Sunday, February 24, 2013

Zayd's first sentence!

Thursday Zayd said his first sentence, "Bye big hiya." (Hiya = elephant, if you don't follow the blog religiously.)

Beyond that we had at least a half dozen new words emerge today:

  • please (coming for a while because I have heard him SING it along with a favorite Grover song)
  • milk (while signing!)
  • head
  • mouth
  • knee
  • Maren
  • Milo
  • Jude (sorry Ellie!)
  • Bodhi
  • black
It was a very exciting day for us! I just HAD to commemorate it with a photo of Zaydie on the elephant statue. I propped him up there to get it just right. (Snap! Snap! Snap!)






Fancy mommy with her fancy camera backed up to get just the right shot. Further. Further. Ka-bang! Mommy goes flying backwards over what she hopes isn't her newborn daughter asleep in the stroller.

Nope! Just a bench.





And I have the bruise to prove it!

Thursday, February 21, 2013

Learning through play - Tongs!

The other day I needed to empty the dishwasher and though it is a task that Zayd and I can usually do together, he was having NONE of it. He was, however, interested in the tongs we had just washed and wanted to get out his sensory bins to work on picking up hidden treasures like we normally do. I wasn't about to rice it up in the kitchen so I got creative. I threw our clean dishrags on the floor, gave him two clean bowls and the tongs and let him have at it. He used the tongs to pick up the rags one by one and put them in the bowl. He used the tongs to transfer from bowl to bowl. He practiced pouring from bowl to bowl. If he were a bit older we could have sorted the blue rags from the brown ones, the options are endless. Best of all, he is entertained, learning, and right underfoot with NO MESS.

We have played with the tongs everyday this week. Here he is finding sticks outside and bringing them to me. Then we got to work on sorting and talking about BIG! and little. He loved it! He will be grasping a pencil in NO TIME!








What else can we do with tongs?

Tuesday, February 19, 2013

A Weekend with Ella

A picture is worth a thousand words...which shot is YOUR favorite?



Our go-to meal: greek yogurt & granola


As El said, "She brings out the Asian in South Asian"

"My mobile! Yay!"

Building towers was never so fun as with Auntie Ella



"What is this? It's delicious!"

"Mommy & me!"


The first time we saw Zahra play with (grasp) a toy! 

Elmo coma



Reading!

So, which pic takes the cake?

Monday, February 18, 2013

Too Many Valentines!

We started this Valentines with a simple photo shoot on the couch of my first two Valentines for the day.

After breakfast, we hung out in the high chair and crafted homemade bubble Valentines! I let Zaydie stick the glue dots on and work the glue stick. He dreamed of operating the paper cutter but that will have to be a Valentine treat for another year.



Then, the love of Zayd's life arrived right outside our front window. The San Antonio Water Supply folks were out working on a broken line in the neighbors front yard. We spent the next hour and a half swooning at our window, on a blanket outside close to the action, and enjoying a bowl of popcorn like this was a matinee showing. There were tractors, and diggers, and dump trucks, oh my!


After I pulled him away from the show, we had our first stamping craft ever and decorated some simple  brown paper to wrap up daddy's gift. (Yes, sometimes Zayd likes to have a binkie nowadays.) See if you can spot Zahra - Zayd provided her with toys to play with as well!





Then Joe-Joe arrived and Zaydie gave him the Valentines we had crafted with love!



After Daddy got hom, Mommy and Zaydie went to deliver the cards to our neighbor-friends on our new WeeRide Kangaroo Bike Seat! (It is such a blast to have the little man on our bike and he LOVES it. I CANNOT wait for Zahra to get old enough for family outings on two bikes!)


And at dinner we all enjoyed chocolate covered strawberries and lip whistles courtesy of our #1 Dad!











Tuesday, February 12, 2013

Zahra is Two Months

Zahra spent her second month birthday with the whole family since it happened to fall on a Sunday. Not only was it A Sunday but it was the FIRST Sunday of the rodeo! Woot! We took her all bundled up to enjoy the animals and fried oreos but she never woke up to see much of the hoopla. Here we are before and after our outings just hanging out in the den.

She has really grown up so quickly. You would think I could remember how time flies but I suppose it only moves faster as I get older. (...and slower)

  • She spends lots of time awake during the day now and enjoys her play gym, looking out the window, or enjoying our 75 degree Texas winters on a blanket in the backyard.
  • Her witching hour has largely disappeared and we have calm stretches from 7-9 pm nowadays.
  • She has been on a good strict schedule for five days and it is working out nicely! She slept for five hours at night TWO DAYS IN A ROW! Thank you Baby Whisperer books!
  • She has started putting weight on her legs and trying to stand. She spent half of her bath today standing up then crying because it was cold.
  • She is pretty tolerant of Zayd though I think she is starting to realize that most of the bumps she gets come from him being clumsy. She definitely fusses when he gets too close. Poor boy! All he wants to do IN THE WHOLE WORLD is kiss her (and drive a bus).
  • By this point Zayd had outgrown a ton of clothes due to general chunkiness but especially his head. She has outgrown things because her hands are too big to fit through the arm holes. Bizarre, right?






The New Rar-Rar

Cookie Monster may name Om Nom Nom, but Zayd thinks he is saying Rar-Rar-Rar. And so, when Zayd wants a cookie (like his mother when does he NOT want a cookie?), he goes "Rar-Rar!". If you are lucky he rubs his chest for please.

It started with Pakistani Cake rusks, we had a brief out of Central Market Organic "Oreo" cookies, Trader Joe's Gingerbread Cat Cookies, tons of homemade options using oats, peanut butter and sunflower seeds, and now... Central Market Organics Whole Wheat Crackers with Rosemary. He calls them cookies and he wants them all the time. I can't decide if I should explain that these aren't cookies or if I should treat them as a sacred item. He is easily eating 6 a day but I would never allow 6 actual cookies a day. (Unless Nana and Daddy are home and then its a cookie free for all!)

Anyway, here he is sneaking as many bites out of as many "cookies" as he can:


 




Zayd's First Fort


Laundry day led to a great invention - Zayd's first fort! What a perfect place to read!