Bloggeling Thoughts

Where to begin?

It’s been awhile since my last update. Just wanted to post the latest Zach Stats since he’s now 2 ½ and growing and talking and talking and growing more and more each month.

Height: 37 inches (75%tile)
Weight: 29 lbs (50%tile)

Zach was so good at his latest check-up. The few times before, he just did not want anything to do with anyone at the doctor’s office. It was a battle to weigh him, measure him, poke him, prod him… He responded better to the shots than to the actual check-up the last few times.

This time, he was so laid back and easy going and let Dr. Jill do her thing. This was a shot-free visit, too. Maybe he sensed that :-D

I’m amazed at the progress toddlers make in their speech – so quickly. Zach has always been chatty and talking – but it seems like even from age 2 to 2 ½, the sentence patterns are now complete, and we feel as if we’re talking with a little adult. It’s like you forget sometimes he’s only 2 ½. (Other times, like when he does not want to leave the local splash park and he puts up a fight, you remember – heh heh).

Of course, it’s so hard to track everything he says, but some examples are as follows:

“I want some water. I want some COLD water.” (He’s very particular about having his drinks chilled).
“Remember at the water park, I got my hair all wet? Remember I fell in the water? Remember I cried?”
“I want some meat balls.” (Or whatever food he has a hankering for – it’s so fun now that he can ask for the foods he wants).
“Mama, you have to go back to work?” (One time he walked me to the door and told me to go go go…haha.)
“Mama, I missed you sooo much!” (Or “Mama/dada, I love you so much!”)

My dad (papa) recently had knee surgery. When I asked Zach what happened, he said, “Papa broke his leg.” I then asked, “and what did the doctors do?” Zach: “They fixed it.” Me: “And where is papa?” Zach: “At the hospital.”

So just stuff like that.

He’s also reading and writing now – just kidding – but he does know that “D-A-D spells DAD” (thank you, Barney videos).

He’s got a memory like a steel trap (how cliché am I). He’ll remind me of things that we did/saw months and months ago – sometimes things from last year. It’s amazing how much information these (big) little minds hold!

Zach continues to love love love music. He sings very well – in tune. Has perfect rhythm when he dances/claps. When he dances, he likes to tell us, “I’m dancing.” Then he shakes his booty a bit for us. It’s so cute/funny to watch.

His musical tastes include classical (particularly Vivaldi and Beethoven b/c that’s what his toy caterpillar plays when you push the appropriate buttons), Rihanna (she’s his first love), Selena Gomez, AC/DC (or any rock when we play it for the most part), Barney songs/kiddie songs, and lately, Sara Brightman (he’s entranced with long hair – and she certainly has a lot of it).

On a side note, check out the video of Jackie Evancho and Sara Brightman singing “Time To Say Goodbye” on YouTube. Jackie Evancho is this singing sensation from Pittsburgh, PA – discovered on “America’s Got Talent”. Ten years old and she sounds as mature and polished and beautiful as Sara Brightman.

Back to Zach.

Eating habits – still picky. Still a toddler. Some days he’ll eat very well (especially when he’s with Nomma and Papa). Other days, he grazes. He likes Ramon Noodle soup, pasta, ice cream cones, potato chips, chicken nuggets, French fries, carrots, pretzels, cookies, etc. etc. So he’s got a wide array of foods he’ll eat – he just doesn’t eat a lot very often.

He’s not big on drinking milk right now. Maybe b/c it’s summer and it’s hot. He loves ice water. Recently, we started to let him have a little ginger ale b/c he seems intrigued when we drink “pop”. He drinks fruit punch once in awhile (not often). He’ll drink a little juice here and there – but his main focus is water.

Temper-wise: He’s very even-tempered in general, but he does have his moments. I can take him shopping with me and he holds my hand and walks through the store with me without running away (which is something he would do months earlier – off he goes… and the chase is on!). He likes to drive the little cars attached to some of the shopping carts when we go to the grocery store. Usually. There have been times when he curls up his legs and wraps them around my body like a monkey and refuses to go into the cart: “No! No! No! I go DOWN! I walk!”

We take walks to the local CVS and he stays by my side – mostly. Sometimes, I do have to pick up the pace b/c he likes to go “faster! Faster! Faster!”

