Tidbits about Davis

John does a fantastic job capturing our weekend activities, but I wanted to add some little stories about Davis.

Davis gives kisses
A couple of weeks ago Davis looked at me and then very pointedly turned his head to the side.  I finally clued in and turned my head to the side and he gave me a kiss on the cheek!  Kisses are now a regular visitor in the Naegle household.  Dad is a little sad that they seem to be mostly reserved for Mom right now.

Davis is a total ham
Davis knows exactly when there's a camera pointed at him or someone is looking and he can really ham it up.  When we went to the soccer game on Saturday night, there was a row of teenage girls sitting behind us and he had them wrapped around his little finger.  I couldn't even count the number of times I heard "Look at those eyes", "What a happy guy", "Oh what a smile", or "What cute hair!".  Davis spent most of the time in his seat turned around entertaining them.

Davis has hair (unique hair at that)
We like to joke that Davis' hair growth has been the reverse of male-pattern baldness.  He started out completely bald, and stayed that way for a long time.  Then he started to grow "the ring" of hair.  Right now he has hair on top with a widow's peak that is slowly filling in.  The hair on top is still quite short and tends to stick up all over the place.  When we were grocery shopping this weekend the couple behind us in line asked if his hair stuck up like that naturally or if we styled it like that on purpose.

Davis is resourceful
Davis never ceases to amaze us.  Saturday morning the three of us were in the living room trying to wake up.  Dad was laying on the couch and Davis laid down on the mat that was stretched out on the carpet.  When I tried to join him he pushed me off and said "NO! MINE!".  So Dad was nice enough to give me a pillow and I laid down on the floor next to Davis (but not on his mat!).  Well, Davis decided my pillow looked pretty good so he tried to horn in on it.  In an attempt to teach a lesson, that feels borderline abusive, I said "No, mine.".  Davis just looked at me for a second, turned around and walked into our bedroom, grabbed a pillow off our bed and then walked right back into the living room and laid down with it.  Whatever misgivings I had about showing Davis what it feels like when someone doesn't share, they dissolved when we saw how resourceful he is!

Davis has a special spot in the living room
There's one spot in the living room that Davis will always go to for the following things:

• To put sunscreen on (you can usually get sunscreen on three limbs before he starts to run around)
• To put shoes and socks on
• To give the kitties treats
• To do the "bicycle"

Today, as I was getting ready in the bedroom for the bike practice we went to, I said to Davis "I'm going to ride a bicycle, do you want to ride a bicycle?".  Davis immediately ran to his spot, laid down on his back, and bicycled his legs in the air.

Davis has many words and phrases
Davis is clearly understanding a lot of what we say now.  However, I have learned it's important to realize the gaps in what he understands.  For a while we have been struggling with him throwing his food at meal times (dinner especially).  It's been getting a lot better, mainly John and I think because we have greatly de-emphasized our response to it.  A few nights ago, Davis had a great dinner with no food throwing.  I said "Davis, wow, THANK YOU very much FOR not THROWing FOOD".  Davis immediately, in short order, threw the two strawberries and the eggplant on the floor and against the bookshelves.  That folks was entirely my fault since I now see that what he heard are the capitalized portions of the sentence.  Here are some words and phrases Davis is saying a lot now:

• No, wait
• What's that?
• No way!
• Thank you
• Stop
• Outside
• Truck (by far his most used word it seems)
• Socks (sounds a lot like truck)
• Shoes
• Toes
• This
• More
• Mine
• No
• No, Mine!

Davis can play follow the leader
We have great fun playing follow the leader with Davis.  We can stand on one foot and he'll stand on one foot.  We can lay down on the ground and bicycle and he'll do that (sound familiar?).  He's great with songs too like "Head, shoulders, knees and toes".  Some things he's learned at daycare are "Cheers", high fives, and fist bumps (called "pound").   Another game Davis loves (particularly while naked after a bath) is chase. 

