Things have been pretty quiet around here. Following our zoo-excitement and all the fun of K's travel, our regular life of trips to the daycare and the Target and whatnot sometimes seems pretty tame.

But there's nothing tame about the wildman Reid Rizk (note the curling of his little hairs) as he tears across the dining room playing his new favorite game, sometimes-throw-Dixie's-ball. It's called that because we only throw the ball sometimes. Other times we run around with the ball and Dixie chases us waiting for the long-promised release, which rarely comes. But K and I get enough time with the ball to actually throw it, reinvigorating a long-neglected tradition of indoor fetch with Dixie.

The shock to Dixie's system of suddenly receiving so much attention may be too much for her to bear, but she's been holding up pretty well. Dixie's always required a lot of interaction to make the games go along, you know a lot of "got get it, Dixie" and "where's the ball?" which makes the game a lot of fun for Reid, because he likes yelling and questions.

This photo session was an attempt to capture Reid's favorite response to a question, which is to hold his arms out to his side while he unsuccessfully shrugs his shoulders. He makes a standard baby question noise ("owa?") and looks for the ball when Dixie has chased it into the kitchen but returned empty-handed.

This particular action shot is born of Reid's other favorite aspect of the game. Based on his parent's exhortation of Dixie (the aforementioned "go get it!") Reid will chase Dixie as she pursues the ball yelling over and over "Go! Go! Go! Go! Go!" while pointing in the general direction of the dog's quarry.

The games usually end (as they have since before Reid became part of the team) with Dixie deciding that the ball-chasing portion of the evening is through, and the give-her-a-carrot (her favorite treat) portion of the evening has begun. Reid likes this part, too, to the point where Dixie sometimes gets nine, ten, eleven carrots a night. This is Dixie's payback, and we can't really hold it against her. Times are tough for a little dog in a house with a new boss.

(Special thanks to Grammie and Paw-Paw for 32 hours of freedom. See what the childless-for-a-day did with their free time here and scroll to the right.)