Taking the Scenic Route

Zane’s favorite things these days (in no particular order):

• Memory Game – either with his Blue’s Clues Memory Game or some Thomas the Tank Engine cards.  We started him out on doing half of the Memory set, but quickly discovered that was too easy, so he plays with all 72 tiles now.  (36 pairs).  He does a great job of waiting his turn.  He has no poker face yet.  When he sees you flip over something and he knows where it matches he jumps up and can barely contain himself waiting for his turn.  lol.  He claps when anybody makes a match.  He will play over and over again, for well over an hour straight.
• Music - He still loves music.  Zach & I can be sitting in the living room and he will start bringing us instruments to play and enthusiastically join us.  His main ‘instruments of choice’ are a kazoo and various percussion instruments.  He is occasionally attempting to move his fingers around on the recorder, but usually just hands it to me to play for him.  He also spends a lot of time either playing his instruments while Zach is on the keyboard, trying to play along with Zach on the keyboard, or playing the keyboard himself.  Same thing when Zach plays the guitar.  It is a lot of rowdy fun when we get all the noisy instruments going around here, especially when Zach and Zane dance around the room as they are playing.  So much fun!
• Computer – He has a number of ‘kindergarten’ educational games he loves, along with a Dora the Explorer educational game (which is probably where he learned to count so high in Spanish…there is a section where they count the stars they collect in Spanish, and it goes higher than the typical 10-20 that other types of media usually go to).  Besides the educational fare he plays with, there is also a Tonka Construction game where he builds roads and houses, and then blows them up or generally destroys them.  He loves it.  He and Daddy also spend time playing pac-man together.  I think Zane could beat me at pac-man at this point.  (I only rarely get past the first screen).  Once in a while he will play around with Adobe Photoshop, but he doesn’t get that very well yet.  He has some kid paint programs he likes playing with though.
• Imaginary Play – lots of adventures with his hot wheels cars and Little People.  He makes these elaborate set-ups with his blocks, train extras, dominoes, and various other toys and walks and drives his cars and people through them while telling stories about them.  It reminds me a lot of how I used to play.  He is also finally starting to do ‘dress up’ type playing.  He especially loves hats, and is starting to use towels and other various things as props.  That sort of playing isn’t as developed yet, but it is certainly getting more pronounced these days.
• Books – The child I used to follow around from room to room in my determination to read to him is now wanting to be read to all the time.  The last few days Zach and I have taken turns reading book after book, for more than an hour straight each time.  Such relief.  Zach and I both love reading and have read to him a lot, and he started enjoying it a while ago.  It has now moved from ‘interested in’ to a much more prominent place in our day. 
• Helping around the house – He finally ‘gets’ that wet clothes go into the dryer, the dry clothes in the dryer go into the basket to be folded/hung up/put away, and how to pick out the dirty clothes and put them in the washer if I say ‘let’s wash all the red things’.  He also knows how to pour the laundry soap in (the soap itself is out of reach, so I measure it for him) and put only 1 dryer sheet in the dryer and close the door.  He still is too excited to play in the warm dry clothes to be particularly helpful with folding & putting away, but sometimes is able to do towels.  When he is thirsty, he often takes his glass to the bathroom sink (has a step stool) and gets his own water.  Along the same lines, if his hands get messy, he will go wash them (and dry them) on his own initiative.  He is also starting to pick up his blocks and other toys when I start to clean in his room, occasionally without me telling him directly.  He is consistently able to put away toys that I hand him into the proper place.  Now, if I could get him to STOP DUMPING THEM ALL OVER THE FLOOR IN THE FIRST PLACE we would be set.  
• Talking - wasn’t I saying something earlier about how much I wish he would talk more.  Can I take that back?  lol.  There are days when my ears are literally hurting by the end of the day because he won’t stop talking.  His actual skills are probably not quite on par with his peers yet, but he is certainly practicing more and I am quite sure he will catch up in no time at the rate he is going.