Zachary Quirks

There are a ton of things Zachary does that I want to make sure we remember. Most of these pictures are from January/February. Here we go in no particular order:

Zach loves watching movies. His favorites are Baby Einsteins (loves the animal puppets), Blues Clues, Sid the Science Kid, Super Why, Dora, The Lion King, and The Jungle Book. Zach likes to interact with the shows. Here he is using the wall as a scratching tree during "The Bear Necessities" song.

We're working on figuring out how to best do family home evening while working with a 2 year old's attention span. The best ones seem to involve acting things out. Here are Elder Bowen and Elder Bowen after they came knocking at my door. Love the enthusiasm.

We borrowed this animal train puzzle from a friend and Zach became so obsessed with it that we ended up buying it. Lining up animals in alphabetical order? Probably one of the funnest things ever for this little boy. This puzzle helped Zach perfect his alphabet singing in about a day and we've been hearing it ever since.

Zachary has very little interest in doing big boy things. He can drink out of cup but always requests a sippy and sometimes even a bottle (usually if he sees Caleb using one). We finally managed to get him to pee in the potty for the first time on Saturday but no amount of bribery or persuasion has been able to convince him to try again. I'd love advice here on getting some interest going since I've heard it's not good to force things with toilet training.

Swings are still an obsession with Zach. We go outside to the playground in our complex almost everyday to "swing and slide".

He still brings his lion with him to random places. Other animals get thrown in the mix from time to time.

He is a pro with the iPad. Zach can navigate been the different games, navigate Youtube (we keep an eye on this) to find his animal and alphabet movies, and he knows how to group and arrange the icons. It's amazing how much he learns from the games he plays. He knows his all letters even when out of order, can count to 30 (well, 28...29...20 10), can identify shapes and colors, can play memory (the matching game), and is learning how to write his letters.

Zach loves putting on our shoes or sitting in our chairs and saying "uh-oh, mommy's shoes!" which translates to "you should come tickle me now". I'm surprised that he can walk so well while wearing my high heels.

For Zach's latest haircut we braved using scissors because the razor shaves off all the curls. With a movie to watch he sat amazingly still.

Showing off the haircut also shows that no matter how often I clean the mirror by our table Zach has it decorated with his artwork.

- Zach is such a nice older brother. He puts up with Caleb climbing all over him and pulling his hair without retaliating. He likes Caleb to know what's going on so when we turn on a movie he often turns to Caleb and says "Caleb, watching monkey movie" (or whatever movie it is). He also tells me when Caleb wakes up, reminds Caleb not to eat shoes, and hands Caleb another toy before grabbing the more preferred toy Caleb has.

- Zach and Derrick have a great routine of games they play at night. I have a hard time getting Zach to bed at a good time since Derrick often wants to keep playing too. Some favorites are hide and seek, "be careful" shoulder ride, jumping on the bed (Derrick throws Zach up so he gets a lot of air), jamming to old Macdonald with Derrick on the guitar and Zach doing great dance moves, and cuddling while playing on Daddy's phone.

- Zach drops what he's doing when Derrick comes home from work and runs at him yelling "Daddy's home!"

- While playing with my phone Zach will often call family members and leave messages if they don't answer. He also loves Skype.

- When playing with something he feels particularly grateful for he'll look up at the ceiling and say "thank you ____". The most common are "Thank you Grandma Grandpa Jones" and "Thank you Jamon Jean".

- After doing so well at staying in his toddler bed for the first 6 months we're starting to have to battle to have afternoon nap/quiet time. Too bad he can figure out his way past me locking the door and was able to knock off the child-proofing door knob cover.

Zach is such a sweet little boy who loves to be cheered on and cuddle as well as tease, run around pretending to be different animals, and jumping off things (I can't wait until we don't have neighbors downstairs). He definitely keeps things exciting around here. We love you Zachary!