countdown

If you turn the volume up you can hear Zoe counting in
Spanish: uno, dos, tres, quatro, cinqo... gracias Dora the Explorer! She can count to three in Chinese. And she can count to 15 in English. She has also been saying which way is right or left and she knows bigger/smaller, shorter/taller. I got her some Dora flash cards that teach opposites and show the words with pictures. She will repeat and usually remember anything I tell her. So even really big words, like "approximately" and "instructions" come out of her little mouth. I ordered her some new rain boots, size 8, and instead of paying for shipping from Amazon I ordered a couple more things and got free shipping on all of it. So yesterday we got a kid's magnifying glass & binoculars. She has been holding her hands up to her eyes in circles and saying "binoculars! I see you, mom!" And all kid's shows have magnifying glasses in them at some point. They are usually solving mysteries or looking at bugs - things that we do at home, too. She kept asking me where the net was. There is a matching butterfly net but I didn't get it. Maybe next time.

Science Center

Saturday we went to Seattle Center and went to the Pacific Science Center. Zoe is a little young to appreciate understand everything going on there. I forgot how much reading & explaining of facts there is. They did have a great butterfly house and the cockpit of a space shuttle that Zoe loved. The dinosaur exhibit was pretty awesome, but all of the dinosaurs are up too high for little kids to see them. The ground of the exhibit is about 3 feet high so you really have to look up to see anything. They were animatronic. After the Science Center we got some really terrible pizza, played skee ball, and walked around Seattle Center a little bit.

end of pool days

Today it is about 40 degrees and raining, very dark. I don't mind because it feels like hot chocolate & pumpkin patch weather instead of sweating while buying groceries kind of weather. But it's hard to believe that these pictures are from a couple of weeks ago. It was probably our last day of summer. We can still go to the pool at the YMCA so this cute swimsuit will get wet a few more times I'm sure. Zoe is learning how to kick and paddle her arms. She does like to jump into the pool, but she doesn't understand how to hold her breath or blow air through her nose. Pete keeps trying to show her how to do it but she thinks he's being silly and just laughs at him.

Yost Park

This is Yost Park in Edmonds. It's just a few miles from our house but I had never been there. It is very woodsy and the trail goes up & down a steep ravine. I wanted to take a walk outside after dinner and Zoe was excited to see a new jungle.

swing!

someone should build this

If you want to make an awesome kid's toy, it should be a thin box that has at least a dozen doors that all have little locks on them. And the doors & locks/keys could be color-coded or have matching shapes/pictures. And when you get the little door open there would be a little box inside. And inside the box would be something fascinating like a button, or a rubber ball, or a tiny monkey. Or you could put all of the keys except for one inside the boxes.

talk talk talk

I know it's not the same when you don't hear her say it, but some of the amusing things Zoe has said lately:

• Today I helped Zoe put flash cards back in the box and she said "thanks for cleaning up, mom." and then she said "thanks for helping, mom."
• Last night Pete told Zoe "I love you" and she replied by singing the song "I like bugs! I like bugs!" So I said, do you like Dad? What else do you like? And she said "chocolate."
• She picked up the phone and pressed buttons and then talked into it: "Hello? Are you ok? Ok, bye. Clam. Starfish. Crab. Beach."
• She looked up at the pine tree in the backyard and said "Coconuts!" [pinecones]
• She fell off of the couch and was whimpering. I asked her if she needed anything and she mumbled "peanut butter."
• When I picked Jan up at the airport last week I had to take Zoe because Pete got a 10pm service call. She was so excited that we were going to the airport and she sang songs and giggled for 20 minutes and then suddenly started to cry. I asked her what was wrong and she saddly said "I need a nap!" and I told her it was fine if she wanted to sleep. I looked in the mirror and she was out.

birthday wish for Jan

Jan visited us from New York for few days. Since I haven't seen her for 12+ years it was quite special! We had a super duper time catching up and running around. Her birthday was on the 15th so we made some cupcakes. Zoe loves to make a wish & blow out candles. She hasn't mastered the skill quite yet, she just kind of spits on everything.

Bunny photo shoot

Zoe carried my little tripod out into the living room and then asked for "my camera my camera my camera" which I knew meant that she wanted my fancy Nikon because it's the one that goes on the tripod. I also have a little remote for the Nikon. It has one button on it that releases the shutter wirelessly. Zoe saw me using it a couple of months ago. So I set the camera up and then she asked for the "button button button button" until I gave her the little remote. She took a lot of pictures of the living room and then went and got her bunny. She put the bunny on the couch and said "say cheese!" and took 50 pictures of it laying there. This is what all 50 looked like. Being able to delete 49 of them is a great advantage of digital photography.

Boots

Pete's smelly work boots.

List Update

I updated the List blog this morning.

Thanks!

