Snow-bound

Ever since we slept in our gabled-roof Cape May bedroom this summer, and then in my parents' low-ceilinged attic at Christmas, I've had a hankering to hunker down (ed: hankering to hunker? hmmm) in a cozy cabin in the woods somewhere. So we're doing it tomorrow -- heading up to the snowy mountains to spend the night in a cozy cabin. Luke and I are both so excited we're practically ready to pop out of our skin. We're packing all of our warm clothes, we've borrowed snow gear from all of our more regular snow-going friends, and we're deciding which books to bring along that best reflect our snow/cabin theme. It's one of those quick, last-minute getaways that could either be great or a huge mess, but I'm thinking and hoping that it'll fall more on the great end of things.

Part of the reason we are getting out of town is that this is our last chance to get away before t-ball season gets into gear. Tonight we had an informal practice with our new team and we hosted a post-practice pizza dinner at our house afterwards (lucky for us - the practice field is at the school literally behind our house). The topics of conversation among the parents included, among other things, the fact that Dave was simply born to be a baseball coach. It's totally true. You should have seen him at practice, holding court with nine squirmy five-year-olds.

Funny story: Dave wanted the kids to do a little getting-to-know you exercise so he had them partner up with someone they didn't know, run over to the far playground wall together, and interview each other to learn their name, favorite color, and favorite food. So the kids enthusiastically ran to the far wall... and then somehow thought that their job was to interview other random kids on the playground. So they all came back buzzing about the new kids they had met ("I talked to a big kid - he likes the color blue and pizza!" announced Luke). Luke, by the way, calls Dave "Coach Dave" while at practice.

You may think Zach is simply a silent partner in all of this, but he absolutely is not. Here is a guy who literally had ten words at the beginning of the year and is now speaking in three-word sentences. "Mommy kiss Zach. Mommy hug Zach," he told me this morning, as I, well, kissed him and hugged him. And there are so many other sentences coming out of his mouth these days I can't even report them all. I just hope a few of them involve how much he enjoys the snow.

Water-logged

I'm sitting here alone in the house, wondering why no one else is on Facebook right now, and then I realize - duh! - it's 6 pm on Valentine's Day! People have better things to do. For instance, there were two birthday parties on the East Coast today that I sure am sad I missed. I especially would have liked the chance to get my hair and nails done and dress up in princess costumes and have my picture taken. Ah, to be a girl.

Anyway, I'm trying to relax a little after a few activity-filled days. (Dave just took the boys out to buy Zach a stuffed cat so he will stop stealing Chairman Mao from Luke - good luck with that.) Yesterday Juana and I took the boys to the aquarium, which was a great call, because both boys love it and it is something that I can't do by myself. Zach is totally freaking me out because (unlike Mr. Caution a.k.a. Luke), he will simply dart out into a street or parking lot if he sees something within 500 yards that he wants to look at (balloon, ball, dog, rock, truck, etc.). I had never even considered getting one of those child leashes (and I know they're controversial) but I'm actually finding myself wondering if it's a good idea for Zach. Evidently they make them look like a backpack so that people won't automatically assume that you're a bad mom. Anyway, the good thing about the trip to the aquarium was that Zach didn't seem to care whether he was with me or with Juana; all he wanted to do was go wherever he could run the fastest; and Luke was having a great time telling Juana all about the fish ("Juana, do you see this bamboo shark egg sac? Let me tell you about it...") and luckily Juana is a great sport who just plays along ("Really? That's amazing! I didn't know that!").

Today Dave and I headed down in the same direction to do a harbor cruise with the boys, and it turned out to be a great idea because it was sunny and a little crisp but otherwise perfect weather. The highlight of the cruise was riding past the famous buoy where all of the cool sea lions hang out. (Zach: "Hi seals! Hi seals!")

A little interlude: I know I shouldn't compare the boys, but I think it's incredibly interesting that while Luke talked earlier than Zach did, Zach pronounces words almost perfectly - no baby mistakes. For example, Luke said "sahz" instead of "outside" for several weeks, while Zach just says "outside" perfectly clearly; Luke used to say "wuh-waff" while Zach says "waffle," and so on. Also many of us remember how Luke used to say, "Wha you do-ning?" for the longest time; I can't imagine Luke letting Zach get away with that. I think he'd mock him mercilessly. That's why just about everything Zach says is pretty much spot-on.

After the cruise we went to lunch at a brewery, which could have been a bad call but wound up being fantastic, because one of the kids' menu items was a make-your-own pizza. They bring you all of the pizza ingredients, you put them together, and then they bring it back and bake it for you. Pretty good deal for them, considering you do all the work. So Luke made his pizza, and Zach ate two mini hot dogs, and the two of them traded jokes while Dave and I enjoyed an amazing hand-crafted brew. (Sample joke - Zach: "Luke! Luke!" Luke: "What do you want, Zach?" Zach: "Hi" and the two of them crack up. It's not so high-level yet.)

Then Dave decided to buy a growler of beer to take home, and he had to lug it on the shuttle bus to get back to our car. Apparently Zach was looking at the growler in such a "Dad, please" kind of way that the people sitting across from us couldn't stop laughing and wound up taking a picture. (My angle is not so good.)

Not only did Zach not want to get off the bus, he didn't even want the bus to stop at a stoplight. Every time the bus stopped moving, he would panic a little bit. "More bus! More bus!" he'd say, while frantically making the sign for more. Never underestimate the power of big, red vehicles.

