Fun for Zoe's 4th

Zoe is Four. Or, if you ask her, she's "twenty nine four." It's a little-known number between four and five. I'm surprised you've never heard of it.

Moving on. My parents were here for the big day and we had a nice time together. Zoe got a new scooter, lots of nail polish and lip gloss, and some fun things to go along with her Ariel-themed birthday. I found a cake online (for the life of me I can't find the link anymore, but if I do, I'll post it) and did my best to duplicate it. It was a bit of a mess, but I think it turned out pretty cute.


Now to bore you with the details of Zoe's life. Zoe is a fun little girl. She has an excellent memory and is finally going through the phase of asking me "why?" a bazillion times a day. Most of the time she already has an idea of the answer she wants to hear (whether or not it is a logical answer to the question) and just likes to hear me tell her what she already knows/thinks. It's cute most of the time and the bane of my existence the rest of the time.

Zoe is potty trained (mostly). If she decides she is a "big girl" then she does fairly well. She also wears certain clothes, is better about eating, and speaks very clearly. When she is a "little kid" she only wears certain things, has many more accidents, doesn't speak, and makes me cut all her food into tiny pieces "so I don't choke." So I never know which Zoe I will get throughout the day. Mostly I'm getting better at rolling with the punches and being very careful which battles I choose to fight.

Zoe's favorite color is pink. Then purple. She will tell you an exact order, naming every color she can think of until she gets to "sparkle." It's her favorite color after orange. She loves Tinkerbell and I must say I myself am excited for the new movie to come out in a month.

She has some really great friends in the neighborhood who love her despite her indifference towards them and the near-constant whining. Preschool is starting back up in a couple weeks and I am excited for that. We'll have 8 kids in our co-op preschool so that should be an adventure.

So that is Zoe's life right now. We have some more exciting news but I'll wait to post that until I catch up with the rest of our summer fun.

Oooo! Intrigue!

Taking Care of Business

March is certainly roaring in like a lion around here. I have a ton of videos and pictures to sort through from the last couple months of being stuck at home, but those will have to wait as there is business to take care of first.

ITEM #1 - Have you noticed that the picture at the top of our side bar doesn't include Owen? Sadly, that is our most recent family picture. I think it's fair to say we are in need of another one. Perhaps one that includes all of our family members. Our former neighbor, Brooke, is an amazing photographer and right now she is running a contest on her blog. Whoever sends the most traffic to her site wins and the winner gets a photo session with her. So if everyone who reads this would kindly click over to her site and look around we would greatly appreciate it. If you want to click more than once, that's even better. I've added a link to her blog in our sidebar as well since the contest runs through St. Patrick's Day.

ITEM #2 - Twitter. I've purposely stayed away from Twitter for my own sanity. Between Facebook and the blog I figure I'm good. What more could you people possibly want to know about me? But then I was thinking - which is never a good thing around here - about my friend Erin's blog. She has a section in the sidebar called "Ethanisms and Aidanisms" that chronicles the funny/smart/odd/embarrassing things her awesome boys say. I've thought about stealing her idea for Zoe, but I'm so terrible at updating the sidebar I talked myself out of it. But lately Zoe has been saying so many "wonderful" things that I find myself calling James several times during the day to tell him what she's said. Then it hit me - Zoe needs to be on Twitter! So I set up an account for her and I update it throughout the day/week. What's even better is that I put the feed in the sidebar so her latest antics can be read right here on the blog. So don't forget to check out "The Good, The Bad, and The Nuggly" on the sidebar if you want to keep tabs on Zoe.

OK, that's it for now. Don't worry family (and friends), I'll have more pictures up soon! In the meantime, go here and imagine what it would be like if Brooke took OUR pictures!

That's Odd....

Zoe is an odd kid. Maybe I should call her "unique" or "independent" or "quirky" or something slightly more PC or whatever, but the truth is she's just odd. There's no getting around it. How do I express in words how truly odd she is? I don't know, but I'll try. And maybe I'll throw in some pictures too.

Zoe LOVES to play by herself. Sometimes she tells me (or James) to go in the other room if we try and play with her. Seriously.

About one minute ago she came upstairs, went in the bathroom, grabbed our squirt bottle and said (mostly to herself), "Squirt bottle's going to go play with those jingle bells." Then she headed back downstairs. She is meticulous in using the words the, those, that, and these in front of her objects. "Let's go watch that robot movie," "Want the swimmings." Please don't ask what a swimming is. I don't think there is any way to explain.

She is absolutely OBSESSED with the movie Wall-e. It is the only full-length film she will watch. We attempted Kung-fu Panda a few days ago and she wouldn't even come downstairs. When she did, she stayed in the kitchen until we turned it off. We watch Wall-e every day while Owen takes his am nap. The rest of the day she runs around the house shouting "Wall-e," "Evah," and mumbling things about the Axiom, spaceships, and robots.

Zoe is still enthralled by her large collection of plastic bugs, snakes, frogs, and dinosaurs. She will pick out a couple of favorites every few days and they become inseparable. She calls them her "friends" and carries them around everywhere. If I ask her or tell her anything she echoes it to her toys - "Do you want a sandwich Zoe?" "Do you want a sandwich snake?" It's incredibly endearing yet absolutely annoying to me as she never actually answers my questions. Is it healthy for a 2 and a half year old girl to sleep with praying mantises? I guess we'll find out.

