Ten On Tuesday

1. Daddy is back for awhile, praise God. I do feel like during his last, two day trip, to Joplin, I had kind of gotten my groove for being a single parent. It isn't fun, but I can manage it better now. The key, as is the key to all parenting, you can't try to keep a schedule or plan, of any kind. Also, I don't plan on trying to get any sort of house work done, then when I get the floors swept or a couple loads of laundry done, it's a huge success. But so much easier when Zach is there for the night time routine.

2. With that being said, Zane and I are going on a road trip to Oklahoma this Thursday. Am I crazy, probably, but we shall see. I couldn't figure out how to fly with both boys, so put off buying plane tickets, and here we are. I can't face taking both boys in the car, so Rowan is going to stay here with Daddy. I am sick about how much I am going to miss him, but he and daddy will have a good time together. Today I cuddled Rowan all day and wondered how I would be able to go five days without seeing him. I also questioned how I wouldn't go crazy with Zane, for eight hours, in a car. It should be interesting.

3. On Thursday night the boys and I had a backyard picnic for dinner. This was a two fold genius idea, first of all I didn't have to cook dinner (PB&Js, apples, and carrots) and it was outdoor entertainment right up until bath time. Zane loved it, but kept saying "Maybe yesterday, when daddy get home, we have a picmic with him too." He was very missed! Woody got to come to the picnic though, which was tons of fun.

 Zane and his best buddy, woody.

 Zane and his "Spiderman sandwich." Red jelly obviously equals spiderman. 

Little Ro, having a great time as well. 

The next morning I realized that we had all been eaten alive by mosquitoes, even after spraying us all down with bug spray.

4. Zach and I's seventh anniversary is next week so once again I am working on our year in review album. Lots of changes this year and a whole new person came into our family. This is a huge undertaking every year, and I always think about not doing one, but then end up loving the finished product. Zane and I looked through the past couple years yesterday, which was lots of fun.

5. The epic battle with Zane's sleeping issues continues ad nauseum. We continue to try various things, to no avail, and he continues to wake up pretty much every night asking for milk, water, to go to the bathroom, or some other random request. After getting up to deal with whatever his made up problem is I then proceed to spend an hour trying to think of a solution, in turn not being able to go back to sleep. I could scream... but I won't. We move on, who needs sleep anyway. 

6. Zane's new found love of books continues with his current favorites being The Giant Jam Sandwich and Curious George and the Ice cream Surprise. All our Mo Willems books are getting a lot of attention as well and our last hour of evening time has pretty much been turned into complete book time. It's great to see him finally understanding and enjoying the stories. My current favorite book in the rotation is Mo Willems' Goldilocks and the Three Dinosaurs, very funny.

7. Little Ro is working hard on sitting up, but he never lasts longs before he starts reaching for something and tumbles over. He is extremely alert these days, wanting to be part of everything that's going on. He has started to realize that Zach and I exist and cries when we leave the room or when he is left alone. Sometimes his upset noises sound a lot like he is saying "ma, ma, ma, ma." I'm going with it and love it! He keeps a very close eye on Zane at all times. I'm not sure if this is out of fear or wanting to be part of the action. During iPad time yesterday Rowan was having none of being held and wanted to see everything that Zane was doing. Zane showed him peek-a-boo barn, and it was all fun and games until Ro started trying to touch the iPad, then it stopped being fun. 

8. The weather has been absolutely beautiful for the past couple weeks, not including today when it has been raining all day. But on the other days the boys and I have taken full advantage of this beautiful weather and have gone for early morning walks around the neighborhood or the zoo. I think pushing fifty five pounds of boy, up and down hills, is a pretty good full body workout. So hopefully the weather continues to cooperate with us.

9. I think Zach is going to try to redo the flooring in the basement, again, this weekend while Zane and I are gone. Here's hoping this is really the last time we have to buy flooring for the basement.

10. Here is today's basement fun. We spent lots of time down there during this rainy day, which led to lots of pretend/imagination play time. The highlight was our trick or treating practice. Rowan got in on the action, dressing up in Zane's "fancy" hat.

 This do rag and dish towel number is a spiderman costume, obviously.

A Beautiful July Day

Today I'm going to over look the difficult moments and focus on how beautiful a day this was for July. The high today, 82 degrees, with a breeze and no humidity, beautiful!!! We took full advantage of the day with all sorts of outdoor fun.

