Zoe completed this "Little Einsteins" puzzle completely by herself:



Zoe is very stubborn in that she always wants to do things herself. For example, if we are going up the stairs and I attempt to pick her up and carry her up, she'll get real mad and demand to be put down... BUT, not only does she want to be put down, she wants to be put down at the bottom of the stairs so that she can then go back up by herself.
The other day, we were putting together her puzzle and a piece dropped on the floor, I grabbed it and picked it up, but she wanted to do it herself, so I gave her the puzzle piece, and she proceeded to put the piece back on the floor so that she could pick it up herself.

Alright... it's been a while since I've had time to upload pictures, so here are some pics.

A while back (months ago) Zoe helped me put her "big girl bed" together:
Here we are doing a "terrorist jab"












And the finished product: She's only fallen out twice.



We took Zoe to a Pumpkin Patch to pick out a pumpkin:





Zoe was a "Pink Monster" for Halloween (envision her roaring):











Here is Zoe posing with our neighbors (Larissa, John, Fletcher and Jackson):













Trick or treating is hard work:














But the reward is sweet:













And the award for best pumpkin design goes to:

It's hard to tell from the picture, but this was a Barack Obama faced pumpkin.

Last night Barack Obama was elected President!!!

We kept Zoe awake until the announcement and had a small family celebration. Were Kia not pregnant, we would have popped some champagne. He took Virginia, which made me proud. Virginia hadn't voted for a Democrat since 1964!

Halloween was last week, we took Zoe out around the block. She had a great time. She was dressed as a pink monster (pictures are forthcoming). She loved candy. She likes to savor her candy. For example, we gave her a lollipop and it took her over an hour to finish it. She'd just like to walk around with it and ocassionally lick it.

We weighed her, she is 27lbs!

Yesterday, Kia took her out to "ride" her big wheel. Normally this means us pushing her around in it... but this time she figured out how to ride it herself. She was able to peddle and everything! She was so proud of herself.

Zoe has been experiencing some "growing pains" of late. She seems to constantly be getting injured!
- a few weeks ago, she and I were walking Lucky, like we always do, and as we were heading home, she decided to jog. She tripped, fell on her face and split her lip.
- In another incident, she was riding her "car" and fell backwards, hitting her head on the ground. Ouch!
- And just the other day, she got her fingers caught in the door leading into our garage. Very painful. I would have cried had that happened to me!

Zoe can now walk up and down the stairs completely on her own without holding the walls or anything. We still monitor her when she goes up/down, but she can do it.

She likes to talk to the baby. She'll say, "come out of mommy's tummy baby". And she'll tell the baby "I love you".

Speaking of the baby, we have a new sonogram picture. I'll post it asap. It is very active in there. In fact last night it was unusually active in anticipation of Barack being elected president.

Zoe loves to read books. She is now at the point where she'll read by herself. She makes the words up as she goes... they usually start off with "once upon a time..."

More to come... including pictures.

Zoe successfully buttoned her own button!

A few minutes ago, we were putting her to bed as usual. She has expressed interest in buttoning her own button for about a week, but has not been able to.

Tonight, as we were getting her PJs on, we let her try to button her top button on her shirt. It took her a minute, but eventually she was able to button her button! She was soooo proud of herself, she jumped into our arms saying "I did it!!!".

We let her do it again and she was able to reproduce it.

Yay Zoe!

***We are in the process of watching the 1st presidential debate between Obama and McCain. We paused it to put her to bed. Obama seems to be holding his own if not outright winning!

I suppose I need to change the name of this blog, because on or around March 5th, Zoe will have a brother or sister! We found out Kia was pregnant on June 24th, the day before we left for our 2 week trip to DC.

Keeping up one blog is difficult enough, there is no way I am going to create/maintain a second blog for our new child... and... I can't have a Zoe's Blog and NOT have a blog for our new child... so, I'll consolidate. Perhaps, "Birdsong Family Blog" or something.

