This one goes to eleven

Well, Zach's birthday came and went faster than Lindsay Lohan's prison stay and the time just keeps on flying by. He had a great first birthday...we assume. I'm sure someday he will look back at the massive amount of people who showed up, and/or wished him a "Happy Birthday," got him a fun present, told him he was the cutest and wished the whole family well, and he will remember none of it. That's ok though. At least we had fun, and we learned a valuable lesson: don't have huge parties for a one-year-old.

Zach and his friends.....what? 1-year-olds can't have friends 30 times their age?

Zach, family and an obliterated cupcake....I mean he mutilated that thing...it spun in....there were no survivors.

Speaking of gifts, Zach brought home the mother-load...(technically, I brought home the mother-load while Zach slept in the back of the car and spilled raisins all over the back seat) but either way, they are his presents and he is having a blast with them! He loved everything he got (even the clothes) and he's been using all of his stuff a lot more lately. It makes us feel a little more validated when we see the mountains of toys in the living room actually being used finally. Most of that is due to his mobility. He's walking around now like Arthur Bach on a bender, but he's getting better. Amazingly, whereas just a few weeks ago on his birthday he was just barely taking a few steps, he's now walking around the entire house with only a few falls here and there. It's a good thing we splurge on his extra padded diapers.

Here's a picture of him playing with his Dino-walker toy that he got from Nonie and Papa:

Excuse me ladies, I didn't find the time to put on any pants.

And here's a video of him walking. (Mind you, this was taken last week, so in baby time a week is like a thousand years of improvement....as I write this, he's taking Token on a walk around the neighborhood)

He's been doing a lot of other cool stuff over the last several weeks. He's talking a lot more and making a little more sense. The ratio of sounds coming out of his mouth to words is widening, but I feel like that will begin to shrink eventually. He makes the Tiger sound "Grrrr" and he is very good and pointing things out when we ask "where is the fan?, where is the light?, where is the ceiling, where is the sky"....see the pattern? He can also point out the Red Balloon in Goodnight Moon (ironically enough, he can't quite find the actual moon yet) and he knows several household items by name such as "Dog, ball, blankie, book, stairs" along with all the other aforementioned items, and some others that I probably am not remembering right now.

Here's a quickie of him showing love to his most valuable item on Earth:

Zach is definitely going through a lot of growth (mentally) right now. It seems like he's learning more and more each day. For instance: it's extremely funny to watch Mama's terrifyingly shocked reaction when he reaches up to turn on the burner to the stove. Kelly is off this month (and going back to work next week and none to excited about having to leave Zach again) but they did a ton of fun stuff: multiple trips to the beach, visits to the grandparents and great-grandparents, music class, and a ton of swim-time. So I think Zach has had a pretty good 12th month...in fact, I think he's had a pretty good first year. Let's bring on number two! Speaking of number two..........(I'm talking about Zach, not me...you're gross)

Since I'm in the video mood today, here's ONE more of him playing catch with Token...I swear most of the force in his throw comes from him, not me......*cough

Fun Facts:

• Zach now pinches as a sign of what we imagine is love when we pick him up...it's great.
• He picks out his own bed-time book....Suuuper cuuuuuutteee!
• He's getting more independent in his walking and what-not, but interestingly, also getting a lot more of the separation anxiety when we start to walk away.

-pf

Somebody blows their nose and you want to keep it?

Zach is currently going through his first big cold. It's not a bad cold, just a cough, sneezing and stuffy nose. It's just really sad and totally pathetic when he coughs and sniffs all the time. We found out it makes us feel better if we say "Awww, po witto Zachy has a coad" Then there is at least a little cuteness hidden within the mucus. Also, as generous and giving as our son is, he has graciously donated his cold to both of us so that we can literally take part in his entire life.

In less gross news, Zach has been really happy this month because it's a "mommy is home" month. He had no idea where she was going when dad had to take care of him in the morning for those last couple months so at the end of her last session, we took him in to "mama's office" and he found that it was more exciting that anyone could have possibly imagined. (To be fair, he thinks that the remote for the fan is also more exciting than anyone could imagine, so his fascination level should not be gauged against your average person).

You may think he's learning, but he's actually listening to his E.L.O. Greatest Hits album

Zach preparing his "my dog ate my homework" defense

Of course he went immediately for the 'Z'...and no it's not because that was the only letter within his height range, how dare you for thinking that

Zach was baptized on April 25 at St. Robert Bellarmine (the same church we were married in) with his uncle Greg and our friend Mary as the Godparents. Greg tried to do his best Don Corleone but Zach wasn't really getting it...maybe the terrifying 'orange peel in the mouth' trick would get his attention. What he did enjoy was having holy water poured over his head. He was apparently feeling the holy fire burning within and by the grace of God was given the power to almost jump out of Kelly's arms and into the baptismal font. Fortunately, he did not succeed. He still had a good time and was very excited that so many people came to see him on that special day.

