Walkin', yes indeed.

So, there's no doubt that we think Zoe is amazing. And why the hell not? After all, we're white and according to Stuff White People Like it's to be expected, right?
Well, thanks in no small part to her nanny, Michelle, Zoe has begun to walk. I think Beth and I sort of figured she would be early on this, given that she has been TRYING to stand up since she was 2.5 months. But, once she figured out crawling (Thanks, Nana!) it looked as though she would just settle into that for a while. She's a speedster on all fours.
Then there was Balloon. Her first balloon, given to her by the cashier at Ralph's. The helium had pretty much given out within two days but she loves it nonetheless. And Michelle held it just out of reach while Zoe was standing and, boom, she was off. She has been able to do one or two steps since her birthday. After the second, she would collapse on her butt and race to your lap like a cockroach. The ballon was all it took. 8 steps.
Then I was holding her bouncing ball and scooted myself back and she took another 8 to get to me and get her ball.
Cruising? That is so yesterday.
Zoe's a walkin'.

The T-Shirt says it all.
The t-shirt and the mullet, truly.

The Maestro.

The birthday festivities continue. Look at that smile. It's fun now. Wait til we start the drills. The left hand will be the bane of your existence, sweetie, but play you will. Whether you like it or not.

Happy Birthday Zoe Lulu

Shooting down in Texas I was completely surprised by a scheme to help me celebrate ZoZo's first Birthday!
There's cake and presents and, well, one touched, happy father

A Year

Zoe turns a Year today. April 2nd. Wow.

I know I haven't written much here. Truth is, so much has been going on I just plain got lazy with it.

So, here's the skinny: It looks like Zo's an inch or two away from walking. Seriously. She's holding on to the back of her train and using it as walker. Her new nanny, Michelle, has been encouraging this. Oh, yeah! We got Zo a Nanny. So Beth could get schoolwork done and I could get writing and other things done. So, I have done almost nothing and Beth hasn't gotten any schoolwork done. We're still getting used to having the help. Zoe LOVES her! And she has been so great with ZoZo. She's a college frosh who answered our ad. She was the first one who did and she was the best. 

Anyways, she' just getting Zoe to do SO MUCH! and it's great.

Not much else, so I'm just gonna post a few pics. 

Here's the happy fam:
Easter ZoZo



Easter Huck



ZoZo's Dad, half a life ago...



Beth Lulu, Mrs. ArmadilloMan!

Zoe the Reader

It's been a while since we posted some video so, indulge us, please.
Zoe likes to 'read'. She looks at the pictures and the words and babbles. We guess it's because she know that when you read, you talk, because that's what we do when we read to her.
Interestingly, she has picked up on the whole Right to Left thing.
Anyway, here's Zoe the Reader.

Everyday Zo-ings.

I had written this long and, I must say, interesting post, then I accidentally deleted it. So, screw that. Your loss. Trust me, it was pithy, funny, smart and erudite as well as tasty and obsequious.
Mama Lee is out fer a visitin'. Zozo is in heaven. The full on, full time play has resulted in 2 hour naps during the day. Just like when Nana was here. Ah, the bliss of a child sleeping.
We are back on that track and it's awesome. Seems like when its just me and Beth Zoe has less reason to sleep as long. This could be because we ignore her, leave her to her own devices and, generally, pretend that she isn't the burden we know that she is.
She does like her grandparents, though. Must have something to do with attention. Feh!
On the new foods tack: Homemade Butternut Squash has been a hit with the Zoester. As well as various chickens and veggies. Didn't think she would like zucchini, but cut into small bits and roasted she gobbled them down.
Last night I made chicken and zucchini fingers in a pretzel coating with a dipping sauce that was, basically, a splash of dijon mustard in a roue with a ton of cheddar cheese and milk. Zoe got a taste. Immediately her eyes bugged out and her finger pointed, or we should say, stretched out from her arm with such zeal we thought it might come off her socket. Obviously she had some more.
We are now 10+ months in with no sugar (I think she has tasted it thrice but no actual snack of her own) and Zo's doing great. I think we will be able to make it at least to the holidays.
Now that she has mastered crawling, she is the 20 pound cockroach. She's into everything. Mostly she loves the illuminated blue on/off button on the dvd player. Since this is the conduit or go-between from the satellite to the television, when it is "off" we can't see tv. The DVR still records but we see no picture. Then, after we figure out what she has done, we spend the next x minutes searching for THAT remote.
Good times!
Okay. As Marty DiBergy would say: enough of my yakkin'! Here are some pix!


