I know, I know ...

I know that I need to write more about Zane on here. People want to hear about him and I am depriving all of you because it is just not in me to get on here often. Alas, I am once again re-dedicating myself to the art of blogging (probably won't last long) and I will start with a list of things we have recently done (recently meaning within the last 4 months, almost half of Zane's life) accompanied by factoids and thoughts about our little Zane:

* My grandpa, my mother's father, passed away at the end of February. He is greatly missed because he is one of the greatest men ever to live, really. It happened quickly. He went into the hospital on Thursday and passed away on Sunday. We got a picture of Grandpa holding Zane the day before he died. It is a tender picture for me. At Zane's blessing in October Grandpa stood and bore his testimony at the pulpit for what would be the last time. It was a powerful testimony, one we will always remember. We are grateful for our testimonies of the gospel. Zane will grow up knowing all about his great-grandpa. President Eyring spoke at the funeral along with all of Grandpa's children. Zane sat quietly and listened to it all. I am sure he had a better idea than anyone there about everything that was going on.

* For our anniversary in February (actually we didn't celebrate until March), Rob and I went to a little bed and breakfast near-by while Zane stayed with Gram overnight. Rob and I had a great time (first 8 hours straight of sleeping for me in eight months, and last since) and Zane did great. He was at that time, and unfortunately still is, quite a momma and daddy boy. No one else really does it for him. Flattering yes, but hard at times. He seems to do worse when we are around and someone else has him. Once we have gone (like on the B&B night) he resigns himself to the situation and deals with it.

* Speaking of Zane being a momma and daddy boy, he is kind of going through a mostly momma stage right now. However, a few months ago he was definitely having his daddy stage. There was one night when I was trying to rock him to sleep and he was upset and just wasn't settling down. We were in his room with the lights down low and he just kept looking at the door liking he was waiting for Rob to walk in. Rob was downstairs and I finally just went down and said, "I think he wants you." Rob took him and rocked him and Zane immediately calmed down and fell asleep on his dads shoulder. So SWEET!

* Zane also loves to watch Rob brush his teeth. Every morning, after breakfast, Rob takes Zane with him into the bathroom while he brushes his teeth. Zane now watches him intently and smiles as he brushes. It is really cute.

* Another thing that happened in March was Zane's toe surgery. Zane was born with a uni-toe. The big and second toes on his right foot were literally one. There were two little bones, but they were fused by skin all the way to the tip and the toenail was practically one. This is all evidence that he is Rob's son, webbed toes run in the family. However, since Zane's webbing involved his big toe, and the big toe grows faster than all the others and could potentially cause curvature of the bones, he had to get it separated. I can testify now that it is horrible, as a mother, to have your child go into surgery, even if it is just a toe. I was worried and wished he didn't have to do it. Everything turned out fine. The plastic surgeon did a wonderful job. It was hard when Zane was waking up from the anesthesia (this was during his daddy stage and he didn't fully calm down until Rob came up to the hospital from work and held him.) Zane had to wear a cast for three weeks on his foot and leg. Because of that, he still doesn't bend his right leg sometimes. That is making crawling kind of difficult :)

* Speaking of crawling, Zane is right on the verge. Okay, so he has been right on the verge for a while now. But he is getting better and more determined about moving around now. He is an expert spinner (spinning around while lying on his tummy) and he is getting better at frog hopping it forward lately. He is getting up on his arms and knees more (that resistance to bending the right leg gets in the way sometimes) and his physical therapist just showed us some good exercises to work on. He is going to be crawling soon!

* Zane went through a thing a little while ago where he didn't like being stopped when we were in the car. Being at a stoplight would make him start to cry. The moment we started moving again though, he was fine. He would even stop mid-pout once the tires were rolling again. Luckily he is over that now. Phew. It made running errands not very enjoyable.

* My other grandpa, my father's dad, passed away at the end of April. After having spent his whole life in Washington state, he died here in Salt Lake City after having been moved here to a nursing home when his health really started to fail. We were able to visit him in the months that he was here and also got a picture of him holding Zane which we are so thankful for. Zane and I were in the room when he passed. We traveled as a family to Seattle for the funeral. It was an amazing trip. Zane is a good traveler and it was great to be in Seattle in some of the places that Grandpa loved so much, like Whidbey Island and Zane seeing the Sound/ocean for the first time. But what was really great about it was the funeral. It was a fantastic funeral. I loved hearing friends of Grandpa talk about him and tell wonderful stories about him. He was an amazing, good man and I am so happy he is my grandpa. Zane will grow up loving many things that his great-grandpa loved, because his grandpa and his mommy love those things too.

* Feeding Zane is what takes up most of my time right now. He still nurses about five times a day and he eats solids three times a day. Seeing as how nursing takes a half an hour (longer when he falls asleep) and solids can take up to an hour (depending on what he is eating), I am still spending about 6 of my waking hours feeding him. And singing when I am feeding him solids. He basically demands that we sing while we feed him. I started doing it initially as a distraction, but now he seems to think it is an integral part of eating with a spoon. He will growl at us until we start to sing and if we even pause for a moment, the growling starts again. His current favorite songs are: Cowboy Joe, ABC's and Down to the River to Pray (those good ol' southern spirituals). He LOVES nursing, especially at night right before bed, and of the solid foods he likes peach yogurt, sweet potatoes, peach yogurt, carrot-apple medley, peach yogurt, zucchini-bean-squash puree, peach yogurt, mango stuff . . . oh and did I say peach yogurt? He downs peach yogurt like there is no tomorrow. He recently tried his first ice cream, caramel shake from Iceberg, and that is where we learned that if he really wants to, he CAN eat without sticking out his tongue. He loved it! I won't be letting him eat that too often.

* One thing Zane always watches us do is drink. He intently follows our cups as we bring them to our mouths. Hopefully that means he will be good at drinking from a cup himself when the time comes.

* Zane is a tummy sleeper now. He violently flips over on his tummy at night when we lay him down and then he curls his little legs up under him and sleeps with his bum slightly sticking up in the air. Very cute!

Those are just some thoughts. I will try to do better about this, because really, there is something every day that I could write about Zane. We'll see how I do...