Do the wave

Davis is full of new surprises and accomplishments every day it seems!  Yesterday, when we skyped with Grandma and Grandpa, he kept waving at them.  During breakfast, it was all about waving at Mom and Dad..and making sure Mom and Dad waved back.  He also started to clap recently, however, we are unsure as to whether he is clapping or making the sign for "more" at times.  We've decided at the end of a song it's "Nice song, I'm clapping for you" and at the dinner table it's "more of that please!".  Of course, I suppose it could be "more songs please" instead. 

I can't remember if one of us has blogged about the first sign Davis has understood, which is touch-no.  We have been showing him the sign 'touch-no' and pulling him away from cords that he likes to play with.  A few weeks ago, when I was across the room from him, he pulled a cord and I said and signed "Davis, Touch-No" and he dropped the cord.  It continued like that for a couple of weeks.  Now, however, Davis thinks it's a great game and completely ignores the sign and the command.  We may have to step up our cord defenses.  What's fascinating, and a little scary, is how Davis is testing the boundaries.  In addition to keeping him away from cords, we are trying to keep him from pulling the fibers off of the cat scratching post and putting them in his mouth, so the cat scratching post is also a 'touch-no'.  However, he's never taken that one very seriously, but he is testing the boundary to see what it means.  He'll pick up objects, like his block, and touch the post with the block instead and look at us like "the block is touching it..not me".  Or his bunny, or even just the tip of his finger...  Apparently, when Grandma and Grandpa were here he would sit in front of the cords and hide them with his body, while he grabbed them behind him.  I really thought we were going to make it to at least a year old before having to deal with boundary pushing.  Looks like John and I are going to have to figure out this parenting thing asap. 

We had a nice brunch and play date yesterday with some friends from our Yoga class way back when Davis was just a month old and Siri was a few months old.  She has just turned one and is an expert walker now!  It's amazing to see how fast they grow and develop.  Davis had a great time playing with Siri and as Siri's dad, Dave, pointed out that Davis has an excellent "I've been wronged!" look.  There may have been some toy grabbing between the kids and since Siri can stand on her own and walk, she often won. 

Riding to work in the winter

I often get called crazy by my co-workers when I ride my bike to the work in the winter.  Maybe they are right, but I don't view it as being much different than growing up playing in the rain in Seattle: if you don't go outside when it is raining/cold - you don't go outside for months at a time.  For the last 3 weeks or so, our weather has generally be under 20 in the morning, and right around freezing during the day.


Riding home is fine, but my morning rides generally go like this:


First minute: Think about turning around and either working from home, taking the bus, or driving in.  Wonder if I should have worn more clothes or if I misread the forecast and it is in the single digits or below zero.


First ten minutes: spend the whole time cursing myself and wondering why I'm doing this.  Try to avoid looking straight ahead as much as possible to avoid cold wind in my eyes causing tears.  Shake hands and arms vigrously to move as much warm blood to my hands as possible.  Try to pedal at a high cadence to get my legs warm.


Second ten minutes: finally warm up.  Start to think its a pretty pleasant day for a ride.  Notice the frozen lakes and wonder if they are thick enough to skate on.  Feel happy that I'm riding and not driving.


Last ten minutes: lose feeling in my toes and fingers.  Start to dream about warm shower and coffee at work.  See people running their cars in their driveways so they can run from a warm house to a warm car and then into their warm office and wonder how much a remote starter for our car would cost.  Question my sanity.


Arrival at work: glad I rode in.  Think about how I don't have to sit in traffic on the way home.  Get called crazy by at least one person in the office.

Today's weather:

YouTube video

Here is the link to the YouTube time-lapse video of Davis: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6Ou_Mjj6no.  I did not have the privacy settings correct on the video on YouTube.  It should be available now.

9 months old!

Today, we celebrated Davis turning 9 months old by taking a day off of work and going to the aquarium with Grandma and Grandpa.  Davis had a fantastic time watching the divers feed the loggerhead sea turtles in the giant ocean tank.  I supported him on the ledge around the tank while he talked, pointed and laughed at the turtles and divers.  He didn't even notice when I took my hands off and he stood by himself for the first time.   It helped that he was in his first pair of real shoes which have helped him stand with a lot more stability.  He has been getting close to doing this at home, but he is usually too distracted by a toy to stay in one place long enough.

After a snack, we headed up to the touching tank where we spent some time touching star-fish and the slimy rocks under water.  It was a little hard to get Davis close enough to the water, but he seemed to enjoy sticking his hands in the water.  We were both a little worried he would grab something, or poke too hard, but he did great and seemed to enjoy himself.

We had lunch at the Faneuil Hall marketplace before trucking a tired baby home for a nap.  During his nap, I installed his new carseat and weather proofed a few windows.  The rest of the day was spent playing, weatherproofing and enjoying Davis and having Grandma and Grandpa visiting.  Kristen hemmed a few of Davis' pants so he his now able to crawl and pull himself up without standing on his pants.

