"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.

A technical note about "subscribing" to this blog

If you've been getting updates to this blog via email, you may have to re-subscribe. I'm making a couple of minor technical changes that might deactivate your subscription. It's also possible that you won't notice any difference. I'll put up a new short post tomorrow; if you get it, you'll know that your subscription is still working. If you don't, visit this website (Life-with-Zeeky.blogspot.com) and re-subscribe. Or: if you're not reading this blog via email, and you want to, why, you can subscribe too.

To subscribe by email, enter your address in the box at the top right of the screen. You can also click the gray "Subscribe to this feed" link at the bottom of this post, which will pop up a screen with a few more options.

This blogging system is set up to prevent spamming, so, unfortunately, there's no way I can add your address to the mailing list; you have to do it yourself.

One other thing: there's also a gray link at the bottom of each post labelled "Email this." That will let you send a copy of a post via email to whoever you want.

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.

Noah's ark

Zeke has a toychest that I think we inherited from someone, I forget who, decorated with bright-colored Noah's ark motifs. I've never given it much thought. Today, though, he was sitting looking at it and pointing out the pairs of animals. For each pair, he told me, "That's the mommy alligator, and that's the baby alligator. That's the mommy giraffe, that's the baby giraffe." Et cetera. Anyhow, it occurred to me that the Noah's ark story, which of all Bible stories we probably treat as the one most appropriate and least complicated for young children, is a story that most little kids probably completely misunderstand, given that they wouldn't have any clue why there would need to be pairs of animals on the ark. The cute, innocent "floating zoo" -- the impression that I suspect many kids have of the ark -- is a little world containing only adult animals, none of the animal babies that small children are often so interested in. Which, to me, is just an interesting example of the way common ideas in our culture might look very different from a small child's perspective. I wonder when Zeke will figure out that the pairs of animals on his toychest are not actually mommies and babies.

P.S. That picture is a random toy I found online, not something we own, but if you have a hankering for it, it can be had for about twenty dollars from a website called -- ahem -- Punkin-Butt. It's down at the bottom of the page.

Zeke and Talia playing together

Sometimes I get the feeling that Zeke still thinks of Talia as just another toy (at least, at good moments). Here, he's dressing both of them up using some cloth rings that are actually part of a whole different toy.

Overheard conversation

Zeke and one of his very best friends, a two-year-old girl who lives next door, were having a fairly involved discussion by toddler standards, which I overheard part of.

Z.: Can you come to my house?
K.: No. I don't want Jimmy to hiss at me.
Z.: Do you like Jimmy?
K.: No, I don't like Jimmy.
Z.: Do you like Lucy?
K.: Yeah, I like Lucy.
Z.: Do you like Hector?
K.: Who's Hector?
Z.: He's a cat.

I didn't hear where it went after this. And yes, it's true; to our chagrin, Jimmy has started hissing and swatting at small children (sometimes older people, too). Seems like he finally got fed up with the stress of having two little kids in the house. Hopefully he won't get too much nastier.

Zoo pictures from D.C.

I guess this is a little on the predictable side. Oh well. These are from our visit to the National Zoo in D.C. this weekend. Mostly the photos are of animals, with a few of Zeke. Nothing of Talia came out decent. Click here to see the whole set (a dozen pictures or so), presented with great drama.

www.flickr.com

Talia is almost crawling

Talia - early July 2007 - mosaic, uploaded 12th July, 2007.

Here are a couple of recent photos of Talia. She's not crawling yet, but she's trying. I don't think it'll be much longer now. She's remarkably cheerful about the whole business.

A visit with Carmen

A couple of very good friends are back in town after being gone almost two months. We visited with them tonight. Talia sat on the grass, diaperless, and consented to being amused by Carmen's funny noises.




Later, Zeke and Carmen had some ice cream together.


A few more photos are here.

More animals: Elmwood Park Zoo

Today we visited the Elmwood Park Zoo in lovely Norristown, PA . Talia rode around in her stroller...


... and Zeke ran here and there.


Some favorite animals:

From top left: Flamingoes, sheep, Nubian goat, four-foot alligator supposedly found roaming around in Fairmount Park in Philadelphia, peregrine falcon, jaguar.

Zeke also rode a pony. See the previous post for a one-minute video.

Pony ride (one-minute video post)

Click To Play

Today, July 4, we took the kids to Elmwood Park Zoo in Norristown. Zeke rode a pony named Chocolate, probably the smallest pony I've ever seen.

Independence Day is just around the corner

At bedtime, Zeke heard some fireworks in the distance and asked what they were.
Me: I think those are firecrackers.
Z.: (long pause) Can you eat them?
Me: (chuckling) No, not crackers. Firecrackers.
Z.: (nodding sagely) Oh. Because they would burn your mouth, and that would really hurt.

Miscellaneous photos of kids and animals

Today we visited Upper Schuylkill Valley Park, which is about ten minutes from our house and very bucolic. Note: Click any of the photos to view a larger version.

We saw lots of animals there.

Piglets ...


... turkeys ...


... an owl ...


... and a noisy crow named Scrappy.

Click To Play

Talia rode in her stroller...


... and Zeke and Heather admired the animals on foot.

(There's a donkey in that paddock just out of sight.)

Yesterday was a pretty quiet day.

Talia slept, like a baby, as the saying goes...


... and Zeke and Heather admired the garden.

Talia investigates the cameraphone

Click To Play

This is kind of amusing. She makes a grab for the phone.

"Then I hit them"

Zeke continues to demonstrate his ability to handle extended strings of ideas, if sometimes in worrisome ways. Tonight's before-bed chat:

Me: Do you like school? (Probably the wrong question. Oh well.)
Z.: No.
Me: Why not?
Z.: My friends aren't nice to me.
Me: What do they do?
Z.: They hit me.
Me: Then what happens?
Z.: I hit them too.
Me: Then what happens?
Z.: I go in time out.
Me: Then what happens?
Z.: I am done with my time out, and I get up and we have a snack.

I'd be more concerned about this if I knew he weren't constantly making stuff up. I think they'd tell me at daycare if he were getting in fistfights regularly.