This Sofa is a Rocket Ship!

Oliver is very into make-believe these days. The sofa becomes a car, a rocket ship, a castle – you name it. Here is a video of him “fixing his house”

And another time...

Blub, blub sound

Jenny: What is that sound?
Oliver: It’s me.
Jenny: But what is that sound?
Oliver: It’s me breath(ing) under the water looking for treasure.
Jenny: Did you find some treasure? What is it?
Oliver: a trash can

Zaeda too is talking a lot. She has the raspberry sound down. Sometimes she makes that sounds against her own hand, slobbering across it like a harmonica. We’re still surprised by her unannounced shrieks and screams when she sees something interesting.




Physically, she’s pulling herself up on everything. She loves to stand and bounce. As for crawling, she has the strength, but just hasn’t figured out how everything works togther. Once up on all fours, she doesn’t know what to move and ends up on her belly kicking in every direction. No forward movement yet, but at least she can finally spent time on her stomach without screaming in frustration.

Remember practice baby sister from last year? Next to actual baby sister, she’s kinda creepy.

She’s also feeding herself these little baby puffs and Cheerios. They tend to stick all over so that when we pull her out of the highchair, we find them clinging to her like sticky burrs. Once we let her take her whole bowl of oatmeal, just to see how she’d do. The experience was more about touching the oatmeal than eating it and predicatbly she went straight from the table to the bathtub.

Of the eight or so wind up toys that Oliver has, Zaeda likes all but one. She really hates the flipping frog. Maybe it’s the way it doesn’t just move constantly but rather pulls its energy into a crouch before suddenly kicking up and flipping. I think it’s the coolest of them all, but it just freaks her out.

Discussion about college

Jenny: Oliver, do you want to go to college?
Oliver: Yes, but I want you, Daddy and Zaeda to go with me.

Oliver dressed himself.

Child Abuse?

Until a baby is about twenty pounds, nothing beats the Baby Bjorn for carrying them around. They can either face in (for sleeping) or out (for looking around). We love it because it leaves two hands free to get stuff done. We’ve both strapped on the kids and vacummed, washed clothes, cleaned up the house, etc.

It’s so comfortable for both parent and child that the little one goes silent, just experiencing it all. Beyond reflexively protecting the front of your body, it’s possible to briefly forget the baby is on you. That happened to Jenny recently, and I thought it was funny enough to post here. We came home one busy evening and Jenny strapped on Zaeda and started cooking. She was very deliberately slicing onions for a Japanese dish when she heard a little sniffle and a whimper. She looked down to see tears streaming down Zaeda’s face. Jenny felt so bad!