Zoe has absolutely NO social skills. Her first reaction to other people is to be slightly scared and then to ignore them completely. One day I picked her up from nursery and the teachers were so excited because she actually spoke. Meanwhile at home she talks non-stop. To herself or her toys, mostly, but nonstop nonetheless.

Zoe shows no interest in potty training. She could walk around in a poopy diaper all day and not care. Recently I've been trying to encourage her and while she is intrigued by the concept of underwear, she flips out if I try and get her to sit on the toilet. Almost as much as she continues to flip out over the vacuum.

The list goes on. She loves to jump and sing. She has several Dr. Seuss books memorized. She wouldn't drink juice to save her life. Every day she comes up with new ways to be weird. But every day I find new reasons to love her.

The Terrific Twos!

Zoe turned 2 on Sunday! Originally we were just going to have a quiet evening with my parents and a ladybug cake, but a few days before her birthday we found out that the Biggs family would be in town so we decided to pull out all the stops. We had 8 children ages 6 and under in our house with 9 adults, 2 cakes, balloons, and presents galore. It was great and I was surprisingly very relaxed considering the short amount of notice I had for throwing the whole thing together. I owe major thanks to our guests who helped out in so many ways - taking pictures with our camera, dishing out ice cream, feeding Zoe cake and ice cream so I could have some of my own, and cleaning up after said herd of children. I had the greatest time and I think Zoe enjoyed herself as well. Her favorite presents by far are all the little plastic bugs, animals, and dinosaurs she received. The hotwheels are a close second, though. Have I mentioned that Zoe is a girl? She is definitely an odd one. But we love her anyway!

Warning - The following is gratuitous Zoe fluff and meant for 1) documenting our child's development and 2) the enjoyment of family and very close friends. You have been warned.

Whoever came up with the term "Terrible Twos" never met Zoe. Every day I just can't get over how much fun she is. I'd say the terrible part of her toddlerhood was between the ages of 15 and 22 months. Here is a glimpse of Zoe at 2 years:

Vocabulary: She says EVERYTHING! She talks all day long - narrating her actions and those around her. She mimics our tones and will repeat what we say when she is across the room completely entranced by something else. I can't attempt to document the vast vocabulary she has completely mastered. She speaks in complete sentences almost exclusively, using "ni ni ni" to fill in the gaps between the subject, verb, or object, as she sees fit.

Concepts: Again, she understands nearly everything we throw at her and applies her knowledge to new situations without being prompted or guided. It is amazing to see the wheels in her head constantly turning.

Humor: Zoe has an insane sense of humor. She cracks herself up on a regular basis and she generally has mom and dad in stitches as well. Her latest joke is replacing the first sound of words (especially in her books) with an "h" sound. If the word already starts with an h, she replaces it with an "n" sound - I kid you not, she came up with this by herself. Another recent joke is to replace all the characters in her books with "Orange Tigger" and then cackle when we correct her. Something about the word "women" is also pretty hilarious to her and she will just say it and laugh whenever the mood strikes her.

Favorites: Zoe is a pretty well-rounded kid when it comes to toys and interests. She likes Dora (though she won't watch any show or movie for more than 5 minutes), having her toenails painted, and having "pretty hair." But she also loves cars, bugs, animals, dinosaurs, rocks, sticks, and water. She hasn't shown any preferences for colors yet, though she can correctly identify all primary and secondary colors, plus some tints and tones - white, black, pink, grey, brown, etc. She loves to count and gets to seven in her own way: "one, three, two, five, six, seven." She loves running in circles but will also attempt to run in a square, triangle, or oval - the result is pretty much the same.

Personality: She is as independent as the day is long and will play on her own for quite a long time, especially after a meal. She has to identify everything around her in at least one of four ways - ownership, color, temperature, and shape (some examples include "Tre's blue car, brown square cereal, hot yellow butter). She has to give her toys kisses - "pisses" - before putting them away. She is becoming a bit of a neat freak and has me wash her hands frequently during meals. She has also decided that washing works great for bonks too and will plead with us to wash whatever injured body part she might have.

I really just can't overstate how much we love this little girl. She is getting more fun every single day. She brings so much joy into my life it just doesn't seem real. Now, on with those terrific twos!

Word of The Day

It's a fairly innocent book. The title, Where Are My Glasses? pretty much summarizes the entire plot. We've read it about five times every day for the past week (thank goodness it's a library book and will eventually have to go back). The rhymes are simple and predictable and Zoe knows every single one without being prompted. So, for our third reading of the day when I read, "Are they under my..." and left room for Zoe to complete the sentence with "bed," she paused, gave me a sly look, said "HEAD!" and fell over laughing. For about 10 minutes. She just knowingly made her first joke and she loved it. Half-way through the laughter I grabbed the camera to document the occasion. Fortunately the joke was still funny.

Warning: this video is cute and long - don't feel obligated to watch the whole thing. But don't feel self-conscious for watching it over and over either.

As a side note - our new schedule is working out better than I could have hoped. I have actually been productive this week. And I have had more quality time with Zoe. More quality time = more blogworthy moments. Fortunately the schedule has also given me more time to blog so I should be updating more frequently than I have over the past couple months. Look for Flashback Friday coming at you late tonight!