Ask and You Shall be Ignored

The gate at the top of our staircase had become almost impossible to open, so I purchased a new gate that I wanted to have installed by the time Alison got home. I first needed to take down the old gate, and installation of the new gate required a small amount of measuring, drilling and screwing. When installing these gates one finds that if your measurements are even slightly off the gate will most likely not operate correctly, and although it does not require a huge amount of skill to install, some concentration is needed. However, with the old gate down Zoe was intent on trying to get down the stairs. So while I measured, drilled and screwed I also had to contort my body to act as a human gate. Here is part of the conversation Zoe and I had while I put up the new gate. “Zoe, please put down the screwdriver. Please don’t hit the wall with that. Can I have that screw, please? No, don’t eat it. Can I have that piece of paper? Please don’t tear that. Daddy needs that. Zoe, that’s called a template and if you tear it I won’t be able to put… Zoe can I have that so I can tape it back together? Zoe, please don’t hit the wood floor with that. Don’t throw that down the stairs, please. Okay, please don’t throw anything else down the stairs. No you can’t go down. I’m not letting you by. No, you can’t go over me either. Watch your head on… come here so I can kiss it all better.”

As you know from reading last Friday’s blog we spent this past week on the East Coast. I left you with my fear that we would spend the entire week sleepless, with Zoe crowding us out of our bed. Well, although Zoe only used the provided crib two out of the six nights it wasn’t as bad as I feared. I’m not saying that we all slept soundly and didn’t get our share of kicks to the head, but I don’t feel that I need to get myself arrested just to catch up on sleep. Aside from the sleep issue and the usual focus on what to feed Zoe and when, her nap times, her diaper changes, where to find milk, and how to keep her entertained on six-hour flights, we had a pleasant trip. Here is a quick recap of our week. We had a nice Mothers Day Sunday brunch with Grandma Maxine, who was also in town, and Great-Grandma Harriette (yes, that’s four generations—see photo). On Monday we had a nice Birthday Lunch for Alison’s Aunt Cecil. Zoe charmed everyone in the restaurant with her almost overwhelming cuteness. I mean really, what’s cuter than a blue-eyed fourteen-month old in a pretty party dress wobbling around, showing off her new skill of walking? And we rounded off the trip by visiting a handful of friends that we hadn’t seen in a while. In five years, when we see these friends again, they will inevitably ask Zoe, “Do you remember me?”

And who would’ve guessed that airlines don’t have milk? Not me. My bad.

See photos of Zoe at http://picasaweb.google.com/dbglass
Buy the book at http://blurb.com/bookstore/detail/193034

More on Food

While sitting in the sand with Zoe at the park the other day I made a nostalgic observation. Zoe doesn't intentionally eat sand, but she does like sticking her finger in her mouth. And she likes playing in the sand. The result reminded me of those candy dipsticks (Dip’N’Stick, Fun-Dip, Lik-M-Aid, Lik-M-Stix) we had as kids, but with sand instead of sugar. Yum!

Here’s one way children cause their parents to gain weight. We’ve been trying to find new foods for Zoe, mostly because we feel guilty feeding her hotdogs three meals a day (and sand has no vitamins). Every time I go to the store I try to find something different for Zoe to try, and then she will usually reject it. At the end of the meal I will usually eat what she has left behind. We don’t give up right away but if she still won’t eat it after a few tries I will finish off whatever is left. Since we are less concerned with the fat content in Zoe’s food than our own they are not always the lightest items. I’m confident that if this keeps up—and I don’t see an end in sight—that come December I will be a shoe-in for that Santa role I’ve been coveting.

