Zack's Photo Album

Just a little compilation of pictures Zack has taken with the camera.

http://picasaweb.google.com/kristinamarie76/PicsTakenByZack?authkey=hcflgXVcu8Q#

Nudity

I have two strange boys. Well, I don't know if its just my boys or if its a guy-thing. But both of them seem to do what they can to be naked.
Zack will go potty, but not put his underpants or pants back on. After taking a bath he insists on staying naked, he's even gone to bed naked a few times. (The next day he askes for clothes because he's cold!)
This could be a result of us living in Florida for his first 3 years. In the hot Florida summers, I let him run around with only a diaper on or a t-shirt and underpants. But Aaron, he's a different story. Often times Aaron's diaper overflows and thus his pants are wet. So I put a clean diaper on him, but wait to put clean pants on him. Not everytime, but often enough, Aaron takes off his own diaper. Usually this is how he lets me know that he's wet (or more.) Its not a problem when Aaron takes off his own diaper, when he's wet, it's when there's more than just pee in that diaper that this little quark of his becomes a problem!

Chatty Aaron

Now that we're all healthy again, Aaron's become very chatty in the last day. He's been sputtering out new words and phrases like crazy. Yesterday, he started saying "night-night." I'm just going to compile a list of all the words (or sounds that indicate words) that Aaron says...an ** will indicate new to this week.

mama
dada
zack
hi
bye
no
yes
juice
dog
shadow (our cat)
shoes
ball
cheese
up
down
uh-oh
"Oh no!"
Map **
blast off (too much little einsteins!)
bottle
mickey (as in the mouse)
duck
bath
hat **
silly **
thanks
thank you **
nose **
night night **
diaper **
more **
Aaron **
...and just today, Penn State!

Crap!

Zack and I were playing yesterday. He closed a lid on a toy. When I went to go open it, Zack says, "No, don't touch. It's crap!" I looked at him in disbelief and told him "That's not a nice thing to say and we dont say that word."
In true 3 year old form, he replies, "But it's crap!"
I'm doing my best not to laugh because after the third time saying it he gets a silly expression on his face. He just starts smiling bigger and giggling while saying "Crap! Crap! Crap!" I finally just left it alone and we moved on to a new game!
Later that same night, Dave and Zack were playing on the couch. I think they were having a little pillow fight. Dave bumps Zack with the pillow and he stops and says: "Hey!! What's the big idea!!!!" I can't remember if it was Dave that figured it out or Zack clued Dave in but this is something Donald Duck says in nearly every episode of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse! hmmmmm.
At least once a day, I find myself stopping in surprise at what came out of Zack's mouth and saying "What did you just say?!!!"
Kids say the darnest thing!

Aaron

Since the last post was all about Zack, this one will be about Aaron.

From day one Aaron and Zack have been like night and day. And when I say day 1, I mean even in utero. I remember telling Dave that I thought for sure our second baby was going to be a girl because the pregnancy was so different. Both were problem free, thankfully, but still different.

Aaron has always been a great napper. I take that back he has been every parents DREAM-napper. I lay him down in his crib, awake, and he quiet;y goes to sleep. He will sleep for a solid 2 hours everytime. He sleeps from about 8:30pm until 7:30am straight through nearly every night. His sleep is disrupted while teething though.

Whenever Zack's sleep was disrupted or he woke up scared or in pain(due to teething or illness), I brought him into bed with me. Zack would settle right now, snuggle up next to me and go to sleep. I sometimes try this with Aaron. This little boy flips and flops all over the place. He cannot seem to settle down in my bed. The other day he was so tired he finally fell asleep in bed with me. HOWEVER! He was sprawled across my neck making it very difficult for me to breathe! This only lasted a little while. Now, when wakes up in the middle of the night, I go in and check on him...check the diaper, check for fever, check the temperature of the room. But I dont stay more than 5 minutes. I have to lay him back down, screaming and close the door. He'll settle down in my arms, but the eyes remain wide open. Zack lays his head on my shoulder and is out like a light!

