I saved Latin. What did you ever do?

Well our life has been pretty busy and exciting over the last several months. Zach has been growing at the rate of a zombie outbreak and we catch him doing something new every day. Kelly had February off of school so she was able to get in some good play-time with Zach's Christmas toys (and Zach...our son) before she had to go back to her class in March. Since then it's been back to Gi-gi's and Nonie's houses during the week (where he learns things like how to ask for a cookie or cake) with Daddy working from home on Wednesdays where we gossip together like hens trying to figure out whether or not there are sparks between Handy Manny and Kelly the tool girl.

Since we realized that we never have anything to do and are constantly sitting around the house getting nothing done with no real responsibilities, we got another dog during the Christmas break. His name is Butters and he is a puppy.

Here's Butters on the right...the right of the screen, not their right....they are both the same size so it's hard to explain....he's the one that's a dog.

Also, since raising a puppy and a toddler simultaneously is apparently "no big deal" to mother nature, it snowed too.

Fortunately, Zach's sense of fashion was prepared for mother nature.

It's been raining a lot....I'm thinking about building an ark. The rain makes it not so fun for Zach who likes to play outside and not so fun for daddy either who now spends 2 hours bathing the dogs after long days in the rain and muddy yard/garden digging. Zach loves the dogs though and he's really good at telling them what to do, ie. "go potty toka-buyas" or "night night toka-buyas" (by the way, "Toka-Buyus" is Zach's amalgamation of "Token and Butters"...he's really good at consolidating sentences so that he doesn't have to say complete words or phrases but just a slur of nonsense that others are expected to understand...kind of like when I ask Kelly to get me dessert).

Speaking of Zach talking, he's on a roll with learning new words. He mostly repeats things he hears which means that his favorite things to say are "I said no!" "no touching" "don't bite your friends" "mommy's drawer, no touch" etc. He's pretty good about saying "Please" and "Thank you" at the right times (whether or not he actually understands why he's saying it) and he knows what to say in special situations; like in the morning when I wake him up he usually doesn't say good morning to me like I do to him but instead "mommy at wok?" or when we are ready to leave in the morning I say "let's go Zach" and he responds with "Daddy's new car yeah!" His favorite thing to say is "bye bye, see ya layer" and he will interject nouns between the bye bye ie. "bye bye big truck" or "bye bye daddy-o"

I guess we thought putting it in black and white would give it some kind of Wonder Years feel....maybe I should speed it up 20% and put some Byrds music in the background.

As for his walking and moving around, he's constantly getting better on his feet. He still trips and falls all the time but he can walk up big stairs now and keep his balance better than he used to. He goes to Gymboree with daddy-o on Wednesdays now and he loves to play there. He's like a dog at a dog park with too many toys around....he can't figure out what he wants to play with first, so he usually ends up spinning in circles smiling...and drooling. Gymboree is fun too because he gets to play with other kids (although I wouldn't consider what they are doing "playing" as much as accidental interaction). He loves watching Yo Gabba Gabba too when we are at home (Kelly records every episode causing frequent non-recordings of my scheduled important programming like Top Gear and Star Trek reruns) He can sing many of the songs by himself and a lot more when he's listening along to the CD in the car. He loves the dancing parts...

 

My beats aren't as solid as Biz Markie, but I think Zach still feels the flo

Our life is constantly full of new adventures. Zach is growing up, Butters is growing up, Kelly is growing up (just turned 30th) and yet somehow Peter retains that wondrous sense of youth and exuberance that has always followed him throughout his life, facing each new challenge with a thirst for adventure and a longing to strive for even more than he already is, each lofty goal accomplished and each uncharted path taken becoming yet another victory in his awe-inspiring life...he truly is a king among men. (Zach wrote that last paragraph...now back to the original author) Zach likes food:

He loves to dip things...in fact he will dip any type of food or object in any other type of food with less viscous properties. Some of his favorites include dipping hot dogs in ketchup, dipping raisin bread in milk, and dipping straws in ranch dressing (as pictured above).

He is constantly searching for new things to get into new words and sentences to impress us with and new shirts to soil with his drippings and drool. The most important thing is that it seems as if he is having fun growing into a little boy. We don't want our little dude to grow up, but at the same time, we are really excited to see him grow and mature into a person of his own.

If you are wondering if this is more or less abusive than it appears how dare you? Zach started screaming "Attica" and it got a little out of control...I had to use excessive force.

