Taking the Scenic Route

Quick update:

Zora:

• Standing with assistance.  not pulling up yet, but if her legs are arranged ‘just right’ she can stay standing for a good minute or so.  The same story for sitting.  If she is in just the right position, she can stay sitting for a bit, but mostly just keels over.
• Teething and not enjoying the experience.
• Lots of squeals, squeaks and babbling.  Smiling with squeals and occasional giggles, but not much substained giggling yet.

Zane:

• Starting to us “I want….” statements without prompting occasionally.  Still needs prompting much of the time, but definite improvement.  Starting to be able to stop tantrums and attempt to communicate when he wants something.  It takes a lot of effort to understand him most of the time, but he is trying and is patient enough to say stuff over and over again until we get the idea.
• Pretty snugly.  Actually, more dramatic emotionally in all areas, both positive and negative.  Really asserting his independence more, which is harder to parent, but we are very glad to see. 
• Showed Zach last night that he knew how to get through a lot of levels on “Paperboy” on his Nintendo 64.  He also wanted me to watch him play pac-man the other day.  He could beat me at the game at this point.  (I rarely get past the first screen…I stink at pac-man, even though I enjoy it)  He can sometimes get past the first screen with the first guy, but usually is able to do it with the second guy.
• Counted to 70 with our neighbor gal last week.  Shocked the heck out of her.  (he might have been able to go higher, but she had to go at that point)
• Blowing away the OT with his pattern matching skills.  They tried to challenge him this week, but he was able to do the things they set up for him really easily.  He has a lot of areas he is behind on, but his innate pattern matching is just way, way above his age level.  She commented that he might end up being a computer programmer with that level of ability.  I pointed out that Zach is a computer scientist who is invited to NASA this summer to do research and she laughed and said she wasn’t surprised.  She was also pretty surprised at his drawing ability.  (she was having him imitate her drawing a stick figure type person).  I told her later that he actually had never drawn a stick figure, just went straight to trying to make a regular 3-D type person (although you had to watch him while he was doing it to understand that was the process for a while because the final product looked pretty off some times).   She said that normally she would have a hard time believing that, but after seeing his pattern skills, she isn’t all that shocked.  lol.
• OT also is having problems deciding if he is left or right handed.  Has almost the same level both ways.
• Still won’t talk on the phone, but you can see him really thinking about doing so.  He ‘pretends’ with the phone, but when a person is actually talking to him he freezes up at this point.
• Really interested in books & spelling right now

Sharing Peek-a-blocks

In Zane’s “Dora the Explorer” hat

Daddy & Zane, just before bedtime