And He's Off!

Long time no post! So let's get down to business and what you all care about :). Zachary is now taking steps by himself! He'd been walking with assistance for a while, but has finally mustered up enough courage to venture forth without us. One day he needed help, and then the next he was trying to walk everywhere. Amazingly enough, he usually does better with something in his hands :). He likes to pick up his ball, drop it on the ground, then take a few steps to go get it. Yesterday he had a record length of about 8 feet. He walked from a box to Jason. It was pretty cool.

He's also learning to communicate a lot. We have lots of things to talk about. Of course, there's the standard "ba" sound that works for many things - bite, bird, bib, book, block, box, ball, bath. And there's the "k" sounds for blanket, car, cup, key, kite, picture. He calls the mirror "k," and it must be from picture. It's pretty cute. He loves to look at the picture in our bathroom. He'll do the "k" sound and point. It's J and I with several friends, including all of our wedding party, the day before we shacked up. He'll point to J and say "dada." It's cute. Anyway, he also says "p" for the spoon and his turtle (can't figure out the "t" sound yet). And his "h" sounds stand for hat, head (which he knows the location of), hair (though sometimes he'll say "p" for the spanish pelo). But he's also mastered more than one sound. He can actually say baby, and seems to know what it is. I'll say something about how he's my baby and then he'll say the word. Or if there's a baby on tv or a box or in real life (that does exist too, I guess), he'll say it. It's cute. He can also say balloon, although it comes out more like "ballum," with a roll of the tongue on the "l" sound. We were in the grocery store the other day and he started saying it. Sure enough, when I looked around I spotted a few. It was cool - that's the first time he's pointed something out to me I hadn't noticed. He also likes to try to say pumpkin. He seems to really enjoy them. We saw a heap of them at the store and I got one :). The beginning of impulse buys. But I love pumpkins, and I think we've gotten at least one every year here (justification for the impulse buy). This one is big and fatty, too, and was only a couple of bucks. So we practice saying pumpkin, although he can only get the "pum," sometimes "pump" sounds. He also reminds me every day that we need to take his vitamins. The kid loves them! After I give them to him, he wants more. So I have to tell him if we eat too many we can get sick. But he'll try to say it. Most people wouldn't understand him as it comes out "buh buh," but I know what he means :). It's fun to hear him try to say banana. Hasn't figured that one out yet, although he likes them. He knows what cheese is and tries to say that, but the "ch" sound is pretty hard and comes out like a soft "key" sound. He tries to say sock, but can't say the "s" sound and gets the "ah" and "k" backwards. But he likes to chew on them. He loves leaves, and calls that something, but right now I can't remember what it is. I think that's most of his language development lately. But it's fun to watch him try to learn. He likes it when you repeat sounds to him, and he'll try to copy you. He'll focus on your mouth and how you form the sounds. I've been trying lately to overexaggerate how I say things so he can see what I'm doing. He's one smart cookie.

Enough about his phonics. Jason and I have been doing well (I'm sure you all will be glad to know :)). I'm still doing PT for my neck. I started seeing a different therapist who is working on a different area, and it actually seems to be helping! So we'll see. We've been playing some Zoo Tycoon but are hooked on Heroes!! Last year I thought I would like it, but wouldn't commit to the 10 o'clock hour. Now it's on at 9, so I'm more inclined to watch it. I caught the last episode of season 1 and the first two episodes of season two on tv, and decided we should give it a go. After an episode or two Jason was hooked. So we've been trying to find a way to get our daily fix of Heroes. We have netflix, so we can rent them and watch them online, but now we have to wait for the next dvd :(. We contemplated renting the last disc that we need...so we'll see. It's a good show, and if you haven't checked it out already, you should. Although the first season is rather gory, especially the first few episodes. What I saw of season 2 was nowhere as bad, but that might be due to the fact that it's now playing an hour earlier.

