First Lolly Pop

We took Zackary to the doctors today for a rash on his nose and cheeks. She thought it was clogged pores but wants us to take him to a dermatologist. Oh great my 16 month old already has clogged pores..he's going to take after my clogged pores that I've been battling since puberty!

Because he always cries when his ears are looked at and heart and lungs are listened to and he is weighed and well you catch my drift, I decided we needed a positive distraction, something to make going to the doctors not such a bad thing. And there it was in front of my nose...suckers! "They are sugar free," says the nurse as she noticed me eying them. He loved it! He was gentle at first with it, and by the time we got to the car he was trying to bite it. We finally had to take it away due to his lack of teeth. Then 10 minutes later he noticed that his fingers were way sticky and didn't like that. He held his fingers up, spread apart and whined. It was all so cute. His first lolly pop, silly, simple and fun moments!

To the Ocean

We are fortunate to have several wonderful guests visiting us for over a month and mommy is lucky to have an adult to have some good social time with. Right now Ben's mother is in town for two weeks. Zackary was having so much fun with her last night before bed...showing her all his toys and laughing at any weird sound out of her mouth. Today we walked down to the beach, which I need to do more of. The weather, waves and sun were all perfect. Off came Zackary's shoes and straight to the water he ran. There were a lot of small puddles that he played in along the way but he would have kept walking straight into the ocean to the pelicans out in the distance if it wasn't for me stopping him. He was soaked and in turn I was soaked. We had a great time. Grandma was watching in the background with amusement.

Our Comedian

Denmark

Sadly our good friend from Denmark just left us yesterday. She unfortunately showed up the week of the worst rain I have seen in a long time. But it brought a lot of excitement down at the beach and memories we won't ever forget. On the first day of the intense rain we were lucky that the sun came out late afternoon. We decided to go show Zackary the crazy surf below. He loved it. It was like a wild horse being let out to gallop after crazy winds...it was so fun to watch him! We had a great week with MS and only wish we could still have her here with us. Zackary blew her kisses at the end of her stay-precious!

There were tons of surfers inside the jetty-quite a sight to see. I have only seen that many once or twice before here.

Zackary has become a real character this past month. He is blowing kisses, throwing EVERYTHING behind him, copying what I do, FINALLY sleeping better, eating all his veges including lima beans, kale, and basically anything I give him. He was introduced to Tilapia and loved it and decided that turkey bolognase and lentil soup are some of his favorites. He will lay on my belly and give me a hug, and if I say one more hug..he gives me another, and this continues for about 5 hugs! I love it!
His sleep routine is so much better...he wakes up at 6 now-ya! I put him down to rest from 9-10 but he usually doesn't fall asleep. At 12 is his real nap, and he sleeps between 1-2 hours. Then he is in bed at 6 and he's ready. But with this new schedule finally settling in a bit he's become happier especially in the evening. He gets real silly...laughs at everything and has a great time.
I hope the routine lasts for a week or two before it gets all twisted in circles again!!

No Sleep

Zackary's decided that it would be okay to wake up at 2:30-3AM most mornings and not cry but make moaning noises every once in awhile. Every moan wakes me up. We check to make sure he is dry (our other problem...he's sometimes wet in the middle of the night) which only reinforces him being awake. Then we close the door so we can attempt to continue our middle of the night sleeping while he remains awake until 6AM!
He is also in the process of giving up his two naps a day (hard on mama) and going down to one middle of the day nap. Now why didn't anyone tell me about this whole nap thing...oh wait actually maybe I was warned by a good friend OI but I didn't believe her. His one nap a day is only lasting about 1-2 hours and by 5-6PM he's tired and ready for bed.
He used to sleep great...6PM-6AM and 2 naps...not anymore.
The pros weren't kidding when they said you'll get one routine down and then they switch it up on you...yep that's happening.

16 months old

Zackary is 16 months old tomorrow...wow. He looks like a little man to me. Figured I would update you all with his likes and dislikes. This is his favorite book My Very Own Name. He loves reading it and has about 4 favorite pages where he enjoys staring at all the animals and flowers. I think he likes hearing his name too throughout the book....which leads me to his next favorite thing to do which is hugging everything. He puts his face up to the animals in this book to hug them. Tonight he bent down and put his head gently against Bentley...so adorable. He'll hug anything...toys, flowers, food, and if I lay him on my chest he'll hug me...over and over as I say, "more more." He even hugged a big rock he was playing with today...too funny.

