Once again, visitors are more interesting than updating the blog, but so much great stuff happened this month! Fall is in full swing and it's getting colder and darker, so we've been spending as much time outside as possible.
After school along the bike trail ...........................................at the dog park
Finding apples....................................................Petting the garden store statue
Early this month I swung on my backpack only to find all the buckles done up. Should I blame Ronan? His ever increasing handiness grows each week.
If Ro has any sense, he has concluded that his parents are totally unobservant: we rarely notice airplanes overhead, and seem to filter out obvious fire alarms in restaurants and buildings almost completely.
He's started to learn rules we didn't teach him, like "mama blow kiss...go bye-bye" and "don't use fork on bowls...only on plates." He's speaking in contrasts, like "Dada's name not Anna-eese" and "dog say woof, not meow", "RoRo's name is Schnickelfritz, not Ronan Winter" (?!) But also double-naming: "RoRo have Roni's spoon" (he calls himself both).
He sings the alphabet song, twinkle twinkle, baa baa black sheep, Ring around the Rosie, and fragments of other songs very sweetly. He doesn't dance much, but showed off a little jumping shuffle in tiny tap shoes he found at daycare the other day.
He talks like a little adult sometimes, like his offhand commentary last week: "that a nice big field." I hear his words as perfect English, but close attention to pronunciation reveals that motorcycle is actually "moNiRycle," pumpkin = "Bumpkin", and instead of whisking things, Roro "whiksed it".
Ronan is still quite scared by big loud noises, but now he wakes up talking about ones he heard days and longer ago, and big white trucks in his dreams. He loves to play outside, help with gardening, mix soil, and carry buckets.
Ro has some rather unusual attachments. He is happy to grab a teddy bear or stuffed animal for a short period of time, but his real comfort objects are a screwdriver and his white butterknife. He would sleep with them if he could! He reads a book on tools nearly every day at school, prompting one of the student volunteers to be concerned that she was learning the names of pinking shears and other objects from a <2-year old!
We are having a wonderful visit from grandparents (Nana and Papa) and Ro is loving all the attention and family time. We love it too! Especially the family dinners, and the warming of our new home.
