growing baby

Roan’s about to embark on his first plane trip tomorrow–he’ll be going with me to visit Georgia and Ohio.  (Ilya and Mateo left yesterday for Mateo’s first trip to Russia!!!!  But I’ll let Ilya update you on those adventures.)  Anyway, it’s so lovely to spend some quality time with Roan.  During the grading crunch of this past week, Roan had two sleepovers at Abue’s house so I could work uninterrupted during the night.  That was a godsend–I got the grades in with one hour to spare! and about 7 hours of sleep over two nights!–but I also missed Roan terribly!  

Anyway, Roan is growing so fast!  He now has eight teeth–four on the top and four on the bottom. He also now officially speaks three languages!  This admittedly amounts to at least one word in each language, but, hey, you’ve got to start somewhere.  Roan’s Russian word is “na”–this essentially means “here, take this” but Roan also uses it his own way to mean “hey, I want that.”  

Roan’s a very musical child.  He loves to dance to music and he loves to sing!  He can carry a tune remarkably well for a one year old.  We often catching him singing the ABC song (pretty much the whole song is on the A-sound, but other sounds filter in occasionally).  I think it’s possible (???) that he recognizes some of the alphabet letters?  I don’t know….but he seems to sing the abc song when he sees letters (not words, but individual letters).  That might just be my imagination.

Roan also loves loves loves to play hide and seek!  He likes giving people things and, his favorite trick, only pretending to give people things.  He definitely understands what people are saying, at least in Spanish (I can’t vouch for other languages).  If I tell him to give something to Mateo, he will; if Tia Cristy tells him it’s time to wash hands, he runs to the sink.  Oh, yes–Roan loves bathing, washing hands, spilling water, doing anything with water.  He’s a musical water-animal who looks a lot like my baby pictures!  I want to say he’s a little Linda-boy, but, no, he’s his very own person with his very own thoughts.  I’m curious to see him keep growing and changing!

In roughly the order that they arrived….

1. uh-oh

2. hi

3. mama

4. ay ay ay

5. gasha (for gracias–which he says very occasionally)

6. no no no no no

7. agua (today’s new word)

My mother wrote such a lovely narrative about her time with Mateo and Roan.  I’m posting it here below.  I’m hoping she becomes a regular contributor!!!! 🙂

P.S.  And a brief note from mama: Mateo and Roan have been sharing a room for a week and they’re doing marvelously together.  Such love!

Letter from Abue:

May 28, 2012

Was it Friday, yes, on Friday Mateo had several pages of letters, each page a full alphabet.  I was amazed to see all the letters he had positioned in the pages, facing up, down and sideways, the U and the V both upside down kept its unmistakable distinctive shape, and the M and W properly vertical with neat diagonal lines.

He sang the alphabet, at top voice, pointing to each letter in turn, down, up and sideways.   This alphabet he had written, not traced it, not copied it, but entirely written it from memory.

Yesterday, Sunday, I sat with Mateo at his table and saw how he plays.  He gets paper and crayons, and he starts making his letters, while talking and telling me that “there are 26 letters,” mentioning characteristics of the letters as he goes along.  The A, B, C, D “are big, the I “is small.”  He tells me: “I like the I,” and he draws an I.  Then he says “see, I make one this way, and it’s a T”(with a happy voice and expression). He, in fact, drew one “I” horizontally on top of the first “I” to make a T.  He remarks that the W is two Vs.  He draws the letters in alpha sequence fitting them where appropriate for their size and shape for the page is full.  “This is an X” he goes on, “this is a Y.”  

As he tells me about the letters’ traits, small, big, how they transform, how they pair to form another letter,  it dawns on me that the letters have traits and relationships not only to form words but to form themselves. 

Then, one more discovery, Mateo’s letters are living “characters.” Mateo encloses a few with a move of his crayon making a jagged circle.  He says those are inside.–“The others put their jackets on to play outside.”

He wants to draw a little piano to put in the circle for the letters to play inside.  He gets a piece of paper and goes to his little piano on the floor where he trys to lift it and place it on top of the paper to trace.

Just then, Roan wakes up, and he quickly remembers he’d been promised 10 minutes in the ipad when Roan wakes up.  So he goes, walking fast, to claim his “10-minute ipad prize.”

But he comes back, and this time he draws numbers in a new page.  He writes as many as he can get in the space.  All numbers are skillfully done, the 9 with a creative location of the ball on the right side, the numbers 2 and 5 beautifully printed, of which I can say have nicer presentation than most of us can do.

