Christmas continues to permeate many aspects of his life lately. When we're walking to school, he loves to run down the block, singing, "Run, run, reindeer!" When we get home from school, he greedily tears open each new Christmas card. When we told him people were going to give him presents for Christmas, he looked really touched and said, "That's so sweet!"
But Christmas has a dark side too: There's a talking bear in a red Santa suit at his school, that Zeeke fearfully calls "the devil bear" (probably because of its opening and closing mouth). "Mommy doesn't like that devil bear," he told his teachers somewhat ominously before they were finally forced to hide it away for good.
His fear of open mouths has also expanded to include alleyways. He can't resist looking down them and inevitably ends up shaking and clutching at us in terror. It doesn't matter how innocent the alley looks or how many times he's uneventfully passed it in his life.
Sometimes when we're all watching TV together, he'll start staring at one of us super intently, bringing his face as close as possible, and ask "What's in your eye? It's Dora! Dora is in your eye!" And then he'll continue watching his show in the reflection in our eyeglasses for a little while, laughing.
His new favorite show is Peter Rabbit and he had voiced aspirations to be Peter's baby sister Cottontail. "I want to be a little girl," he told us. "I want to be a rabbit in a yellow dress." Karen hugged him and said, "Kid, you can be anything you want to be."
Saturday, after a chilly trip to the playground, Steve and Zeeke dismantled a calendar and made a collage out of the pictures. Zeeke's favorite part was applying the glue.