Well now I'm finishing up, the boys are in bed, Zach has his new cat, and we're all hot-fudged-out from dessert. I remember a couple of bummer Valentine's days we've had in the past (infant Luke being up all night; one-year-old Luke having eye surgery, two-year-old Luke having hand-foot-mouth disease) so all in all this one stacks up pretty well. A harbor cruise and a growler? Now that's romance.

Word explosion

I asked Luke to help me write my shopping list today; it turned out to be a big boon for both of us. All I had to do was call out the spellings of a few food items and he diligently kept himself busy while I got a bunch of other things done. He's just a great kid, and he's even happier when he has a job to do.

So I mentioned that Zach has had a speech explosion; I guess I should have more accurately described it as a speech EXPLOSION. Here is a kid who just three weeks ago was basically only saying "buh" for everything. Now here's a sampling of what he's said (very clearly) in the past 24 hours:

"More hot dog....Please?"
"All done yogurt!"
"Open book!"
"Thank you, brother!" (when Luke pulled his balloon down from the ceiling)
"Turn off light!"
"Good night!"
Tonight when Zach and I were reading he pointed to a picture of a lemon and (just plain out of the blue) said, "Lemon!" LEMON!?!?! Did he really say lemon? I mean it's not like a food he eats all the time, and it's not exactly a word I've been trying to teach him. He just seemed to pull it out of thin air. He must have a lot of good stuff stored up in that head of his. We can't wait to see what comes out next.

Rainy Day

Question: If you go to a store with your kid, and every single person at the store stops to tell you how cute said child is, does that mean that he is objectively cute? Yes, I think the answer is yes.

We went to the store yesterday and Zach got all bundled up in his fireman jacket and rainboots, just in case there were any spare puddles that needed to be stomped. Yesterday's trip also marked a different milestone for going to the store... I took both boys with me and we did not use a cart or a stroller; they just walked alongside me, aisle after aisle. Pretty incredible, considering all of the distractions at the 99-cents store.

Zach has had a speech explosion in the past two weeks and it is astonishing to watch. He has everyone's name down now, and all sorts of one-syllable words, but the coolest thing yet is the two-syllable words that he is stringing together. Last night he was holding on to his beloved green water bottle and saying "Wa-ter bod-dle! Wa-ter bod-dle!" Oh, and the other day at a playdate he saw a cherry tomato and everyone in attendance (including our friend Danny's speech therapist) swears he said "tomato!" I still don't believe it, but they say the mom is always the last one to hear it.

We're off to Shabbat dinner with friends tonight; Luke and I are making red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting. I don't know if they will be up to, say, Joe's standards, but somehow I don't think the five-year-olds are going to complain.

Now That's Dedication

So how was Dave's big race yesterday? Why, thanks for asking. He ran an amazing race. He cut four minutes off his previous best 10K time, which is almost unheard of, like cutting a half-hour off your best marathon time. Or something like that. Anyway, he has been training religiously and he whipped himself into lean, mean fighting condition to tackle this race and the many other challenges we have ahead. It has been very cool to watch because he gets excited about what he's doing and that happy energy spills over into all of his other projects. He is -- as always -- a great inspiration and a joy to be around.

Now as for my dad, I have this to say with utmost love and appreciation: He is totally committed to his role as grandpa. Totally committed. So when Luke was chatting with him about robots and asked him to build us a cooking robot, Dad took the request quite seriously and sent the attached picture to Luke. Luke's reaction was first hysterical laughter, then doubt ("Is that really him or a robot?"), then curiosity ("But how did he attach the buttons?"). We wound up calling on the phone to talk with the robot directly, and it was great to listen to Luke alternately laughing and asking as many questions as he could get in edgewise.

My question, by the way, is this: The clock says 9:25 in the picture. Do you think Mom and Dad were up to these shenanigans at 9:25 in the morning? Or were they a little giddy, staying up past Mom's bedtime, and this was taken at 9:25 at night? Cast your ballot and let me know.

Things are starting to get very exciting with Zach. He's really moved on to two-syllable words (e.g. "robot" "Lego" "water" "ladder" "people" and "pizza," to name just a few) and he will basically imitate anything you ask him to say. But his real delight is saying people's names. The other day after he and Juana came back from the park, Juana told us, "I think everyone at the park knows my name by now because he kept saying, 'Jua-na!' 'Jua-na!'" He also loves to say "Monique" ("Mo-meek") and "Marchie" ("Mar-ee"), the names of his two teachers at school. But his favorite thing of all is to say the names of our friends. When our little buddies Mia and Anna came over for dinner with their parents, Zach was chasing them around the house giggling and calling, "Meeee-a! Annnn-na!" Today he had even more fun when Wyatt came over for a playdate ("Wah-dit! Wah-dit!").

Tonight (and I don't know why I'm writing this because it won't make any sense to anyone, but it's just making me giggle) we were in the car listening to the Naked Brothers' Banana Smoothie. The lyrics go, "Cut up the banana, put it in a blender, and shake it all up, shake it all up." Zach was grooving on this song and he was trying to imitate it, but for some reason he was singing it as, "Up-up-up...Moon! Up-up-up...Moon!" and every time I thought we were finished with the song, he would grin and start singing, "Up-up-up...Moon!" and we would all crack up, so of course he would sing it again. I just love him. Now it's starting to get fun.