Meet the Mayor

When Zach and I are home alone three days a week, we do quite a few retail excursions. Zach doesn't mind shopping as long as it is done at a quick clip with no loitering in front of displays. That works out OK for groceries but not so much for clothes. Exhibit A: buying a pair of jeans. In the past, for me, this would have involved several trips to several different stores, with plenty of time for mulling options. Boot cut or straight leg? Low-rise or mid-rise? Stone-washed? Premium denim? European sizing?

But today I just plain needed a pair of jeans, and I had no choice but to bring Zach along for the ride. As I pushed the stroller into Old Navy I could tell he was in no mood for mulling. So slowly, subtly, like a hawk gliding in to capture its prey, I guided the stroller in smaller and smaller circles closer to the displays, until I could read the sizes as I passed by each pair.

"Can I help you?" asked a sales clerk.
"Yes, I just need an 8-short."
"Which cut? Diva boot-leg?"
Still circling slowly, I surveyed the entire wall of jeans. "Doesn't matter - I'll take the first 8-short you see."

So she spotted some jeans and tossed them over to me, and -- as if in a small-scale, extremely boring version of the movie "Speed" ("This stroller cannot go slower than two miles per hour!") -- I dashed over to the dressing room - shorts off, jeans on, fits OK, shorts back on - and then off to the cash registers without ever stopping. Funny thing is, the jeans look just fine. Maybe I should try that at other stores too. I'll just wheel back and forth in front of, say, a shoe store, and call out, "I need a nice black pump in a 6 1/2!" and they'll toss a box out the door to me, without even breaking my stride.

Luke seems to have broken free of a lot of the crankiness/adjustment issues he had over the summer and now he's just back to being good old Luke, only more so. I really think he might be preparing to run for office of some kind. Like on Sunday, when he delivered an impassioned speech about dogs to a small crowd of people waiting for tables at our local coffee shop. (There might have been something in there about health care too, but I lost track after a few of the big applause lines.) Or yesterday, at school, when I learned that he had invited all of the teachers and the maintenance man over for dinner ("Mackerel and sculpin and ham sandwiches").

In the late afternoons, we've started going over to our little elementary school because it's kind of a neighborhood kid-gathering place. Yesterday, Luke took off when we got there and I was amused to find him hanging out and chewing the fat with some much-bigger kindergartners, first-graders, and second-graders. By the time I got in on the conversation, he had already invited them over to our house to play. "I'll come!" said one kindergartner/future campaign volunteer. "OK," said Luke, "but I want that one to come too," - pointing to the biggest kid in the group, a second-grader three heads taller than Luke. One of our neighbors was laughing as he watched Luke work his way through the playground making sure that he knew everyone's name. "He's like the mayor of Morningside Drive," said Scott. That's kinda true. But when he starts asking for campaign contributions, we're in trouble.

Laugh it up

In the past few days Zach has really started to morph from a baby lump to a real personality. For starters, he's smiling and yukking it up almost all the time. Diaper change? Big smiles. Time for pajamas? Grins from ear to ear. Wiping spit-up off his face? Laugh-o-rama. And I have never heard a laugh quite as contagious as Zach's - probably because it's a belly laugh that comes from deep down inside the yummiest, squishiest baby belly you've ever seen. When Zach was just a little bud inside of me, I watched an ultrasound where he tried to put his thumb in his mouth and kept missing, and then he turned his face toward the screen and moved his jaw up and down as if to laugh and laugh. At the time, I thought we had a little comedian on our hands. Now who knows whether he will be a real jokester or not, but at the very least I can tell that he seems to enjoy life.

He's also zooming through a bunch of milestones: sitting upright in the tripod (hands down in front of him) position; sleeping as much as 9 hours at night (though if he does this, Luke will wake up just to make sure that I don't get a full night's sleep); grabbing things and putting them in his mouth. But mostly it's the cheery disposition that has us completely charmed. Even Luke, who one might think would be jealous of Zach, is beside himself with excitement every time Zach does something new. It'll be fun when things really start happening quickly in the next few months.