First up a zoo trip with my friend Jen. Jen is Zane's birthday buddy and my dear friend. She travel nursed for awhile, but is back in the STL so we get to hang out again. She woke up early to meet us for our normal zoo routine. We saw all our favorites and had a grand time, right up to the point where Zane lost his brand new hat somewhere along the way, we realize it prior to leaving, and I refused to buy him another one. In my attempt to be highly positive in this post I will leave out the gruesome details of how this ended up, but suffice to say I was that person leaving the zoo with the melting down three year old. But we're ignoring that... Good times!!!

 This is the lost hat, super cute, and it had been rescued numerous times prior to it's disappearance.

Zane and Jen, birthday buddies!!! It kind of looks like Zane is trying to cop a feel, not cool kid.

After nap time Zane was much more composed and we had a lovely afternoon. Zane realized that he actually has tons of toys in his room to play with that are really fun. More fun times! "Mommy you sit on the floor and play with me for lil bit." Rowan was taking a big nap ( a sleeping day for him today, not an eating day) so I was able to play with just Zane for a long time.

First up tools, with all his safety gear in place, he put his entire car together all by himself.

 Next up, pretending to be a daddy, feeding, cuddling, and caring of his baby. 

This leads us to the point in the day where we would normally go downstairs or watch a movie, or some sort of, literally, cool activity. As we sat down to watch Peter Pan I noticed on my phone that it was only 80 degrees outside. This was about 3pm. We headed outside and stayed there until dinner around 6pm. It was a perfectly lovely afternoon. Zane swam, played basketball, collected all his different sized balls and carried them around in a cooler (yes, this activity kept him entertained for quite some time), played house, train, spiderman, played in the sand, you name it. There was a brief moment where Zane saw a bunny and thought it was "his bunny" leading to much sadness when the bunny ran away. Literally went and pouted in the garage, in his little chair, by himself. Also, Zane didn't believe me when I told him daddy was coming home to hang out with us, "daddy not come home till I wake up." Break my heart, but after a phone call to daddy we convinced him that not only was daddy coming home, he was coming home to "cook outside" and "go camping." The answer to the question how much travel is too much for Zach's job, really any amount is too much!

Daddy did not disappoint, he grilled some delicious chicken, and put up the tent. The boys played together on Rowan's blanket for awhile during all of this. It was one of the best play sessions to date. Zane did throw the little ball at Rowan's belly a couple times before he realized Rowan really couldn't play catch, but over all it was completely adorable. At some point I said that Rowan was a big boy, leading to Zane being super excited and saying, "he bigger, he can get in the swimming pool, he can talk??" With a priceless surprised/excited face to go with it. Sadly Rowan cannot get in the swimming pool or talk yet, soon. 

Zane with his book bag packed, ready to camp.

Oh and Rowan ate his toes!

How adorable are these kids!

After our delicious dinner we installed the window lock on the window in Zane's room. Zane has learned how to unlock and open his window, all while standing on the arm rest of a rocking chair. There are numerous safety issues in that sentence, so I bought a little window alarm on amazon. It makes a God awful, terribly loud noise, if the window is opened. We talked about how if the alarm went off he would be in trouble, because we don't try to climb out windows (caught him trying to do this a few days ago) and how the police/fireman Sam might have to come make sure he was safe and not getting hurt. Well I talked about that, Daddy might have said, JOKINGLY, that he would go to jail if the alarm went off, and Zane had a minor panic attack. We corrected this myth and I think he might not escape now.

After baths and many books it was time to "go camping." We took our blankets, milk, and pillows out to the tent for story time, songs, and "trying to fall asleep." Zane requested a camping story so I told him my one camping story, when we camped in the barn during a flood when I was growing up. Turns out it's a great story, it takes place on a farm, with rain, big tractors, a barn, cows, and of course camping! It was a huge hit. Eventually we gave up and came inside for actual bedtime, in his bed, where the zoo he had set up earlier in the day still was set up.

And that was a great day!

Ten on Tuesday

1. This week is a rough one with Zach having left Sunday evening, getting back early this morning, then he leaves again Thursday for Joplin. Zane was devastated when he left Sunday and we are all missing him terribly. I say it again, being a single parent is extremely hard and we can't wait until our little family is back together for good.