Here's some pics. Z loves to read his books. I went to some garage sales and picked up a few pieces of clothing, books and toys. Some of them I'll keep for Christmas since it's already past his birthday and he doesn't know the difference. I got a few board books, and one in particular he really likes. We spent a good 10 minutes looking through it before he wanted to move on.

We almost always have football on in the background on Sundays. Jason is again playing fantasy football, and doing pretty poorly, if I say so myself. But Z was snuggling with him and it made for a nice photo op.

Next weekend we're going to go to our zoo for the World's Largest Halloween Party. I doubt that it's actually the largest, but it's not that big of a deal. So we had to get Z a costume. Not wanting to spend a fortune, we just stopped by our local Wal-Mart. Which we rarely frequent anymore. But anyway, for little guy costumes the selection was lacking, but we finally decided on one. It's pretty cute and it's super fuzzy. Z wanted to hold it in the store and got bummed out when we had to take it away from him. It's pretty warm, too, which is one reason we chose it. Although if the weather keeps up with 80 degree highs (that's right, isn't it great?), it might end up being too warm. Last week or the week before we thought about going to the party, but were sure that Zach would be hecka hot. So we just went earlier and saw the animals. It was such a nice day.

But anyway, here's Z in his bear costume. He was just happy, but if you pretend, he could be roaring :).

This picture makes me laugh :). Zach has taken to pulling on his eyes and cheeks. Not sure why, and it's not just if he's upset. It reminds me of Ross in Friends when his boss eats his leftover Thanksgiving sandwich with the moist-maker. "MY SANDWICH? MY SANDWICH?!?!?" With his fingers in his eyes :). Jason had been adjusting the hood part of the costume, but it looks like he was threatening to hit Z, and Zach was stressing out. Maybe he'll be an actor :).

Zach watching a little afternoon football...

So I'd been wanting this hippo for Z. He can stand behind it and walk or the seat can be lowered and he can ride on it. It's supposed to gobble up the peek-a-boo blocks as you run over them, although that is yet to be proven. It must take a certain amount of speed that Zach hasn't mastered. We showed Zach that he could sit on top of the seat...and then he decided that he could just sit on it without the seat being down. I'm not sure it's that comfortable, though...

Here's him climbing in and out of it. He's such a happy boy.

We like the Wallaroo Walkabout at the zoo. Though if it's too warm or too crowded, all they do is lay there. But it's kind of fun if they start bouncing around. Jason looks a little pissed, but he really wasn't. Z's new hat fits him a fair amount better than the last. His head is so big! We picked that up for his birthday. It says "Louisville Zoo" :).

They have the zoo all set up for the halloween party, with bales of straw and pumpkins everywhere. So as we were leaving (we finally had time), we let Zach play with the pumpkin. He really liked it, so that's why we ended up getting one at the store.

Z likes to brush his hair. There have been several days when I get out of the shower and Jason has to promptly leave, so I have to entertain Zach while I finish up. So I'll brush my hair a little, then brush his. Usually he can't wait for me to pass him the brush. It's cool that he knows what it's for. He also knows that the phone goes to your ear - he did that the other day.


That's all I can think of to report right now. I'm sure I missed a bunch. But I've done this in two sittings, and that's never good for a fluid report. We had some wicked storms the other day - our county was under a tornado warning for quite a while. I'm not sure if they decided one touched down about 10 miles from here or if the damage was just from the storm, but that's way too close. The rotation in one system that was cause for concern went right over downtown. Tell you what, I'll be so glad when we're in CA and won't have to worry about tornadoes. They freak me out! We ended up staying up until the last line of storms came our way, about 11:15 pm, just to make sure it was going to be a severe thunderstorm, not tornado. We didn't want to have to wake Zach up and haul hinney over to the shelter under the clubhouse. But thankfully no serious stuff went right over top of us - it ended up going right to the north. We had news on straight, from 5 to midnight. Straight. It sucked, and one of the rare nights we actually had two shows on. But we watched them online the next day, so it turned out alright.

Okay, I'm done. Off to make Jason's zoo a better place!