Here is our new baby. We will find out the gender of the kid as soon as it's born.



On another note, Zoe has started pre-school again. She really loves going to school. She has her favorite teacher "miss Stacey" again.

Her vocabulary and speech are improving rapidly.

She loves to sing, Kia and her sing each night before bed.

I recently tought her, "Hush little Baby". That's our "special" song. Last night, she sung it by herself for the 1st time.

Another bit of big news for Zoe... she moved into a new room with a new "Big Girl Bed". We moved her into the junior suite to make room for the new arrival. She loves her new room and bed. She "helped" me build the bed and was very into it. She always says "Thanks for my new cool bed daddy".

Some current events:

The Olympics were last month:

• Mark Phelps won 8 gold medals in swimming (as I write this, I can't remember if it's Mark Phelps or Mike Phelps or some other Phelps... googling... It's Mike. Hey, it's swimming!)
  
• USA mens team won Gold in Basketball beating Spain in the finals (thanks to Kobe Bryant)

and in Politics:

• Obama beat out Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nominee
  
• Last night, Alaskan Governor Palin (currently VP on McCain ticket) gave her speech at the Republican National Convention. Unfortunately, she was pretty good. She may prove to be a formidable opponent to Obama/Biden.

Well... with the Olympics going on and everything, I thought I'd add this clip of Zoes Olympic moments... watch and enjoy:



Here is a sample of Corey's Olympic moments:


And Finally, Kias moments... these are great, what an athlete:

It has been a while since I've updated Zoes blog and quite frankly I don't know where to begin.

I guess the most exciting thing that we've done since my last entry is we took a trip to see Grandma & Grandpa Steve.

We were there from June 27th through July 13th. I was there on business, but brought Kia and Zoe along.

Zoe did really well on the flight to and from. On the way there she couldn't stop saying "we gonna see grandma?".

Also, on the way to the airport, she woulnd't "shut it" about "flying on airplane!". And then, when we finally got on the airplane, she didn't make the connection that we were on an airplane. So, she's looking out the airplane window at all the other airplanes saying "I want to go on the big airplane". We were like... "we ARE on a big airplane!" But, as I said, she failed to make the connection.

When we got to Virginia, she immediately took to Grandma and Grandpa. In fact she came up with her own name for Grandpa... she refers to him as Pop-Pop. She also was immediately infatuated with moms new cat Piewhacket. She couldn't leave the poor cat alone. We'd be in our hotel and she'd say, "I want to go see Grandma, Poppop and the kitty kit". Her favorite sentence while in Virginia was "I wanna pet that kittykat mama".

Anyway, we had a great time. At some point, I'll post some pictures from the trip, I just don't have them handy at the moment.

Not long after we got home, Mom and Steve sent Zoe a miniature stuffed version of Piewhacket. It has a name tag and everything. Zoe loves it! She immediately drew the connection between the stuffed cat and Piewhacket and she of course calls the stuffed cat, Piewhacket.

BTW... I know I'm butchering the spelling of Piewhacket Kia.

Otherwise, she is just growing up really fast. She is beginning to test her boundaries and we fear that we are entering the "terrible 2's" phase. I'll leave those stories to Kia if she cares to re-live some of the recent... issues.

A guick anecdote:
Yesterday after work I was in the back yard playing with Zoe. It was daytime still, but we could see the moon. Zoe has long since enjoyed seeing the moon. So I told her to try to jump up and grab the moon. So rather than go through all that trouble, she opted to stretch her arms up towards the moon and scream "Com'ere moon!!!"

I told her that maybe one day she would reach the moon.

A few updates:

• Zoe can now go up and down stairs by herself. Of course we are still there just in case, but for the most part, she can do it. In fact, she prefers it. If we try to help her she'll say "Do it myself". Often times, she'll get mad even if we are in the general vicinity because she knows we are trying to help her.
  