I'm afraid. Tomorrow we leave for a week in Baltimore and we will be staying in hotels the entire time. First, though, a little prologue. Last Monday we stayed in a hotel for one night while we had some work done on our house. In was a beautiful hotel and we had a large room that was very quiet. However, normally when we put Zoe to sleep we put her in her crib and she will usually cry for a short period of time (or long period of time) but she will eventually realize that we are not coming back for her and she will fall asleep (or exhaust herself crying and pass out). In the hotel room we were not comfortable with the level and duration of crying necessary to get her to sleep in the crib they provided, plus she can see us so she may never have stopped screaming. So we tried to get her to go to sleep in the bed with us. However, she is too distracted with us both there so it took us two hours to get her solidly to sleep, at which point we are exhausted from having spent two hours shushing her and trying to keep her from climbing off the bed. So we spent the evening of what we had been calling our "mini-vacation" lying awake in the dark while Zoe fidgeted around us. Is this what we are doomed for in Baltimore? In bed by eight and drawing straws in the morning to see who will take her down to the lobby to crawl around so the other person can sleep? I'll let you know when we return.

See photos of Zoe at http://picasaweb.google.com/dbglass
Buy the book at http://blurb.com/bookstore/detail/193034

Fear Factor

Long ago, in the time known as BZ (before Zoe), I would periodically consider the prospect of fatherhood and deem myself unsuitable for the job for one primary reason: fear. No, not fear of commitment or parenthood, but fear of the thousands of dangers lurking around every corner. I would be in a bank (BZ took place before ATM's) and I would see a mother balance her child on the edge of the counter. So sure was I that the child would fall that not only would I become tense with the anticipation, but I would also physically prepare myself to leap forward in what would have probably been a futile attempt to break said fall. Well, here I am a father, and oddly enough I find myself balancing Zoe on the edge of counters (metaphorically speaking). What I have learned over the last year is that children do not always hurl themselves off precipices. Not that she won't go off the edge, but I can trust her not to go off every time. What I really think is happening is that there seems to be slight signals that children send out that only their own parents can sense, much like Peter Parker’s spidey-sense. Of course that doesn’t explain how I let her fall off the bed the other day.

I shouldn’t squeeze this next tasty Zoe tidbit into the middle of the blog; it should have its own headline. Really, it’s that big. Hint; in last weeks blog I referred to Zoe as a toddler. Ready? Here it is. Zoe is now walking! Three weeks ago she took five steps. Nothing happened for a week, then last week she started with short five-step trips from chair to chair. By the end of this week she was easily crossing the room and now walks more than she crawls. I’m really not sure how she is going to work this skill into her tantrums, in which she flings herself backwards from a sitting position. Will she first calmly sit herself down then tantrum or will she discover a new way to fling herself to the floor? Fodder for future blogs. Of course I have a video below.

Zoe has two new loves. The first is stuffed animals. Up until now she has shown little interest in her stuffed friends, but suddenly she is carrying around either her stuffed lion or rabbit or both. She will roll around on the floor with them, carry them across the room flung over her shoulder, or give them big hugs (though ask her to give us a hug and you might as well be asking a tree). The second love is high pitched screaming. She will scream whenever she wants something or wants your attention. Or just randomly to make noise. I’ve been trying to teach her to say please, but so far she would rather burst our eardrums. I expect that someday soon she will learn how to combine her arched-back tantrums with a solid, ear-piercing scream, at which point I will try to teach her the longtime favorite (and quiet alternative) of children around the world of holding her breath until she gets what she wants.

See photos of Zoe at http://picasaweb.google.com/dbglass
Buy the book at http://blurb.com/bookstore/detail/193034

50 Posts and Still no Calls from Hollywood

For this, my 50th post (please, no applause), I’d like to share some of the things Zoe is doing, which are not only so cute that you want to give her a huge hug (which actually makes her scream and arch her back, which isn’t so cute) but also demonstrates her growing awareness of the big world around her (or at least the big living room around her).

• She is clearly paying attention to what is going on around her. For example, when Zoe coughs I will usually mimic her with a fake cough. Now if we are at the store and someone coughs she will do a little fake cough.