Zach and Great Nonie

Great grandpa Jack, Great grandma Dode, Great grandpa Ralph, Good Zach, and regular Mom and Dad

Mary, Zach and Vito

Notice the Kung Fu grip Zach has on his mom's arm...well wouldn't you be slightly concerned if someone was holding you upside down and backwards under a guy in a robe holding some kind of mysterious sin-removing liquid?

Visitors to the house keep tapering off as time goes on (we assume it's due to the fact that everyone already knows how awesome Zach is) but we still get the occasional guest. Katie and Victoria's mom and dad (Mike and Marianne) stopped by with their daughters, Christine visited too; and Katie's friend (and mommy of two girls) Gianne came by to go to the park with the group...they took Zach too.

Feeding a baby is like riding a bike with no seat...you can do it, but somehow not as enjoyable as you remember

My focus is immediately drawn to the dude in the back auditioning for the buttercup fairy...seriously, what is that pose?

Someone needs her own baby, stat

Charlotte found our stairs...and TOTALLY LOVED THEM

Here is some video of Zach crawling today. He's been toying around with a few different techniques and typically goes for the "whatever gets me there the fastest" style but this is one of our favorites because it's just....it's just crazy man...

Katie works for Dreamworks Animation (I know, I agree, I like Pixar better too, but when Peanut M&M's aren't available sometimes you gotta just go with regular) and yesterday was "Shrek Day." She invited Zach and Kelly to enjoy the festivities and have "one Shrek of a time" (I can't even guess at what that could possibly mean). They had a GREAT time.

SHREK!

SHREK!!!!!!

SHREEEEEEEEEEEKKKKK!!!!!!!!!

shrek

And finally as we skid out and plow through the guardrail of Summer, we look forward to fun in the sun, and water. Zach wanted to prepare himself for the biggie pool so we gave him a taste of adventure right in our own backyard.

No, daddy is not torturing his son in this picture

No, daddy is not standing by laughing as his son falls face-first into the water

Well, that's all for now. Zachary is growing up as fast as ever so I'll (once again) try to produce a few more blogs per month to keep up with his ever-progressing progress.

-pf

Fun Facts:

• We recently found out that Joel and Kim are due to have a baby (hooray) in December 2010, so that will be the first baby cousin born after him....FINALLY someone his own size to pick on.
• Zach had his 9 month check up...perfect as usual quoth the Doctor.
• He is consistently saying 'mama' and 'dada' now (the former more than the latter). We are unconvinced that he understands what he's saying.
• On Peter's "Horrible father scale of intellect" I put Zach above Cat but below Dog and Gorilla at this point in his life, as he can move around and motion at stuff he wants, but still can't understand basic commands or language.
• Next post I'll get some good "Zach standing" pictures....he's about two weeks away from climbing out of his crib so I'm sure we'll have an interesting story about that.
  

We all have our little faults. Mine's in California.

So I said to Kelly, "Hey! I should start a blog for Zach...you know, to track his growth and make sure we remember his accomplishments and all that stuff."

"Yeah, Kelly said, that's a great idea...only you already did that...you haven't posted anything for three months."

"Oh......right" I said.

Well it wasn't my fault. It was my "unbreakable" Mac Mini, on which all of our pictures are kept, that unexpectedly broke. Well I called in the big guns (William) and he fixed it saving me money...and not just regular money...Mac money. (That's worth more than regular money apparently)

Anyway, now that the "unpleasantness" is out of the way, let's just forget all about it, pretend it never happened, and let us never speak of it again. On to the main subject:

Zach is doing well. It's pretty much been life as usual with him. Lots of sleeping, eating, grunting, pooping etc. Actually Kelly went back to work in March (technically the end of February) and this "term" goes until the end of April so it's a couple months of either bringing Zach into town to see the grandmas (or other much-appreciated designated babysitter) or the grandmas coming here to watch him at home. It's been pretty tough for us. Kelly misses him a lot during the day and I've been pretty busy at work with the election, so I usually don't get home until after he is asleep for the night. (Note that even though I didn't actually say that I miss him too, like I did for Kelly, I do, in fact, miss him) Zach enjoys it though. He loves seeing his grandmas and always smiles for them...sometimes it takes a while for him to smile as he usually sleeps in the car on the way to Burbank and sleepy Zachy is not smiley Zachy.