He likes to play with all of our things more than his own toys like the camera case, water bottles, my mascaras, wallet, anything in the kitchen, and anything he can't have! We have been taking him down the street to a grassy area and he loves to chase the pigeons, and be chased. He's so much better at walking, which takes a little stress off of me during our park adventures. Ben and I spend a lot of time taking him to parks and just going on walks. He got scared going down a big boy slide with Dad so now he stays away from them.

He has a fascination with flowers. Great Grandma was pruning her roses the other day and we were out on a walk. He saw one rose laying on the ground and after mom checked it for thorns it became his best friend for the entire day. He carried it around, smelling it every so often, and showing it to others. He carries Camellias around too that we have in our back yard.

He's smelling the rose here...I once heard him actually sniffing the flower!!!

Dad and him build things with his blocks, he mostly tears them down but they have fun together. He's wearing his cute robe here that we put on him after bath time just to keep him warm before bed.

Some other things he likes:
His baths-water goes everywhere.
Eating-he enjoys all his veges, fruits, meats, breads, beans, lentils, oat cereal, yogurt and his whole milk is getting easier too. Some new veges are lima beans and kale.
Puzzles-specially a dinosaur one.
Being tickled
His music we play every morning and night. In the morning it's a CD we got from a music class we took...he loves it and the evening CD is lullabies. In the car we have an Elvis Priestly lullabies CD which if I put it on he becomes so quiet I forget he's back there.
Crawling up the stairs
American Flags
Vacuum Cleaner
Grandma, Jedo and Baba, Grandma and Grandpa Alford (via skype)
Riding on the carousel
Visiting the koi fish
Fountains-water (like Bentley's water bowl)
Escalator-going up and down, up and down!!!
He's got a good throw

Things he doesn't enjoy at this moment:
Loud noises-children screaming and dogs barking
His face being wiped
Changing his diaper
Being told "no"
Taking his naps
If he gets mad, he throws things.

We are having some issues with his naps. We try having him just take one, but he doesn't sleep for long, and neither does he with two, if at all...he's in a transition I think. He also has been waking up super early and he's wet a lot too from so much pee in his diaper. I guess it's a work in progress.
It's so fun at this age. I love you little man.

Christmas Time!!!

So Christmas at 15.5 months is really still more exciting for mom and dad than baby! He liked our Christmas tree we got at the beginning of the month but pretty much stayed away from it. He was great about not touching any of the presents and ripping them open unless they had fun bows on them. So here starts our Christmas 2009 adventure. First our bath to get ready for the festivities Christmas Eve Eve!!! Yes he gets his baths in the sink as our bathtub leaks into the downstairs. He doesn't care though, he loves bath time!

Christmas Eve day was spent at my mom's house. Since Zackary goes to bed early we headed over to her house after his morning nap and stayed until late afternoon. We had a nice lunch and Zackary had fun opening his presents. I thought he would try and wander away and get bored, nope, he stayed right by me and Dad and watched us all. I could see the wonder, excitement, and intense attention he was feeling while looking into his eyes. I love the picture above because Ben and him are laying the same.

It takes him awhile to completely investigate and figure out each toy and each of those moments, watching him, are precious to me. It reminds me to take a step back and pay closer attention to everything around me.

He's like okay what now! Lately he's had this funny way of walking where he puts his arms in front of him, turns his head to one side and walks around looking bored and like he's thinking, okay...now what! It's hysterical.

Christmas Eve is concluded with Santa coming and dropping off some toys and we were lucky enough to take a picture of the scene shortly after Santa had left.

Banana or Orange...he got to pick which one he wanted for Christmas morning...he had both!

When we brought him in the front room after breakfast he walked right over to Winnie the Pooh and gave him a hug. Present after present he opened while Dad was busy assembling them and he was patiently waiting.

Hugs! We all give Winnie a hug in this household. He makes you feel better. Zackary passes his Mickey Mouse around too for hugs...even to Bentley. If only I knew how good it felt to give a hug to a stuffed animal...I would have bought myself a lifesize Winnie many years ago!

Christmas Day came to an end at my Aunt's house. He had a long day, no second nap and at this point was nearing his boiling point of shear exhaustion. Dad was able to play a little peak a boo with him and Baba and Jedo were able to play ball so Dad could eat before taking him home for the night. He was in a cute Christmas outfit but we didn't get any pictures ( I just realized) because he was very upset when we first arrived and we immediately fed him and tried anything to calm him down. All my relatives wanted to say hello to him but he wasn't having any of it. Once he had food in him and others weren't paying as much attention to him he settled and started enjoying himself for a short time.

Merry Christmas little man. You were the light of my holiday, and I can't wait for next Christmas to come.