Thank you to whoever sent Chicago 1 2 3! Zoe and I read it many, many times yesterday after it came in the mail. It's a neat book. I haven't bought a new book for her in a long time so it was quite a treat.

Pete & Zoe cookie[s]

Hiking through the Jungle-y Forest

I thought this after-dinner hike would wear Zoe out, but she was still awake until midnight. I told her we were going to the jungle and she put on a hat and got her backpack. She collected a lot of leaves along the way. It got dark and I used a slow shutter speed on my camera to take some "artsy" photos. Some people would say that they are "blurry".

Another Blog

http://zoezahthings.blogspot.com/

So I made another blog that will list Zoe's things. It's not complete yet, I just started the lists tonight without doing a real inventory.

still left-handed!

new bed

august, really?

Nobody knows what happened to July. It just vanished. Bye, summer! I know it is still 137 degrees in the Midwest, and we are supposed to get some sunshine again this week, but it was about 50 and rainy here for the past week and then I realized that school is starting again soon and my babysitter won't be available whenever I call her... and I just saw Halloween costumes [and Christmas ribbon] at Costco. Yikes!

We have spent a lot of time at the house lately. I have some things that I would like to get done before Winter. Considering that I just finished painting Zoe's door that I started painting in February I think it's fair to give myself 4 months to paint the office door. I also totally reorganized my art-room-space. It is clean and labeled. I recycled a metric ton of really bad drawings. Seriously, they are terrible. I also have a metric ton of terrible photographs but they are harder for me to part with. My darkroom [in the garage] is sort-of clean and restocked. Maybe I'll get to use it this year! In any case, I am ready to revive my card-making website business: www.truehandcards.com

Zoe is having more growing pains. She tells me that her knees hurt and her legs hurt. Sometimes her mouth hurts. She told me that her elbow hurt and then pointed at her wrist. I said "that's your wrist, this is your elbow" and then she got big, sad eyes and rubbed her elbow "my elbow hurts...waahhhh". She still gets horribly frustrated when she is unable to do something. We got her little shoes with shoelaces and when Pete puts them on her he tries to show her how to tie them and then it infuriates her when she can't do it herself.
All day long I hear her whining "I can't do it! I can't do it!" whenever something isn't going her way.
On the other hand, when she is cheerful she is a delight. She knows a few different songs now and she loves to sing them. When we go to the park she swings on a regular, big-kid swing now and sings "itsy-bitsy spider" over and over. She also notices all of the itsy-bitsy spiders in our house and just smiles and talks to them.
We are working on potty training. Some days there is a little success.
She seems to have a great imagination. She plays with toys and gives them voices and things to do. She likes to put things in perilous positions - like her bunny on the edge of the couch - and then she'll put her hands up to her face and say "Oh no, be careful bunny! Bunny, look out!" and then she'll rescue it. Sometimes she'll have me help her and we use "teamwork" to save the bunny.
Whenever something is missing we have to search for it and she goes from room to room saying "it's a mystery" and "nope, it's not here either!" Usually we are looking for the bunny or her blanket.
She still really, really loves her books. We sit on her bed and read them. I gave her a copy of Goodnight Moon and now we look at it a few times a day. She has a twin bed now with a real pillow and sheets & comforter. She is in her bed or jumping on her bed constantly. I put her little table and lamp next to the bed so she climbs in, turns her light *on* and says goodnight and then pretends to snore. And she always pats the narrow space next to her and says "sit down, mom". She pulls the sheets up to her nose and says "snug as a bug".
She plays with her kitchen quite a bit. If I sit on her bed she will make me a sandwich, put it in her lunchbox [she picked out a Wonder Woman metal lunchbox at a store a few months ago] with some yogurt and a watermelon slice [all fake foods] and then insists that I open it and eat it. Then we have a tea party. This morning she grilled all of her fake carrots and then when the grill was done she removed them one-by-one with her tongs and put them on a plate for her bunny. "Bunny's hungry. Here ya go, bunny!"
Due to my influence & the Disney/Nick Jr movies & shows we watch, she is very interested in dinosaurs, robots, snow & Santa, bunnies/turtles/fish [Dad, she still talks to Bob and enjoys feeding him and watching him swim], pirate treasure, the jungle, volcanoes, stars & the moon, buzzy bees, outer space, rocket ships, dandelions, birthday cake, seahorses, starfish, mice, anything heart-shaped...
She knows all of her shapes, even the difference between octagons & hexagons, and is really recognizing that everything is some kind of a shape, and that there are shapes & patterns & things to count no matter where we are.

dots

robot painting

Easel!

Uncle Dougie built this totally awesome easel for Zoe. I will t ell you how great it is `and post some more photos/videso.. but Zoe is helping ;me type ri78ght now and it's difficult

, [.'/

carnival slide