I don't want to say this out loud...

but he just went to bed. On his own. Without screaming. Without being carried.

He went to his bookshelf. He picked a stuffed animal and a book and marched to his bedroom.

He's in there with Mark now. There is still no screaming.

*holds breath* We'll see.

Edit (mark): I was in there for a full hour and a half before he finally dropped off. Doubling the 45 minutes or less for the last 3 days. HA!

A dangerous toy

This is Z playing the "kidsPhone" app on Professor Kennywenny's iPhone.

Asleep on his bed

well almost. He started out, flat on his tummy. But when we headed into the bedroom, here he was.

Stealing noses

DSC_0553
Originally uploaded by m0nk3yphd

Z made friends with the Nikki (the Bride's) new nephew, Josh, who flew in all the way from Scotland.

Finally Home

Sarah is Back! whhhheeeee! Last weekend was busy, hence the blog silence, it t'was a weekend o'wedding; 3 brides, 3 different events. Friday Anne got married, Saturday Nikki got the bachelorette treatment, and a Sunday bridal shower for Jen.

On monday, Zachary refused, and I mean REFUSED, to let me take off his PJ top. To be fair it is his favorite. It has a police car, an ambulance and a fire truck. He likes to point at each one in turn and say NeeNaw NeeNAW. Unfortunately, his new trick, the elbow lock, is generally employed to block us from scooping him up, but in this case I could not get his pajamas shirt off, no matter what tricks I tried. So eventually, I threw a clean t-shrt in his bag, and off we went to daycare. I explained all this to Cecelia. And said she should swap him into the clean shirt when she got a chance.

Later.

I arrived to pick up Z. And yes he still had on the PJ top. Apparently he had proudly pointed to his chest saying NeeNaw all day. Cecelia had tried, several times, to take it off but also failed. So home we went, clean t-shist and slightly smelly boy. In the end, it took a big bubble bath to convinced him to remove the NeeNaw shirt. Bubbles, suddenly he is a big fan! 23 hours in one shirt = gross.

The Other Baby

Well, I didn't think it would happen. Which perhaps makes flying the ballon a lot like having a baby. Although this time we had reached the place where it was almost possible we *wouldn't* fly it. Erg. The thought made me die a little. But, TADA. Balloon flown. We launched just before noon on Monday. They brought us down just after 9am Tuesday morning. The launch was a little rough, but it didn't appear to cause problems with our functionality. Here is a video of the launch (or embedded below) courtesy of the other group still waiting in fort sumner (Good luck, guys!). I'm headed to New York for a few days, then back to pack up.

FIREBall launch from asad137 on Vimeo.

The payload came down in what looks like a pretty good state outside of Cedar City, Utah. Here are some pictures from our recovery team. The mirrors are intact (hooray) and I should get a look inside the spectrograph monday.

WHOO! The end. Now, just the napping and the thinking.

Yaros, Hersh, Lavin, Raviv, et al Family Gathering

Eating again?
Originally uploaded by m0nk3yphd

Much fun was had with all the family. Z has become much more out going recently and cuddle Michael's (Shana's BF) knees before climbing into his lap. He also got to climb trees, run in the grass, play on various swings and slides and learn some ball skillz, with the ensemble. He met Daniel for the first time in just over a year, and haven't they changed. Still, not completely interested in one another, there was some moments of interaction.
There was a classic when, Zachary dived in to rescue his snack cup from Daniel, sometimes Z is not a good sharer. And then moments later, after a dad *word*, Z shuffled over arm out stretched with a pretzel peace offering, which seemed to go down a treat.

Warm and wet in NY, so we went out to dolphin park, and played in the water. One of Z's favorite new games is to fill a cup and then stumble over to me, spilling most and then pouring the rest on my head. Unless I can get him to pour it on his own head instead, which mostly results in giggles.

More from the field

Yeah, we're trying to launch the balloon again in the morning. It'll be June 5th. A date which I was pretty sure I'd never have to say within a thousand miles of new mexico. Sucker.



While getting organized for a possible launch I downloaded a bunch of pictures from the work camera. Tada, blog appropriate entertainment! Zachary finds meetings fascinating ;) I particularly like this first one because he looks enthralled by Bruno.

And still we wait. Upside: we're keeping the snacks flowing. Downside: Still in New Mexico. If we reach "Old Fort Days" (do not ask, it will make you cry) we will all have to move out of the hotel because all rooms in town are booked AN ENTIRE YEAR in advance.

Back to pretending to rest. Keep hope alive ;)

Because I said I would

Grandpa got the duck out on the video chat. So Z wandered off to the bathroom and after a short rummage came back with both of his. Of course it ended up with ducks on heads!