A Very Zachary Christmas!

     Zach had a great Christmas this year. He still hasn't figured out the skill we were most hoping for: anticipation, but he has a handle on opening presents and realizing it's new stuff for him.

     We started out Christmas morning at home where Zach got to open his stocking. He was excited to find MatchBox cars as he had been resorting to forcing kids at church to let him play with theirs!

     On a side note, you can see the t-shirt he has to wear over his pajamas so he doesn't strip and pee all over his room overnight.

    After his stocking he pulled the blanket back on his new kitchen set that Grandpa and Grandma Z. got for him. We spent about 4 man hours on Christmas Eve putting it together and of course it took Zach about 2 'little man' hours to break the first piece off!

     We then moved on to Grandpa and Grandma Z's house for the bulk of his present opening activities. Zach was clearly excited to get new stuff, here he is opening one of his new puzzles.

     He got lots of new books and a massive bean bag from Mom and Dad. He absolutely refuses to sleep in his bed, the floor is apparently much more comfortable, so the bean bag is our last ditch effort to at least get him to sleep on something soft to sooth his aching back after a hard days work. So far, it's a success, but it does make one more thing to wash when he manages to get his clothes off and pee on everything! (Notice the overalls, another anti-strip and pee device!)

   Zach got a cool 3-D viewer and some slides of his favorite Disney shoes, Little Einsteins and My Friends Tigger and Pooh. It took him a while to let us put it up to his eyes but he was quite fascinated once he got a good look.

    One of his absolute favorite presents is from his Grandpa Barlow in England. Zach got an 'Elmo Live!' which he loves. Elmo talks and dances and tells jokes. Zach feels a lot of responsibility as he thinks that his Elmo is the real one. He gets very distraught when Elmo falls over as he doesn't want to be the kid that puts Elmo in the hospital and deprives all the other kids of Elmo!

    Zach had a really great Christmas and wants to say 'Thank you!' to all his family and friends that made his Christmas so great!

Santa!

Zach saw Santa for the first time last Thursday at St. Mark's Hospital. To be honest, I expected tears. But, Zach went right up to Santa for the picture and stared at him in awe. Then Santa gave him a little stuffed Rudolf Raindeer and a Barbershop Quartet sang "Rudolf" to him. He loved it.

Birthday/Attic Girl

My birthday present from Darryl finally arrived! He has been giving me clues for the last 6 weeks. He told me that it was "one of a kind" & "my collage roommates would like it". What?!

So what arrives? A personalized license plate. It stands for "Attic Girl". When Darryl and I met I lived in this tiny, quirky apartment called "The Attic". I was the tallest one living there at the time and I hit my head on the slanted ceilings all the time. But, we loved and took great pride in being Attic Girls! Thanks Darryl! I love it!

(Just had to add this picture because the kid is cute!)

Happy Thanksgiving!

We had high hopes that Zach might actually eat this Thanksgiving. But, no luck! He enjoyed a lovely meal of goldfish crackers dipped in ranch dressing. Yum! He then went down for a nap so his parents could actually eat. Zach wandered downstairs on his own 20 minutes later carrying his baby monitor. Thanks!

(Half) American Ninja

Zach was a Ninja for Halloween courtesy of Old Navy. His extended Halloween started on Thursday when he attended a party at his pre-school. He made a ghost out of a sucker and drew a spider and here he is frosting a cookie with Mommy.

On Friday night, we went to Trunk-or-Treat and had dinner and some homemade root-beer in the cultural hall while we waited for it to get dark enough outside. We tried to get Zach to wander and play with the other kids, but he just wanted to hang with Mom and Dad.

Grandma and Grandpa Zentner came after dinner to take Zach around to all the cars. He was a bit sceptical at first...

...but caught on fast once the candy started coming. His first stop he got a KitKat and then was offered another KitKat at his second stop so, being the good boy he is, he offered his first KitKat in exchange and was very confused when he got to keep both. 

The confusion didn't last long as he soon figured out that he was cute enough to take whatever he wanted. By the end of the night his "Trick or Treat" was even mostly intelligible!

Soccer?

For the last three weeks, Zach has been going to soccer lessons at the local rec center. I can count on one hand the number of times he's actually kicked a ball in the class! Don't get me wrong, he loves the class, but only for the cones! His favorite thing to do is to try and stack all the cones that the other kids are using in their drills while we stand on the sidelines and urge him to kick a ball like all the other kids. He still got a long way to go before he's the next Beckham!

Shoes and Socks

I think that Zach's bizarre infatuation with shoes and socks is another expression of his main goal in life: to make it to adulthood by age three. He will do anything and everything that makes him feel like he is a grown-up, without regard for the generally accepted norms of behavior (for example, not using sweaty socks as gloves!). As a father, this is rather wonderful as it provides years worth of material to hold over his head when he actually begins to approach adulthood! Behold the latest examples of the shoes and socks fascination: