2.5

Zach turned two and a half today. The pictures throughout this very long post are my attempt at a "photo shoot" to capture him on this milestone. It, of course, was rainy and gloomy all morning, so most are inside, but we did get outside a little after lunch. I've said it before, but it's worth saying again: Zach is not particularly cooperative with the camera. I suspect he's tired of me pointing it at him all the time, and, really, who can blame him? So today after he tolerated me taking pictures of him, I found my old camera and let him take some pictures. Those'll be coming soon...

As I was thinking about what sort of things I could write on the blog to appropriately commemorate this occasion, I was focusing on how much he's changed in those 30 months. But then it occurred to me that there are a lot of things that haven't changed too; in so many ways our little guy is the same guy he was when we brought him home from the hospital. Bigger, more mobile, and a much more effective communicator, yes. But his basic personality is the same now as it was then. Examples I can think of:

1. His overall temperament. Zach was an "easy" baby - happy unless one of the big two was wrong (sleepy or hungry; a wet/dirty diaper never bothered him). While he liked to be held, he wasn't much of a cuddler as a baby - the fastest and easiest way to soothe him was in his bouncy chair, bouncing him as hard as possible without causing shaken-baby syndrome. I'll never forget how flabbergasted and hurt my mom was when she was unable to get Zach to stop crying, despite her best efforts singing, dancing, patting, etc. We finally convinced her to just put him in the bouncy chair and get it moving - he stopped crying immediately. He is similar now; when he's hurt or upset, a hug and a quick cuddle is the most he needs, then he's off in motion again, distracted. And the only time I can get him to snuggle is when he wakes up too early from his nap but can't go back to sleep... so I take advantage when I can.

2. His sleeping ability. Put him down and he goes to sleep. That was true of him when he was 2 days old, and it's true of him now. Not that he slept a long time as an infant (and he still isn't a long napper typically), but when he woke up in the middle of the night, he ate and went right back to sleep - no fuss. These days, while he tells us he doesn't want to go to bed, we still just put him in his crib and that's it. Zzzzz... Oh, and did I mention the best part? This remains true everywhere - in a pack-n-play at Grandma's, on an airplane, in a hotel - doesn't matter, he lays down and goes to sleep. Makes life easy, let me tell you!

3. His eating ability. Zach ate whatever was on the spoon when we first started giving him solids, and he continues to be pretty willing to try most foods. We've gone through phases where he's a bit more stubborn... right now we're in a phase where he objects to anything "unusual" that is on his food - like a spice, the skin on his nectarine, a darker part of the egg on his french toast (this is not my favorite phase). He also currently believes he should get a treat any time he eats his meal (he's quite the negotiator). But he continues to eat his vegetables and other good stuff without much effort on our part.

Hmmm... I'm noticing a theme here: easy to soothe, easy to get to sleep, easy to feed. I guess the most constant part of Zach's personality is his willingness to just go with the flow. I remember fearing some changes, like switching to cows milk, from a bottle to a sippy cup, etc - all things that I'd heard kids could struggle with. Not Zach - I don't think he even noticed!

Zach has also always been a careful, observant boy. He isn't the daredevil kid that runs fearlessly off the edge of the jungle gym, straight into a body of water, or disappears in a crowd. I was ready for the worst when he first started crawling, but while he wanted to explore and investigate things, he didn't seem overly drawn to the electrical outlets or a wine goblets that were still in his reach. To this day (and I know I'm going to regret putting this in writing) he has never thrown anything in the toilet. While he can climb just about anything at the park playground, he doesn't try to get out of his crib or climb up our bookshelves. And when he's faced with something new, he always sits back and checks it out first, then decides if he wants to participate. That's just how he is, how he's always been.

While he may be cautious with new experiences, he isn't shy is with people. Zach has loved people from day one, and I think now believes adults were put on this planet to entertain him. He will talk to any adult, whether they speak to him first or not. Before he was even 2, he walked up to the front desk at the Y and said "Hi I'm Zach" (you may remember the guy thought he said "Hi, I'm a duck", hee hee). He still hasn't completely figured kids out, especially the unpredictable ones that are his age or younger. But he loves older kids; just yesterday I got a big kick out of watching him trying to imitate the big boys at the park.

Let's see... what else? I guess I should discuss his verbal-ness (is that a word??). Zach can speak quite a bit more than is expected for his age, which has been true since he first started talking (sometimes it seems like he's literally never stopped). We are so used to it, we sometimes forget it isn't typical: the other day I got an update from a baby/kid website saying that most kids Zach's age may be starting to talk in 3-4 word sentences... Zach speaks in 3-4 sentence paragraphs. We have regular conversations, with him sometimes imitating the things we say often (i.e. how was your day?), but also coming up with some very interesting observations.

And he loves to tell stories! He kept asking me to tell him stories, and I got worn-out - my imagination is only so good. So I started a game where we alternate adding the next part of the story. It's fun to hear him weave all of his experiences into these stories - everybody from Big Bird to Dora to Trixie La Rue* to his friend Vincent show up, and some of their adventures include swimming, crossing bridges, and talking to monsters. Oh, and playing baseball. In every single story Zach tells, they play baseball.

This is ridiculously long, so I'll close with one more tidbit that cracks us up. According to the "experts", kids learn contractions and conjugations just by hearing them, and it's been fascinating to listen to Zach putting verbs in past tense, sometimes correctly, sometimes not (our language is really complicated when you think about it or try to explain it to a kid!). But our favorite is a contraction that Zach has invented: m'nt. Here's a typical use:

Me: Zach - don't play with the blinds.
Zach: I m'nt! (as he continues playing with the blinds in plain sight)

Happy 2.5 big guy - we love you.

*Trixie La Rue is Scott's cousin's dog. Zach has loved her name since we got their Christmas card last year, and was delighted to meet TLR in the flesh when we were in Seattle. He giggles most of the time when he says her name in his own special way.