2016 May/June

May photos are here
June photos are here

I can barely remember yesterday, but according to the calendar, some things have happened in the last two months!

First off, Ronan finished kindergarten.  It's a big year!  They send home all these great weekly notes about what the kids have been doing which is helpful when your child's answer to how any aspect of their day went is most often "it's sort of hard to explain."  The kids made monthly memory books, and just seeing how Ronan's drawing and writing changed over the year is neat.  Reading doesn't seem to come easy but he enjoys writing with "sound spelling".  After the school year ended, Ronan asked for school-style "morning messages" at home, and one morning he wrote me one back (see below, with UV pen shining on drawing)!

I found this note with an invisible ink pen attached

Dear mom. I found many messages and presents. Do you 
think I should also write you morning messages? Love, Ronan. 
P.S. I wrote this all by myself.  Look with my invisible ink pen.

Ronan has a fashion sense all his own, proudly dressing up with his self-knit scarves, matching socks to stripy shorts, and rocking silky dino leggings under his swimsuit. The first progress report we ever got on him as an 8 month old still rings true: Ronan knows what he likes.

Camp day 5

Ronan transitioned smoothly into his school's June program, and now we are on the second of four real camps for the summer as we sample some of the local offerings.  This week he is at a camp called "Ew that's gross" at a nature center, and last week and next week he was/is swimming and doing crafts on my campus.  For the last two camps he will be doing farm camp and another nature center.  He has at least one friend at each camp, so we are also are trying out carpools for the first time.

Ronan wanted a pet and through a process of elimination we ended up with two rats: Weasel and Comet (Weasel shown below).  The first choice--a rabbit--was vetoed based on longevity, but Ronan likes how smart and interesting and friendly the rats are.  So far he has been good about changing the cage with me each week.

TV: Ronan has moved past Wild Kratts and for a long time opted for the Netflix series that fills in the How to Train Your Dragon series.  These are great fun and well done, but unfortunately the kids spend most of the episodes making fun of each other with creative language. Whenever Ronan doesn't know a word he asks about it (sometimes much later), and this show has given rise to requests to explain (among others): elicit, dominate, rhetorical question, dimwit, and moron.  We coaxed him to move on to a new show and he now likes the Netflix reboot of Inspector Gadget which is a little less full of colorful phrases he wants to memorize.  It's going to be a while before we stop hearing "coming in hot, blowing out snot!" though!

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Happy birthday Orion!  Happy survival of year one, parents!  Orion is now 13 months old, and he took 8 tiny steps in a row yesterday before diving into my arms.  He's not quite walking yet per se, but will happily lunge from a supportive structure to a person with some steps in between.  He's been cruising for a long time and climbing like crazy, so true walking is surely imminent.

Orion loves clambering and climbing and he is FAST.  If I set him down outside our front door he will crawl the entire path to the driveway, crawl with his knees off the ground across the gravel and pavement, and head straight the the garage where we keep the wagon.  If I get out the wagon, he will push it around the entire yard until it inevitably gets stuck.  At the river beach he will climb up and slide down rocks for an hour.  He loves baths (and tries to climb in the tub while you fill it), and once climbed into a full freezing cold kiddie pool fully clothed.  He can scale an entire slide solo, and sometimes lets go at the end to slide down and start over.

Orion signs food, water, and more all interchangeably, says "dat/cat" for the cat and the rats (and once for a ladybug), and takes an interest in ceiling fans, balls, and the present location of the cat.  If the cat is ever not in his heated cat bed (rare at this age), Orion points at it saying "Dat, Dat" and looking around for where Gandalf might have gotten to.

At Orion's age Ronan was saying and signing many more things, but was physically cautious. They are not that different, all things considered, but it is the difference that stands out to me.

1 year olds and 6 year olds don't have a lot in common (except for a desire to both play with the synthesizer in incompatible ways at the same time).  Nonetheless, we have had our share of sweet brother moments.  Some of these moments have come by surprise when David is out of town for work each week and bedtimes collide and everything is a little more hectic.  Ronan reads the baby books alongside Orion, sings songs with me, and is generally lovely (while simultaneously prolonging bedtimes).

Orion likes his crib a lot more when Ronan is in it!

Quotes:
R: I’ll be the king and you can be my servant
E: What’s a servant?
R: It means that you work for me.  Like you’re my sidekick.