Developmentally-wise, he is pretty much following the "What to expect..." flow chart. He's eating mashed up veggies and fruit now three times a day along with his 3-4 six ounce bottles. He's loving his food still. He's also very recently started eating Krispy Rice (not Rice Krispies...we stick with Kirkland brand food, and for that matter, pretty much anything else that Kirkland sells) He still hasn't gotten the pincer grasp down, so the idea is for him to lick his hand and mash it down on a pile, seeing how many he can get to stick, then shove his entire hand into his mouth and...the rest is simple.

He loves his oatmeal and bananas, but he loves the bowl that they come in equally as much.

He's also started "scooting" around on the floor. I can't really call it "crawling" because to get from point A to point B he uses a complicated system of rolling over, swiveling, grunting, bobbing his head, and kicking needlessly into the air. However, it works. We can't leave him anywhere anymore without worrying about what lies within a 10-15 foot radius that he can get into. He's also standing while holding onto things pretty well. He can't get into the position himself, but he can stay there for ever. Also, I haven't seen him sit up by himself, but I did enter his room the other day to find him sitting....just chillin' waiting for me. That was kind of cool.

He's been really interactive with toys and people. His focus is much better and he smiles a lot. It takes a while to warm up to new people, but he's usually pretty good with them.

This is Zach shopping with mommy for mommy's birthday at Target.

Zach loves his toys. But clearly daddy also likes Zach's toys (as seen here in the background)

Sometimes, there's so much to do and so many buttons to press that it gets a little overwhelming.

Great, he likes the drums...this does not look good for mom and dad's future sanity.

Zach hasn't been to his music classes in a while and he doesn't have many friends (what a nerd) so he's entertained by mommy most of the time. He goes shopping with us, plays with toys in the house, plays outside on the grass with Token, and sometimes goes to the park.

Whazzzuuuuuuuuuup!

His best (and probably only) friend, is Molly. He loves her because she lets him play with her toys and she gives him kisses and hugs.

In this sequence, Molly teaches Zach that pink can be a guy color too, and that bangles are a fun toy to put on your wrist, and put into your mouth.

April's probably going to be another busy month. Zach has his baptism this month (so we won't have to worry about that purgatory thing anymore) and Kelly is working still so he'll be doing his daily road trips. There will be plenty of growing though (hopefully up, and not out) so I'll try to be better about more frequent posts, I promise!

Kelly wouldn't tell me how much this outfit cost her for fear of emotional and/or physical abuse so we'll just suffice it to say that it's super cute and "you can't put a price on that"

Fun Facts:

• Zach has sixth teeth now; two on the bottom still and four on top. It's making him a little extra cranky and giving him a runny nose.
• He totally has moved into life-size adult poops now that he's started on solids...totally gross.
  
• He puts out his arms to let you know he wants up

-pf

Now I have a machine gun. Ho...ho...ho

Well, unfortunately Zach didn't get his Red Ryder carbine-action, two hundred shot Range Model air rifle with a compass in the stock and a thing which tells time. He did, however, get a bunch of other really cool stuff that he likes [to chew] a lot. Christmas was pretty typical for us. We woke up early, opened stockings at home then headed down to Burbank where we opened presents at G&G Fros, had brunch and visited with the family. The Hechts (and the Matts) were in town, which is always awesome. After that, we went over to N&P Fields for more presents, family and remote control helicopter awesomeness. Here are some pictures from the day (including Christmas Eve.

Christmas morning is here!

The Fro-Hecht-Bowman-Deckelman-Taylor Family on Christmas Eve

Penny, Heidi, and some kid

Grandpa Jack and Baby Zach...no more rhymes, I mean it......

Mommy, Baby, Nonie

We took some "Christmas family pictures" (other than just Zach's Santa-pic)..they are really cute...and here they are:

I...think...I'm....going....to...start....crawling....soon....OOP, pooped m' pants

This is my family...minus Token who was probably too scared
of the photographer to be in the picture

Here are a couple more pictures from Christmas...

This one shows off Zach's cool Santa jammies...also featured are Grandpa Ralph and Auntie Beth

Zach loves his new chair from Nonie...."Zachary Froelich on, 'The Casting Couch'"

Hanukkah was a lot of fun too because Zach got to see his cousins that are closer to his own age. It's hard enough to describe Christmas to him, so we figured that we would wait on describing the awesome technicality that allows him to celebrate Christmas and Hanukkah. He got a lot of toys which, again, he loves to eat at this point, but which will serve him for many many months....I mean his play and learn activity house says 6 months and up....so I guess technically he can play with that forever...that would be.....weird.