He had his first visit to a local water park and he had a blast! He was such a good boy the whole time. He particularly enjoyed the pseudo-geysers that pop out of the pavement. He has no problem getting water in his face, on his head, on his body (but he makes me do the same. I have to be an active water-buddy-participant). He did fall face first in one of the wading pools – which made him cry. He had a life jacket on, so he popped up quickly, but I think the incident scared him. I grabbed him very quickly, but it took a few minutes for him to calm down. Then he said, “I’m all better now.”

When it was time to go, he was so tired that he just wanted me to hold him as we walked to the car. It was a bit of a trek, so here I was, carrying almost 30 lbs of Zach and a diaper bag, in flip flops…asking Zach, “are you sure you don’t want to walk and hold my hand?” :-D

Since we had such a positive experience, I took him to a smaller splash park in the area on Saturday. Again, he had a blast, but the exit was not so smooth. I tried to work him out of the park with a popsicle and promises of going to Wendy’s, but we had to walk past a pseudo-geyser to get out of the park, and that ended the calm exit. “Water! More water!”

So once again, I had to carry almost 30-pounds of Zach out of the park, but this time he was pushing away from me, pulling on my lips as if they were taffy, and doinking me over the head with his troll (more to come on troll). Luckily, the parking lot was much closer, so it was all of a one-minute battle, and he fell asleep on the way home. The next day, he said, “Remember I cried?” Why yes, yes I did – because you were screaming to the heavens for more water. “Remember I hit you?” Funny you should mention it because yes… yes I do. I’ve never been beat with a naked, scalped troll before.

Like I said, he has his moments ;-)

Ok – Troll. And Mr. Moppy. And Angel Dolly.

For a long, long time, Zach did not have a “lovey” as his pediatrician called it. Once he turned 2, he started to take notice of his stuffed toys and “Angel Dolly”. I bought Angel Dolly at a local Marcs for less than $5. She sat on our Christmas tree. She has long blonde hair, wings, and a pretty little angel dress. Well, she had those things. Zach took a liking to her because he loves long hair. We play this game called “Blow To The Wind” where we have to dump Angel Dolly upside down and watch the air conditioner (or a fan) blow her hair. Sometimes, he demands, “You dump your hair” – so I have to turn my head upside down and let my hair “blow to the wind.”

Angel Dolly has also taken many baths and had her hair blown dry with our blow dryer – so now Angel Dolly is naked and her hair is all gnarly and half-melted. You can’t get a comb through it without causing her pain (if dollys can feel pain).

She will no longer be part of our Christmas Tree décor unless we give her a full makeover.

Enter Mr. Moppy. Mr. Moppy is, literally, the head of an old mop my dad had. My dad (the ad-lib toymaker that he is), cut most of the stick off of Mr. Moppy and gave Zach the mop-head with about 6 inches of stick attached. My mom drew eyes on Mr. Moppy and dubbed him Mr. Moppy. However, Mr. Moppy is stinky. He’s old. He’s dirty. We tried giving him a bath outside in the pool and sprinkler. I scrubbed him down with Irish Spring body wash, but a rain storm got Mr. Moppy and made him even more stinky. So Mr. Moppy was not allowed to set foot inside our house.

Oh did that make Mr. Zachee angry and sad. “Bring Mr. Moppy inside? Bring Mr. Moppy inside? Bring Mr. Moppy inside?” I had to explain that Stinky Moppy stays outside, and we would buy Zach a new moppy. From time to time, we’d hear Zach mutter, “Mr. Moppy is all stinky. He stays outside. Don’t bring Mr. Moppy inside. We’ll buy me a new moppy.”

It got to the point where we had to hide Mr. Moppy at papa’s house, and now I’ve told Zach that Mr. Moppy has gone to Europe on vacation. He is MIA. He has flown the coop. He has moved.

SO, being the daughter of an ad-lib toymaker, I bought some thick yarn at Walmart and cut strands and strands of it, tied it together, and lo and behold, we have a NEW AND CLEAN MR. MOPPY! However, not being a toy-making professional, Zach has managed to pull strands of thread out of my concoction, so this leads me to make many mini-moppies for him. Our house is infested. It’s like a moppy convention. They have multiplied like guppies. Moppies, moppies everywhere (I even invented a song about Mr. Moppy). I’m thinking of marketing these creatures.

“Oh Mr Moppy, you are so floppy, oh Mr. Moppy, you’re my best friennnnnnd…. Oh Mr. Moppy, sometimes you’re soppy, but Mr. Moppy, you’re my best friend!”