This is a really cute top that Aunt Julie got me. It FINALLY fits! Mama got me the hat. Soon I will be able to toss it in the air in a glorious act of emancipation and womanhood! I'm gonna make it after all!


Remember Erin Sullivan? The mother of my future husband, the fair haired Leo? This is Leo's dad! He stopped by for a visit. Since we really loved knowing them when they lived here and then they moved without even consulting us, my dad says they are "dead to us". But I think he's just just kidding.


Someone handed me money. Do I really need to elaborate?

Happy V-Day!

Not so much about Valentine's Day as it is about Zoe at a restaurant. I had just gotten back from Vancouver and we decided to go out and have a little celebratory anniversary dinner.
We love this restaurant but COMPLETELY forgot about the three magic boxes (televisions) they have.
Zoe could and would not remove her gaze from said box.
On the plus side, she ate and loved zucchini and pasta.
Happy V-Day to everyone.

Zoe in Hysterics

Zoe cracks up. So much better than tickling.



Sorry about the quality.

Zoe's first election

So today we go to the polls. Since it is the first time that a black man or a woman WILL be the democratic nominee in our nation's history, we wanted to document it for Zo.

She was awesome. We were the confused morons who couldn't figure out what booth we were supposed to be in. I'm glad it wasn't a curtained booth because I really wanted to get pics of Zo. Beth took the best ones.

Here she is.




She voted. Did you?

An historic day

So today we go to the polls. Since it is the first time that a black man or a woman WILL be the democratic nominee in our nation's history, we wanted to document it for Zo.

Here she is.




She voted. Did you?

Sunday in the park with...Zo!

A couple weeks back Beth and I took Zoe and Huckleberry to Griffith Park for a picnic and a day out as a family. We decided to out the Zobee in a swing and see how she likes it. She LOVED it. Now, the video below might not show how happy she was but that's because I am lying. No. It's because she, as is her wont, was just taking it all in. Trust me. She was happy to be there. Swing video at the bottom.

Zoe Lulu, the true genius behind the blog.


This is what we can do with her hair now.


Gettin her drink on!

It's the end of the world as we know it.

God bless Nana.
First it was "Hi!". Zoe started saying that with Nana's encouragement.
Then it was waving. Or, actually, opening and closing her hands in response.
Now it's crawling. Zoe got excited by the cat and Huck's disgusting, saliva drenched toy and decided, "I need that!". And off she went. It all started, literally, ten minutes before this video. So, here we are, our world has officially changed.

Nana's Here!

Yay! Nana's here! Playing with Zo, encouraging, feeding, it's awesome.
What a treat.
One of the things that I have been wanting is for Zo and Evelyn to spend as much time together as possible. I want Zoe to bond to her great-grandmother as much as she can, so this is a great thing for her. And us. beth gets to go to school all day and I get to recuperate.

Update, for what it's worth....with MOVIES!