• Yesterday was Zoes 1st day of Summerschool. According to the teachers, she went down the biggest slide in the playground all by herself. Also, we sent her to school with her "sippycup" like we've done for the past 6 months... when we got home that day we saw a note from her school saying "Please don't pack sippycups, we are big kids now". Our little girl is growing up.
  
• She loves to sing songs. She'll make songs up, insert new words into existing songs, etc... At night, she and Kia sing songs to eachother before bed. She likes Farachjaka (you know what I'm trying to spell!).
  
• On my last post, I mentioned that Zoe can lay down on her tummy in the toddler pool. Well, she realized that this skill translates to the bath tub, so now she likes to get on her tummy in the tub.
  

Zoe is 2 Years Old!

Yesterday was Zoes 2nd birthday.

We started the day by opening some birthday presents.

She got waaaay to much stuff (Thanks Grandma!)

Here are some of the gifts she got:
Dishwasher
Wooden Kitchen Set
8 Little Monkeys book
A train set

She went to school and her class had a Birthday lunch! They had cupcakes and sang Happy Birthday. Kia and I attended, yes, we are those parents.


Zoe has started getting “Timeouts”.
For the most part, she does well with them.
Some things we’ve given her timeouts for:

• Kicking, laughing and being generally uncooperative while we attempt to brush her teeth
  

Today was Zoes last day of PreSchool. They had a graduation ceremony for the older kids, but the younger kids participated too by singing songs and things.






It was kind of ironic, I've always subscribed to the view that all these graduations are silly (kids "graduating" from kindergarden, 6th grade, etc...). But there I was, watching my baby "graduate" from... not even real pre-school! Surprisingly, it was kind of an emotional event. Not emotional in that she was graduating, but more in that while I was watching the "older" kids get their "diplomas", I couldn't help but think about Zoe being up there in a few years, and then graduating from high school, college, etc... I'd be lying if I said I didn't feel a lump in my throat.

Moving on.... Zoe has been going around the house practicing the songs she is learning at school. Because she is attending a Jewish school, they teach her songs in Hebrew, so she is singing songs in Hebrew and Kia and I have no idea what she is saying. It’s very funny.

She also likes to sing her ABCs, 5 little monkeys and twinkle twinkle little star.

Right now, Zoe keeps interrupting me to have me read books to her. She’s very demanding. She won’t let me blog…. She finally settled in with an Elmo book.

She and Lucky have become good buddies. She feeds Lucky from her high chair. She loves to chase him around the house and basically torment him. Every now and then she gets a little excited and whacks him or pushes him. He just takes it like a man, cuz he knows better.

She loves to go to the park and play. Her favorite thing at the park is the swing. She could swing for hours. Unfortunately, these days, the swings get really hot so she can’t get on them.

Zoe just brought a toy into the office and started playing with it. She keeps forcing me to look by saying “Look daddy, look!”.
A few days ago, we all went to the swimming pool. They installed a new toddler pool and it is fantastic. She was able to walk around on her own, except for one slight misstep. She got into “deep” water and lost her balance. I wasn’t close enough to her to catch her fall, so she fell face first into the water, she was completely submerged! Needless to say, I immediately snapped into action and saved her. She was pretty shook up about it as you might imagine, but she got over it pretty quickly and went back in the water.
We took her back a few days later and she waded around on her hands and knees, which we thought was a pretty big deal.

Finally, since Zoe is no longer X number of months old this will be my last posting of Zoes "monthly pictures". *With a bonus picture.

Zoe is 24 months old!


Here is a comparison of Zoes 1st "monthly" picture (9 months old) vs her last:


Current Events:

• Obama has all but sewn up the nomination as Hillary Clinton inserted her foot into her mouth commenting on the assassination of Bobby Kennedy.
  
• Average Price of gas: $3.55 and rising.