• We have been learning about animals. Every time I say or show her an elephant she raises her arm as a trunk. She doesn’t make a sound (as I do), and the angle of the arm is more akin to a nazi salute than an elephant, but it’s still cute. My monkey is the typical hand’s-in-the-armpits and body waggle. Hers is just a little head wag. And she has been making a noise whenever we see a dog. I think it is a bark.

• Zoe has learned to ‘click’ her tongue. We were on BART recently and a woman was popping her gum. Zoe, after watching her for a couple of moments, starts clicking her tongue in response.

• When she starts to climb off our bed we only need to say, “on your tummy,” and she will spin around and slide off feet first. Smart.

• She knows that a comb is for combing hair, and often tries to do it herself, although sometimes she will use a pen. The results do not differ.

• She has one particular peek-a-boo book that has various states of babyness (eating, happy, crying, etc.). One of the pages is a baby with her mother. Zoe will hand me the book and say, “Mama.” I know what you’re thinking: Cute!

• She can now stack plastic rings on the post. She will also take those rings and put them on her arm like a bracelets. Both of which requires a bit of coordination.

• She knows (at least 50% of the time) which foot is her left and which is her right. I’m not saying that she knows the difference between left and right, or even what they mean, but ask her where her left foot is and she will lift her left leg (or right, if the conversation goes that way).

• Her kisses have evolved from head-butts to open-mouthed slobbers.

• She will often climb onto her cute little rocking chair and sit quietly, contemplating life as she looks out the window. If I make even the slightest noise it will break her reverie and she will scamper down and interrupt what ever I am doing.

• She knows how to call the cats by patting the floor, or if I’m holding her she’ll pat my chest. They never come. Come to think of it, she will do this for any animal she sees.

• She now understands that the big knob on the stereo will make the music very loud. Fortunately she does not like the music very loud and now, for the most part, stays away from it. However, she still plays with it when the stereo is off so I have to remember to check it before I turn it on or it will register on Richter scales throughout the Bay Area.

• If you say ‘bird’ she will point to the window, or sky if you are outside. She will than pat whatever surface is closest. They never come.

I realize that these things are what toddlers do as they develop, but if you could witness Zoe doing them you would agree that she is cuter than all other toddlers combined.

See photos of Zoe at http://picasaweb.google.com/dbglass
Buy the book at http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/193034

Little Things She Does

This last weekend we took a trip to LA to visit Grandma. While we were there Zoe took five steps, her first(s?). I missed this monumental event (I was busy rifling through kitchen cabinets looking for goodies) and we could not convince her to repeat her feat for the running camera. It’s been a week since our return and she has not walked again. The only obvious conclusion is that she can only walk in carpeted hallways in LA.

Since my last post Zoe has attended two Music Together classes. Music Together is a “program that develops every child’s birthright of basic music competence,” blah, blah, blah. Music Together is supposed to make your child smarter, more confident, have better balance, leap tall buildings in less than three bounds, and sap your wallet, all in eight short weeks. Shoes get left at the door, everyone sits around a big drum, all conversation has to be sung, and regardless of what I think about it Zoe seems to have fun, although she spends most of the class with a quizzical look while every one else makes strange noises while wiggling and dancing.

I should have mentioned that while in LA Zoe might have said Dada. I say ‘might’ because no matter how often I try to get her to repeat it I only get Mama, which is frequent and very clear. I’m beginning to think that I imagined she said Dada, or she said Dada but really said dada (the difference is cognitive recognition of what is being said as opposed to random babbling).

This week I joined the Oakland Zoo. I used to belong to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Unfortunately Zoe would rather look at elephants and monkeys than urinals. The problem with the Zoo is that is that if the animals are not standing right by the fence or moving in some discernible way Zoe doesn’t know what she should be looking at. Try to point out a Hamadryas Baboon to her and I might as well be pointing at a tree.