And what about Luke, my 3-going-on-60-year-old? He surprised us all the other day when he went "swimming" across the pool by swinging his arms in a wild windmill motion. Who knew he even wanted to get his face wet?

Luke and I also started our new science class, which for the moment we have all to ourselves because no one else signed up for it. So in our private science tutorial on Monday, Luke learned all about sound waves and how the inside of your ear works, and we did a little experiment building an "ear drum." I think he is just hungry to learn and his head is filled with so many exciting things each day it's hard for him to process it all and take it all in. "My head hurts," he told me the other day. "I have too many words in there." I think Zach is going to have to teach him how to relax and let it all out...

Friday I'm In Love

Dave is gone for many nights this week so I'm looking for new and adventurous things to do with both boys. Our garage is now chock-full of various transportation options. Some of you may recognize this jeep double stroller; Zach is big enough to go in the front-facing way now, which is exciting for everyone (at a time when the littlest thing can excite us). We also have a new Sit N' Stand stroller, which allows the older kid to either sit facing backward or stand up and "drive" it forward on a little standing board. It cracks me up that Luke can't seem to remember the name of the stroller; he'll tell people, "This is our new stroller. It's called a sit...a stand...a stroll...what is it called again, Mommy?"

Luke has had a little toddler rebellion thing going on for the past few weeks, which has been trying to say the least. The day after the dead-fish-on-the-pier meltdown, he must have remembered me saying something about me being the boss, because he announced, "Mommy, I'm the voss. You say you're the voss but I'm the voss." I figured I was supposed to be mad at that, but the only way I could keep from laughing was to agree with him. "OK, you're the voss. It's just that I am the boss. So you need to remember that."

This week, however, Luke has sailed into the sweetest of all moods: he's happy to help around the house and he is quick to apologize the moment I seem less than thrilled with his behavior. What was it that turned the tide? I don't know but I'm just going to try to keep everything exactly the same for as long as possible to keep this little alien visitor with us. Last night I pulled out Dave's and my wedding album, which Luke and I hadn't seen in ages, and Luke and I curled up on the couch to read it together. He was particularly taken by the picture of all of the male members of the wedding party - all of the uncles, grandpas, and friends we love. "Those are all of my favorite men!" he declared. "Yes - it was a great party. You would have loved it," I told him.

Oh, and Zach has really become a laugher. How sweet is that? The two people who can consistently get him to laugh the most are Dave and Suzi. Dave has to say something very specific, along the lines of "Goodley-goo!" to get him to crack up, but when he does, it's magic.

Not entirely related, but somewhat related: When Luke and Dave listen to music together in Dave's car, the playlist is carefully edited for musical authenticity, lyrical appropriateness, and cultural diversity. But when Luke is in the car with me, he gets pretty much whatever happens to be on the radio (Luke put some spare change inside my CD player more than a year ago, and we haven't gotten around to fixing it, but that's another story). Last week we heard "Friday I'm in Love" by the Cure, and out of the blue, Luke declared, "That's my favorite song." So Dave had to download it and put it on the Ipod, and we've been watching the video on YouTube, and listening to it over and over again in every possible venue, but the funny thing is, it's really one of my favorite songs too, and at this point I don't think I can get tired of hearing it. Doesn't it just make the day seem all dreamy?

Rat Pack

If it seems like I'm acting a little more rakish or debonair than usual, it's because we spent the weekend living it up in true Rat Pack style, at the former Palm Springs estate of Dinah Shore. There's just something about that desert lifestyle... the lush palms, the glamorous parties, the free-flowing liquor...oh wait -- my mistake -- that was milk and apple juice.


Yes, we did the trip with two other families and a total of six kids under age four, and not only did we live to tell, we managed to remain friends AND have a great time. The mercury topped out at 105 but we had a blast between bowling, a tram ride and hikes up the mountain, dinner and a band downtown, and lots and lots of swimming. We even wore the kids out enough to have some actual adult conversation time in the evenings, after we convinced everyone under four feet tall to go to sleep.

