Raking

As a father, you get to experience many firsts with your son...first step, first word. Well today at lunch, Zach asked me for the first time, "daddy, do you want to rake chicks with me?" I think maybe we've been hanging around Rosy too much. In addition to making me laugh harder than I have in quite some time, it made me consider a few questions. Can a 2-year-old get into The Lone Tree? Is there still a Lone Tree?

Real smiles

I got a few pictures of Zach with a genuine smile on his face, so I thought I'd share a few. He was doing some painting, and you can see pretty easily what brought about the laughs.

This is how the painting started:

And this is how it ended:

This boy makes us laugh pretty regularly these days, usually when we hear our own words coming out of his mouth. Today Zach completely cracked me up when he was "helping" Scott figure out why our upstairs hall ceiling lights weren't working. I don't know exactly what Scott had done, but I do know they hadn't been up there long when I heard Zach say "Wow, you're really good at that Daddy!" Always nice to get a little encouragement from your two year old.

And my own personal favorite was when Zach parroted me, not only with the words, but also the tone. When Zach is doing something he shouldn't, I have the habit of saying "Zach, please don't play with the blinds. Thank you!" I get the "thank you" in there quickly, in a very chipper voice; perhaps I'm under the illusion he'll think he's doing me a favor rather than following an order...? Anyway, the other day I told him we needed to change his diaper. This is rarely his favorite activity, so Zach put a chair between us and said "I don't need to change my diaper. Thank you!" Literally the exact same chipper tone; I guess I'm not fooling anyone!

Ouch

We've had a day of painful firsts today, and it's only 1:30...

First we went to our ECFE class, where Zach got bit on the finger by another little boy. Sigh. It wasn't bad, didn't break the skin or anything, but still.

Then we went to get some new shoes for Zach for summer, and while walking towards the register carrying his new shoebox, he tripped and fell. Since he was holding the box, he didn't get his hands down fast enough to catch himself, and slammed his upper lip into the floor. Blood everywhere.

So Zach's first human bite, and his first bloody lip, all in one morning! He recovered from both of these events well, although I don't think he's going to be forgetting the bite any time soon. I suspect he'll be keeping a distance from that particular little boy for quite a while!

Is syrup its own food group?

If not, what food group does syrup belong to? The same one as ketchup, I'm guessing. Well, it does come from trees, right? That must mean it's healthy. So it's good that Zach likes to eat as much syrup as he does pancakes, right? Ok, good.

Cousins galore

My aunt Judy and uncle Jerry hosted an easter egg hunt this year, and were brave enough to include not only their own grandchildren, but also their grand-nieces and nephews. I believe that brought the total to 9 kids total. It was a great chance for Zach to spend some fun times with his cousins - immediate and extended.

Goofy cousins:

(my brother Andy's kids Sophie, age 3, and Chase, age 4.5)

Cute cousins:

Second (third? I never have understood how that works) cousins on an easter egg hunt:

(Spencer; Allie, Emily, and Zach; Maya; Emily and Allie; Zach)

Zach's egg hunt helpers:

Zach was too excited to hold his own basket, so grandma and grandpa helped him out. :)

Easter fun

Baking cookies for Easter!

I'm learning... I finally realized I should just give Zach his own hunk of dough and let him do what he wanted with it. That worked much better than trying to get him to do what I wanted him to do, which is true of all things, not just baking cookies! He loved it - now he drags a chair over to the island and asks if we can bake cookies every day.

Trying to smile for the camera. I think this is progress...?

Dying eggs at G&G Klicka's house.

Another time we realized we just had to stand back and let him go, and not worry about his dyed fingers and the cracked eggshells (we're eating egg salad with blue spots now).

Fun with cousin Chase (age 4). Sophie wasn't able to come over that night, but the boys managed to have fun anyway, especially with grandma's new gardening wagon.

Finding his Easter basket

(coming soon... the easter egg hunt!)

Simple pleasures

I'm a little overwhelmed with the amount of photos I took over Easter weekend, and the days leading up to it, so it's going to take me a little while to go through them and post them. Baking cookies, dying eggs, Easter egg hunts, fun with cousins - lots to report on. But in the meantime, I thought I'd share a fun moment Zach and I had yesterday.

It is incredibly fun as a parent to introduce your child to all the wonderful things that exist in this world. Yesterday I got to watch Zach discover... m&ms!!!

We were reading a book that his Grandma Cookie (Willard) had given him a long time ago, that until recently he was not at all interested in. It's a counting book that uses m&ms to teach counting, colors, shapes, and basic math. Now he loves it; this was probably the 4th time I'd read it that day. Then I remembered we had m&ms in the goody bag from the easter egg hunt, so I asked if Zach wanted to see what an m&m was. Needless to say - he loved them. For those of you who know him well, I think you can see the evidence in the pictures - notice how his milk is sitting there untouched??!?!? We've never found anything that trumped milk before, but apparently m&ms do. But as much as he loved them - he was still willing to share with me! :)