Oh my goodness, shall I try again?

Kai Lucas at 5 1/2 months--born December 5, 2011

Oh dear, the last post on this blog was nearly two years ago. Given that there's still life going on, and still far-away relatives and friends who want to stay updated, I'm going to give it one more go. To assist me: a public commitment to update the website every Sunday.

But, enough navel-gazing. Here's the first installment:

Welcome Kai Lucas! Six months old now, and already making it clear he's a strong-willed, active boy with a great sense of humor.

It's very different watching him go through the stages after having experienced them with Xander. I know what milestones to expect and so time goes by much quicker. Kai's already eating his first solids, starting to sit on his own, and rolling over.

Seeing the boys' different temperaments confirms my belief that there's not much we can do to influence basic personality traits. (Nor would we want to.)

Kai is very physically active--he has collapsed his play gym on himself several times, can't crawl yet, but mysteriously ends up eight feet from where I put him on the living room rug, and arches his back and twists his body when he's on the changing table. I predict he'll be walking at 12 months or so--5 months earlier than Xander.

I suspect Kai is going to be outgoing and assertive. He's already managed to get himself out of daycare and into a nanny situation by making his needs known (loudly and inconsolably).

Xander, at three and a half, has become a stellar big brother. He comforts Kai with a pacifier or a song, makes Kai giggle, and has shown few signs of jealousy. He recently told Kai, "You're so cute. I love you." It's heart-melting. I think it may be a bit harder once Kai starts crawling and taking Xander's toys.

Xander has hit several milestones since Kai was born. He's completely out of diapers now--even at night. He rides his push bike to preschool nearly one mile round trip--with us riding alongside, of course. He's starting to show signs of wanting to learn to read, and he has a fun imagination. Yesterday, he was a mama piggy and made a nest of blankets for his purple eggs, out of which hatched ten little brown baby piggies. Today they joined us in the shower (don't step on my baby piggies, mommy!), went to school with him, got left at school, then mysteriously reappeared at home (shhh, my baby piggies are sleeping). Apparently, his imaginary friend might turn out to be a herd of egg-hatched, purple pigs.

Words, words, the bird's got the word

From SoHum Perseid Shower

Xander is twenty-one months old now. Our pediatrician said we'd start seeing Xander's language explode, and it's happening. Just in the last week, he's said about two new words a day, and it's clear that his understanding of language is much more developed than his expressive skills.

Just this weekend, he added, "wie-ps" (two syllables, for wipes), "upsigh" (upside down), "muh plz" (more please) "out-sie" (outside). Other favorites are "ah-coh-coh" (avocado), "gac-gac" (grandma/grandpa) and all versions of mama and dada.

He's very self-directed in his play, and can entertain himself for a while. Everything-toast, socks, legos, turns into a car or airplane and gets pushed around with sound effects. He's also into rocks and dirt, and loves standing at the sink playing in the water. We just got him a plastic step stool, and he carries it around the house and places it in front of the sink, or next to something he wants to climb. Maybe it wasn't such a good idea, after all.

The other day, I wasn't paying too much attention to him while I was cooking dinner. He was saying "chee, chee" and walking around the kitchen. I had left the fridge door open while turning to do something, and he went in, opened a drawer, pulled something out and walked over to where I was chopping vegetables. Tiptoeing, he pushed it up onto the counter in front of me. A block of cheddar cheese. Of course.

Going back over the other postings, I see that a lot has happened since the March one. Micah did very well at the Reno interview, and was ranked second overall, but the first place candidate decided to take the job. He's applying again for other faculty positions this fall.

Xander's maternal grandmother, Dixie, visited two weeks ago to help out while Micah was in Australia for work. We did all kinds of fun things--Tilden Steam Trains, Little Farm, the Sonoma County Fair (where we lost a shoe), Stinson Beach. It was a great visit.

We also flew out to South Carolina to meet Xander's cousin Kat, who was born in February. We had a lovely time with family there, took several walks in the hot, humid weather, went to the Columbia Zoo (an excellent zoo), and had amazing barbecue with Uncle Steve's family.

We have no plans for travel in the immediate future, which is nice, since we've been cross country with Xander four times since he was born, to Albuquerque once, to Reno once, to Portland, Oregon twice, to Yosemite once, and to Humboldt at least half a dozen times. He's a good traveler, but recently started becoming susceptible to motion sickness, which may curtail any future travel.

Happy Saint Patrick's Day

Xander celebrated St. Patrick's Day with a yummy homemade corned-beef boiled dinner. He liked the beef, didn't so much like the green beans or cabbage.

Last weekend Xander flew to Reno with Mommy to meet Daddy, who was visiting UNR. Xander had his nose pressed to the plane window for takeoff; he loved watching the lights as we flew up into the sky. After he bored of that, he practiced moving the windowshade up and down, and tried--almost successfully--to remove it from the tracks that keep it in place. The plane was full, so a very nice 12-year-old girl sat next to us. Xander immediately fell in love with her. He was staring at her, reached out to touch her hand gently, and then when she smiled at him, he grinned and snuggled back into Mommy's lap.

Reno was sunny, cold, and surrounded by beautiful mountains. It also seemed really empty. Either everyone was inside gambling, or outside in the mountains skiing. We drove to Truckee the next day and snowshoed at Castle Peak with Xander in the backpack. Things didn't go so well--he refused to wear gloves, didn't get a good nap in the backpack, and started crying inconsolably after our lunch break, so we turned around prematurely. The last quarter mile, Mommy snowshoed back with a snuffly baby in her arms. As soon as we got to the trailhead, Xander saw lots of dogs and people and started smiling and talking.