2. Saturday, while Zach was here, we had a family morning at the Botanical Gardens. It was pretty hot, even though we went early, but we powered through. It was a bit of a battle with our new three year old power struggle situation, so just ended up going to the kids area because Zane claimed he didn't want to see the fish, until we were leaving. We ran into Zane's cardiologist there, which was a very strange situation. He is a super nice guy, don't get me wrong, but it was just a strange combination of two worlds. I wasn't really planning on reliving that story for his wife, but we moved on. The splash pad there was also lacking, not unlike the zoo splash pad of last week. Turn up the water pressure people.

 This wasn't the splash pad, but a random fountain area. Zane couldn't muster the strength to actually run through the water, but I loved this shot.

 I walked up and down this rope wall with Zane and the whole time he was talking me through it, "be careful mamma, hold on, it ok, go slowly." So hysterical, and he did it with great ease, over and over.

3. Also this weekend Zane played lots of hoops outside. It was freakishly hot, but we went out for dips in the pool and to play b-ball Sunday morning. Zane is pretty good shot and loves chasing his ball around the yard. He refused to call it basketball, maintaining that it is soccer and will argue this point all day. I've given up, he may still have them confused in Kindergarten, I'm over it.

 He has is own style of shot, for sure, usually followed by a happy dance. Love it! Many thanks Grammie and Pappa for the wonderful birthday present.

5. Zane has taken a new found interest in books over the past few days. I have a few theories as to why this might be. The first one is that he refound the Charlie Brown Halloween book, that Aunt Anna gave him, that makes noise. This is an all time favorite and has gone everywhere with him for two days. My second reason is that after loosing all screen time privileges early and often as of late, he has headed to the books to pout, but ended up enjoying it. Either way last night we read about fifteen books and I realized my collection is not really well equipped for children who actually are ready to listen to books. Here is Zane reading Rowan his Charlie Brown book and pushing all the different sound buttons numerous times, for the full effect.

I love Rowan's face in this picture, so into the story, or thinking his brother is a crazy person, one or the other.

6. Per usual I didn't have Rowan's five month pictures taken for the update blog, but have them a couple days late. For some reason this month's 'photo shoot' took forever and I don't know that I got a ton of good ones before he threw up on himself. The fact that Zane was helping with the shoot could have been part of the problem, but here are the results, still adorable I know.

 We aren't quite sitting up on our own, but he does well with just a little support.

 The Korenak Boys, Zane looking particularly ornery in this picture.

7. Rowan continues to stress me out with his days of not eating well. Some days, like yesterday, seem to be fine, and then some days he eats two or three oz at a time which I feel like isn't enough for how old he is. He does have a new found love for peaches, but only after a five minute battle to get him to actually open his mouth to give them a try. He clamps his tiny mouth shut like a champion the moment he sees a spoon. I have found he eats better at night or when I feed him in his room before naps. There is a lot going on and a lot of noise in the rest of our house, so possibly hard for him to focus on eating out there. I did start keeping track of how much he is actually eating so I can see if I'm crazy or not, I am sure I am.

8. Zane has yesterday and tomorrow one hundred percent backwards. He constantly is asking if yesterday we can do things. Or if he gets in trouble for doing something I asked him not to do ( i.e head stands into summer salts off the couch, literally) he says "maybe yesterday I do that." Or "maybe yesterday we can get ice cream." I've tried correcting him, but there will be none of that in our current three year old state. This is a battle I am not choosing to fight, plus it's entertaining.

9. Also, Zane thinks it is Halloween and cannot figure out why there is no Halloween stuff in his life currently. Yesterday I took a forty five minute walk with the boys in the morning, the entire time we discussed how it isn't Halloween yet. "Maybe yesterday it be Halloween, and we dress up, and we get pumpkins." "Mamma, we need a ghost party for Halloween." "Mamma why they no pumpkins out here today?" I repeatedly tried to explain to him that even though he was reading his Halloween book all the time, it was not actually Halloween. Again, there is no convincing him of this so we drew Halloween pictures, read Halloween books, and discussed costume choices. Zane thinks Rowan should be a snake and of course he will be Spiderman.

10. After Rowan's five month photo shoot I put him the cutest little outfit that I had to get some pictures of. He was over picture taking by that point, which made for some hysterical pictures of him.

"Hooray, I got my toes!" And then he falls over.

 "Are we done yet, I'm bored."

"I'll just scoot down here and suck on my finger while you try to get me to smile."