One of the cute things Zoe does (and there are hundreds) is that she will lean up against me. I will be cooking or simply standing in a room and she will sidle up and rest her body against my leg. If I move she will fall—thump—onto the floor. The other day we were at the video store and she sidled up to some strange man, sat on his foot, and then reclined against his leg. She was looking right at me and he really didn’t look much like Alison, so I don’t think she was confused. I think she just wanted to recline and one leg was as good as another. Everyone in line thought it was very cute, except for the guy she was leaning against. He seemed unsure what he was supposed to do, so he just stepped away. She teetered a bit but managed to stay upright.

See photos of Zoe at http://picasaweb.google.com/dbglass
Buy the book at http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/193034

Reaching for the Stars (and knocking them off the shelf)

A while back I scavenged a tiny rocking chair from our neighbors trash. I assumed it was trash, although I suppose our neighbor could have been loading her car and I just timed my walk-by just right. It’s a cute chair, made with bright colors, sturdy enough that Zoe shouldn’t fall over too easily, and light enough that she won’t get hurt when it does fall on top of her. Unfortunately it was custom made for one of her children and has the name Eli painted on the mesh seatback. Alison suggested I paint over it or try to sand it off, but I don’t think that would work on this material. I suggested we rename Zoe Eli, but she just ignored me (I suggested it a second time, just in case she didn’t hear me, but she ignored me the second time as well). I’m not too worried. When we take all the cute photos of Zoe sitting on it, her body will obscure the name anyway. And we can place a tiny little throw over the back when people come to visit. Zoe has learned to climb on and off the chair by herself and this weeks picture is of her on the chair reading a book. I swear it is not staged.

Now that Zoe is standing (and almost but not quite walking) on her own I will start marking her height against a doorway, just as every parent for the last two hundred years has done. For now I track her growth by what she is able to reach. For example, our dining room table usually has a few placemats, a pile of newspapers, a smattering of mail, some… well, lots of stuff. The table was the one place where we could put things, since the coffee table is now entirely off limits. Now, however, she is reaching over the edge of the dining table and grabbing anything she can reach, more often just pulling it down on her head, which requires not only that I pick up a pile of spilled mail from the floor but that I also that I comfort her because it landed on her head. I’ve politely asked her not to pull the things off the table but she just ignores me, something I suspect I should just get used to.

Zoe grabbing and wanting things has become epidemic. She points at everything and grunts, even when there is nothing there. She does this so frequently that I swear she is seeing things that no one else does. If you’ve seen The Sixth Sense you will understand my concern. In the meantime, I’ve been slowly adding cabinet locks, moving items further out of reach and out of sight, and basically creating that barren, modern look in our house that oddly enough I’ve always desired. That is except for the very colorful spread of toys that covers a third of our floors and all the chachkas that are crammed onto high shelves.

I’m excited to introduce the all-new URL address for this blog, www.lifewithzoe.com (you should have been automatically redirected there). Now it will be so much easier to tell all your friends where to find us. Yay. Clapping.

See photos of Zoe at http://picasaweb.google.com/dbglass

Parlor Tricks

Did I mention that I sing everything to Zoe? I may have posted that in a previous blog, but I’ll post it again in case you forgot, although I guess I’m the one that forgot, or didn’t forget if I actually didn’t post it. Anyway, I sing everything. “‘Zo-es take-ing off her so-ocks’, ‘Dadd-y’s putt-ing on his sho-oes’, ‘Zo-e wants some Chee-ri-o’s’.” It doesn’t have to rhyme, and it usually doesn’t even have a (pleasant) melody. All that’s needed is to string together whatever sentence you would normally speak (normally speak to a one year old). In some cases Zoe expects it. When I warm up a bottle for her I have to sing, “When the light goes out, the milk is ready,” song, which is that same line just repeated at different octaves until the light goes out, sometime accompanied by a small jig around the kitchen. We also have the kitty cat song. Whenever one of the cats walk by we sing, “Harry the kitty-cat. Fuz-zy kitty-cat,” or “Tucker the kitty-cat. Half of, him is black.” Ultimately I think this type of communicating with one’s child is what makes parents so irritating to non-parents.

