Real life-size Zeke
On May 11th Zeke turned 5 years old.
What?! I’m sorry, What?! That’s not right. Ayla is 5. Zeke is 2. *sigh*
No, that really is right.
It’s strange how you can feel so happy and so sad all at the same time. Being a parent seems to do that to you- taking your heart to frightful (and wonderful) places you didn’t know existed until now. Sometimes I have a sneaking feeling that I’m not gonna be alright. That my heart is gonna come out of this pretty battered and torn.
Zeke is an amazing, hilarious, sweet, smart and incredibly creative little person! (that’s the happy part) It’s just happening all too fast (that’s the sad part).
So what can I tell you about 5 year old Zeke?
He is still very much into Minions and still likes LarryBoy, although not as much as he once did. A new friend has entered the scene. That friend is Wall-e. (He is also into Big Hero 6 and Baymax)
When Zeke likes something, he LOVES it. He is very passionate and enthusiastic about the things he is into.
What is interesting to me about this enthusiasm is that it doesn’t just drive him to want all the toys available for that particular thing. It doesn’t mean he wants all the tshirts, or underwear or pajamas with that character on it. It doesn’t mean he wants to play that character all day long. (I mean, sure he wants/does all that) But he wants to create it. Whatever that thing is- whether Wall-e or Minions, he wants to build it. First, it starts with him drawing pictures of it all the time. He spends hours drawing Wall-e and Minions. Wall-e. Wall-e and Eve. Wall-e the toy in the box. Wall-e the toy out of the box. Talking Dave Minion (a toy). Banana Dave Minion. Purple One-Eyed Minion. Stuart the yellow Minion turning into a purple Minion. It goes on and on until we have run out of places to put his artwork (but can’t bring ourselves to get rid of them because they might be worth something someday when he is a world renowned artist.)
From there he starts to find ways to build these things. We have a huge stash of toilet paper rolls that the kids literally fight over. (His favorite medium is scotch tape. I am convinced Zeke thinks that you can build anything if you have enough scotch tape. I am constantly peeling pieces of it off the floor, walls and furniture.) He will draw all the different parts of the character in large scale, cut them all out separately and then tape them together and then tape the whole thing to the wall, or tape all the parts to something else-say a cardboard box or stack of Megablocks- so that whatever it ends up being will stand up on its own.
The third level of this process is that he truly and desperately believes that one day he will be able to build real, life-sized, functioning versions of these characters. Specifically Wall-e. And even more specifically, by the time he is 10. This all started because he saw a video on youtube about these machinists who built a real, life-sized, remote control robot of Wall-e. It looked exactly like him, made all the sounds, and moved! It completely captivated Zeke and he regularly refers to “when we build real, life-size Wall-e…” “Look Dad, this plastic bottle cap will be perfect for when we build real, life-size Wall-e!”
He also likes to take one toy and turn it into a different toy. Especially his Minions. He regularly asks us to turn one of them (usually a yellow minion) into a different one (usually a purple one since that’s how they transform in the movie-from yellow to purple.) This requires a lot of colored paper and scotch tape and creativity. I should have a degree in this process, I’ve gotten so good at it.
Zeke is also obsessed with/scared of “the human body.” He has always been fascinated by things that also sort of scare him. Right now he likes books that show all the different systems inside the human body. He also likes toys of the human body. He bought a see-through plastic human body toy that you can take the different muscles and bones out of. It also has squishy internal organs. But make sure it is put away during meal times or at night because then it becomes gross and scares him.
He is obsessed with Toys R Us and regularly asks if we can go there to look at remote control talking Wall.e-the next toy he desperately wants. If he sees a commercial for ToysR Us or we happen to drive past it, he get s so excited. Or if I tell the kids we have somewhere we need to go today he will always ask, “Is it ToysR Us?”
He loves the packaging on toys. It is almost as valuable to him as the toy itself. I made the mistake of throwing away the box from one of his minion toys and he asked Jake to remake it out of a different box, all the while looking at a picture online so that the “new” package looked exactly like the original one. He used to like to put all his toys back in the packaging at the end of the day, but finally we declared that it just took too long to do all that and so now he has a big bin full of all the plastic and boxes from his toys so he can put them back in if he wants to.
One thing I love about Zeke is his enthusiasm. When he gets excited about things-like when I announce we are having pigs in a blanket for dinner- he does this cute little small jump and double clap. Its one those wonderful moments of innocent joy where you know your child is not yet so self aware or “too cool” to show his true feelings. His joy brings me joy.
Another thing I love that he does is fall asleep with his favorite toys. Always reminds me of the end of the movie, “A Christmas Story” where Ralphie falls asleep holding his Red Rider BB gun.” I will tuck him in and kiss him goodnight and at that point he won’t have anything in bed with him. But inevitably when I go to check on him after a while, he usually is sound asleep with one of his favorite toys still clutched in his hand. And often I will discover a few more under his covers as well.
Just a few cute things he says:
“Alarious” is Hilarious
“Ignoying” is Annoying
“Oh bam!” he says when he is really disappointed or bummed. “Oh bam, my toy broke.”
“oso” is how he says Also
“Shed up” is Shut up
“Remembry” is Memory
“Whoosh” is Wish. “I whoosh I had real life-size Wall-e!”
Elbow is what he called your arm pit up until recently.
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