Kiwi as a Reflection of Growing Up

It's a sad day... Zain no longer calls kiwi "wee-wee".  Our little boy is growing up.  He's still learning tons of new words every week.  He'll latch onto one for a few days and practice saying it - incessantly.  This week, "neighbor" and "tow truck" have been very popular.  Other random words he's collected this week include "faucet", "sink", "everybody", and "streetcar".  And some words have now gained extra pronunciation - milk is now "mink" instead of "mi" and water is now "watie" instead of "wa".


Speaking of kiwi.... in another sign that he's growing (and growing and growing), yesterday he ate a whole kiwi in less time than it took me to peel it.  He's a good eater, to say the least.  


Zain is also big on walking now instead of being in the stroller.  Which is fun now that he has capitulated and agreed to hold our hands when walking outside.  He loves to point out all forms of transportation.  From our front window, we'll frequently hear him pointing out a "buh", "schoo buh", "tuck", "cah", or "moma" (motorcycle, which seems to be what he calls bikes, because he says it a lot and there aren't many motorcycles out these days).  Yesterday, he got to see a fire truck up close and personal when we saw one parked outside the grocery store.  The firefighters even turned on the lights for him.  He very politiely told them "teek oo".  

This was an obsession for a few weeks - hiding something behind the cushion and then throwing up his hands and saying "Gup?" (Where did it go?)

He's a kissing fool right now.  He kisses book characters, stuffed animals, even packages of underwear at the store (above).  He even goes so far as to kiss US now, without complaint.  He's never really been that into kissing actual people before.

Zain is getting really good with the spoon.  He can pretty much feed himself from a bowl if the food is sticky enough.  Here he is stealing some of Mama's cereal.

As always, eating is serious business.  I'm not allowed to call this a frown or a furrowed brow (the look was inherited from his other mommy, who says serious-looking people are misunderstood).  :-)

The new chalkboard, which was lots of fun at the beginning but hasn't seen much use since Zain starting refusing to comply with our instructions to not eat the chalk

Our baby engineer, already getting a start on IKEA assembly