After Zoe sneezes I always exclaim (exuberantly) gesundheit. She will than mock sneeze so that I say it again. She’s been trying to copy us a lot more recently. When we brush our hands together to clean them she will do the same, and she knows it’s a different motion than clapping, which she loves to do. I recently rubbed my fingers and thumb together to clean them of some san and she wiggled her fingers in the air while looking at me quizzically. Seeing as how Zoe hates having her hands cleaned she would certainly not be copying this action if she knew the purpose. I have been trying to make animal sounds. She can’t make the sounds but when I do an elephant she will lift one arm up, as I do, for the trunk. When I do a monkey—hands in armpits—she will do a little wiggle that would otherwise be interpreted as a shiver if one didn’t know better. And best of all Zoe has mastered walking behind her ride/push toy. We’ve been trying to get her to do this for a while, but it took us going out for the afternoon and having a babysitter. We came home to an almost-walking child. They also had her napping in her own crib, something else we’ve never been able to do. We’re going to have them come over next week to teach her French. All these new tricks mean that Zoe has advanced beyond the cats for entertaining guests. No longer do we have to pull out the laser light to make the cat run in circles when conversation begins to lag.

See photos of Zoe at http://picasaweb.google.com/dbglass

Dad’s Heart Skips a Beat, Take 1

I sometimes wonder if I should encourage Zoe toward certain accomplishments. For example, ascending and descending stairs. I understand that it is important that she learn to do this, but I would feel a lot more comfortable if she were, say, four feet tall and a decade older. The problem with stairs is that they are steep and in our house hard. But regardless of what I want she is taking it upon herself to conquer them. A few days ago I put her down on the sidewalk in front of the house while I unloaded the car. When I turned around he had climbed up the first two steps to the first landing. Unfortunately the first landing has a water problem and there is a muddy puddle, which, I believe, was her primary goal. Other than the fact that my heart skipped a beat when I turned around and she was not right where I put her, those two steps were somewhat benign. Less so was the other day when I forgot to close the gate at the top of the stairs. I was in the kitchen, I heard her coming across the living room and expected her to join me. After a couple of moments of silence I suddenly remembered that the gate was open and dashed (sprinted, ran, leaped) from the kitchen and found her two steps down, sitting with her legs hanging over the step. If you cut me in half and count the rings you will discover that I aged five years at that moment. After I wrote this paragraph Zoe climbed down the nine steps from our living room to the front door. It was not caught on film because I was inches away from her, ready to catch a stumble.

The other morning Alison’s alarm went off at around 6:30 as usual. But wait, where’s Zoe? Usually she wakes up before the alarm and is already in bed with us (playing, not sleeping). So Alison climbs out of bed and asks me if I think she is okay. Why would she not be okay? She’s just sleeping a little bit later. “Of course she’s okay,” I respond. (Actually I just said, “Yes,” and tried to pretend I was still asleep.) So Alison goes off to shower and I start to wonder. Is she okay? It’s 6:30 and she’s not in bed with us. We did put her to bed with a blanket. Could she have gotten tangled up in it? What about the monkey toy? It has no small parts and isn’t big enough to smother a mouse, but could she have lodged a monkey foot into her mouth? So what do I do? I get out of bed and with as much stealth as possible I ease her door open. She immediately sits up in her crib and I carry her back into our bed, safe and sound. The next morning she is up at five. I guess she didn’t want us to worry.

A milestone was reached this week: Zoe graduated to a forward facing car seat.