Roan pays attention.  He gives me a crayon and when I make a line, he smiles.  I give him the crayon and he smiles and gives it back to me.  His looks tell me he wants me to write.  I write and he smiles again.–We play more, he likes the game.

What a pleasure you both are Mateo and Roan.  I love you dearly.

Abue

I put baby Roan to sleep for the last time tonight.  When he wakes up he’ll be officially a toddler.  He is an incredible delight and brings absolutely everybody in the family so much happiness.  He loves to play games and even be mischievous sometimes (could our nerdy little family have actually brought a class clown into the world?).  I’m sure he’ll tackle toddlerhood with a smile and with increasingly sure steps (his grand total so far is 15 steps at one go).  I love you immensely, Roan!

For the past few days, Roan’s been experimenting with taking a step or two before he bends down to crawl instead.  Fun!  His first word seems to be “hi” (?) which he usually says when he wakes up in the morning (haaaaiiiiiiii).  He seems to understand some more words though–for example, he starts waving as soon as he hears bye/adios/go even if we’re not planning on leaving that very minute.  He also loves playing hide and go seek!  He likes to peek out from various corners (by the bed, around Mateo’s playhouse…) waiting with a huge grin for me to pop up from some side.

Roan’s starting showing off some groovy moves!  He now wiggles his shoulders and bops his head in jazzy rhythm. He particularly likes dancing when he gets cheerios or when we get home and first pick him up.

Other cutenesses: Roan now has three teeth and it looks like a bunch more are going to pop out anytime.  And this morning he gave me several sloppy-sweet kisses on my hand.  He was sitting and bent to kiss my hand (resting by his feet)–I kissed him on the cheek; he kissed me on the hand; and we repeated a bunch of times.

These past couple weeks, we’ve been writing a nursery rhyme or short poem on the blackboard outside our front door (we change em up every few days or so).  Mateo is really into this and likes choosing the poems.  His favorite poetry book right now is an old tattered (and now much loved) book my dad found secondhand–Rainbow in the Sky.

Anyway, this morning, Mateo came up with his own poem while playing with numbers on his bed.  After telling me the poem, he asked me to go write it on the blackboard to share his creation with the neighborhood.  I did that, plus posted it on facebook, and now here too.  Without further ado, Mateo’s poem:

There, there,

With tiny little hair,

The One is scared with little Eight.

Roan’s becoming increasingly playful these days.  For the past couple months he’s loved playing the no-no-no-yes-yes-yes game (shaking head and nodding head in succession–well we nod and he just shakes–and his favorite version of the game is in Russian).  He also likes tilting his head to the side and having you do the same.

These past few days, he’s also been into some more traditional baby games.  He *loves* peekaboo and plays several varieties (for example, in one version he lifts a toy or plate to block his view of your face and then you peek over the object and say peekaboo!).  He’s also just starting to give a high-five.  Lots of fun and games for this one. 

Going to the pediatric dentist is like going to playland!  I took Mateo in today for his first dental cleaning and it was a complete breeze.  We walked in to the brightly colored (vivid oranges and yellows) office and sat on the comfy couch to look at books.  There Mateo found soft-stuffed versions of Lightning McQueen and company.  There was video game area (which Mateo didn’t discover) and a huge toy schoolbus (which he found to his delight).  The dental hygienist then came out and talked about what would happen and we all went inside.  There Mateo lay with his tush on top of my legs and his head on a pillow on the dental hygienist’s lap.  She cleaned his teach with a vibrating ZEBRA brush while Mateo watched a Curious George movie above him.  After Mateo’ teeth were cleaned to a bright shine, the dentist came to talk to Mateo and put fluoride on his teeth.  After all was done, the hygienist gave Mateo a Lighting McQueen sticker and a token to get a prize from the toy vending machine in the main office.  I think Mateo will want to come to the dentist all the time now!

Roan had his 9 month check-up today.  Unlike Mateo who was a steady 50th percentile all the way, Roan is full of surprises–he changes radically from visit to visit.  Now he’s in the 90th percentile in weight, but the 25th percentile in height (ok, that part didn’t change so much) and the 50th percentile in head size.  In other words, he’s a short fat guy.  But….he looks totally normal to me?!  And while the doctor said that we should watch the weight, she agreed that he looked absolutely fine.  Perhaps he’s packing a lot of dense muscle!  More short Schwarzenegger than sidekick…?

A young Danny DeVito?