"Just one more kiss"

As I noted in an earlier post, Zeke is -- and has been for a while -- very good when it comes to delaying the inevitable, i.e., bedtime. Tonight, however, he outdid himself. Here's the scene. I put him in bed, talk to him quietly for a few minutes, sing a lullaby, then sit quietly for a few more minutes, then say goodnight. Normally he objects and asks me to "sit quietly for one more minute", and these days, since Talia is sharing the room with him and I want to avoid having him wake her with his crying, I usually (against my better judgment) tend to oblige. Tonight, though, when I said "Good-night," he answered -- in an unusually sleepy voice -- "Night-night, daddy." I thought I was going to, pardon the expression, get lucky tonight.

Me: Sleep tight.
Z.: Sleep tight, daddy.
Me: See you in the morning. I love you.
Z.: I love you daddy.
(I rise to leave.)
Z.: I want to give you a hug.
(I lower myself again, give him a hug, and then head for the door.)
Z.: I want to give you one more kiss.
(I return to the bedside. Z. takes hold of my arm and kisses it probably thirty times. Finally, he gets bored and lays his head back down.)
Me: Night-night, Zeeky. I love you.
Z.: Daddy, sit quietly for one more minute.

And there we were again...

You gotta admit, that's pretty good. Who could resist?

Another one-liner from Zeke

A few days ago Heather was with Zeke over at the neighbors' house. Zeke and his two-year-old friend next door were playing in the sand table. They were, I think, starting to irritate one another; there was a little bit of quarreling going on, maybe even a little sand-flinging. Our neighbor pulled her daughter aside for a moment to talk to her quietly about manners and behavior. While this was going on Zeke ran up from behind with a toy shovel full of sand and dumped it on her head. Needless to say, Heather took him home. Here was their exchange:

H.: Why did you do that?
Z.: Sometimes, I just feel like doing it.

Personally, I thought this was funny. I may be the only one, though.

Talking about feelings

I was pushing Zeke on the swings two days ago and we had this exchange. Actually it was pretty much all him talking. This is as best I can remember the conversation.

Z.: I felt sick, but now I feel good.
Me: That's good.
Z.: The wind came, and blew my feelings away, and now I feel good.
Me: (Silent; pausing to reflect on the poetic beauty of my son's use of metaphor.)
Z.: Feelings ... feelings are little round things. Gums. Gumdrops. I put them in my mouth and now I feel good. I eat my feelings.

Food for thought.

Zeke wanted to get in on the action too

Just a quick hello from Zeke. Click the large triangle to view. Created in about sixty seconds using Twango.

As promised, here's your Saturday post

A two-minute video of Talia and me. If you subscribe by email and you are reading this as an email, then your subscription is still working.

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That concludes this technical bulletin. I hope you have, or have had, a pleasant weekend. They were forecasting a tornado here, but now they say it's not going to happen.

Recorder-keyboard combo chez Nani and Pop-Pop

Nani shot this video a week and a half ago. It's a little under a minute long. Watch to the end. Created in about twenty minutes using Jumpcut.

Video diary: Talia crawls, Zeke lectures on crabs

To watch the video, click the triangle. To make it bigger (it looks better that way), click the small rectangle in the bottom right of the video player.



Big news: Talia has started crawling. Now, it's been so long since I posted anything on here that the news isn't quite so new anymore. This video is a week old, and at that time, Talia was really just beginning to get around by herself. It's pretty exciting. The first few days of her crawling, she pretty much cried miserably while she inched herself along. By the time I made this video, she was still working pretty hard, but not crying about it any more.

The other thing that's new around here is that Zeke got into a real swimming pool (with Heather) for the first time. He loved it. I was actually really amazed -- he was very fearful of the water at first, but within a half hour Heather had somehow convinced him to try it out. I don't know how she did it. She certainly didn't try to talk him into it. I guess she just kind of paddled around gently in the water where he could see her and just chatted with him about this and that, and then after a while he wanted to put his feet in the water ... and then he wanted to jump in. It was really hot out and it probably felt really good. Anyhow, he now officially likes swimming pools and wants to go back.

As I write, Heather and the kids are down in D.C., staying with my folks. I'm frantically trying to get ready for the semester to begin. (Along with posting blog entries.) Hi guys! You'll have seen the kids more recently than I have. Anyhow, enjoy.