Oh, the Zachary

I found Jen's post about Ryan so adorable. It immediately made pop to mind my recollections of Zachary at a similar age, doubtless also inspired by having viewed with Jen recently our wedding video (DVD) kindly filmed & given to us by Erin & Tom. Jen & I both enjoyed watching our wedding, remembering the day, how we felt, and I was especially amused looking at the very small, very round-faced 3-year-old Zachary marching up the aisle steps next to his cute-as-a-button cousin Emily.

(oops, sorry for the rambling tangent)

Anyway, given that Zachary lived in my apartment until age 3 1/2, I have a long memory of his 2- and 3-year old fun habits that were also quite endearing. Although I do have to say, Ryan's particularly strike a chord with me, because I ALSO am a car guy, and Ryan is like a very miniature version of me in so many ways!

Zachary's main specialty was his preference for patterns. He LOVED patterns. It didn't as much matter that they be cars, as much as he would organize his collections of items by color, size, and/or shape. With M&M's, they would quickly be divided into red, yellow, green, etc. Embarassingly, this is also how I eat M&M's. I divide them, then eat down the 'extras', so that there are equal numbers remaining of each color. Then I proceed to eat away the remaining M&M's while still leaving a discernable 'pattern' that for some unknown reason, provides my simple brain with great satisfaction.

So, as far as toys went, I remember coming out of my room and seeing long lines of toys - legos were not built into structures, they were placed end-to-end in color patterns, grouped by the piece type. There would be various trains of puzzle pieces, blocks, rings, whatever the toys might be, if it had multiples of colors or shapes, they would be repeated, and organized. This he also gets from me. The order thing is fun, satisfying, and strangely addictive. When I build even now with legoes, I LOVE color symmetry. I will take great satisfaction in creating a lego sculpture that has no resemblence to anything in particular, but has an embedded pattern that repeats perfectly, whether in a spiral, helix, or simple linear style.

Speaking of this, I might as well confess my obssession with double-helix structures - the parking garage I park at, is one of those that is actually an embedded and stacked double helix. So it's actually a quadruple helix, with two ups, and two downs. I realized this when I would park on the 5th level, then walk down the stairs to the exit. Other cars were parked on a 4th & 2nd level that I could not get to. Needless to say, you can probably anticipate what happened. When I next entered the garage, it did not matter that I was running late for work, I was determined to find out how to switch over to the other helix. Because I wanted to, and it was fascinating. On every garage level, there was a "cross-over" to get from the "up" helix to the "down" helix. But I didn't want to go down on my designated helix - I wanted to hop to the other one! I took it as a personal challenge, and an affront to my dignity that they could attempt to channel me to only one helix pathway. I'd show them. So I drove around and around in the parking garage for 10 minutes, doubtless provoking dubious suspicion from the garage attendants, attempting to discover the "magical" gateway that would allow me to efficiently park on the 4th level. (I had deemed this the ideal one, as it would allow me to exit out into traffic exactly where I wanted, and was on the side that was the shortest walk to work). Finally, I gave up, as the few cut-overs allowing any chance of doing so were specifically blocked using plastic barriers, requiring me to drive up ALL 7 levels, cross over at the top, and then traverse back down, all in the name of parking on the 4th level. The only other way to park on that helix is to take the separate garage entrance - can you believe it! The two up/down helixes have their own entrance and exits. Despite being able to see the other pathway, in the SAME GARAGE, they are really two separate parking entities! You have to go all the way to the top of the garage to switch entities, otherwise the two intertwined garage pathways are completely independent of one another.

I think I have polluted poor Jen's blog enough for one post, perhaps I should refrain, as I doubt her audience of readers will find much coherence in my thoughts. But it all stemmed from remembering about little round-faced Zachary and his love of patterns, cute Ryan and his love of all things cars, and the current adventures of their father, who really hasn't changed all that much since age 3 ;)