Here's a final video taken today (which means that Zach is 20 months old) with an attempt on singing the alphabet song. He gives us the silent treatment when he knows the camera is on so sometimes we have to hide it so that he isn't afraid to cut loose:

"...Now I know my ABC's, de de be de, E, F, G." - Zach

Fun Facts:

• Zach had his first big cold and was on two separate anti-biotic prescriptions recently. He's always a real trooper though and never complains except when we clean out his nose..."bye bye booga, see ya laya"
• We read books every night before bed. His current favs include Zachary’s Zoo, Goodnight Moon, Heaven is Having You, Cool Dog School Dog, The Cranky Bear, and Peter Pan each of which he requests by name.
  
• His favorite foods are yogurt, edamame, rice and watermelon and his least favorites are anything besides his favorites. 
• Favorite TV Shows: Yo Gabba Gabba, Wonder Pets, Handy Manny, Jacks Big Music Show, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and The Wire.
• Zach can say 100+ words now.

-pf

This is heavy

As I look back on this blog in 20 years (assuming that in 20 years I have been wise enough to back up this content which is about a 50/50 chance in my estimate) will I be mad at myself for missing three months of blogging? Or will I be confused and think that maybe there was some mistake with Google Blogger in the dating of these blogs? I bet you would guess the first one...you'd be wrong though. I won't even notice. I'm way to lazy to notice something like that. (Note to self: edit out this paragraph before archiving)

Anyway, the last few months came and went. Days are getting shorter, but Zach is getting larger. Back in September we all made the trip back to NC for Penny and Matt's wedding. The plane ride out was [expletive deleted] interesting. He was actually very well behaved. We were completely ready with Yo Gabba DVDs, food, toys and the thing that ended up taking up the most amount of his time was an empty plastic Sparkletts water bottle. No major incidents on the plane other than some small yells of discomfort so we were very happy. The wedding was great and it was great to see all the family on the East coast and for them to be able to see Zach. He was walking well (not quite well enough to prevent a fall and bump on the head requiring a trip to urgent care) and he even danced at the wedding with Remy.

All I do is Party, ha ha ha ha, so bounce low.

The wedding was really nice and my parents took Zach back to the hotel so that Kelly and I could stay and dance the night away. The plane trip back was pretty much just as uneventful except for the part where I messed up on the seating so that we weren't going to be able to sit all together. Fortunately, a really nice guy switched with me (for which I owe Karma a huge debt) and we had a relatively peaceful flight home.

Kelly got us matching ties....so cool

Kelly went off track at the end of October so she's been spending more time with the dude at home, the mall, the park, Molly's, etc. Although she's mad because even though she's the one that greets him every morning (now that I can sleep a little longer) the first thing he does is ask for Daddy. What can I say? The kid loves me...

They have been traveling a lot this last month around town visiting the grandparents, friends and other fun places. His favorite/only friend is Molly.

"Molly, I'm not sure if the centrifugal force will permit the ball to remain within the confines of this vortex."

After the busy election season, Kelly surprised me and Zach (but Zach doesn't really count because everything surprises him) with a fun weekend trip to Santa Barbara. We went to the Zoo and stayed the night (not in the Zoo) then walked the pier the next day.

The missing link

Zach and dad lookin at Magilla

It happened to be Veterans Day weekend, so we got lucky enough to see the Parade right by the Pier. We saw some cool airplanes fly over and Zach got a flag and a cool picture:

Patriotism swells in the heart of Zach

Zach has been very active recently. He's walking/running of course but he's talking a lot too. Most of the words he says are unintelligible but Kelly can translate some of them. We have him saying "Please" when he wants something and that has translated into him yelling "Hel-peas!" (Help please) continuously when he needs something done like removing the safety gate from the top of the stairs, or unscrewing the life threateningly small cap from a wattle bottle. He definitely knows mommy/mama and daddy although Daddy has now progressed to "Daddyo" We think it's due to Kelly asking him if Daddy is home when I'm at work. i.e. "Is Daddy home?" = my name is now "Daddy0." He's also really good at saying "more" and "all done" when he means it. The animal noises are pretty good too now with new animals being added to his repertoire all the time, except that he probably thinks a sheep is a "bah." What is pretty exciting is that he really understands a lot more than he can say. That being the case, we can tell him to do things and he knows what we mean (i.e. "time for night-night?" or "bath?" and "let's go to the car", or "put your toys away please") There are a ton of other key phrases that he understands and it's cool when he learns new things to say or do...although we are not happy that he has learned how to say "no" and uses it liberally when he does something he is not supposed to do (like when he tries to turn the burners on the stove and says "no-no!" or when he grabs the remote and explains to Kelly "Daddy; no-no" as in "this is daddy's and it's a no-no")