Luke was of course in seventh heaven with his two best friends Hatcher and Eitan, and plenty of moms and dads around to do book-reading duty. He had a few blowouts over candy-related issues (go figure) but for the most part he was just happy to be there.

And Zach - good little Goo that he is - actually seemed to be amused by his first-ever dip in the pool. I'm searching for words to describe what it's like to watch him swim but the best I can come up with is "surprisingly buoyant." Even when you try to push his legs and bottom down so that he is standing upright in the water, he still keeps popping back up. We were saying that we could probably just set him off on his back and he'd just float around all day.

One of the things that made me happiest was how well all of the kids got along. Even Zach and Daniel (the two littlest ones) seemed to have a good time just looking at each other for 20 minutes or more, and that's how all great friendships begin, right?

We volunteered to drive Hatcher home from Palm Springs yesterday (because Julie had two kids to herself) and it gave us an interesting view of what it would be like to have three kids. Luke and Hatcher had a great time together in the back seat and cracked each other up for the first 90 minutes. But then it was amazing how quickly it degenerated from funny word games into "Stop touching me!" "He's on my side!" etc. It all came to a less-than-perfect ending when Hatcher, who was closest to the door, cracked open the car door when we were on the freeway, leading to a slightly hair-raising ride to the nearest exit, where we pulled over at a small industrial park. At that point we handed Hatcher back over to his mom (who had been trailing behind), and we set the childproof locks in the back seat not a moment too soon.

The best compliment about the whole weekend came from Julie, who said, "I'm already planning our next vacation." Where else do you think the Rat Pack would want to go?

Super/bad

Luke is currently bapping me with his "bad" hand and preparing to have his "good" hand, aka the "police" hand, step in and mediate the situation. Lucky for him he has an alternate identity to manage/blame for almost every situation: There's Pontrow, the genial visitor, Rico Ratchet, the mischievous troublemaker, Baby Cat, who likes to snuggle and get food spoon-fed to him, and of course the bad hand/good hand duo. The other morning, after Luke had woken up in the middle of the night, I asked him why he got me up.
"Oh, it wasn't me," he said.
"Well then who woke me up? Pontrow? Rico Ratchet?"
He pondered this a moment, then said, "No, it was just some air." Ah. OK. Remind me no to be disturbed by any bad air tonight.

It was a great birthday weekend, really. Nice massage on Saturday, amazing restaurant dinner on Saturday night with both kids in tow (!!) (Luke was on his best behavior and Zach slept through the whole thing), fantastic lunch "date" with just Dave on Sunday...But then how prophetic was the Zachary Enzo blog that I just wrote about not taking anything for granted? After our "date" lunch Dave and I were in the theater, just 15 minutes into "Superbad" when we got the phone call every parent dreads from babysitters Suzi and Boom-boom: "Don't want to alarm you, but you really need to come home right now..."

Turns out Luke decided that a very tiny Lego part would be much better suited inside his nostril than on the racecar he was building. Next thing you know, it got stuck, and we had to come home, and Dave had to take him to the ER, and there was a very long fine surgical tweezer involved, and blah blah blah. Fortunately there were no tears shed and no lasting damage, but the irony of it being six months to the day from when I went to the hospital was not lost on me. Now I wonder, was it Rico Ratchet who put it up there? Or did it just go up there because of the "air"?

Zach and Luke both crashed early tonight after a long day at the beach. (That's me in the background, holding a very contented Zach as he watches the waves.) In Luke's case, he wore himself out running around and arguing with his buddies; Zach must have simply worn himself out with his non-stop babbling and cooing. He's getting a little frustrated because he obviously wants to roll himself over but he just can't seem to move his big hulking body around too well. I wonder if that is how talking is for an infant - he must have so much to say but he just can't get the words out. Whatever he has to say, I hope he says it soon - I'm looking forward to bringing a new personality into the mix.