Fun Stuff of Late

These are some pictures from the shoot Jeff did to get Zack's "headshot."  The agency is using the bottom photo plus the one of him on the slide I posted a while back.

So Zack waved today!  We were playing together, looking in the mirror, and I waved to him.  He raised his little hand in reply four times, so I know he was actually doing it!  I don't know if this will be an experiment I can reproduce later for company.  But I'm pretty sure he waved.  It was so cool!

This was right after I had to change him and the futon covers again.  Another big yack with no warning.  Oh well.  We both took a three hour nap today--very badly needed for both of us.  Now he's down again, but I have a feeling this nap will just be a mini one, so I'll just blog a bit.  I don't think I could get the bathroom cleaned during this nap.  Anyway, I'm going with that theory.

So here's some stuff Zack does.

He gives baby kisses.  He's actually been doing this for quite a while.  I want to say a couple months, but the time all blurs together.  If you give him a kiss on the cheek and then ask for a kiss back, you will get a big, open mouthed, slobbery, drooly, toothy, and sometimes snotty kiss back.  Often there is biting involved.

I think there is nothing better!

His speech is developing.  Jeff says he still hears "nay nay" for milk.  I often hear the extended dance remix of nay nay, which is Zack giving me a piece of his mind about something he really doesn't like.  Just now, he was sitting in the high chair and got bored and wasn't hungry.

"Nuh nuh nuh!  Nay nay nuh nuh nuh nuh nuh nuh nuh!"  And on and on.  This means something along the lines of, "I don't want to be here anymore.  Pick me up!"  And he will say it until I do, often while I try to buy a little time to finish whatever I am eating by responding, "Yes?  Do you want to get out of the highchair?  Give me a second, here.  I'm just finishing my sweet potato.  Okay."

I love that he is really talking to us.  He will do this before resorting to crying.

He also is very, very close to saying Daddy.  I've heard the nascent version of Daddy in there a few times, and I don't think I'm pulling a Grandma.  My mother will hear Zack say, "Muuhhh," and insist, "He said Mommy!  He said Mommy!"  He did not say Mommy.

But I've heard, "Duh-daaaay!" when Jeff leaves the room.  It's very close.  Okay, maybe I am reading too much into this one.

A couple days ago, he ate sweet potatoes, black beans, brown rice, a little egg yolk, and broccoli.  I call this a Zack casserole, which Jeff shortened to Zackerole.  It's great.  Since I was such a veggie for a while, this is like ideal eating for me.  I am eating one of the sweet potatoes I bought for Zack right now as a little snack.  I'm sure eventually Zack will become more like Jeff and want nothing but sausage and ice cream.  The problem is, those things are so tasty that I tend to eat that way a lot now, too.  So I'm glad there's another person in the house who likes brown rice, at least for now.

I can't say I'm the healthiest person.  Jeff's company has been working on a Corn Pops add, so there have been boxes of Corn Pops around here that I have been devouring.  Jeff caught me in bed with a box one day, sticky saliva trailing down my cheek.  He said, "That's what that noise was. I thought a raccoon got in the house."  I guess I was munching kind of loud.

Zack loves to stand.  We got a storage ottoman, inspired by Jules, and chucked our old coffee table. The ottoman is the greatest piece of furniture ever, and it's soft, so not a danger to Zack.  He loves to pull himself to standing and bang on it like a drum.  Since his nose is running lately, this piece of furniture has been renamed by Jeff.  It is now the snottoman.

We have quite a few new words thanks to Zack.  The Intellitainer turned out to be a great device to get Zack to empty out his bowels.  We'll stick him in there before going on errands, just to clear everything out.  It's almost foolproof.  So we've dubbed it the Intellipooper.  When Jeff calls me at work to give me the morning report, it's often, "He woke up at 7:00, Intellipooped, then I got him dressed...."  The Intellipooper has three keys that play cool little jazz riffs, and you can sing, "Dah dah dah daaaaah, Intellipooper!" to all of them, which I love to do.  And I mean, I sing this song when I'm out and about, so someone is going to catch me soon singing it at Trader Joe's.