You Don't Say

A friend of mine told me that her sons have been doing a spot-on Zach imitation at home. If you haven't been around him lately, you haven't heard the musical lilt he adds to the last word at the end of a sentence. If it's a one syllable word, it now has three: "I see a bli-ii-iimp." We're wondering what it will take for him to finally lose that little trademark flourish. In the meantime, it's becoming quite contagious. You only have to spend a few hours with him before you hear yourself saying, "We have to get in the ca-aa-ar so we can go to the sto-ooo-ore to buy some mi-iiii-ilk."

We're also laughing at other Zach-isms. For a few months he's been watching Luke play Nerf dart tag with his friends. But for some reason he hears "a Nerf gun" as "an Urf gun." So he'll wander around the house asking for his turn on the "Urf gun," which amuses Luke to no end.

Also Luke got a Luke Skywalker figurine for his birthday and at one point we must have told Zach, "This is Luke Skywalker," because he heard it as "Luke's Guywalker." Now if he sees it he'll hand it to Luke and say, "Luke - Here's your Guywalker!"

Luke, who's still reaping the rewards of a weeks-long celebration of Hanukkah, Christmas, and his birthday, is becoming remarkably patient with Zach. Yesterday morning they were both gearing up for a fight over something, and I could see Zach girding for battle, and then all of a sudden Luke kissed him on the nose and completely disarmed him. Talk about charming the enemy.

Aunt Marie gave Luke a special light for his room that casts a rainbow across the ceiling. Tonight at bedtime we turned off the lights and turned on the rainbow, which stretched from end to end across the ceiling. Then we noticed that it seemed to start right at the point where Zach's blimp was hanging, all the way over to Luke's Underground Mining Station at the other end of the room. From blimps to Legos - it seemed poetic somehow - and both boys were quite pleased before they drifted off to sleep.