First off, I just want to be clear that this forum, this blog (what a horrible word) is something I do to keep people who are interested in Zoe's life up to date. It's about her, although, since I write it, I do sometimes use it as a place to voice my own thoughts and feelings. Most of which, if not all, are centered and surround my daughter, Zoe Mina. It's a fun way to post pix of my kid that I think everyone would like but it IS from the perspective of her father. From the perspective of a NEW father who loves being a DAD. Loves every part of it, be it feeding her, playing with her, laughing with her and changing her diapers. Being Elizabeth's father was an honor and a joy and I believe my relationship with her, during all of those years have come to define me as a man more so than anything else I have ever done. For I believe that men are not defined by the size of their wallets or the power they wield in the community, not by the ability to "put a roof over" someone's head or provide for a wife and children. I believe that the truest measure of a man are two things: Who they are and what they do in crisis and what kind of parent they are. I was very lucky. I had two that were amazing. A father I fought with from the moment I could talk and resented and hated and became my best friend in his last years as I learned his most important lessons, like never worry about what the rest of the world thinks of you, be yourself! And "your enemies will make you laugh and your friends will make you cry" Credos I have lived by. And what an amazing journey my life has been. Ask me about it sometime.
And a mother who taught me the importance of art and dreams and humanity and how to be a better man.
Above all those things I learned the most important lessons:
Boys learn how to treat women by watching their fathers treat their mothers and girls learn how to BE treated by watching their fathers treat their mothers.
And
When you are talking to your children, to just take a pause to remember what YOU were like at that age and be honest with yourself because kids can smell when you are lying and full of hypocrisy.
I put all those philosophies and others that I learned from many mentors and friends to work to be the best father to Elizabeth that I could be.
Now I get a second chance. With Zoe. Chance is the wrong word. I didn't do it wrong the first time, the kid just died before she got to show the world what a great adult she was going to be.
I get a chance to be Zoe's father. It is an OPPORTUNITY of the highest order. Because I don't believe that fatherhood (parenthood) is a burden, it's a privilege. At the end of the day, when I am long gone and dead, it isn't the memory and legacy of my parenting that I want from Zoe. I don't want to be mythologized and made hero by her. I want my guidance to have had a part in helping her be the best person she came be and live a life of joy, fun, adventure, with no regrets.
I can't understand why anyone would want anything different from their relationship with their kid. It's beyond me. It's why I do not tolerate physical or mental abuse of our children. They didn't ask to be born. Don't we have kids because we WANT them? Not everyone, I suppose, but I want the kids I have. They weren't accidents or tragedies, they weren't the cause of my problems or sadness (even though the greatest sadness I have ever known is due to one of my children).
All that said, all pontifications aside, (who the hell am I to tell the world how to treat their kids....you wanna hate 'em? You wanna beat 'em? You wanna call them names and talk about what horrible people they are? Go ahead, they're not mine. Just don't do it in front of me. Please.It makes me sad.) it's important to note that this forum is mine. I created it. I write it. I consult no one on it. I write it in solitude. Everyone that sees it, be they family members or friends don't see what I write until they happen upon it, or get their email update.
One day, many years from now, it is my hope that Zoe will be able to look at this as a living, real time depiction of her first years and what her father was thinking at the time. This is a different age. There's no reason for a child to grow up with parental mysteries and having to learn about them through misty anecdotes rendered hazy by time. It's blaringly real.
And Zoe gets to see herself through my eyes.
If I write anything here that upsets someone or is confusing or sounds like something it is not, I encourage those people to make the comment in the comment section or email me directly. It is not my intention to hurt anyone.
And I am sorry that some things I have said were taken as insult. They certainly weren't meant to be. And the offending remarks have been removed. Only because they were confusing. Not because they weren't true.
Whew. That was wordy. I will shut up now.

Here's some video of Zoe.
By the way, she's started chowing down on real solid stuff. Tonight it was diced potatoes and carrots from the pot roast and pot roast ITSELF! And she liked it! Which just makes me feel better about myself as a cook.

Holiday Clarification

Our trip to Cincinnati in and of itself was terrific. Not bad at all. Love the family. Love the time spent. The grandparents, the nephews, etc, all are the best.

However. In ranking of great holidays, wherein we include marriage proposals and great performances, etc, this one came with tons of chaos.

Due to circumstances out of my control an entire portion of our trip was prevented. This caused us to be interlopers where we had promised we wouldn't be. No matter how you slice it, if someone says they're coming for 5 days and they stay for 14, that's not good.
For the first time I was knocked out with bronchitis toward the end of the trip.
I spent the entire time on painkillers of some kind because of my leg.
I never got to do anything or go anywhere because of said leg issue. Which meant that I was just a blob, sitting around.
My daughter, who had appeared to be such a perfect little traveler, was a caustic, screaming nightmare on the plane that I spent much of the flight in the bathroom with her so she wouldn't scream and wake up ALL the other passengers.
When we got home our dog had turned into some crazed, codependent child who couldn't be left alone for more than three days. He would sulk the whole trip and our breeder told us that he shouldn't be left alone for so long, nor should he ever be flown in cargo, leaving us with a huge dillemma about what to do regarding Huck.
He didn't come back to his normal self for about three days

I regret anything I wrote that made it seem like we didn't have a good time. We did. We had a wonderful time.
Our own situation caused us a lot of pain and it was frustrating.