Amazingly, Zoe is already politically inclined. Watch the below clip to see who she decides to endorse:



And here she is singing a song she learned in school:

Here is Zoe and me at our town festival. This is at the petting Zoo:



Here she is with her friend Hailey











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We took a family trip to the Tucson Air and Space Museum. Zoe had a blast.... Get it?









What's Zoe's problem?









My Girls....



Note to self... get a haircut.
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See Zoe? She's not tiny... that's just a really big airplane.
<-------












"All systems cleared for takeo... uhhh, what are you lookin at kid?"








Future Astronaut????










Future Army soldier??? Uhhh... No.





Zoe cuddling up to mommy after a long day at the museum... Awwww












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One kiss deserves another:




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Happy Valentines day!

Last night, we decided to get serious about getting Zoe to stay in bed. Up til now, when she wakes up in the middle of the night (usually between 2 and 3am), we've been going into her room and cuddling with her until she falls back asleep. Then, when she wakes again (usually at 5am), one of us will go into her room, put her back in bed and then sleep on her floor until she wakes up for good (we shoot for 6am or later).

Well, now that everyone is over their colds and sicknesses, we decided it's time to get tough! So, last night, we implemented "tough love". As it turns out, it wasn't necessary. For the past few nights, I've been putting her to bed and then hanging out outside her door (as opposed to in her room in her rocking chair) until she falls asleep. So, last night, I put her to bed and waited for her to fall asleep (it took about 1.5 hours). She then woke up at her customary 2am timeslot, I went to check on her and she was hanging out at her gate. I just told her "Back to bed, it's not time to wake up yet" then braced myself for her rebellion. It didn't happen though! She immediately turned and climbed back into bed and went back to sleep. I closed her door and went back to sleep too! Again, she woke up at her customary 5am time. Again, I went to her and told her "Back to sleep, it's not time to wake up yet". She went back to bed and didn't wake up until 6:30am!

I hope i'm not jinxing it by writing about it but this is very good news.

Current events:
*Since last post, Barack Obama has won 10 primaries in a row! gO-Bama!!!
*The Writers strike ended! The Daily Show will be funny again! Yay!

Zoe is 21 Months old!
*Yea, she's a big fan of Elmo

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Zoe is still acclimating to her big girl bed. She still gets out of bed once a night (usually around 2 or 3am). She is pretty good about going back to sleep after that.

At night, before she goes to sleep, if I leave the room, she'll get up and come open her door and hang out in the door entry way (we put up a gate to keep her in her room). When I come back to check on her, she'll see me and turn and run back to her bed.

She loves to sing. She can sing "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" and "Row row row Your boat".

She can recite the alphabet and count to ten.

She loves to chase Lucky around the house... She yells out" "Luuuucky!" and "Lucky, c'mere!". Lucky does his best to stear clear.

We have a few new milestones....

After Zoe fell out of her crib (see last blog entry), we decided to convert her crib into a toddler bed. So Zoe is now sleeping in a bed. We bought rails for it so she can't roll out.

So, the 1st night, she just wanted to play in her new bed. She loved the idea that she could just crawl out if she wanted to. So she'd get in and out... in and out...

That night, she slept fairly well. She woke up at around 4:30am and Kia went in and slept on the floor.

Last night... she slept through the night and woke up on her own. She crawled out of her crib and came into the bedroom and said" "Momma!"

Current Events:
*Housing market... bad.
*Recession... looming
*The South Carolina Primaries end tonight.. Barrack is favored.
*The Clintons are playing dirty politics by injecting race into the campaign.

Zoe is 20 Months Old!


This is an outfit that Grandma got her for Christmas.

Some new developments...
On Jan. 10th, Zoe said "Octagon" to describe an octagon.

She is beginning to form 3 word sentences: "Mama read it". Telling Kia to read her a book.

This morning, Zoe achieved a dubious accomplishment, she managed to crawl out of and over her crib (about 4 feet). Fortunately, she landed on her butt and suffered no injuries. She was more startled more than anything else. I guess it's time to convert her crib to a bed. We'll see how that goes...