Merry Christmas Party

Grandpa T plays with many local music groups, and he also happens to play with this one Masonic group that has a historic, architecturally impressive building downtown. They have Halloween and Christmas parties for kids of their members every year, and as a member of the orchestra Grandpa T gets to bring Red Headed Cousin R (RHCR) and Monkey. Unfortunately, he spends most of the party playing music instead of playing with monkeys, but it is a good time for everyone.
Monkey has never sat on Santa's lap, or really even interacted with him before. The Zoo Keeper's philosophy on this is to wait until it's something that he wants to do and not to push it. Since Grandma T and RHCR were going to see Santa, Monkey went along for the ride. RHCR wanted to see Santa but was too afraid to sit on his lap. However, Santa thought that perhaps Monkey was brave enough to give it a try:Success!! He understands Santa but doesn't really get the concept of toys at Christmas yet, so he doesn't know what to say when people ask him what he wants Santa to bring him. So he didn't have much to say, but he sat and listened to Santa and found the entire experience very interesting.

Monkey's Snow Agenda

I. March like an elephant

II. Slide

III. Drive the School Bus

IV. Ride bicycle

IV. a. Have spotter handy

V. Get Mrs. Z to Make Hot Chocolate

Bedtime Stories with Aunt B

Monkey has a "new" bed. Aunt B got to visit it via the wonders of technology.

Mr. Z got a birthday present

Monkey told us it was a hat. He was most convincing.

Adventures in Wooden Railways

Last week Mrs. Z created a very excellent track. A track well above average. It had tight turns and exciting bridges, but wasn't so difficult that Monkeys would become frustrated and give up. It entertained little hands for days.

It was very well received.

Move, please. Geez.

Ready for some football

.... or not.

More pictures by Katie

He was cracking us all up by finding acorn "hats" on the ground and putting them on his head

1 year sweater (finished 1 year too late)

Mmmm. Muffin.

Family Pictures

We braved the chill and wind to spend an afternoon at our local art museum gardens. Many thanks to Katie Landes for her great shots!

Stand Up Comedian

Monkey is becoming more and more verbal. He is a big singer now, loving his old fave "Twinkle twinkle twinkle twinkle star, are, sky" as well as newcomers "happy clap your hands stomp your feet" and "Wheels on bus round and round". We are also getting pretty accurate versions of Old McDonald. Mrs. Z is frequently invited to "Stop singing. Stop singing please." All this singing is happening alongside some big language acquisition. Recent new phrases include "I don't *think* so", "Not yet" and "Just a minute" in addition to his tween-esque: "Stop. Please stop." complete with 'talk to the hand' gesture or "No! Please no!" and "Go away!" (sometimes adding the more specific, "You go away with Dad now") and the ever popular closing of doors in people's faces.

His current favorite movie is Jungle Book, and we talk daily and at great length about the elephants (who march in cadence: 1! 3! 1! no matter how many times he hears/we repeat: 1! 2! 3! 4!). Other than the scary tiger and bad snake, we didn't think he was very interested in any of the other animals. However, now when we are trying to put him into shirts, he calls "Help Bagheera help!"

He saw some parts (but not the scariest parts) of The Nightmare Before Christmas and was enthralled by it, asking to watch 'My Jack' afterwards. If you ask him nicely, he might sing 'Halloween Halloween' and 'Christmas Christmas'. With Halloween just behind us he has been very interested in things that are 'scary' and in scaring other people (by yelling Boo!). When we exhausted the least scary parts of 'My Jack' then we watched Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. When asked, he told us that it was a movie about a monster who says AAAHHHH and a polka-dotted elephant. Clearly, he got the point, right? However, when left alone in his playroom we have heard noises suspiciously like Rudolph's squeaking nose. Today we brought home a striped Santa hat from the Dollar Spot at Target. It has a white fuzzy ball on the end, which he kept putting on his mouth and making strange sounds. This perplexed me until he did it again, this time actually getting his nose and adding the Rudolph sound. When modeling this hat later in the day, he completely unprompted broke out with "Ho Ho Ho!" So some Santa is getting in there.

He has a great grasp of names and will talk about aunts, uncles and friends who we don't see that often. He found a Little Person and carried her around all day calling her 'Binda', which is an improvement on the 'enda' Aunt B is used to hearing. He also pointed to a person on the sidewalk today and said, "Dad! There's Dad!" which unfortunately was not Dad. This was somewhat disappointing to Mrs. Z, who was feeling pretty good about herself after Monkey heard an Enya CD playing in Grandpa T's car and became very upset that he could hear 'Mommy singing' even though she was not in the car. The moral of the story must be that he is thinking very fond thoughts of Aunt B, and Mr. and Mrs. Z and is assigning their qualities to substitutes when they aren't around. (And also, Mrs. Z must sing as well as, if not better than, Enya. Clearly.)

Perhaps most entertaining is the window to his busy little brain that his new language skills are opening up for us. We went to the mall this evening to have dinner and get Mrs. Z some new shoes. He loves to go to Barnes & Noble and will ask to go to the bookstore if he can see the mall from the car. This is due to the B&N marketing savvy of including a well-equipped Thomas table in the children's section, but he does like the chairs and the stage at the other end as well. Tonight he was asking about the bookstore after dinner and he was told that we would see if there was time after we got Mrs. Z her new shoes. He leaned under the table and pointed at Mrs. Z's feet and said, "Her shoes are right there!" This conversation was repeated several times with similar results. He could not be convinced that Mrs. Z needed new shoes when the bookstore was so close (but did love the actual shopping for shoes, his third favorite form of shopping).

All of this is wonderful and good, but of course the most rewarding is his willingness to say "I love you" and the single time he turned and said, "You're such a nice mom". Sappy, of course, but it's nice to remember when you've been kicked out of the playroom for the 3rd time in an hour.

Trick or Treat

Monkey had an excellent Halloween!! He was very excited to trick or treat, and on the whole did a great job of it. We didn't remember to take the camera in (or to use it) at every house we visited, so this is far from a complete record of our evening.

Mr. Z is sporting a custom made creation by Mrs. Z. We think that we are very witty. ;)

(Don't get it? Watch this.)

All night he was telling people, "I had a sucker!" Clearly, it was a very memorable sucker.

Aunt L is also impressed with the sucker.

Grandma provided us with light sticks, which were also a huge hit.

He had to show them to Grandpa T

So after this evening of big excitement, Monkey took a quick bath with his Halloween duckie (thanks, Aunt L!) and went to bed. In his reindeer pajamas. Merry Christmas!

Snow Day

No, it is not snowing here. Outside, at least. Inside is a different story: Monkey knows how to find snow no matter what the forecast. Just empty the paper shredder bin! Add trains and mix.

When Mr. Z discovered this lovely scenario this morning he asked Monkey what he was doing. "Making a snowman" was the response. Should we start a regular feature on the blog titled 'Weekend Morning Mischief'? Because it seems like we are generating a fair amount of material.

Pumpkin Patch Trip #1

One of our favorite holiday traditions is taking Aunt M and Uncle J to the pumpkin patch. A very good time was had by all!






It seems doubtful that we will only go once...Halloween isn't here yet!