Standing, walking, running

I'm trying hard to disabuse Luke of the notion that Zach is the family dog, but it's difficult. Let's see: He can't wait for us to let him outside in the morning. He crawls around eating scraps from under the table. And when he hears the dishwasher opening, his little head pops up, tilts to the side to make sure he's hearing right, and then he's off on all fours - thumpa, thumpa, thumpa, thumpa - over to the dishwasher in no time, ready to examine what's in the next load. Luke sometimes calls him "our puppy" and (oops) sometimes I do too.

But for whatever horizontal behavior patterns Zach has established, he's about to set out on a whole new vertical adventure. This week he really started standing up on his own, letting go, and balancing for a split second. It must be such a great thrill for him because he wants to do it again and again. If you hold on to his hands, he's ready for takeoff - walking in straight lines, in circles, any way that he can cover the most territory.

Plus he seems to have some words. There's "ball," of course, and now everyone except for me seems to have heard him say "Luke." (Dave says it's a gutteral sound that he's never heard Zach make before; kinda like "book" without the 'b.')

Add these things together, and it's not hard to understand why Luke has had some serious sibling rivalry pop up this week. This morning Luke wanted me to pretend he (Luke) was a baby chick hatching from an egg and learning how to stand up. Then I read him a book and he pretended to be a baby pointing at words and sounding them out in baby talk. Pretty transparent, buddy. At least it's not too hard to figure out what's on his mind.

Luke ran his first solo kids' running race this morning, a 1/4 mile run for four-year-olds. I don't want to say too much about it except that he finished (eventually) and got a finishers' medal, but beyond that the experience seemed to be pretty miserable for him. We've been trying to give him lots of praise tonight for doing something so new and scary and different, but I don't think he's going to be asking us to sign him up for any more kids' races any time soon. I have a picture of him shuffling along by himself, way behind any other runner, and the look on his face is so sad that I can't bear to post it. "He just looks like a kid running!" says Dave. But for me, just as for Luke, this is one experience that I'll just have to let it sit for awhile.

At least he stays in character, though. As soon as he crossed the finish line, he announced, "I need something with sugar in it!"