California Retrospective

And they don't know What you hold dear And they can't see That it's not California here -Hem (song lyrics)

Ahhhh, California. You saved up those tulip magnolia blossoms and sunny days just to taunt us, didn't you? (Massachusetts returned the favor and saved the snow for our return, thanks!!).

We spent three weeks visiting folks in California during the college's winter recess. Classes weren't in session, my lab students went home, and D technically works in CA anyway. During that time I slacked on updating this blog (including when Ro passed 13 months) but nobody noticed. We were too busy actually seeing many of the folks who read this page! Oh, and there was an itsy bitsy time change, a cold of DOOM*, and a lot of not sleeping.

*This actually prompted me to purchase a home-use otoscope for future close encounters of the infectious kind.

Ro was too young to understand that Christmas is (for the foreseeable future) a day that is all about him, but he loved being the center of 6 adults' attention. He got some amazing handmade gifts among other great entertainments, and it's fun to watch him explore everything. For example he just spent a long time playing with a flashlight that cycles between several different modes (including a red lantern base). He switched modes for a good couple minutes, then was thrilled to discover that the flashlight beam can be projected on a far away wall.

We had some great baby dates with Aalto, Ezzie, Moby, and Sasha, and my old mom's group kiddos. It's especially neat to see how folks I knew before they had children are living now. The changes in all of our lives have been profound and very similar even as our babies are not!

Ro and Ezzie ........................................................................................... Moby feeds Ronan

Ro finally added a noun to his spoken vocabulary in California ("Ball"), and also uses names we gave him for many family members (mama, dada, nana, papa, tata, Uncle Blair). He knows who each one is and can say them all (well, except Uncle Blair) and loves to pick everyone out in pictures (which I just had to look up the sign for).

Ro also stood on his own for a few seconds for the first time in California -- a feat he did not repeat until just a few days ago (but for longer now). Clearly many more changes are to come!

Green Christmas before a White Winter

Welcome 2011

We kicked off 2011 by attending as much of the multi-day New Year's Eve party at our best friends' house as we could manage, seeing lots of friends and hanging out with Ronan with lots of new places for him to crawl and things to see. He loved it there and so did we!

Balls with bells.....................................................................Ro meets baby A (5 mos)

Both Christmas and New Years were reminders of the best environment for watching babies -- a large group of people hanging out and doing what they're doing. I imagine most babies for most time have grown up that way and it's too bad such circumstances can be tough to arrange in the modern world. I like them too!

Spending so much time with everyone in California really highlighted what is missing in our new home out East. Just remember...we have a spare bed!

A Ro by any other name...

Ronan knows his name! He's probably known it for decades (jeez, ma) but today he decided to show off this fact by pointing to himself whenever I say it.

This kid is also wicked good at animal identification. One of the weird things about board books is that he sees a wide variety of animals he's never met in real life, frequently. And while I'm not sure if he knows what pants are, he can distinguish between zebra, horse, kangaroo, giraffe, cat, dog, duck, owl, elephant, and sheep. (Sometimes I suspect he's memorizing them based on where they are on the page...all the sheep look so different from each other and yet he knows).

Ronan is by and large a fairly quiet kid, so it always tickles me to hear him talk. He likes to make animal sounds (and has just added Rawr to the list) and tonight he started saying "ni-ni" when we say "night night."

Five words

To be perfectly honest, part of me is still waiting for Ronan to say his first word. I think I had in mind that it would be a noun, like "kitty" or maybe "ball." Because that's what first words ARE, right? Wrong again. Ronan actually uses FIVE words now, so it's time for the denial to end.

In order:

1. Uh-oh (typically said before dropping something…for months now)

2&3. Mama and Dada. He's said these for a while but he finally sorted out who is who in the last couple weeks.

4. No (started as nuh, but is now most definitely no, often with great feeling)

5. Down ("dow"). For now this is reserved for going down stairs.

For each one I could get lawyerly and say it's not really a word, or maybe he doesn't have a thoughtful and complete understanding of its meaning. But that's silly too, because Ronan already articulates many nouns and other words as signs (in order: milk, food, more, cheese, water, bath, kitty). Wow, that could make a very dangerous first sentence!

Then there are the single-purpose words, like he says "Baa" when he sees a sheep, and "Lalala" when he spies his favorite book (that's right, it's Moo, Baa, La La La). He also says "no" when he wants you to read Where's Spot. Is he here in the closet? No… there's a snake in the closet. Is he under the bed? No...there's an alligator under the bed. I think it's supposed to teach your child the animals and perhaps not to go blithely searching through cupboards, but I credit/blame that book with teaching Ronan the word No. He chants it sweetly on every page.

Living with a child who says No is not quite as fun as the before-time (before he said no to everything you offer). On the one hand, it's great for him to have more ways to express his preferences. On the other, his preferences don't count for everything. On the third hand, no doesn't always mean no (it turns out), but if you suggest that he might actually want something he's said no to you are likely to regret it just a little. That's okay...he's also working on "ya ya ya," the loveliest of ways to say yes!

