brainwashing our son

Some people teach their children how to play fireman. Or police man. Or gardener.

Here in the Weiss household, we teach our boy to be an angst filled guitar player or a big firm lawyer. He mastered guitar player last year, so guess what we are working on now. With an ice chest as a keyboard, a plastic cell phone and mouthful of an employer, the only thing he needs now is a blackberry to cuddle up with at night.

delightfull, deLECTible, DELICIOUS DOUGHNUTS!!!

A couple years ago, one of our favorite bloggers, Sangsterrific, sent Zachary a book. It's now his very favorite book. It is: Arnie the Doughnut.

You may be surprised to learn that this book is about doughnuts. But it's more than that; it crosses genres -- instructional (how doughnuts are made), horror (how doughnuts are thoughtlessly eaten daily), and romance (how a doughnut and a man forge a lasting and fulfilling relationship despite the odds.) It's a great book. You should check it out.

So, we headed over to our local Krispy Kreme to check out the assembly line and partake in this exquisite american treat. Just as we stepped up to the counter to order our doughnut (chocolate icing and rainbow sprinkles, of course), he spotted an even more rare and tasty treat: Pink Milk. Sangsterrific, again, must be credited here. HER blog made mention of the BBC show, Charlie and Lola. My mom, being another faithful reader of Sangsterrific, decided Zach should have DVD's of this show. So he does, and he watches them on occasion, and learned that Lola LOVES pink milk. Now Zachary LOVES pink milk and as of this morning, when he actually tasted it, he is borderline obsessive about it.

A frenzied sugar delirium ensued, peaking for nearly 20 minutes. A collision between a toddler and a drivethrough customer was nearly missed when a certain toddler broke rank -- I think he was trying to chase down their doughnut.

Anyway, this post should probably just be titled "Why Sangsterrific Rules", but that might just be too suck-upy, even for me. So I will just say, "Thanks Tracy!", on behalf of one very satisfied toddler.

Rock Star!

My lullaby for Zach was "Baby Mine". I use past-tense because somewhere along the way (actually, I can pinpoint when -- a flight to CA when I was trying to distract him) it became a rock song. Properly done in Weiss family fashion, you sing the whole line very sweetly, til the last couple words... then you ROCK out and use heavy distortion!

Jesse bought Zach his first guitar this weekend, which he adores, and uses to sing his favorite rock lullaby. He also uses it to perform his rendition of "New Slang" and many a Cat Stevens song, but I haven't caught those on camera yet...

Check out the rock star in training.

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Oh yes I did!

C'mon -- doesn't everyone wonder what their child would look like as the opposite sex?!

Let's just start over...

Phooey on trying to update the old blog. Out with the old and in with the new, I say! We are less than a month away from being a family of four so might as well get get a fresh start here. Jesse may try to fill you in on some of the details from the month of December later on.

Auntie Hannah stayed with us for the holidays. Zach LOVES her. Doesn't hurt that she can throw him around like nothin' (I can barely get him his carseat, let alone a shopping cart. How are you supposed to put the kid in the cart when the closest you can bring him to yourself is arms length? Center of gravity is all off. So, Zach pushes the shopping cart with me. He also selects items he wants and tosses them in, but what can I do... I can't bend that far into the cart to retrieve them!) Back to Hannah. Hannah is very serious about teaching. Hannah taught him to push a stool to the sink, wash his own dishes, and blow suds all over the kitchen. He's has generalized that lesson so well that nothing is safe on the counters any longer. Bye bye knife block! She also taught him about tick safety when he is out on hikes... having trouble seeing the relevancy of that lesson, when we can barely claim proximity to the Texas Hill country, let alone mountains to climb? It seems he wanted to watch videos on her computer, so she let him watch her tick safety video. It's a bit too complicated to explain, but here he is, totally engrossed in the close up footage of the tick, and pretending his little fingers are the legs of a tick. Eww.

He is also contemplating the value of the toilet. After he started going to the bathroom and closing the door to poop, I thought perhaps we should give it a whirl. We haven't seen the Grand Poobah make any appearances in the toilet yet, but he is certainly enjoying trying. I think it's all the pomp and circumstance surrounding the ritual -- getting naked, using your stool, putting that cushy seat on the toilet, getting naked, playing with your bath toys, getting naked, etc. He is also very fond of his Thomas underwear. Sometimes he wears them over his clothes.

Finally, Zach is all signed up to start preschool. Despite my hesitation to send my boy off into the wide world, he is ready for some peer interactions and we are a little concerned about my ability to handle his 2 year old energy level while recovering and hanging out with Vivian (that's her name!) Zach is set to attend preschool with his best bud Martin. With Martin by his side to show him the ropes, I am sure he will do just fine. (See the boys scheming on Zach's intro day last week.)