22 months

Dear 22 month old Ronan,

Sometimes you wake up in such an upset, tearful, whiny mood that two parents and all the distractions in the world can't make it right. Other days you giggle at the mere presence of a cat in the same room with you, and shriek happily while chasing one. So here is my broadcast to your grumpy NO! self of this morning: butterflies are cool! Kitty-cats are awesome! … Your parents are great and so are you, and we live in the middle of the biggest ever empire of chipmunks!

Illnesses, tough mornings, restless nights, and unhappy toddlers do seem to pass like bad weather, and another morning I woke to a sunny you, happy to enumerate household tools, "help" making cookies and picking tomatoes, and tickled to stomp around the house in your new rainboots and cat hat. It's a good reminder of how our perspective comes from within more than without.

This month you started playing the KNOCK KNOCK game on doors. Here's how it works: you run into a room and close the door. Then you say Knock Knock, slowly and with even pitch until someone comes to rescue you because you can't open doors yet! You are a huge fan of tools, and are more attached to your screwdriver than your stuffed animals. You like to be around when put things together which we've had lots of lately.

You are starting to understand emotion words, and can already extend them to the cats. When I asked you if Gandalf was purring you put your ear to his belly and said "Gandalf purring. He's happy!" You also told me that a big noise was scary, and everything that scares you seems to be in this category. Sometimes you wake up from dreaming saying "big garbage truck make a big loud noise." Noises make a big impression and you like to keep your sights on the vacuum cleaner parts to make sure it won't get turned on.

You know your full name now and say it: Ronan…Wint-ner…Beewy…Norgel! You also know our names, and like to remind us we are not the other children's parents which is sweet. Also, I love it when you call the cat "sweetie pie." It was also pretty cute when you started saying "crazy talk" and "holy moly!" I won't repeat the thing you said to dada. As you gain every more fluency, you seem to enunciate less, leaving us to guess which of even more words you are trying to use.

In September you were a ring bearer and flower boy for our friends' wedding, you sailed on a boat, you met folks at the cohousing community we live by, and made yourself at home in the common house play-room. You played with our new neighbors, got carried up a local mountain with friends, and tried your best to run back down. You became expert at finding Wild Mushrooms and even went on a mushroom quest in the rain. Time may not fly, but when it passes it's really gone. I see 6 month old babies sitting and grinning and think about you at that age with your easy grins and love of swings. When I think back on 1 and 3/4 I'll probably remember you saying "oooh, that a weely big one!" about anything even moderately sized, drag races with the lawnmower/poppers, and running hugs. I'll try not to recall the day you missed your nap when you needed one, or the days we missed ours.

Love you kiddo,

mama

Stalking wild mushrooms ... Cookie dough fondling

& Co…

This week was one of those grit-your-teeth and get through it, so forgive me for a late monthly update!

David now works across the river, and is enjoying his new job and not being at his old one (at least officially…academic toil never ends). The start of the semester has been unbelievably intense for me, as expected, plus some. This week I've prepared lectures every night because of a few extra I gave outside of my own classes. My 75 person class makes me feel more like an entertainer than a teacher, and I long for the environment of the small and more interactive class. I'm hoarse and tired, and this is the point in the semester where I wonder if I'll make it.

But… the good parts of life are really quite good. Our quality of life here is awesome in terms of town, home, woods, people, child, and intellectual interest. The things we miss cannot be made, and we now have a lovely space for visitors.

P.S. Hey look, I figured out how to embed a video! Here is Ronan on 9/10 saying a quite degraded version of his chant: SPATULA!!!!

P.P.S. Seeing these folks again was a lot of fun...

Congrats E&L!

Monthday conversations

Ronan and his bud Josie
(For the annals of history, here are those highlights from Ronan's 20th month I fell asleep before getting to last week.)

