Manners & Skills

After about 4 months of hard teething with no emergent results, Zeth cut two new teeth through this week. His first upper bicuspids to be precise (teeth #8 & 9 for him). Conspicuously missing are his canine teeth so there’s a gap where those will no doubt be presenting themselves shortly. He is dealing with a bunch of congestion as a result of the teething and a bug that's going around so he's got the green junk-eye and all that fun stuff.

This morning when I rolled him out of his favorite bottom's-up 'praise Allah' sleeping pose & woke him up, he didn't open his eyes right away. He tried a couple times then just started asking me 'Eyes? Eyes? Eyes!' at which point I realized his eyelids were pasted together with the sticky green junk. After cleaning off enough of the sap to where he could open his eyes, he blinked a couple times then looked at me and said "Dae-dooo."

I just love his good manners. The fact he remembered to say thank you first thing in the morning after being rolled out of his sweet slumber and being unexpectedly blinded just speaks volumes about the good nature of this boy. Here's Zeth eating curry, rice, egg & salad. We him in his high chair and once he was done eating he decided to go back for more but on his own big-boy terms. On the stool with grown up flat ware. He refused my help and apparently just wanted to prove to me he could do this just like the rest of the family. He's growing up too fast.
Here's him working on his new serious stare. After a two-week Spring Break, Zana went back to school yesterday. She had no problem going back to school but pulled a fast one on me when she decided to go home with some friends and call me from their house rather than going to her after school tutoring program. I’m glad she had the good sense to call me and let me know where she had gone but it was my first experience with having her make a decision like that without prior approval. We had a little talk about it last night. Gotta love parenthood. Zana started playing in a PAL Volleyball League 3 weeks ago and had her first game last Saturday. At age 6, they are really just learning the basic concepts of V-ball so they play with beach balls which slows things down more to their pace and the games are really short just to get practice hitting the ball up & over. It is cute to see these little six-year-olds just starting out and developing new game skills. We’ll see if it’s a sport she has an aptitude for and see how far she wants to take it.
She's still doing gymnastics and Tahitian dance right now too. Getting more and more limber with all her practicing. Such a little bundle of joy.
Upon my return from Tahiti, two new twin machines appeared in the gym I use during my lunch breaks. I’ve never seen anything quite like them before and was a little skeptical at first but after giving it a try, I have to say I really like the new stair-stepper-elliptical-treadmill all-in-one machines. They offer the same low impact workout as a traditional elliptical treadmill but have a very flexible range of motion that is totally operator-controlled which, in turn, means it requires a bit more self-control and muscle discipline. You can switch from a vertical stair-stepper motion to incline jogging to all out full-stride running on demand. It has these cool counter weight bars that attach the arms and legs without restricting the way they move together. It’s really amazing new technology – to me anyway. Just what I needed to break out of my normal routine.