Only Child Snowball Fight

Monkey is very content to be an only child but we discovered a notable exception over the past few days. The Zoo Keepers are just plain uninterested in playing in the snow for hours. They aren't that excited about snowball fights and they REALLY don't want to make snow angels. We like to think we came up with a workable compromise this afternoon: 

Monkey also got in a few hours of play time with our friendly neighbor Monkey, so don't feel too bad for him. 

The Man With The Bag

Our adjacent neighborhood held their playgroup Christmas party last night. Monkey had a fantastic time and whispered his requests to Santa quite earnestly. They were "Finn McMissile", "Rescuebots" and something unintelligible which could have been "Lego Darth Vader" or "Lego Table". 

Mr. and Mrs. Z would be overjoyed to get the new house for Christmas. It's in the works but is going to take some doing. Please add it to your Christmas lists if you have room. ;)

And this is only from today, folks...

Reading The Ox-Cart Man with Mr. Z: 
"Why does he make brooms?"
"To help support his family."
"Can I support you and mom?"
"If you want to."
"I want to.  What can I do?"
"You can go to school to learn things and maybe you could invent something."
"I invented the number 4."

While playing downstairs:
Mrs. Z: "Hey buddy, what are you doing?"
"I'm just playing."
"Playing with what?"
"A supermodel."
"A super bottle?"
"NO, a super MODEL. It's a tiny boat!"
Singing: "The ship of dreams, the ship of DREAMS!"

While coloring:
"Mom! Look! I'm coloring the Titanic!"
"Wow, buddy! What's all this?"
"It's all the things falling off the Titanic when it's sinking."
"What's that?"
"That's a guy jumping off the Titanic into a lifeboat. And there's a speed boat!"
"Great!"
Turns paper over
"This is half of the Titanic after it sank."
"What are these things?"
"Fish poop, fish poop, shark poop, shark poop, alligator poop, alligator poop."

Trick or Treat!

We had a very Happy Halloween and we hope you all did too! Green Lantern accompanied Iron Man to school for a super spooky party since Mrs. Z had to do her own school. (Boo.) Then we went trick or treating at our neighbors and with RHCR in Grandma and Grandpa T's subdivision. A good time was had by all. 

 

These kids. Such wackadoos. 

Boo!

Mrs. Z is on fall break this week (which translates to one day off for her schedule, but still) so we headed to our local children's museum for their annual haunted house 'lights on' hours. Iron Man was super excited to see the spooky stuff!

I was told in explicit detail: one circle on the chest, one circle on the hands, and two circles on the feet. (We spent about a week debating the shape on the chest: circle or triangle? Of course I had made the triangle patch before he decided it HAD to be a circle.)

He flies!

For real!

Inside the 'Witch's Workshop' - which owed a great debt of gratitude to Willy Wonka

We almost take a good picture of ourselves together!

No, wait. Spoke too soon. 

Portraiture

In his four years and four months on this planet, Monkey has drawn a face exactly one time prior to this morning. He exclusively drew machines, and preferably vehicles. The other day Grandma K asked him to decorate the pumpkin we brought her and he sat down drew a very correct Jack-o-lantern face on the pumpkin. We are both home sick today and in an effort to distract him I suggested he draw some people. Behold, a selection of Power Rangers for your enjoyment: 

Swimmingly

Things are going swimmingly, if rather quickly, around here. Mrs. Z is in her final year of nursing school, we're picking out a new kindergarten for Monkey next year and looking for a slightly bigger, more genteel zoo for all of us. So while we may not be posting much we are definitely keeping quite busy. We have, in fact, too many photos from the end of the summer, apple picking and even some pumpkin picking to post when we finally get to catch our breath.

In the meantime, Mrs. Z was finally able to upload some videos from her frequently broken phone (during class, of course), so here is a huge milestone from Monkey's summer:

Things Said Today

Monkey: "Mommy and Daddy are taller than me because they drink so much blood. The blood is full of protein. And they have the white cookies too and those are full of protein."
Grandpa: "Can you have the blood and the cookies?"
Monkey: "No I am not big enough yet but when I drink some cows milk I will get bigger because it has lots of protein."

Later that night...