And that is a glimpse at our week! Happy Tuesday!!!!

A Month of Three

So we have survived our first month with a three year old, but barely. Here is my question about three year old's, at what point does it become ingrained in their minds to do and say the opposite of what their parents say? It feels like over night Zane went from wanting to do everything I suggested to his immediate response to everything being "no" or "I not want to do that mamma." This goes for pretty much everything that comes out of my mouth. For instance, this morning Rowan threw up on me, to which I said, "oh no, Rowan threw up on me." Zane's gut reaction to this was, "no, he no through up on you mamma." Why??? And this is now his response to everything I say. "Zane do you want to go swimming?" "I no want to do that," until three minutes later when it is his idea. I get it, it's a huge power struggle, they have thoughts and opinions, and need to be in control of something, but it's ungodly frustrating as well.

All of this has led to lengthy discussion about talking back, being polite, not being rude, and what all those things mean. We haven't made much progress on this front, besides him telling me today that I was rude because I wouldn't roll down his car window while it was raining outside, "you being rude mamma, that not nice." So obviously we have lots of work ahead. I don't want every conversation to be an argument or a negotiation, it's just so exhausting, but it is also just so three.

In general Zane is extremely polite and gets very excited when you give him anything, "Oh thank you mamma, I love it." No matter how small of a thing it might be, such as junk mail that I let him open and play with, always gets a huge reaction. Or handing him things that he can put into whatever we are cooking, all thank you and pleases, so our hard work is paying off on some fronts. 

Recently big time fits have started, which I cannot stand and am unsure about exactly how to handle. It is never over anything major, usually over the stupidest things you can imagine actually. But no matter the cause you can't get away with kicking screaming fits, so we are still working on the best way to handle it. Luckily they don't happen often, but having them happen at all is discouraging. He goes to time out, for the full three minutes, and however much longer it takes him to pull his life together. He looses privileges, like the iPad or cartoons before bed, and is always very remorseful afterwards, but that doesn't seem to translate into him not throwing fits anymore. I keep reminding myself that you can't fight crazy with crazy and try to remain calm in the insanely loud, frustrating situation. I strongly believe you can't teach kids not to hit people by hitting them and in turn I also believe you can't teach kids not to scream and yell by screaming and yelling at them. I don't want my kids to behave because they are scared of me either, it's all very difficult and daily prayers for patience and guidance towards a better solution continue on this front.

Three hasn't been all bad, Zane has lots to say, and the things that come out of his mouth are very entertaining. He holds long conversations with himself in the car, about Spiderman, good guys, bad guys, webs, rescuing people, and all sorts of other adventures. Yesterday he asked Zach if Spiderman was his best friend, out of no where. He asks all sorts of interesting questions, like three year old's do, that catch you completely off guard, like "What does Captain Hook eat?" He loves to play pretend, specifically house, but really any scenario that you can make up he can roll with. His imagination knows no bounds and he spends hours racing around the house in who knows what kind of world in his head. He can play by himself for longer periods of time now, but would really rather you be playing with him at all times.

Zane is becoming very musical as well. He can pick up the tune and the words of a song after only hearing it a couple times. He learned Everett's lullaby over the few days mom was here and was very frustrated that I hadn't learned it as well. He plays with his xylophone and little play piano all the time, "mamma I rocking out, you want to rock out a lil bit?" He makes up songs all the time when we are playing. Songs about having fun, being outside, or whatever else we are doing. His sweet little voice is so beautiful and I pray he never stops singing. 

He still is a mamma's boy and loves on me tons, almost to a fault. A forty pound boy climbing all over you, even when it comes from a place of love, can be a little painful, with all his bony elbows and knees digging into me. He can read the emotions of movies and the people around him impeccably. He always comes to cuddle during the serious or sad parts of movies and sometimes even pretends to be crying. For instance in the scene where Jessie sings about Emily growing up in Toy Story 2. Zane gets super cuddly and sad every time. He asks me if I'm sad a lot, usually I'm not, I'm just tired, but he does check on me frequently. "Mamma you sad, it okay." He did this when I was actually very sad early on in his life as well, learning empathy at an early age. He is very comforting to his brother and tries to help him when he is crying, but sadly usually is still a little too rough to be comforting. 