Aaron has this thing with laying on my head. We'll all be playing, the boys love to wrestle, and I'll lay down on the floor. Aaron invariably comes over and wraps his whole body around my head...usually the diaper area is over my face! He also has a knack for stepping on parts of me where its painful. If I'm on the floor with him, he steps on my hair half an inch from my scalp or he uses my boobs to assist himself in climbing up to my head. It reminds me of dog and how they dominate other dogs. Is Aaron trying to dominate me or is this just him being silly?

The silly things Zack says...

Zack asked me "What do I want to be when I grow up?" Since he was a fireman for Halloween, I asked him if he wants to be a fireman. "nooooo." So I asked him, "what do you want to be?" He says, "ummmm, I know! A doctor!"

One morning last week, Zack woke up and came into our bedroom just as I was getting up too. He looks at me and says, "mommy, what's with your hair!" Apparently, Zack isnt used to see me with messy hair!

"Daddy, I wanna watch the cooking show, mommy's show!"

We were on the bus, going past a hotel and Zack asked, "Is that the library?" I said, "No, it's a hotel." Zack thinks a little and says, "Oh! I wanna LIVE at the hotel." I asked him why he wants to live at the hotel? His response was, "because that's where Bubie and Zeida live...and Aunt Jackie, Uncle Dan, Ava and Charlie (the dog.)"

A Towering Inferno??

Last night Dave and I decided to have a simple dinner of hamburgers. Since there's still a thick layer of ice and 2 inches of snow on the grill, oh and its too darn cold to go outside, I decided to try broiling the burgers. I looked up online how long to cook them for and where in the oven to place them. I came to a consensis of 8 minutes for medium burgers. At the 7 minute mark I started hearing popping and I could smell grease burning. I open the oven door to peek in and I sure enough I see the grease from the burgers popping and shooting up and sparking when they hit the oven's elements. This is causing some smoke to build up in the oven. I close the door and wait out the last minute of cooking time. When the timer goes off, I open the door to pull out the burgers. I find the entire top of the broiler pan in flames this time! I close the oven door again and turn off the broiler. Hopeing not to set off the smoke alarms (since Zack is napping), I open the back door and turn on the exhaust fan.
Now, I'm thinking to myself, How can I extinquish the flames, get rid of the smoke without Dave noticing because I know I'll never hear the end of it from him. I remember that I opened the back door...ahh haa! I'll quickly take the broiler pan outside. Well, I guess the flames were too big for Dave to NOT notice. I take one step towards the back door and I hear him say "OH MY G-D!!" I take one more step towards the door and the flames go out. As I'm walking to open a window to let more smoke out, I'm telling Dave that I'm just glad the smoke alarms didnt go off....and BAM they go off!
Any normal person would wake up right away right? Dave and I turned off 3 out of 4 alarms before Zack even stirred awake!! This actually has me a little concerned should there be a real fire.

Dave's Birthday

I expected to be writing about what a nice time Dave and I had tonight. We hired a babysitter, went out to dinner followed by some small-town fun, bowling! However, shortly before the babysitter arrived, I decided to clean out the litter box. The litter box is in our downstairs bathroom. Now, to preface things, our cat likes to throw litter everywhere, the floor gets covered in litter after one visit. So after I cleaned out the crap on the inside, I picked up the litter box to sweep up the floor. When I picked up the litter box, I noticed the litter box was sitting in a puddle. I quickly identified this smell as urine, but not cat urine. Now, I can't say for certain, but I am 99% certain that this liquid came from a certain 3 yr old living amoung us. He's had a few accidents while peeing on the potty recently. (He needs to work on his aim!) Usually he tells me that there's pee-pee on the floor when it happens, but apparently not every time. I have no idea how long ago this accident happened. I cleaned the litter box 3 days ago, so not THAT long ago but still...
If any of you have a cat, you'll know that cat litter when wet either clumps or turns into a slimy, clay-like substance. This slimey substance was all over my floor and the bottom of the litter box. And those of your with babies may know how foul a diaper that's sat in the garabage can mroe than a day can smell. I got everything cleaned up but I'm not sure how long it will be before the SMELL goes away. It may be in my head. I'm going to have to break out the bleach and clean it again tomorrow!