Spring Break!

I'm off work for a week!

And there was a major milestone recently. March 23rd, Zack went an entire day without nay nay. I've been keeping track on the kitchen calendar since then. He nursed three times the 24th, once the 25th, and yesterday, when these pictures with the Wrights were taken, was another day without nay nay! Zero!

So my plan is to keep Zack out of daycare during Spring Break for most of the time, and do lots and lots of fun stuff. It's gonna be crizazzy. And I want to keep him so distracted that we stay on target with the weaning.

Tekla and Zack.

Geveeya!

Zack loves Geneva. She cracks him up. I have to post the footage on here of the first time this happened. But in the meantime, some fun stories. The other day, Zack was going down for his nap, and he had a little trouble. I heard him on the monitor saying, "Mommy?" Then: "Daddy?" Then: "Geveeeeya!!!" He figured he better shout, since she lives kinda far away.

Whenever we pass her street, Zack starts talking about her. "Geveeya! Baka baka baka baka Geveya?" Which I think means, "Hey, this is where Geneva lives. Are we going to see Geneva?"

Tekla and Bruce and Geneva came over for dinner last night, and then we walked to the park. Zack was totally thrilled and did not want to see her leave.

TODAY

I worked a few hours, and then Jeff went to class. I knew I'd have to keep Zack distracted to keep him off nay nay.

My brilliant plan:

Home Depot! Where we had to return something. Boring for Zack.

Except for these flowers. I thought this would be a great way to pass the time, until I saw petals getting torn apart. Then this turned into me carrying a screaming toddler out of Home Depot.

And he wanted nay nay to smooth over the disappointment. I stayed strong.

Next part of my clever strategy:

The car wash!

I mean, Zack loves cars. Zack loves baths. What's not to love?

This was boring, too.

A nice woman passing by snapped this picture for me. And you can see from Zack's expression that the whole car wash thing was just not impressive.

Next part of the plan:

ICE CREAM COOKIE SANDWICH!

We sit down on one of those cheesy coin massage chairs that seem to be in every LA carwash. As soon as we're in a big chair, it's "Nay nay?" But the cookie does the trick! Yay, cookies.

And then, like all yummy things, the cookie must come to an end. Which means this:

It's gone??? This is some serious bullshit!

Lucky for us, it's finally cooling off enough for us to head to the park.

A rude little boy came and took a car Zack was playing with, saying, "That doesn't belong to you." Zack was crushed.

I was comforting him and saying, "Yes, I know, that wasn't nice, but it wasn't your car," when one of the girls from our daycare, who's in an older class, found a car on the sidewalk and gave it to Zack. So nice.

Make it go again, Mommy!

And it was a windup car, which was awesome.

Not a thought of nay nay at the moment. Totally content.

We did it! We made it through dinner, and then Daddy came home and did bedtime. Only one nursing session today--in the morning. I don't think I'll be able to get past that one, but maybe if we head out the door immediately. We'll see how it goes tomorrow.

Just now I heard Zack on the monitor saying, "Night night, Mommy!" Aaawwww.

Great Grandma Daisy

My grandmother, Paula Elizabeth Harrison (Daisy) died this morning. I am so glad Zack got to meet her. She was a pistol--hard drinking, smoking, gambling up into her 70s. And she was active in the Democratic party in Orange, which is no small feat. She was invited to two presidential inaugurations--Carter and Clinton. And she could kick anyone's ass in Scrabble, mostly because she liked to make up words and gamble that we wouldn't notice.

Her poem, which we put on her funeral cards:

One theory I find mystifying

Is whether there's life after dying.

I may never learn

Whether I shall return.

I can only be sure I'll be trying.

I know I owe my sense of humor and my love for writing silly things mostly to Grandma. I'll miss her!

Grandpa

My dad came to visit this weekend. It was his first time meeting Zack! Here they are at the farmers market petting zoo. Zack has a bus in hand, as usual.

Zack is missing his upper lateral incisors, and this weekend I learned that he inherited that from Dad. Dad's upper right incisor never came in, and all this time, I knew nothing about that! As you can see in this picture, Zack also got his dimple from my dad. I have this same dimple, but on my right cheek.

While it's too early to tell, it seems Zack may have also inherited Dad's obsession with vehicles and his love for animals.

A few pics from my phone

My mom is totally not enjoying this, as you can see.

So Zack knows most of the letters of the alphabet. Here he is with two of his favorites, I and Y. He also can identify the nearby bath toys, "star" and "whale."

I was writing down every word and phrase he learned, but they've exploded. He speaks in sentences now. He knows tons of words. However, about 75% of his verbal output is the word "bus." I kind of wish I'd never taught him this word. It was cute back when every large vehicle was "wee wee!" (Because see, fire engines say that.) But now as soon as Zack wakes up, the first word out of his mouth is, "Bus." And any time we're in the car, it's all about, "Look! A bus!" And "Do you see the bus?" It's truly impressive that he has been this obsessed for this long about buses. Daddy bought him some books yesterday about cars, trucks, and buses. Zack was thrilled.

He also really enjoys the moon lately, because he can see it from his new window!

This is Zack at one of my last auditions. I quit auditioning for a while to start an internship at a production company. I'm already loving it and getting to actually WRITE! Amazing.

Between that, Jeff's new job and new computer animation classes, and our new place, we are "busy busy" as Zack would say. I fell asleep last night in my clothes at 7:00 p.m., and Jeff did only a little better, crashing on the couch around 8:00.

Zack is now sleeping through the night most nights. We didn't get an easy sleeper. Or we did it all wrong. But in any case, he's finally sleeping through the night regularly, at the age of 22 months. Thank you, sweet Jebus. He still wakes up at 5:30 a.m., but hey, we'll take it.

Our new place is rockin! We are loving having a washer and dryer, and the light in here is excellent. We have these giant, widescreen windows upstairs. Seeing the sky every day does wonders for my mood. I mean, well, seeing it from inside the house.

Also, we have this really cool bamboo forest behind the apartment, and these really sweet little birds live in it. When you're in Jeff & my room, with the window cracked, listening to the wind in the bamboo and the little birds, you just can't help but drift off into happy nap land. It's truly a magic nap room. Then you wake up and see clouds drifting by over your head. Unbelievable.

It's a little dangerous that my office is in there.