The bottom line is this, the importance of raising my children, so they grow up to be good human beings, weighs heavily on my mind at all times. I know that these few years, before they go to school and other people begin to mold them, are the most important years of not only their lives, but my own. I know the work I do in raising them is the most important thing I will ever do in my life, it will be the legacy I leave behind when I am gone. I love my boys beyond words and desperately to want to be an amazing mother to them so they might grow up to be amazing men, husbands, and fathers one day. In the moment it's all exhausting and usually it just feels like I'm trying to keep my head above water and beat back the chaos. But I try to step back and look at the big picture once in awhile. So far I think we are doing alright. But we will take all the prayers and support we can get!!!

If nothing else they are stinking adorable!

Rowan's Five Month Update

How is Rowan almost half a year old, that is insane. Time is going by to quickly, but somehow Rowan isn't really getting that much bigger. Rowan remains a tiny little boy. He has eating days and then he has days that he isn't too interested in it. I guess it's fine, just a difference experience from our chubby first baby. Eating solid foods is going ever so slightly better, he will actually take a few bites now and sometimes seems to kind of enjoy it. There is a fine line between him being ok with the situation to him absolutely hating his life and spitting everything out of his mouth. He looks pretty silly in the high chair since he is so tiny and still needs some help with not falling to one side, but is getting better.

This month was pretty eventful in our little guys life. He flew for the second time to his first real family vacation in Colorado. This brings his grand total of states that he has been to up to four, Missouri, Illinois, Oklahoma, and Colorado, quite the world traveler. I don't think he enjoyed the Mountains too much, since he went on a hunger strike the entire time, but everyone there enjoyed meeting our new little boy. He attended his first parade, celebrating his first fourth of July, and he made his way up to the top of the St. Louis Arch for the first time. More recently Rowan's big milestone was his baptism!

Rowan spent lots of time this month rolling around our house. He has mastered rolling in all directions and is officially, sort of mobile. He rolls off his blanket or out of his gym quickly, but doesn't mind rolling around on the hardwood floor. I often find him all the way across the room after I'm gone for a bit. This causes the small problem of Zane trying to "help" him roll back onto his back from his stomach, which always ends in lots of tears, all around. He also can scoot backwards, turn himself around in all directions, get up on his belly with his arms and legs sticking out (think Superman), and currently loves hitting his little hands on the ground, makes a very fun noise.

Ro does love his toys and wrestles with stuffed animals and other random toys all the time. He is liking his mirror more, talking to his sweet little self quite often. His main source of entertainment though would have to be his own thumbs, feet, hair or trying to eat our noses. His brother still desperately wants to play with him, and is getting better at being gentle, but it's still pretty dangerous. Zane is good about giving him toys, talking to him, and singing to him, but the whole not laying on top of him or jumping over him, or putting blankets on his face, are still works in progress. Rowan does find Zane really funny at times, which is completely adorable.

Rowan, as opposed to Zane, has spent quite a bit of time outside this summer. That's a difference between first and second children. First children you become hermits and never go outside because it's too hot or too cold or too something, but when you have a three year old full of energy, you have to go outside sometimes. Rowan is a great sport and loves being outside. He loves to lay on a blanket and watch the world around him. We tried swimming this month, but it was a little too cold and a little too much splashing for his liking. I hope this is a sign of his calm, very careful personality, right?? Our last trip to the zoo Rowan was awake for most of it, looking around, having a blast. I got a little fan that clips to his car seat or bouncy chair which has really helped in keeping him cool. I think I'm going to start buying people this for baby gifts, it's cheap, but has made a world of difference.

After reading Zane's five month update I can't complain about Rowan's sleeping. Zane apparently was getting up every two hours at this point and not wanting to go back to sleep. Rowan "usually" only gets up once a night with the very occasional nights of sleeping to 5am which is through the night in our books. There are also the nights where he gets up three times and is completely awake from three to five, all kind of frustrating, but again I don't expect him to sleep through the night until after two years old.

 Sleepy baby boy on his baptism day. He does still sleep in his swing, but not nearly as often.

Rowan enjoys all sorts of cuddly blankets, but sleeps on the blanket I crocheted for him. He loves rubbing his face on it during the night or sticking his little fingers in the holes.