See photos of Zoe at http://picasaweb.google.com/dbglass

So Many Changes

It’s 7:00 AM on a Sunday morning. It was my turn to get out of bed early this weekend morning to bring Zoe upstairs to play (which means she is hanging off my chair trying to reach the keyboard as I type). Although usually it’s near impossible to do anything while Zoe is awake, yesterday I caught her playing quietly by herself on her play mat and discovered that she is playing with her toys on a whole new level. Not only is she placing the rings of the stacking toy on the post, but she is also slipping her arm in and out through the hole of the larger ring. She has also been spotted nesting the nesting blocks, and finding small objects to place inside the larger ones. She has a toy that requires that you hit a hard plastic ball with a hard plastic hammer to get the balls to travel through a short maze. The balls balance on their own little base, and she will remove and than put the ball back onto it’s small spot, a task that requires a bit of coordination. As for the hammer, she still doesn’t have the strength and coordination to knock the balls through, so she instead pounds everything else with it, most often the hardwood floor. She has also enthusiastically learned how to wave goodbye. About five minutes before Alison leaves for work in the morning she will start the arm waving, and it will continue until Alison actually leaves. In fact, all it takes is one of us walking away from her, even to go sit on a chair, for her to start in on the bye-byes. She prefers to wave goodbye to people she knows, but will also wave goodbye to anybody else, as long as they are not looking.

It’s been about a month since I wrote Into the Crib, Part 2. The early days were tough on us (and probably on Zoe as well). She would cry and it would nearly break your heart (and require that we turn the TV volume up way too loud). That first week we would go get her if she cried for more than a couple of minutes. Well, we are a month down the road and for a while she was actually sleeping through the night. However, she has recently started waking up somewhere around blurry-numbers-on-the-clock o’clock. She will join us in bed, Alison will feed her, then she will find it impossible to get comfortable and wiggle and kick until I pull myself from the warm blankets to carry her back into her own room, where she will proceed to cry because we have abandoned her. She will eventually go back to sleep (after we have lain awake wondering if she will really go back to sleep), but until she actually sleeps from the time we put her to bed until a reasonable hour in the morning we can not claim complete into the crib success. The saga continues.

See photos of Zoe at http://picasaweb.google.com/dbglass
Now a full year of blogs and hundreds of cute Zoe photos can be purchased in a book. Wow! Just follow this link. http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/193034

Zoe Turns One Year Old

On Friday Zoe turned one year old. Parents of older children told us that the first year would go by very quickly (and that we should take a lot of photos). It has (and I have). I spend a lot of time with Zoe, and I write this blog, but sometimes it’s hard to remember everything Zoe has done and everything we’ve been through. We had friends with their six-week old baby over for dinner recently. We generously imparted some sage advice, but it is hard to believe that Zoe was once that small and so far from doing many of the things she is able to do now, like sitting, standing up, grabbing everything that is within her reach—and wanting everything that isn’t. I once mentioned on these pages that we are always looking forward to the next stage in her development. That’s still true, but what I didn’t realize back then was that our recollection of many of those moments would then ebb into the fog of our sleep-deprived memory.

Zoe is changing almost daily. At the park recently I discovered that I didn’t need to support her when she went down the slide. I have caught her on a number of occasions leaning over a book and turning the pages. It’s true that sometimes the book is upside down, but nevertheless, she is looking at the book, not eating it. Lately she has taken a particular interest in peek-a-boo books, those with the inner flap one has to lift to revel the hidden object (then exclaim peek-a-boo). She knows to lift the flap only after I have turned the page, even if I have to read the lead-up text at double speed, before she has a chance to flip. Any day now she will be walking and we’ve been talking with friends about pre-schools.

Okay, I’m getting ahead of myself. She turned one year old but she is not yet walking, nor is she talking (although she might have said DaDa) and school is still a way off. I really don’t want to rush her, even if it means I can get back to my tennis and golf and lazing the day away at the local coffee shop (and volunteering at the local orphanage). And although parents tell us that age one is the best age, they also said that about three months, and six months, and they’ll say it at eighteen months and probably one or two parents may even say it about being two years old. And I think I’ll agree with them all. Every age is the best age and every day is the best day.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ZOE.

See photos of Zoe at http://picasaweb.google.com/dbglass (Birthday Party photos coming later today)