Sometimes you eat the bear

And sometimes there are things that just shouldn’t be eaten. Like the shiny little orange plastic bead Faith found nestled in Zane’s poo yesterday afternoon. Considering that we don’t have any beads around the house the only explanation is he picked it up off the floor in one of the hotels we stayed at the past week. Or my sister gave it to him just to mess with our heads.

She’s like that: devious and stuff. I seem to recall that she ate buttons as a baby and tried pinning it on me.

Since coming back from vacation Zane has slipped back into his old schedule quite nicely. It’s got to be tough to go from the quiet, temperature controlled comfort of your own bedroom to sharing a room with a coughing and wheezing mom and dad. That and the crazy feeding and napping schedule of being tourists in DC. He had one early morning wake-up crying session the first night back followed by a solid ten hours of non-stop slumber the next night. And this after a two hour mid-day nap and an hour and a half late afternoon nap. He’s also been eating like crazy the past few days.

When you pick him up it’s like holding a highly overwound bundle of spring steel ready to let loose. He seems to be all muscle and curiosity and babble. One of my favorite things lately is when he buries his face on a shoulder and squeezes tight.

The two hand puppets, sheep and squirrel, were purchased with a gift certificate a few months back. No bears. Seems like everything, from pajamas to pants to mittens has a bear on it (one outfit has a bear and helicopter, for the life of me I don’t understand it) so a bear puppet was out of the question. I picked out the sheep (thinking snugly) and Faith picked out the squirrel. The squirrel is hands-down his favorite. No matter how sad he might be a squirrel tail or eyebrow attack will bring a smile to his face.

Zane is standing more and more. A few times he’s gone from a prone position laying on my chest (I’m on the floor) to a standing position without any help. Tonight he did it again, stood straight up without holding onto anything, looked at his mom and toppled over backwards. He also cruises from one thing to another: from the couch to his standing toy and back. His feet don’t always get the message and sometimes it looks like a game of twister.

Lugging him around this weekend I was sure that he’d gained a bunch of weight on the trip. Look at those cheeks! But alas he’s only a couple ounces heavier and still hovering below eighteen pounds.