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!

Come get some...

Ah Autumn: the leaves are changing color, the weather is getting cooler, Christmas is getting closer, the Dodgers are going down in flames again, the Zach is drooling. It's a magical time of year. Let's start off with two classic fall traditions:

First, we took Zach to Lombardi Ranch which is close to us now that we live in flavor country. We went with Mary, Ryan, and Molly and Zach picked out the perfect pumpkin that dad said we shouldn't get because we weren't even going to be around on Halloween night.

Zach; amongst the pumpkins

Molly showing a little love to Zachary

He had a great time and he was especially excited that mom dressed him up in a shirt that was the same color as his surroundings. Zach really didn't want to go all out this year for Halloween night, as he knew he wouldn't really get a chance to go trick-or-treating, so he opted for an easy, but cool costume.

The dude could barely fit into his rash guard but we think he pulled off a pretty sweet surfer.

The day before Halloween, Zach and Kelly came by my office to visit and to see the other "Durkee kids" all dressed up. While he was there, he took some time to update his Facebook page:

Workin' for the weekend...

We have this chair called a "Bumbo." It's meant to be used once a baby can sit up without neck support and without falling to one side. It's a really cool idea. Unfortunately, I don't think they took baby's with Zach's girth into consideration during the design phase:

We know a remote farm in Lincolnshire, where Mrs. Buckley lives; every July, peas grow there...

Zach is officially three months old now. I've been keeping up on "what your baby should be doing by now" and apparently ours is a genius because not only can he speak (he said "yeah" very clearly the other day and just tonight he said "ohhhh" inquisitively) but he also understands and employs ironic endeavor in waiting until after I have gone all the way back downstairs and unpaused the DVR to start crying in his crib at night.

He's also doing some other cool little stuff that I want to remember for posterity:

Fun Facts (extended)

• He rolls over from stomach to back (for me, but not for Kelly)
• He is drooling a lot and soaking most of his shirts. I hear this is not due to teething, but him learning how to digest food
• He is yelling a lot in the late afternoon. In the morning, he is very happy but as the day goes on, he gets more cranky
• This week, he will most likely be making the transition to his crib for bed-time...as long as mom can let go
• The easiest way to make him smile or laugh is to clap his hands and perform cheer-leader-style actions with his arms...this doesn't mean he is going to be a cheer-leader...
• He is wearing clothes that are for 6, 9, and 12 month olds...keep in mind he is 3 months
• Zach is sucking on his hand when his pacifier falls out and it seems like eventually he's going to get the whole thing in there...we are hoping he will find his thumb soon
  

Well that's all for now. Here's some video of tummy-time with mom.

-pf