Tier two on the food pyramid: Corn dog

He is also eating pretty much everything we eat. The only thing he still hasn't tried is peanut butter which apparently we are supposed to withhold from him until 2 years. He is really good at dipping things like chips into guacamole or fries into ketchup...or fries into milk, or anything into anything. Except he enjoys the dip so much that he usually licks it off the item being dipped and goes back for double, triple and quadruple dips frequently. He tries to practice with a spoon too. It's coming slowly. Right now it's hard to get the spoon to scoop; he thinks it's more like a dipping motion. We have noticed that he prefers his left hand for eating, so Kelly thinks he'll be left handed. I think he just uses whatever hand is closer to what he wants.

We have also noticed that he's getting more into television. He always has loved Yo Gabba Gabba and other musically driven stuff but he's starting to be more interested in Sesame Street and other cartoons. We are really trying to make sure that it doesn't become a baby sitter by limiting his watching and being sure that we are there when he is watching; however this translates to us memorizing every song and singing them often when Zach is not around.

Just a minute dad, I've only seen this Phineus and Ferb 18 times.

Well I guess that's enough catch-up for now. I'll leave with a kissing shot and a video of rainy day Zach.

Ah mom, right on the lips?

Since dad didn't do the yard work because of a little rain, Zach took it upon himself.

Fun Facts:

• Zach can tell us what he wants to hear in the car by telling us "Holy?" (Praise Baby), "Goodbye?" (Yo Gabba) or sometimes he just makes crazy noises when he's tired.
• He can "jump" which really looks like running in place in a really spazzed-out way.
• He can almost climb into the bath by himself. He gets most of the way, but does realize he has to flip his legs over....that's going to be a fun trick for us. (Sarcasm)
• Zach is now 16 months old.
  

-pf

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

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

And it keeps getting funnier every single time I see it!

Hi!!

Since a couple weeks ago, Zach has found a few cool new things:

1. His smile
2. His hands
3. His voice

You can see, from the picture above, that his smile is in top gear. We have a pretty happy baby. Of course, he's not always the happiest of people, but lately he's been smiling like it's going out of fashion. It mostly happens in the morning when he's rested. Later in the day, not so much, but when we smile and play with him, it's like his world couldn't get any better.

As for his hands, you may have noticed a little drool in some of his pictures lately. I use the word "little" lightly because really, if we stored it, there would be enough to fill about one pool per week. He sucks on his hands all the time. Even when his pacifier is in, sometimes he'll take it out and replace it with the hands. I guess he feels that fingers are more sophisticated than crude sucking toys.

As for his voice....

So here's what's been going on lately:

This is the scene before the Mommy, Zach and Token morning walk

Here is Zach and his friend Juliet...Zach was boring her so she fell asleep

He visited Katie at Dreamworks and got some inside info on Shrek 12 - The Revenge of Donkey. He didn't like the plot so he was crying (hence the red face and teary eyes) Also, this is the hat that Katie's mom (Marianne) made for Zach...CUUUuuuttte.

Mara, Sydney, and Ethan visited and each got a chance to hold Zachy

Then Zach visited Grandpa and wished him happy birthday

Auntie Beth held Zach but he was feeling a little fat in this picture

Uncle Michael and Aunt Patti got to pose with the tired boy

He loves when mommy dresses him up in super-cute outfits

We visited the Runyon's to watch Ohio State make the Rose Bowl and USC loose their chances

Blake got a chance to hold him...does Zach look scared?

Dad and Carlos gettin low in the Bjorn

Fun Facts:

• As mentioned, Zach is doing a lot more talking, spitting, gurgling, and other various bodily noises I won't go into here.
• Zach has been very interested in Token lately. He watches him walk around the house.
• He has now officially graduated to his crib. It was really hard for Kelly and I even got a little emotional when we realized he wasn't going to be right next to us anymore. That has taken some time for us all (Zach included) to get used to.
• We brought out his exersaucer for the first time and he seemed to like it...but not as much as the rest of the family who all had to touch the pretty lights and colors on it.
  

-pf

Bye bye!