A Boy’s Life

I think Robin’s had a growth spurt recently. I’m constantly stunned by how much more mature his face looks. I feel like I can see what the seven- or eight-year-old Robin will look like now.

And the baby in his face has disappeared. I was afraid I would miss that tiny baby when he was gone, but now that I’m here, I really don’t. It seems like Robin is more himself with every month. He’s joining us more fully in the world. It doesn’t feel like a loss. My friend Madeline once said something like, “babies are nice, but I like little kids even better,” and I think I agree.

Of course I can say this because Robin is still small enough to climb in my lap and curl up under my chin, or fling his chubby arms around my neck and sack out on my shoulder. I’m pretty sure I’ll miss that when a monosyllabic teenager has taken his place.

Sam snapped this picture of Robin eating a bite of apple last night:

Nanita sent two pictures from her recent visit—the first one she calls “Train Guys” because it’s hilarious how Robin is standing around just like one of the men:

And the second is from inside the train:

Sam and I took Robin to the beach over the Labor Day weekend, and we got some pictures of him there:

It’s hard to notice changes in his development, as it’s happening so gradually now, but he’s definitely taller and his face is becoming less babyish. He plays with other children at the park for longer periods and in more complicated games (he likes to do something resembling tag, although he’ll change his mind abruptly about who is “It”). He bestows hugs and kisses freely on everyone who crosses his path. He tries to pull up his own pants, sometimes when he’s already wearing pants. He also likes to tromp around wearing Sam’s or my shoes.

He enjoys playing in the bath, but hates to get his hair wet, and was terrified of the surf when we brought him too far down the beach. He likes to be read storybooks every day: he’ll most often bring us Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are or Crazy Hair by Neil Gaiman, but he also likes That’s Not My Dragon, a Pat the Bunny type textured book. He sings and dances to recorded music, but he doesn’t like it when Sam or I sing; I find this highly weird and can’t wait until he can talk well enough to explain it to me.

His main focus in play still consists of taking things out of containers and putting them back into different containers. He also very much likes pouring liquids from one container to another. He’s also fascinated by electronics and loves to push buttons of any sort, especially elevator buttons. He loves escalators too and would ride them endlessly as far as I can tell. He still loves Sesame Street and his favorite movie is The Jungle Book. He’s getting pickier about food, preferring pasta and rice to vegetable dishes—some days he doesn’t eat much at all, and other days he finds something he likes and wolfs it down. He seems to get enough variety that I’m satisfied.

And I think that’s pretty much the State of the Robin!

Robin is such a big boy now, I can hardly believe it. Just look at him clambering up these monkey bars:

Here’s a close-up:

Yes, I did give him a rather unfortunate haircut. Don’t worry, it’ll grow out, and he doesn’t mind.

I finally goaded Sam into transferring the eight hundred and twenty-nine photos he had stored on his camera over to the computer. Here’s some of my favorites.

This is from a Memorial Day picnic we had in a little park by the bay. I think Robin has a fried chicken crumb on his chin.

This is from Mother’s Day, when Robin was wearing his sailor suit. I promise you that .003 seconds from the time this picture was taken, he’d pulled off the hat and dropped it on the floor.

Here are three from the park:

And these are from when we went to see the steam trains at Tilden park:

We weren’t going nearly as fast as Robin’s expression in that last picture would seem to indicate.

And we were back in Tilden park last weekend for the wedding, but we both forgot our cameras. It was a really nice time though, and extra fun for me because it happened to be my birthday—and here was all this food, music, and friends already gathered together!

I wish I’d gotten a picture of my peach pie. It looked pretty, and it was very well received. I guess I’ll just have to make another one!

Robin wore his sailor suit for Mother’s Day, and garnered many compliments. We had a nice brunch and then went to see the “Treasures of Bhutan” exhibit at the Asian Art Museum…we stopped at that playground on the way so Robin could stretch his legs.

The latest news on the toddler front is that Robin has taken to grabbing our toes while shrieking “tikka tikka tikka!” (tickle tickle tickle!) I think he’s decided that what goes around comes around, Mommy!

On the housing front, we’ve put in another offer. The house we’re going for now is actually in Martinez, which is north of Oakland: it’s a really nice town. Technically I guess it’s a city, but it very much has the same feel as the college towns I grew up in. It has a Main Street lined with mom-and-pop stores. It has bungalow neighborhoods filled with trees. It has a creek that runs through the middle of town. It seems like a really nice place to raise kids; the sort of place you wouldn’t mind turning them out of doors with an admonition to be back by supper.