Zach, Josh, Noah, Talia, Ryan.....but they're cousins,
identical cousins all the way.

New Year's Eve was less-than exciting for us. We didn't really have anything planned and we didn't feel like going in to Burbank (Kelly was a little sick too) so we just ordered dinner and stayed home with Zach. He did not make it to midnight....and neither did his parents. However, he did wake up minutes after midnight to let us know that we had missed it...and that he had pooped his pants. Over the New Year weekend we had a visit from our Aussie friends Kristen and Michelle. They were on a huge "holiday" (vacation) throughout California and even Vegas. We visited them in Santa Monica for a lunch so they could meet Zach.

They got him a Kangaroo and Australian flag along with an Aussie Christmas book...he thinks the Kangaroo tastes very similar to his Donald Duck

I guess Christmas officially ended yesterday because I finally took down all our lights and yard jund d'I mean, stuff. It's cool to know that next year, Zach might actually get a little more out of it.

In non-holiday related, but still Zach related news, Zachary has TEETH! There are currently three popping out as we speak. We didn't expect them this early and with Kelly going back to work this last week, it's not great timing. He's pretty irritable at night and has decided to discontinue his normal "sleep through the night" plan and replaced it with a "scream your brains out at midnight, 2am, 4am and 7am" plan. We are not fans of this plan. We were planning on sleep training him soon and this might hurt our chances of this working. We are giving him nightly doses of Tylenol and Orajel, along with his Mylecon (for gas). It's like baby-sized cocktail for future dependency problems. It was really hard to take a picture of his teeth because he moves around so much, so until next time when I can really get in there, here's as close as I could find:

A face only a Chunk could love

Also, he's on a new schedule now. The grandmas are watching him while Kelly is at school. Grandma takes a couple days a week, Nonie takes a day, and daddy takes one day a week. It was really tough on Kelly going back. She loves her kids at school, but she loves Zach slightly more. She's already talking about team teaching next year so that she can be home more. We both think that's a great idea...and I have a feeling the grandmas are going to think it's a good idea too after the first couple weeks. Zach isn't doing very well with the bottle, (probably because we didn't really ween him onto it) but we have seen some small progress in the last week. Although the look on his face when he gets that first sip of milk and realizes it isn't Kelly is priceless. It's like when you take a huge swig of Dr. Pepper only to find out it's actually Diet Dr. Pepper....it's like poison.

Here's a video to close this edition...it features Zach's "cute" (annoying) "little" (piercing) "laugh" (scream):

Fun Facts:

• As mentioned, Zach has a few teeth coming in...he is not a happy camper.
• Zach's pretty close to rolling over by himself. He can roll both ways but not really on purpose yet.
• He can sit in the "tripod" position for a while, but eventually falls over due to his massive, Tweedledum-style body type.
• He still wants to eat everything and the spit flows like the ocean tide...his favorite new thing to put in his mouth when I'm holding him is the Xbox controller...cool for him because it has colors and a light; not cool for my killstreaks during online Call of Duty play.

-pf

I found Palmolive had a nice, piquant after-dinner flavor

Merry Christmas!

Zach had his first visit to Santa! As you can see, he was stunned to see just how big Santa really is. He did a great job though; no tears, and no fussing. Although his smile was ruined by the lady taking the picture. He was totally ready to smile big just like dad taught him when the lady shook some can with rocks in it...obviously that caused a bit of alarm because his picture came out a little more surprised than happy. Oh well...it was a great first Santa Pic.

Speaking of Santa, we are in full swing with Christmas right around the corner. We had a little Christmas gathering as you can see below, mostly to test the limits of how loud we could be without waking Zach...the answer is not very...besides, he thought it was pretty lousy of us to put him to sleep right when we started to play games.


Last week, Zach got another visitor friend. Linda brought her son Aidan to visit. He is a little older than Zachy. In this picture, Zach wonders what that stuff is on top of Aidan's head and secretly hopes that he can grow some of that stuff...or at least put it in his mouth.


AND, segueing nicely from putting things in his mouth, Zach has started to eat rice cereal. This started from Zach not feeling good for a couple weeks after Thanksgiving. He was congested and went through his first cold...it wasn't fun for him, but he pushed through. However, during the cold, he decided that he was not about to further his frustration and eat from a bottle so he went through an understandably fussy period. We thought that maybe he would be more interested in the spoon (since everything is going in his mouth these days anyway) and what d' you know, he took to it like a zombie to brains.