Ronan now asks "What's that" and points when he wants new words, which is all the time. He points at buildings a fair bit, so we've invented names to describe places that he likes to talk about. The Blue House. The Horsie Barn. The Water House. Baby Ada's House. Josie's House (last week he told me "RoRo lives at Josie's house"). The Common House. The Neighbor House. Turns out we have really friendly neighbors!

Ronan enjoys saying common words with uncommon inflection (or we do, so now he does too). This started with his forceful imitation of "Luggage" (like he was sneezing and talking at the same time), and progressed to vehement pronouncements of SPATULA, PISTACHIO, and others. Sometimes head shaking accompanies the word explosions. If you've heard the song Bulbous Bouffant, that's pretty much our life. If you haven't, check it out: (if you are not ready to commit to 5 min, dialog gets going around 1:22 and the song starts just before 3:00).

Ro sounds more grown up than he is because he copies whole phrases. Did we roll the duck off the deck? "Don't worry" Say bye-bye? "See you soon." What are we doing this morning? "Drinking up dew" (a line from a book). "What's that? What's that? I don't know!" (all together). "Oh my goodness" and "oh-yup" are pretty common. We've had our first slips with colorful language which he immediately seemed to hone in on: "oh crap!!" Oh-yup.

He believes that if he says something multiple ways we will actually understand him better and do what he wants (the first part may be right). A week ago on the changing table while applying foot coverings I got this plea: "oh no no…not anymore…no socks on RoRo…socks offa changing table."

Our doors are solid so we've started using a monitor again to hear him when he wakes up. This means we also get to eavesdrop on his bedtime conversation with himself. One evening he recited "wheeeeeee----boom" over and over. Other times he'll act surprised at himself: "Teddy bear in there? Oh yes!! Yes teddy bear. No, no teddy bear. Big teddy bear and a little teddy bear. On the changing table." Most times we have no idea what he says.

Daycare started again last week and on his first day back David stayed with Ro a little longer at dropoff in case it was an adjustment after 2 weeks. When David asked him to say bye-bye, Ro showed him the door. (Literally: "Bye-bye Dada. Door that way") He's been just as happy to come home and is enjoying running circuits around the kitchen island now that the boxes are out of the way.

Despite the seclusion it's not quiet here after all -- the crickets and other insects are like a mariachi band outside our open windows at night, and with no drapes up yet and trees all around it feels a bit like camping (only much more comfortable). The living-out-of-boxes feeling is no doubt adding to that. Now that we've moved (to a house pre-installed with bulletin boards) we've got a quote board again, and Ronan is the newest participant. A selection:

[R] milk bottle RoRo, beer Dada! (David took this as a suggestion) July 28

[A, sorting books] Is Go religion or math?

[D] Since when is the panic call of the Himalayan flat-footed antelope a calming nature sound?

[R, to sitting mom] Mama offa chair, get RASpberries!

[A] I've been driven a duck through

Irene's arrival was largely uneventful at our house (lots of wind and rain, and a full day in PJs for Ronan). Now there are plenty of sticks to pick up in the yard, and we've had a glimpse of how incredibly stir-crazy we will all get in winter. I think we should just convert the basement into a tactile dome.

One final tidbit from last month: it turned out David signed his new job offer, our house purchase agreement, and used car sale paperwork all on the same day. We agreed that the the wife should stay the same though!

T-9 days until classes start, and September is shaping up to be the busiest month of the Fall. Woowee!

21st Monthday + Guest Blog!

Not quite as fun as a 21st birthday, but still, 1 and 3/4! Ronan is now almost 5% as old as I am, which means he should still do as I say, right?

In college we often referred to an alleged Chinese curse: "may you live in interesting times." We all do, but it turns out times can also be made more interesting by the choices we make. Such as: go to Germany for a week, return home to a conference, close on a house sale, work on said house, sleep in said house with our stuff for 2 nights, then immediately leave for vacation (and unpack upon returning). I woke up one morning not only unsure what house I was in but whose life I was living. When we returned, Ronan took to reciting who lives in the "Blue house" as if to clarify what exactly the hell was going on. RoRo lives in the blue house? Dada lives in the blue house? Mama lives in the blue house?? Yes, dear, you can live in my house until you have better things to do. But things are settling down now, and we have many lovely memories of vacation to buoy us.

