The Mystery of Aya

For all of the Luke-obsessions we have gone through (underground, fish, blades, hazard lights), none was more annoying and seemingly destined never to end than hazard lights. Everywhere you go, there are cars, and every car has a hazard light. So it was incredibly difficult to walk down the street, go into a parking lot, or do just about anything other than sit around in the backyard without having to stop and examine every single hazard light.

But somehow, against all odds, we seem to have moved on. These days we're actually able to move through the world without stopping to peer inside every car. Sure, if he sees a new car (like the Bentley we saw last week) or one of his favorite cars (Maserati, Prius, Mini Cooper), he might want to check it out. But otherwise we are pretty much enjoying a hazard-light-free lifestyle.

Of course there has to be a new obsession and now it's bees and bee stings. I think it started from the wasps' nest out on our balcony...and all of the dead wasps that he got to examine after the exterminator came. Then he wanted to find out more about bee stings, and when he learned that some people are allergic to bees, he was hooked. It had all of the elements of fear, drama, and danger to be a compelling new obsession. The other day I arrived at school to find him deeply engaged in a game that involved his friend Kaiya lying motionless on the ground. "We're playing Bee Sting Dead," he explained. It's a little weird, but as long as it doesn't interfere with my daily life, I'll take it any day over hazard lights.

Some of you may remember that way back before Luke could really speak, we were completely mystified as to why he called a bird a "dewp." He would point out the window and get all excited: "Dewp! Dewp!" It took me several months until we realized that he was trying to say "Chirp!"

Now that Zach is at about the same stage, we had another mystery on our hands. We have a book that shows a big desert scene and every time we turned to that page, Zach would point to it and say insistently, "Aya! Aya!" It cracked me and Luke up every time, trying to figure out what he was saying. Spider? Gila monster? Dry? Sand? Hot? We finally figured it out when we walked by a house with some big cactus plants and Zach started going bananas with, "Aya! Aya!!" I think (because he always wants to touch them) that he's been told that they are very "ow!" and that's what he's been trying to say. Luke loved the fact that we had solved the mystery, and he has been putting the book in front of Zach's face, pointing to the cactus and saying, "Say 'aya!'"

It's been a rough week with 5:30 am wakeups (and it's too dark at that time for us to even go for a run!) and Dave being gone. So no pictures, and no warm, fuzzy, or witty conclusion. This blog entry is just over. Go on! Do something else! Stop playing around on the computer! Time to move on.