He definitely has his own little personality, talking and cooing, laughing and smiling, all the time. He has lots of new facial expressions, all very entertaining on his tiny little face. Overall he is a pretty chill, calm, little guy, hopefully he stays that way. He is still wearing 3-6 month clothes, though a few of his jammies have gotten too short. I feel like I was always changing out Zane's clothes and so far only done that once for Ro. He is learning new things everyday and brightens up my life so much. I can't get enough of his little head. He is currently rocking a comb over, a fo-hawk, a bald spot, and a little mullet all at once. We love him so much I can hardly stand it!

Ten On Tuesday

1. Here are a few more of my favorite pictures of Rowan, surrounded by people who love him, this weekend.

 Rowan and Mommy

 Rowan with his Godparents.

2. Rowan is getting dangerously close to mobile. He can roll his way around a room with ease, he can get up on his little legs and face plants himself forward, scoots himself backward, and I have seen him up on all fours a few times as well. When you don't weigh anything becoming mobile isn't as difficult as when you are a chunky baby. Meanwhile he is making little to no progress on the sitting up front, which I would much rather him learn how to do than become mobile.

3. Sunday after the ceremony there was lots of pool time and basketball playing with Zane's new basketball goal, courtesy Grammi and Papa. Daddy even got in the pool with Zane which pushed the fun over the top. Zane is becoming a much better swimmer, able to hold his breath, blow bubbles under water, and even doggie paddle a little bit. These are all great improvements from last summer where he wasn't quite sure if he liked the water or not. 

4. Yesterday, after Adam and Abbey headed home, and Daddy headed back to work, we took Grandma B on an adventure to City Garden downtown. When we went a few weeks ago with Uncle Able, it was the day after the fourth of July so we pretty much had the run of the place. Yesterday was extremely hot and everyone was out getting cooled off. Zane ran through the splash pad, but also got to swim a little pool under a waterfall, so much fun! We ended our adventure with the biggest drumstick I might have ever seen. It was Zane's first experience with ice cream on a cone and I have to say he is already a pro. 

I got a whole series of shots of Zane working on his ice cream cone, one better than the next. It was a messy adventure, but great fun.

5. Also at City Garden we explored some more statues. My favorite statues in the whole park are the two big bunny statues. I saw them last time, but this time Zane got to climb on them. Zane loved the bunnies because recently he had a bunny encounter when daddy hit a baby bunny's nose with the lawnmower. They nursed it back to health and set it free, only after Zane got to hold it. Hence Zane's current love of bunnies, with lots of looking for "his bunny" in our yard and when we are on walks.

6. This morning we headed to the Zoo, early, in hopes of avoiding a heat stroke. We did, but barely. We saw lots of indoor things, like the snake (obviously), most of which were moving around very creepily, Wilbur, the monkeys (which we always see because of the bathroom in the basement of the monkey house), and of course the very cold penguins. The big camera didn't make it out of the house, such is life. 

 Zane and I enjoying a pretzel with cheese.

 Zane with the "dragon."

7. Zach is headed back to Arizona this evening. He claims that next week is his last trip there, I'm not believing it just yet. Mom leaves tomorrow, so I at least had some help for this evening and tomorrow morning. I can't imagine how hot it must be in the desert. Drink lots of water Zach!!!

8. Can we take a minute and talk about how adorably tiny Rowan is. This is him in his Kicky Pants Jammies. For those of you unfamiliar with Kicky Pants they are the best jammies ever, super soft, and very stretchy. This particular pair accentuates his tiny, skinny, legs. Unbelievably adorable and hysterical. Also, if I am going to have a tiny baby, that's fantastic, but why couldn't he have been tiny when he was born?? I'm just saying.

9. This evening I had my first fried squash of the summer. How is that possible? I need to find some okra ASAP so I can have some fried okra as well. It isn't summer without those two things, in my book anyway. Here are mom and Zane frying the squash. Zane mastered the technique quickly. Zane thoroughly enjoyed the fruits of his labor. Last year I couldn't get him to actually eat any fried squash, so this was the first time he truly appreciated it.

 10. In another installment of "Quotes by Zane" this week my favorite Zane quotes included, but are not limited to: "Everybody be calm." This quote comes from Fireman Sam, and he uses it in appropriate situations, where people aren't being calm, but the humor comes in the fact that Zane is NEVER calm. "We are all on the same team." This was said while everyone was sitting down to eat dinner. Zane has become quite the conversationalist, telling stories and asking about peoples days. Lastly, today Zane asked the neighbor girl, who is probably 10ish, "hey, guys, do you want to be my friend." And was so excited when her response was yes. What a sweet boy he is.