Besides standing for the first time, he has been making huge strides with his motor control.  Friday, he clapped for the first time and has already  progressed from simply banging one closed fist into the other, to having one hand open while he moves them together. Grandpa taught Davis how to smash balls the balls in one of his Christmas presents with a hammer (that is the idea of the toy) and he seems able to pick things up very quickly.

We have continued to work with signs.  Our usual signs are: food, cat, more, touch-no, mom and dad.  Yesterday when I was feeding Davis, he gave what I interpreted to be the sign for cat when Domino and Lilly jumped on the table while he was eating dinner.  With his motor control still being coarse grained, it wasn't exact, but it was pretty thrilling none the less.  We think some of his clapping may be the sign for more (they are pretty similar and he claps a lot at dinner).

Here are a few pictures from the day:

At the tidal pool:

Reaching for something in the tidal pool:

Slimy rocks might have been the most interesting thing to touch:

Playing at home:

I also created a time-lapse video of us playing from our ceiling fan.

A mixture of feelings

Today was a pretty big day for me in some ways.  We submitted a manuscript, finally, for a paper that has been taking the majority of my time since last January.  In some ways I'm relieved, but for the most part I feel like it's just back to the grindstone to return to the work I was doing before last January.  I've been trying to split my time between two projects, and it's been difficult.  At least now I feel like with focus all on the remaining work, I'll be able to get it done in time for my final thesis committee meeting in early March.  However, there's always the chance the committee won't find the work finished enough for my defense date in May.  However, in some ways, I don't care what they think, and that might be the very thing that defines the fact that I'm ready to be done. 

Another rough thing about today is that John and I went to a going-away party for our good friend Susan (and at some point to follow our good friend, and her husband, AJ).  I admire Susan a lot for following her dreams and trying something completely new, moving to California to find a job, in a location, that will make her happy and give her great satisfaction.  However, it's always tough to say goodbye to friends and it seems like this year will be a big goodbye year as many of our friends will be graduating and moving on (hopefully us included). 

I hope to post more in the next few days, but these have been a busy few weeks...We are blessed to have Grandma and Grandpa visiting.  It's wonderful to come home and play with Davis after work and have a wonderful hot dinner care of Grandma!

Happy New Years!

We had a fantastic today playing with Davis.  We recently got out the Mega Blocks we bought at a garage sale over the summer and I have been having a lot of fun building structures for Davis to destroy.  Davis challenges me to build a baby proof structure, then he utterly demolishes it in several minutes.  He has also been having a lot of fun pushing his cart across the room.  Soon he is going to realize he doesn't need it.

Pushing the cart:

I don't remember what was going on here, but Davis was about half way through demolishing the panda house that I had built with the Mega Blocks:

Playing on the Rody.  Note, he was being held, he wasn't just dangling.

Destruction in progress:

Each block must be tasted as it is removed:

Tomorrow we might attempt a video or time lapse of Davis destroying a Mega Blocks structure.  I've also got the backdrop setup for more studio like photos.

Facts about Davis

It's amazing to watch Davis grow and develop. The most exciting part of it for me is seeing his personality emerge.  Here are just a few little known (or well known and recapitulated) facts about our guy:

• Must have a toy in his hand at all times while on the move, good if he has a toy while not on the move as well.
• Loves the "Itsy-Bitsy Spider".  Favorite part of the song is "down came the rain".  He starts wildly waving his hands around when we get to that part of the song.
• Loves music!  As soon as we sing, shake a bell or he hears a song, he starts to move around and dance, no matter what he's doing.  He likes shaking rattles and bells.  Someday, we hope to get him a drum.
  
• Favorite games: hide-and-seek and peek-a-boo.  Tonight, we hit a new level of peek-a-boo/hide-and-seek.  He found me under a blanket and then he covered me up again!
• Likes books and is very helpful at turning the pages.  Favorite books: "This is my dance" (from Kindermusik class) and "Brown Bear, Brown Bear".
• Does not like to nap and possibly miss anything that might be going on.
• Holds one piece of cereal in his left hand, while he eats all the others..until the very end and then he finally eats it.
• Favorite Toys: Whoosit, Dino, Jack-in-the-box, and Bruce the Brown Bear.  This may be replaced soon with cart of toys and Rody the horse.
  
• Favorite Cat: Domino
• Favorite syllables: da, la, ra, and ba.  Mommy is still waiting to hear Ma!
• Favorite foods: For this category it's more appropriate to list foods he has disliked since he's liked most foods.  Dislikes: split peas and those green beans and rice Mom made from scratch one time.
• He loves to shake his head back and forth.  He's been doing this for a long time and John and I have never figured out what he's doing, but Sarah at daycare has started putting words in his mouth when he does it "Oh no you didn't!!".