Martinez is mostly known in the Bay Area for the beaver controversy that gripped the city two years ago. Basically, a pair of beavers made a dam in the creek downtown, creating a potential flood hazard. The city government wanted to trap and remove the beavers—or just shoot them—but the people of Martinez were having none of it. After a series of protests and “an emotional city council meeting,” the city of Martinez decided instead to install an expensive water flow device around the beavers’ dam.

Perhaps not coincidentally, Martinez was also the home of famous naturalist John Muir. It also claims to be the birthplace of the martini.

These facts, taken together, tell me all I need to know about the people of Martinez. They are a soft-hearted and thoroughly impractical folk who love nature and gin. I feel we’d fit in well.

Okay, you people don’t really care about pictures of pie. You want pictures of little boy! Luckily Sam just uploaded dozens of them to his Flickr account.

Here’s Robin in close-up:

Here he is running around and being a goofball:

Here he is on the slide:

Look at that soft baby skin:

And we’ll leave you with this:

There, that should hold you people for a while.

We went to the beach last weekend; Robin looooooved it. He loved all the space to run and all the stuff to see. Sam flew his kite:

and Robin ran around like a maniac:

Sam has lots more pictures up on his Flickr account.

I guess the big news on the child-development front is that Robin is now fully weaned. Again, it just sort of happened. He crawled into my lap one night and fell asleep right there, without nursing. The next night he dropped off again without needing to nurse. So just like that, he was weaned.

No news on the house-hunting front. We’re still waiting for a response to our offer from the sellers and their bank. If we move to Oakland we’re going to have make time to come back to the beach!

This one is really sweet:

Nanita took these pictures of Robin while she was here—Robin at the top of the slide:

and Robin at the bottom:

Remember when I wrote a while back about how we can kind of identify what sort of overarching developmental projects Robin’s working on? Currently, he seems really focused on interactive games. He initiates all sorts of games now, all the time. I took that video of him playing peek-a-boo with us a couple months ago because it was so cute and surprising: now he plays peek-a-boo every time he gets near a curtain. He plays ball with me at the park, and chasing games (”I’m gonna get you!”) delight him. There are certain ritualized gestures he uses to initiate a simplified game of Simon Says without the verbal cues: it mostly just involves him making exaggerated gestures and us imitating them, which is highly amusing to him.

I think what he likes about all these games is a) the predictability; the idea that certain actions on his part will always prompt certain corresponding reactions from us, and b) the acknowledgment through gesture and action that a shared understanding exists between us, that something has been communicated.

His verbal skills are developing too, but he’s still far more fluid in gesture-based communication. He knows now that I’m “mama” and Sam is “dada,” and sometimes he’ll say “mama” or “dada” when he wants our attention, but more often he’ll just tug on our clothing or climb up on top of us. If he wants to be picked up he’ll pat my lap; if he wants to go to the park, he’ll climb into his stroller or bring me his shoes. If he wants to watch a Sesame Street video he’ll bring me his Elmo doll, and if he’s hungry he’ll bring me his empty plate. I know that it’s possible to develop all sorts of specific “baby signs;” about six months ago I was trying to formally teach him some of them, but he wasn’t ready, and now it just seems unnecessary since his own gestural vocabulary is already so expansive.

He also will often say “yeah!” in response to a question, although I’m not quite convinced that he understands it as a real word of affirmation/agreement, rather than just “a sound you make when somebody has addressed you with a rising inflection in their tone.” He doesn’t say “no.” If he doesn’t like something he finds it much simpler and clearer to howl loudly in protest.

The last thing I’ve noticed about Robin’s games is that he’s even started initiating them with other children at the park; I’ve seen him playing peek-a-boo or chasing games with other kids. This is a big step from the side-by-side parallel play that used to (and often still does) characterize his time in the sandbox. Of course he’s especially fascinated by older boys and it’s a little bit heartbreaking when he’ll try to toddle into a rowdy game of tag, offering his ball to the bigger kids: then I have to intervene and save him from himself. Playing ball with Mommy obviously isn’t as cool, but it’s something he’ll have to be satisfied with until he gets bigger himself!