This weekend Grammy Ellen and Grandpa Denis are visiting, and we're looking forward to seeing them and perhaps a fun trip to the beach or the steam trains in Tilden.

February Update

Xander looks suspiciously at his Dad, while holding his push-toy.

The little man is really beginning to walk around on his own, though he still reverts to crawling if he wants to get anywhere quickly. At nearly 16 months old, most of his cohort is already walking. We see his reticence as a sign of his laid-back, easygoing personality, and the fact that he has perfected crawling to a fine art. It is hard to keep up with him when he sprints on all fours across the floor, racing to the open refrigerator door to grab the caper jar before we get a chance to close the door.

He spends a lot of time figuring out how things work. He loves opening doors, fitting lids on containers, sorting his socks, pressing buttons on the electronic keyboard, locking and unlocking the car with Daddy's keys, and making calls to the Berkeley Police Department on Mommy's cell phone. He loves stacking blocks and has become quite the expert. He points to his head, ears, nose or mouth when we ask him where they are. He chatters away most of the day in his own baby language. Every so often, he will come out with a word or sentence that is clear as day: bottle, Hi Berta, zapatos.

He loves going to daycare, and along with the other little 15-month old girl Elsa, dotes on 4-month old Milo, patting the baby when he cries, or offering a pacifier or a bottle. Xander also knows how to be gentle, both with Milo and with our cats.

Xander's favorite activities are swinging at the park, playing in the sand, playing with toys in the tub, eating bananas (num num!), wrestling with Daddy, and hanging onto Mommy's pant legs.

New Words, New Activities!

At his last pediatrician visit, the doctor said that Xander would start to learn one new word a week. So far, it's been pretty true. Words and his phonetic interpretations follow. They're roughly in the order he's learned them:

daddy (dahdee)
mama (mamamama or muhmuhmuh or general fussiness)
hi daddy (hadahdee - he really treats this like one word)
hi (hah - kind of like a southern gentleman)
ball (baah - sometimes with the l)
wow (wow)

He also understands a lot more than he can say. For example, Micah or I can say, "no, Xander, that's not for babies" when he tries to reach for something bad--say the computer cord--and he stops, checks to see if we mean it, and usually ends up going somewhere else. He looks for the kitty when we say, where's the kitty? He comes over to us if we ask him to. He waves goodbye if someone leaves, or if we ask him to. He understands sign language for "all done" and "milk" and understands the words "bannana" and "bath."

He's also cruising really well, making circuits around the living room, holding on to anything about 18 inches high. He's stood on his own sporadically, no more than a second or two. We've given a lower kitchen cabinet over to him, and he loves pulling out all the pot lids and banging them around for hours. He's figured out how to unlatch the baby gate, so we now need to keep it locked. He also has started "reading" books on his own, flipping the pages. His favorite seems to be Goodnight Moon. Perhaps the cutest thing he's started doing is carrying things around in his mouth while crawling. It's all about efficiency for him, though we think it just makes him look like a puppy.

Xander and Great Grandpa

October and November have meant lots of trips for the family. In addition to flying to New Hampshire (see post below), we also flew to Albuquerque to visit Micah's grandfather and aunts and uncles. We stayed with Great-Grandpa George in his very nice apartment near downtown Albuquerque. (Click on any photo to see more on our Flickr site)


Xander and Great Grandpa
Originally uploaded by lauren buckland

We saw Micah's aunt's Deb and Rebecca, and their families (Keith and Chris, respectively). I really enjoyed seeing Keith's under-construction adobe home (passive solar heat, courtyard and hand made adobe bricks). Great Grandpa George took us to a fabulous Indian restaurant (Taj Mahal), where Xander proceeded to eat an entire plate of saag paneer.

MMMMM!

When we came back, Xander had two birthday packages--blocks from Grandma Ellen and Grandpa Denis and nice warm pants and top from Great Aunt Su-Z. Xander takes great pleasure in demolishing block towers. He also got a birthday gift certificate to a local toy store from Aunt Jen and Uncle Steve. He picked out (ok, Mom picked out) a wooden backhoe and a pounding bench. Xander knows how to pound. Thank you for all the birthday wishes and gifts!



Last week, Lauren flew up to Portland for a company retreat and briefly saw Xander's cousin Kayman, who is six months old, and Auntie Em and Uncle Vince. Kayman is a little charmer.

And to culminate all this fun activity, Else, our backyard neighbor, brought home an 8-week old puppy last weekend. Xander, who loves to chase Bootsy and the small dog at daycare, proceeded to go after the puppy. However, after being assaulted by the puppy's overeager licking, and having his socks gnawed on, Xander decided he didn't really want to be that close to the puppy.

New Hampshire October Visit

The family spent Columbus Day (Indigenous People's Day) weekend in New Hampshire. It was a brief visit, but worth the looong (14+ hours) travel time there and back. It was wonderful seeing Grandma Dixie, Betsy, Bob, Anne Marie, Greg, and meeting Hillary. The leaves were in full color, and the weather was crisp and sunny.

Before we left to fly back to the Bay Area, we visited with Great-grandma Connie. She said of Xander: "He's certainly not stupid, is he?" Nope, he's a smart little guy.

What's he doing now? He can follow simple directions, like "Come to mommy sweet baby-boo." and "No, don't pull on Bootsy's ears". He smiles all the time, especially at parties, and when offered sweet potatoes. He loves throwing balls and experimenting with gravity. He crawls super-fast, and pulls himself up on everything--pantlegs, coffee tables, the djembe drum, cabinets. The other day he said "hi daddy" (really!) and he's started to say "ma ma" very distinctly.

One year old almost!

Daddy and Xander Looking at View
Originally uploaded by lauren buckland