Anyways, this leads me to Scalped, Naked Troll. Zach also took a liking to some trolls I’ve had forever – again, he’s obsessed with the troll-hair that stands on end (think of Heat Miser from “A Year Without A Santa Claus”). Well, Halloween troll went swimming with us one day, and perhaps the water loosened the glue that held his hair to his head, because lo and behold, the hair/head fell off. Trolls are hollow inside, so Zach says Troll now looks like an ice cream cone (“Ice Cream Cone Troll”). Well, my boy can’t have a hairless/scalpless troll, so I took one of the mini moppies and stuffed it into Troll’s head. Wa la. “Troll has long hair, like Dolly,” says Zach.

Troll now travels everywhere with us. You should have seen the look of horror on this little girl’s face at the splash park as she eye-balled my son with Scalpless Troll in one hand, mini-moppy-hair in another: “What IS THAT THING?”

That, my dear girl, is art. That is the latest in innovative toy-making, brought to you by Mom, Inc.

So Zach now has a lovey, or two, or three.

What else?

Zach still naps in his crib. He hasn’t tried to climb out (phew!). I’m surprised b/c he climbs onto/over everything else. He sure jumps in his crib. He’s my little Tigger. Sometimes the crib is about a foot from the wall when we go to get him.

At night, he mostly sleeps by my side on the big bed. Yes – we will have to deal with transitioning him to a toddler bed soon – and I’m sure there will be a battle of the wills – but right now, he sleeps through the night, which means I sleep through the night, which means DH sleeps through the night, and all is good. I move him to his crib in the morning and he sleeps a little longer. It’s just the routine we established months and months ago – and it still works for us.

Potty training – we haven’t really done much with this yet. I’ve bought him his own little potty seat – the kind that goes over the toilet. He likes to climb up and down on his step stool and sit on the potty – but whenever I remove his diaper and explain how to point the wee wee down and pee, he doesn’t pee. Instead, he makes me remove all his clothing until he’s “Naked Boy”. Yes – we even have to remove his socks. One time, he said, “Now mama get naked.” That was the end of that game.

The one time I let him run around the house without his diaper, he came to me (I was in the kitchen) and said, “Mama, I went poo poo.” Visions of poo poo on my couch raced through my head. I asked where, and he took me by the hand, pointed to the floor, and here, he had gone pee pee on the floor. I gave him a high five, told him next time he can go on the potty, and cleaned it up. So he’s aware of his bodily functions. He just hasn’t really shown an overabundance of interest in potty training yet, so we’re not going to push the issue. I figure when he’s ready, he’ll let us know. It was like the whole self-feeding thing. Zach was just about a year when he FINALLY put a cheesy puff in his mouth by himself. He does things on his own time. He’s too busy saying words like “rehabilitation” or “octagon” or singing Rihanna songs (“oh na na, what’s my name”) or Beyonce songs (“to the left, to the left, everything you own’s in a box to the left…”) ;-D

And on that note, Happy Summer To All!

Zach took his first nap in his crib He's been sleeping in his bassinet at night, but I thought I'd lay him in his crib (inside this secure sleeper thingamajig) because he seems very content in his room, and wa la...he fell asleep for a few hours!

The funny thing is...whenever we take a field trip to his room, he gets transfixed by the ceiling fan! It's not even on - but as soon as we walk into the nursery, his eyes immediately focus upward, and he just stares and stares at this fan! I have no idea what's so intriguing about it (is he seeing angels playing on the ceiling? aliens? another dimension?)! All these super cool stuffed toys and rattles and the kid likes the ceiling fan. He'll be very easy to please come Christmas time.

On a good note, since he was so focused on the fan (and thus the ceiling), I, too, focused on it, and I noticed a crack in our ceiling that wasn't there before, so I told Dale about it and he will have to fix it (may have been caused by the cold weather - who knows). So little Zach helped us identify a home improvement project

Zach turned 4 weeks yesterday. His milestones are that he can really hold his head up during tummy time (in addition to falling asleep), and he can now find his binky at times on his own when it falls out of his mouth during Tummy Time. In addition, he's really got some smiles on him! Just today he was practically laughing as Dale tickled his chin and talked to him - more than we've ever seen, and this morning when I wiped his bottom with a warm cloth, he grinned and grinned (who doesn't like their bottom wiped with a warm cloth)!

Oh - and Zach can operate the snow blower now - which is a good thing - especially on a day like today!