Mrs. Z to Mr. Z: "Honey, your son is telling people that we're vampires. Are you listening?"
Monkey: "NO! Only boys can be vampires!"
Mrs. Z: "Why can't girls be vampires?"
Monkey: "Because boys can be something anything they want, but girls can only be hot girls."
Mrs. Z: "Girls can be anything they want to be, just like boys."
Mr. Z: "Except for priests."
Mrs. Z: (makes sound to indicate dying inside)

Rest assured we will be having many conversations about both Catholicism and gender equality over the next week, and our hopes for the future on both counts.

Honorable mention:
(Sobbing with tears in the middle of Jo-Ann Fabrics) "NOOOOO I don't want to go up in space! I don't want to go to Mars!"

First Day of School - Pre-K 4

We got home from vacation at 7:30 on a Sunday night. We thought that Monday morning was the first day of school. We raced over. We took pictures. It wasn't the first day of school at all.

A week later, we tried again. Monkey has been very interested in clocks and time, and we found this blue clock at the Target dollar spot before vacation. He insisted on bringing it with him to show his new teacher and talk to her about how he wants to learn about time. Ms. C was very supportive of this plan and he told me today that they had  played with clocks and talked about time. Everyone in the class has a clock now, and I was told that the kids said the clocks were "beautiful".

Summer Vacation, part IV

Last one, we promise.

On our way home from Mackinaw, Grandpa T headed one way to visit his friend and we headed another way to visit our friends. We had a lovely weekend with P and M in Ypsilanti. P and M took us to the Ann Arbor Hands-On Museum, which everyone really enjoyed. The museum is geared towards science exclusively, which meant that there were a million gears and buttons and switches and simple machines and physics illustrations. Monkey had a blast.

Almost as exciting (perhaps more exciting?) was encountering P and M's pets: a house rabbit named Toby and two cats. Monkey spent many enjoyable minutes stalking these poor creatures throughout the house while the grown ups watched the Olympics. It was a wonderful way to end our big trip, relaxing with friends. Thanks, P and M!

Summer Vacation, part III

 We visited the Old Mackinac Point Lighthouse, which was another lovely state park site. Monkey was too short to climb up into the light, but he waved at Mr. and Mrs. Z while he played with Grandpa.

 Monkey really loved this part of the exhibit, which featured magnetic boats on a giant map. He informed us that the white parts were ice and the ships were icebreakers. Clearly the Icebreaker Mackinaw made an impression.  

The beach in front of the lighthouse offered some really lovely views of the bridge. 

We drove across the bridge, which was quite windy and also under construction as the men were working to repaint all the cables. It was a lovely view and pretty high up, although from the safety of our car it wasn't too  intimidating. We had lunch in St. Ignace and turned right back around. We spent the afternoon at the Pirates Adventure Waterpark, which Monkey LOVED. Just the right size for him (Mr. Z, not so much.) 

Our last morning in Mackinaw it was too cold and windy for the beach, so Monkey tried out the hotel pool instead. He deemed it sufficient. 

Summer Vacation, part II

Our second day in Mackinaw, we loaded our bikes up on the ferry and headed to Mackinac Island. Monkey was very excited to ride on the big boat that sprayed water! We had really gorgeous weather. 

 Round Point Island Light from the ferry

 Our first stop on Mackinac Island was the Butterfly House. This was one of Monkey's picks, but he was disappointed when none of the butterflies wanted to touch him. We tried to explain that he had to hold very still if he wanted a butterfly to land on him, but he was not equal to the task. There was an adjoining room with frogs and bugs that proved a little more entertaining. 

 After butterflies and bugs, we biked around the entire island! The majority of the island is actually a state park and as there are no cars allowed on the island, biking or horse drawn carriage are the best way to see the coast. We had a great ride and stopped for lunch at one of the park stands. Monkey and Mr. Z had to throw some rocks in the big lake, of course. (Monkey also tried to load up his pockets with 'souvenirs'). 

 We then toured the historic sites and Fort Mackinac. Monkey loved the costumed interpreters and we spent a lovely afternoon being entertained and playing with the kid-friendly exhibits. Overall, we were very impressed with all of the state park attractions. 

The day ended in a meltdown after Monkey ran away from Mrs. Z and couldn't be located for several minutes. We got back on the ferry as soon as we could and spent the evening eating pizza and watching Disney channel in the hotel room. We had a beautiful day, but we'd also been on the road with a very tired Monkey for five days.