Without further ado: we have a guest blogger about said vacation! (Wait, isn't that what people do who have blogs with more than 3 people reading them??) Well it's lovely treat for me anyway, and for you (since apparently YOU are reading this).

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It's Tante Jen (aka "Tata") here, with a special guest squib on summer shenanigans. This is my first blog entry as a minion of his Ro-ness, and I have just learned the lesson that it's easier to write these things as they happen, rather than in retrospect, since toddlers change every single day. Oops!




We all enjoyed ourselves immensely in "the water house," which sits on a spit of land surrounded by ocean/bay on three sides in Phippsburg, Maine. Although it rained for the first two days we were there, I think it hardly mattered to Ronan, who relished being fawned upon by six adults. Daily activities including running around the living room in circles with his new lawnmower, making as much noise as possible and only occasionally stopping for "gas"; popping a ball into the starting slot in the foosball game and watching it come out the other side (over and over and over); and walking up and down the one stair in the house, mumbling "going up!" or "going down!" depending on the direction.


   
Once it cleared up, we enjoyed picking up shells at the house beach (granted, the entire beach *was* shells, but it's exciting to see so many), visiting a museum full of BOATS! (although it was frustrating that we couldn't touch anything), reclaiming the sand for the ocean at Popham Beach (aka, throwing sand into the water), going on a boat ride with Papa's friend Ed (and napping in Tata's arms, awwww), and eating lobster (not sure yet if it's "yummy" or "yucky" or halfway in-between).

In general, the adults all fell in love with Maine and I think the kid had an awfully big adventure, too.

I have been informed that there are several words and phrases that Blair and I have passed along to our favorite wee one without intending to. "Oops!" may be one of them. "My Goodness!" is also likely. "Pistachio!" (complete with head banging motion) is highly probable. "Rodeo!" is definite. But my favorite so far is the way Ronan answers my questions with a negative. To wit:

Tata: "Can I have an Eskimo kiss?"
Ronan: "No. (pause, then sweetly) Why not?"

It took me a while to figure out that he was pre-mimicking me by appending my forthcoming "Why not?" to his negative response. But without any knowledge that he was contradicting himself. I think it's pretty much the cutest thing I've ever heard in my life. It also serves to undermine his negative responses, so that even the ubiquitous toddler "no" seems like a charming invitation for more kisses. I'm not sure if he does this with anyone else, but if he does, he may have a boatload of kisses coming in his direction (like he didn't already).



Toddler memories are also curious and hilarious to me. Ronan remembers that the red suitcase is Tata's, and the black one is Boo's, and that there are likely presents in both. He remembers whose shoes are whose, even if he's only seen them on the owner once (and thereafter on the front porch). He also remembers that my red-covered iPad is the one on which he watched a "Rodeo!" (aka YouTube movies of dressage/horse jumping), and demands encore performances. It's equally strange that all these memories won't be retained past a certain age, and he'll have no memory of this vacation at "the water house" past age five (or whenever). But I love that he'll be building new memories in "the blue house" and that we'll be a part of those, too.

xoxo

Tata & Boo!

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Thanks Tata! More monthday-ish updates in a few days, when we can see straight again.

New Blue

We've moved! Sort of, anyway. After dramatic almost-failure to close while we were in Germany, it all happened (and even on time--August 1st). This is our first night in the new house; tomorrow all our stuff should be here too. Soooo many transitions in our lives this past year – I'm sick of them!! And yet it's hard to be a curmudgeon in the face of moving to such a nice place.

We are next to a cohousing community but it feels very secluded. It's at the end of a cul-du-sac, but close to the bike path and only a few miles from where I work. It was designed to be heat and energy efficient and uses some more sustainable materials, and there are lots of other nice things. But what I like best is that it's a place to call home. It may not feel a thing like home yet, but after 4 moves I'm ready to pounce.