Davis loves music
Davis continues to love music of all sorts.  Anything from the ice cream truck to grammie's cell phone ring can elicit a dance.  Dad found a great musical set at a garage sale that has been very exciting for Davis (probably less exciting for our downstairs neighbors).  He loves to drum and play the recorder.  He also enjoys taking the recorder apart as well as using it as a drumstick.


Davis loves Domino
Davis and Domino continue to have a pretty close relationship.  We still spend most nights chasing Domino out from under the crib at bedtime and letting him in the room first thing in the morning.  One morning last week I was getting his lunch ready when I decided to peak in on them and found Davis carrying Domino.  Domino looked less then enthusiastic about it, but just hung there like a limp rag doll until Davis put him down, at which time he bolted from the room.  You'll notice we never mention Lilly and Davis' relationship.  Lilly keeps a large distance between them unless Davis is helping us feed them.  Davis is a great counter and table sentry.  Whenever the cats are somewhere they shouldn't be, he lets us know.

Toes are awesome

It's been a long time since I have blogged..since May in fact.  Luckily, John has been keeping up with posts recently, but I would like to get better at it since it's proving to be important for documenting Davis' development and sheer awesomeness.  So here's a small warmup to get me back in the swing of blogging. 


I don't think I've mentioned it here, but after I defended in May (and officially graduated in June), I began work as a postdoc, joint with my Ph.D. lab and a new lab.  I'm still working out what it all means with regards to where I am and when, but it's awfully comfy to stick around my old stomping grounds and work with the same people I have been working with for years.  The biggest change in my postdoc is that I am now doing biological experiments and very little computation.  It's been quite the change and an eye-opening experience.  I've been completely overwhelmed and it's been pretty hard to go from feeling like you know something to feeling like you know nothing.  I'm blessed with great colleagues who are happy to help me through the learning curve of experiments (and enough of them I can spread out the wealth of my ignorance among them all, decreasing the burden on any one of them, although some still get a pretty heavy dose of me).  I think I enjoy it.  In contrast to when I was doing fabrication, the experiments I'm doing go fast enough to keep me excited about them.  Fabrication work left me pretty unexcited about getting back into the lab, but it's proving to be a completely different mode and timescale (for reference, it was typically 6 months to a year of fabrication before you ever even got to sit down with a device to see if it did what you hoped it would).  One of the hardest transitions to this new way of life is scheduling my day.  I'm eating lunch at 2:30 in the afternoon, missing the gym, and coming home exhausted after a full day of standing and running between labs.  I think as time goes on and I get the hang of things, it will get better.


Davis is growing and changing by the day.  It's cliched, but.. It sure is amazing to see the world through the eyes of a newborn/baby/toddler.  For example, Davis loves the toe song.  You know the one that goes "This little piggy went to the market, this little piggy stayed home..."  When we take off his shoes and socks he looks at his feet and points and I sing the song.  He laughs in delight when the last little piggy runs home.  He usually points again and we sing again..then one more time usually, perhaps a few more times.


John and I are amazed by his capacity to pick new things up and even extend them.  For example, when we went to the water park, he picked up a stick.  When he saw other kids putting things like buckets in the water stream to catch water, he put his stick in it.  Then when a little girl showed him how to catch water with a bucket, he tried it.  The first time we went to the water park he splashed in the puddles on the perimeter.  The second time, he was running through the center where the water was pouring down.  Who knows what he will do next time.


Davis is certainly like his dad was, a "me do it meself" kind of guy.  He gets upset at mealtimes if we try and give him finger food a little at a time.  This morning breakfast went much better when we handed him the entire plate of eggs and toast along with a fork.  He's doing wonderful at feeding himself with a spoon and fork.  We just have to be on the watch for when he finishes in order to catch the plate before it hits the ground.   


We hoped to go camping this weekend, Davis even has his own sleeping bag!  (Davis fell asleep on my sleeping bag on the last trip and I was freezing all night long).  Unfortunately, it looks like thunderstorms will prevent our trip from happening this weekend.