Can you understand what I mean?

Hi again.

Zoe's having a great 2008.

She has completely eschewed crawling in favor of standing, holding on and cruising. You can't put her down on the ground without forcing her to bend her legs so she can sit. Won't sit. Not having it.

Her bottom teeth came in around Thanksgiving and since then...nothing.

It's her attitude we are all noticing of late.

Rather than take on the genteel, sweet, calm, centered quietude of her mother, Zoe has taken a shine to her dad's histrionics and tendency to shout like an old man wearing headphones.
So, if you are visiting and you notice her point her finger at the dog and shout nonsensical blah blahs that are filled with vitriol and self righteous indignation, you know where she is getting it from.

The reading thing is also getting spooky. Zo prefers to hold a book exactly as though she is reading from it and babble loudly as though she gets the concept that you look at these things and make noise. It's uncanny.

Beth got a year long membership to the zoo and has taken the Zobag twice. I have yet to get over there. Zo is not impressed yet.

What else? Anything? I'm tired and in a weird fogheaded bubble.

Enjoy the pics.


Ready to go.


Okay, the story was good, the end was bogus.




Who draws these maps????



The true face of "Cloverfield"!



LET ME OUT!!!!!

Zoe is cooler than you

Dammit. You know it's true.

Standing up for herself!

Yes, yes, I know, we post way too much mundanity. But, it's a milestone and we are proud.
Zoe is frustrated. Hates to sit, so she pulls herself to crawling position. But she doesn't like to crawl. It ticks her off. It's not fast enough. Life's too short! Gotta GO!
I've written enough about how she likes to stretch her legs. Well, here's proof.
Even though it might look like it, I am actually doing about 3% of the work for her. She's really pulling herself up. And pretty damned proud of it, too.

Cracking the code

I know, this is the most pretentious 'proud papa' bs post but, here's the deal:
I cracked the reading code when I was 18 months old. I mean, I wasn't reading Tolstoy or Kozinski (that was for when I was a pretentious 12 year old and, apparently, wanted to get punched in the head whilst carrying around said tomes) but I could recognize "cat" and "Dog" and "Fish" as words and what they meant. Trust me, it was a big deal.
In 1969 I was five and there was really nothing in place for a kid like that, one that could read so early. Oh, yeah, the reading just more comprehensive by that point. So, by the time I was in kindergarten and could read on a 3rd grade level, the only option the school had was to put me in some kind of special ed. My mother balked at that, understandably and I was trotted off to hebrew school where I no longer excelled and that was pretty much the end of it.
Now, I have no intention of being the Rick Moranis character from "Parenthood". If Zo shows an interest, we'll pursue but I'm not going to inundate her with flash cards or anything. (Okay, maybe one or two, but just about the states and their capitals, I promise)
The reason for all this code cracking talk? Zo loves books. She adores books. And this morning, while feeding her, she picked up a soft cover baby einstein book. It's one that we read to her often. And she started holding it like she was reading it. And by that I mean, the picture below. But, while you are looking at that picture, I want you to imagine her babbling on and on and pointing to the words on occassion.

Okay. Blowhardy parental pride moment is over.

Oh, and this is the most interesting thing she has done in a while, hence the reason for the slow going blogging.

Zoe's first festival of Lights.

It was the first night of Hannuka. It might also be the first night in 6 years that I remember that it was the first night.
Beth's present arrived at the same time. It's small. It's a calendar of her baby for next year. She asked for it. And her big present was given to her a few months ago. Our friend, Erin Sullivan, was visiting and we asked her to take a picture. Lo and behold, erin's all smarty-pants on us and was filming with the video part of Beth's camera. So, here is the candle lighting for Zoe's first Hannuka.
to clarify, it's a calendar of Zoe so Beth has pictures of her ONLY baby to festoon her wall all next year.