P.S. The house needs a name (what...don't you name your house, your car, and your computer??). Suggestions (comments) encouraged!

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.

Settling in

A big part of settling into a place is finding not just friends, but people and places: your dentist, doctor, park, market, habits. When I started having issues with tendonitis in graduate school I added massage therapist to the list. We've found a fantastic one here. And she has an African gray parrot.

On my two prior visits the parrot was quiet, or far away, but today I was serenaded with telephone rings, the sounds of fireworks, kisses, and vocal imitations including men, women, and the kids from across the street ("ooh" and "peekaboo"). The parrot is quite talented, and gets her owner's tone of voice, her exact laugh, and what may be her ex-boyfriends name because her owner is trying to train her to say "hi ___" to a different man's name.

Whether or not that's the story, the running monolog of imitiation during a massage gave me plenty of opportunities to reflect on the parent/child relationship. Ronan is learning from our lives, our words, our behaviors. It's darling when he parrots back adult words and phrases, but also sobering when he sternly tells the neighbor's child "No, baby Ada" when she does something he doesn't like.

I recently watched a talk by John Gottman about parenting and dealing with your child's emotions (http://onetotheworld.net/gottmanattalaris) and it facilitated some introspection about how I react to Ronan, especially at this age where he is testing boundaries, learning rules, and still too young to have much understanding of why they exist. It's hard to encapsulate the whole talk briefly, but he shares sentiments about what a certain group of successful parents do. Like give specific praise instead of general praise, or use emotional reactions as an entry to talking about feelings rather than trying to get past them. He suggests that there is no such thing as constructive criticism. Part of the reason he describes groups of parents rather than being instructive may be that it's hard to change who you are and how you react to things. (And in the end kids don't become parrots, but respond to you it their own ways.)

Before having a kid I thought parenting would be interesting. I wish I had more time to think about these things because I had NO IDEA just how interesting. Sometimes I think it's good that I don't have time to think more about it because I'm not sure more thinking would get me that much further. I'll bank on love counting for a lot, and maybe let's quit with the moving for a while (after August, our fourth move in a year).

Right, settling in.

Baby Boy Weather Forecast

I can totally see this kid practicing single eyebrow raises in a few years...

Some parenting moments are giggles, hugs, or pride. Others are realizing that your child bent your glasses into an impossible shape while you were dozing on his unpadded bedroom floor after 4 hours of sleep. (Yes, this morning). I'd actually managed to close the door, do a quick sweep of his room for child-safety, and hide my glasses under the rocking chair footstool before sleep overcame me, but kids are clever and "hiding" is a current favorite game.

Some recent sunny moments:

• At the local brew-pub he started strumming a pickle and singing "oh-hi-oh-hi-oh." The pickle juice everywhere was so worth it.

• If he's really tired he'll instruct you how to put him to bed. Actual directions uttered while he was being held: "RoRo in crib. Mama outside"

• June 30: first 5 word sentence: "Dada bringing a milk bottle." Followed by "Big tadpole in the water" on July 4.

Ronan in a good mood is talkative and playful and a fantastic giggler.

Stormy moments:

Ronan in a mini-meltdown has one hell of a voice and explores creative ways to express his feelings. Rules are understood, but apparently fun to break. I must say it's far more frustrating to watch a child throw food onto the ground with glee, or bite you and then say "no biting", than to supervise the accidental flailings of a baby that might lead to the same results. There seems to be a gap in time between the cognitive development needed to understand rules and the restraint needed to follow them. I start to understand why babies are born 2 years apart, or four, but not as often 3.*

*(Actually, while I've heard this, I was unable to find any histograms of birth spacings so who knows if it's real. For now I'm amazed anyone has >1 child.)

News from Lake Wobegon

Lots has been going on in the last few weeks. We are in the process of buying a house, we got a second car, and we all got a flu. Fortunately it looks like we will have a few quiet weeks before we head out of town, move, and all hell breaks loose!