We don't feed him very much, or every night, but it's a good way to try to get him to sleep longer through the night. He doing a pretty good job of that still (right now he's going from about 730-430 with the occasional "re-swaddle and comfort" sessions throughout). I'm still looking forward to his sleep training though. Especially with Kelly going back to work in January.

He's still growing and doing new things what seems like every day (see the Fun Facts below) but we're trying to keep him on a pretty consistent schedule.

He still gets his bath pretty much every night. He recently got a rash on his back and chest which could have been from getting over his cold, but I think it might have also been from putting bubble bath in his bathwater. I had pretty sensitive skin and since Zach is basically my doppelganger, we can only assume that he does too...so now my water/soap ratio is favoring the water side much more.

He is definitely laughing a lot more now. Apparently Token is hilarious because Zach can't stop cracking up when he walks by. The "super-secret move to always get Zach to laugh" is to put his arms up by his head and shake him around...raspberrys on the tummy also raise the hilarity ante.

Did I mention before that everything is currently going in his mouth? Well to him, this includes items that are in no way small enough to fit.

Well, bye bye for now...the next time I post, Zach will have had his first Christmas! ....or at my current rate, he will have had his second birthday.

Fun Facts:

• As mentioned, Zach eats everything (or at least tries to).
  
• Zach is definitely able to hold his body up when he is being held...when I pick him up and put pressure on his stomach, it looks like he's either flexing his tummy muscles like a body builder, or taking the dump of the century.
• He's "sort of" sitting up when we prop him...he falls to one side or the other most of the time...we blame it on t he sheer girth of his body.
• He JUST started really giving us good raspberries...he loves his tongue and uses it frequently.
• He is really responding well to people now. He definitely knows us and the grandparents (and he shows it in his face) and he gets nervous around big crowds.
• Zach is still as diabolical as ever, making sure to sleep the 4-5 hours that I'm up after him, but starting to cry the instant I get into bed and get comfortable.

-pf

Ah, a bear in his natural habitat...a Studebaker

Last weekend Zachary went on his biggest vacation ever. Think National Lampoon's Vacation, but not as much Christie Brinkley, and more poop-diapers. We traveled to Lake Mojave which is right on the Nevada/Arizona border. The drive was nice: beautiful scenic views, majestic blue skies, the world's tallest thermometer....Zach saw none of this. He slept most of the way there and most of the way back. Turns out he's a pretty good traveler! It took us about 4.5 hours to get there and the weather was great, even considering the fact that we left Burbank while it was still raining.

The trip itself was great. Zach was amazing...most of the time. He slept a lot out on the lake and throughout the night; better than at home even! (Which makes me realize we should go on vacation more often) The group consisted of us, Nonie and Papa, Greg and Jordan, Ryan, Mary and Molly, and Scott, Hadar, Noah and Talia. All the other kids were great too. Zach was the youngest though and the only non-walker there, so he was being chauffeured (by arm) the entire time.

Here are some pictures of our extended weekend:

Here is Zach "driving" the boat on Papa's lap...'look mom! no hands!...or eyes!'

Greg and Jordan were excellent babysitters and Zach fell in love with Jordan...or more specifically, Jordan's hair.

Here is the dude himself ready to shred the wake...or take a nap...yeah, probably take a nap.

Papa, Nonie and the Man on our beach

Dad introducing him to lake water, which Clearly, he was not into.

Ryan, Mary, Molly, Pete, Kelly & Zach...under the "professional" Easy-up.

Cousin Talia busy washing off her bucket so that she could pour water back into the lake...a task that consumed most of her time.

Molly is not a big fan of her life-jacket, but she did like being pull around in the biscuit by her dad.

Here is Noah tying down the other easy-up saving us all from the wind that would kick up every so often.

Finally, here are a couple video clips from the weekend. The first is Zach cheering on the Dodgers...who stink.

The second video clip is a shot from Ryan and Mary's boat while were getting ready to go out on the lake.

So Zach's first vacation turned out great. (You can see all the pictures in my Picasa gallery on the right) We all had such a great time that we will probably go back next year when Zach will be able to walk...and if he's really my son, he'll be able to ski too.

Fun Facts:

• Zach can roll over from his stomach to his back now. It doesn't always happen, but he can't be constantly performing!...he's not a circus animal gosh!
• Zach sleeps longer through the night if he gets more sleep during the day...the more daytime sleep, the more nighttime sleep...go figure.
• I (and I guess a few others) got sick the last day of the trip...so if you want to get a cold, go to Lake Mojave...?
• The Dodgers stink and Zach is pretty upset that they didn't win the World Series (like they did the year his dad was born), but fortunately, the Laker season is gearing up so he will be ready to cheer.
  

-pf