Zwanzig monate in Deutschland

20 months and counting... (literally counting: Ronan now counts to five, sometimes starting with the number two, and occasionally adding six, nine, and ten.)

Ronan is spending his 20th monthday in Germany for the celebration of his great-uncle's 80th birthday. Yesterday we headed into downtown Freiburg where he learned the difference between the Münster and the Münsterplatz, and floated a boat down the Bächle.

There are going to be something like 120 people here today at the family house in Freiburg! We are staying at the event site -- a.k.a. the house of David's cousin. They have 5 children (from 6-19 years old), and Ronan is fascinated by them but he's not a fan of all the touching (they like to hug him, hold him, and especially pet his fine hair). He has especially become enamored of his American cousin Caiti whom he notes was on the airplane, the train, the car, the elevator, and the bus with him. Dorian is making inroads and is her main competition.

Spending time with kids who don't speak English is helping him understand more than there are two languages in his world now. He knows that auto=car, hund=dog, eule=owl and many other pairings. He is happy to use the German words but not so happy if we do. The 6-yr old here is bemused that Ronan speaks more English than he does.

I wrote most of a month-day update before leaving, so here are some collected moments from the month:

• Toddlers have an amusingly honest take on some things, for example when I got dressed this morning Ronan said "mama wearing a big bag." He's still lying about poopy diapers though!

• We are starting to avoid certain words he understands, but rather than spell things we've adopted a style of speaking akin to the game Taboo. For example, we discuss whether we should offer the "liquid of the cow" or "bovine sustenance."

• Ronan has added a few songs to his "oh-hi-oh-hi-oh-hi-oh" repertoire. Have you heard this classic tune?

Row, Row, Row…..boat

Enh------stree

Muh uh uh uh

Uh.. Dree!

• He grew out of his shoes (again!) and now has a lace-up pair (his "dada shoes") and a too-big slip-on pair (his "mama shoes") as well as "water shoes" and "sandals."

• He is starting to ask "what's that?" about things he wants words for. The first time he said it he pointed at the moon. Good question, kiddo! These days he points at everything unfamiliar. Uh oh! Today I heard "who's that" for the first time.

• I somehow got hired into a psych department without ever hearing the phrase "theory of mind." Now that I'm here I hear it somewhat frequently and I gather it refers to the understanding of an individual that they have a different perspective than other people. Mom doesn't literally feel your pain, not everyone knows what you're thinking, and other people have information that you don't have -- but that they could share with you. I'm sure this is a particularly interesting concept to people who study child development, animal intelligence, and certain social disorders. As a parent, the development of this concept is typified for me in the following sentiment:

Ronan (looking at D's coffee cup): "Coffee yummy dada…coffee yucky RoRo"

[edit: or his July 28th suggestion upon arriving home: Milk bottle RoRo, Beer Dada"]

• Other changes: Ronan has learned to drink water from a cup, uttered a 6 word sentence yesterday, and can now climb up on chairs, benches, especially loved scaling a ladder. He knows all the colors except purple/pink/red is a tough distinction. In the not-changing department, he has very definite opinions about things, which to a certain indecisive parent is somewhat amusing.