Sarah and Z left early this morning for California. And I had the first lie in in many months. Sleep wow. On another note, Sarah's podcast about NASA ballooning is now up at 365 days of astronomy

hangin out

hangin out
Originally uploaded by m0nk3yphd

Yeah. See? I told you we'd get there in the end.

This is the newest thing. He's all about the monkeying. Tonight he crawled into the laundry basket (the springy tunnel one) and rolled and rolled around. He climbed to the top of the couch to pretend to be one of the cats. And then he double back flipped into the bath! Just kidding. But Mark has been working on trying to get him to rollypolly (or forward somersault) on the carpet. Currently he tends to end up on his back, facing the ceiling after rolling sideways.

Remain calm!

All is well.
The croup has (mostly) passed. Ugh. It was a bit of a nightmare, but we're almost all sleeping some of the night now. Zachary actually spun in a circle he was so excited to go back to daycare. We managed to not spin. But we were pretty damn excited.
We had internet ridiculousness at home, so we haven't been able to get online. Hopefully pictures in the next day or two.

We've been working on Z saying "Please". It is the funniest thing ever. For a while he'd only say "puhhhhhh" in this really breathy funny voice. Sort of "Please sir, can I have some more" sort of pleading, with less sound. Hysterical. Now he intersperses "PUHLEEEEE" as a complement for when he's very excited for something he's asking for. Did I mention? Hysterical.

Z and I are off to California on thursday. The packing has begun. Mark has given me permission to let him watch tv (we're flying virgin america) if the endless stickers, markers, and books do not work. Thank goodness. Suddenly I'm thinking flying with him on my lap is BATSHIT CRAZY. I'll let you know how that goes.

whoop whoop it's the croup

Yup, Z has his good old wheeze back. But this time the strider is from parainfluenza inflaming his larynx. But he is in the majority (9/10) kids under 5 to have had serotype 3. Whoop whoop, hitting those milestones, you have to be funny when your this knackered.

As for real milestone he has suddenly started repeating, or at least attempting to repeat, words we say, much more frequently than previously. Today we got whoop, and yesterday it was monkey. He is finally stringing the few words he knows together too, with encouragement, so we get "more please" not just "MORE", well sometimes.

Peanut Butter Conspiracy

Another lovely weekend

downtown
Originally uploaded by m0nk3yphd

Really, it has gotten ridiculous. The weather this weekend has been spectacular. Totally unseasonal. By that I mean.. sunny. Without the sticky. Which for late july is beyond unseasonable. Wacky.

We had a nice visit with the Rosenbergs (sans Barry) and Cousin Nathan. That would explain the spectacular view in this (and several other) photographs. It was the perfect morning for loitering on the balcony.

We had a lovely stroll through central park. It was actually a bit quiet, I'd suspect because most New Yorkers have fled to the hamptons, or the vineyard, or really anywhere but here. They're all sitting in traffic as we speak, so :P to them. It was lovely to see the cousins and share New York. We're even starting to get excited about our California adventure in under two weeks.

Seaweed

playing at the beach
Originally uploaded by m0nk3yphd

We spent this weekend visiting friends in Connecticut, just outside of New Haven. Guilford, to be precise. And wow. Fireworks. Wow. Zachary loved them. We loved them. It was stupendous. We sat in Eilat & Yaniv's backyard and.. wow. I also love that it is a small enough town that they set them off ten minutes early to beat the impending rain.

We spent some quality time at the beach enjoying Long Island Sound. Zachary experimented with seaweed, salt water, and the ever popular pastime of returning rocks to the sea.

We also enjoyed some of the best french toast ever. We hear the sandwiches are pretty unbeatable too.

Zachary is also full of words. Berry. He's now starting to demand berries. I CAN NOT MAKE BERRIES APPEAR AS IF MAGIC, CHILD. I may have said this loudly to him on the train home sunday afternoon. Hard to know. Apparently no one was rude enough to call child services. Thank goodness for small blessings. Oh, right. And no. He might have discovered No. He's saying it as if he's savoring it. Then he looks at us with a look I can only describe as saucy.

And he hugs with abandon. Let me tell you, there is nothing better than being hugged with abandon. We should all work on that.

matching

Zachary is not only having a doll phase but is grouping and matching too. Yesterday, he pointed at his tiger toy and then at Linus, back at the toy and then Willow. Today, he lion on his jimjams got kisses. Totally cute. Also his vocabulary is suddenly starting to expand again. And he is most definitely trying to repeat some of the words we say to him.



tiger meet lion
Originally uploaded by m0nk3yphd

FIREBall Launch Pictures

I know, they aren't Mark's, so they aren't nearly as lovely. But here are the pictures from the FIREBall launch one month ago :)

Let's Go Yankees (Staten Island, that is...)

minor league baseball is the best
Originally uploaded by m0nk3yphd

Yesterday we had an absolute blast at a Staten Island Yankees game. Zachary loved the ferry ride both ways. He showed his spaceman toy all of the passing boats. He's in a super intense doll phase. He has a little plastic tiger, and he offered him almost every bite of dinner tonight. Z also fell in love with Scooter. The "Holy Cow". One of the mascots for the SI yankees. We ended up borrowing seats way up towards the front by third base. Scooter came by several times to dance on top of the dugout and every time Z was frozen in admiration. It was unbelievable.

It was a big day of learning. He learned to yell "Charge!" (although usually a little late). He learned to clap along with the cheers. And he watched the baseball with SUCH INTENSITY through the entire thing. I sort of expected he would just want to run around. But he climbed down the stairs to the very front and stayed surprisingly focused. Apparently he was taking notes. This afternoon when we got home he asked for a ball and ran to the hallway to play "throw". The catching? That might take one more baseball game to learn.

Big fun on the fourth of july

Today we made a pilgrimage down to battery park. River to River had a free concert down there which generally involves a massive amount of barricades, but does bring free music out. We couldn't do much seeing of the stage, but without having to go in we could hear everything. I'd only recently been introduced to the band Rilo Kiley, but it turns out their lead singer has a new album out. We all rocked out and ran around the Park. Zachary had fun climbing, trying to eat flowers, bossing people around, and diving face first off of my ankles. It isn't obvious why the last one was fun, but we'll just call it my exercise for the day. The subway ride home with one cranky and tired out toddler was awesome, as always. It resulted in the picture you see below, as well as several attempted breaks for freedom while we waited for the train to leave the station (The 1 train starts at South Ferry, so waits with the doors open until its ready to go).


Tomorrow we're going to a staten island yankees game, so stay tuned.

subway bum

subway bum
Originally uploaded by m0nk3yphd

bossy bossy bossy

in the cat bed

in the cat bed
Originally uploaded by m0nk3yphd

Shake it

One of our laundry baskets was in the living room upside down.

Zachary marched in and positioned it near our couch.

He very deliberately climbed on top of it and stood up. He made sure he was centered.

And then he did the toddler booty shake dance. Cracked himself up. And carefully climbed down again and ran off.

I'm pretty sure that being a toddler is like being a reality tv star. You have no doubt that you deserve to be the center of the universe. Scratch that. You have no doubt you ARE the center of the universe. And the star of a movie. All about you. And that movie is DAMN FUNNY.

I wonder what his soundtrack is?