First Birthday

Ronan is one year (and two days) old! I'm generally lucky if I can remember what we did yesterday, but here's my best reconstruction of the day:

In the morning Ronan came to class with me and was a big hit. We'd been talking about language recognition the previous day so nominally he was there to see if we could figure out what words he knows (he loves showing off where his nose, head, ears, and mouth are, but also knows clap, wave, dance, peekaboo, uh oh, milk, cheese, and a few others). He then happily slept through the rest of the period in the Ergo while I gave the students background information for an upcoming lab.

At three I picked him up from daycare to go to the park but he fell asleep in the car for his second nap. Afterwards we had a skype chat with Aunt J, then walked next door to look at the horses before it got dark (so early now...like 4:30!). Back at home we went up the stairs and he invented a new method of getting down: after he crawled away from them at the top he crawled back, put his hand on the top edge, turned around, lay down, and pushed himself sliding backwards over the edge. Once he's in place like this he's good as scooting down the stairs but how to get in position to go down has been evading him for the few weeks he's been climbing stairs. (Now, two days later, you'd never know this was new thing). While he was on the stairs I took some pictures for his granddad's birthday card (since they share a birthday).

We read a lot of books and for the first time Ronan started pointing at the animals in the books. I asked him where the kitty cat and doggie were and he could point at each. I taught him chicken and then he picked out each one of them for a long time! All the art in his books is different but he recognizes the dog and cat in one of his german books too. Learning words... generalizing concepts... It's all starting to come together and it's amazing how fast it happens.

Ro likes to play with pots and pans in the kitchen while we make his dinner and for his birthday he started drinking cow's milk out of a sippy cup/bottle hybrid. He probably ate something like sweet potato mashed in yogurt, a cracker, some fruit, and then his birthday (carrot-cake) cupcake! He enjoyed taking his presents out of a basket and putting them back in and we measured him on his new height chart and he is about 28 inches tall!

For his birthday he got lots of cozy, adorable winter clothes, a height chart, bouncy balls that light up when bounced, a set of large balls, some stacking blocks that also nest, and a swing to hang from our tree!

Happy Birthday little Roneo. We love you!

12 months of Ronan

November * December * January

February * March * April

May * June * July

August * September * October

and *November* once again!

We've moved!

Ronan isn't quite one yet so here's an update on our move instead...

First photo in the new house:

Ronan woke at 5:30am so we played with the didgaridoo in the guest room/office. Faced with a choice between a desk and keeping the awesome spare bed I opted to ditch the desk. Thus the office nest was born! (I still hate 5:30 though.)

This week we moved again and while we never would have chosen the timing, the move was okay. Which is to say amazing for a move! Much less difficult than our cross-country trip. We're actually pretty moved in and settled, thanks to lots of help from movers and a crew-team fundraiser.

One or another science study this year (oh yeah, this one) made the news saying if you believe you are resilient you tend to be happier and less stressed. (Which sounds a lot like what we refer to as the science of the "no-duh" except I found it interesting that belief of resilience was more important than optimism). In this case we managed to have that belief (what's a cross-town move compared to the last year?). It was actually nice to see how remarkably not awful it was. It helps that we like our new house: a cosy place that feels much homier than the last. We're next to the college equestrian center so I look forward to introducing Ro to horses, and there are two other college rental houses as neighbors. I don't get to walk to work on a gorgeous wooded trail anymore, but at least I can still walk to work (I consider that to be a pretty awesome quality of life feature).

Tomorrow Ronan will be one! In the morning he is coming to my research methods class with me before daycare which I'm hoping he'll love. There is at least a nominal educational rationale for this based on a discussion we had last class, but I'm also hoping it will be a treat for students who come (since the Tuesday before thanksgiving is evidently not well attended). We'll see how it goes!

Baby sign sentence??

Ro took his second nap of the day early today at daycare, so when I picked him up he came along to the polling place and then we checked out the kid park (about a 10 minute drive from town).

I'd been a bit turned off of going previously by the (admittedly not steep) entry fee for lots of features I thought Ro was too young to appreciate when we moved here. What won me over is that they have a swing-set there which Ro has been lacking. So it was time!

Turns out the park is enormous with multiple playgrounds, picnic areas, a water playground (summer only), a train (not sure when that runs), and a petting zoo. Ronan got to scratch the side of a goat which he liked quite a bit, and he was fascinated by the chickens, turkey, and peacocks. He started laughing immediately in the swing which was lovely, and then we tried the slides. I sat him at the top and held my fingers out for him to grab. When he did I'd guide him down to the bottom. He liked it so much he made what I consider to be his first signed sentence -- he would point at the slide and then make his version of the sign for more. Over and over! Good fun.

We didn't make it out for any evening Halloween activities this year, but I did grab a couple photos of Ro in his bear snowsuit romping in the Fall foliage. Ronan 9-12 mos on Picasa.