To Calvin, on his first birthday

You are the sun, the music, the bright spot in our lives, and today we celebrate the day of your arrival.  We remember it like yesterday - the anticipation, the excitement, the exact moment we first saw your beautiful face.  But today a sweet poignancy brings awareness of the slippage of time, a truth that is driven home as we watch you chase a pet while signing dog, practically running down the hallway past the picture of you at only 1 week old.  Oh the things that have happened since then!  In the past month alone you have started stacking blocks, and putting your toys away all on your own;  you started dancing to the music you have always loved;  your walking has improved enough that you actually spend part of our evening walks out of the stroller; and you are eating more and more foods, and beginning to learn to drink out of a glass. 

What has really amazed us, though, is your developing ability to communicate.   You have started to use baby sign language!  You sign "more" while you are eating, and have a tentative version of "eat" as well.  You also sign "dog" and can sign "cat," although it looks suspiciously like clapping or the sign for the "more," and you sign "duck" and "nurse" as well.  You watch us carefully now when we sign to you and we see the dawning of understanding on your face and know that it won't be long before you have more signs.   And even beyond the signs you are working very hard to communicate, using varying sounds (some more pleasant than others), expressions, and even hands motions, like pointing.  It is becoming clear that you understand a lot about the world in which you live, and we are simply amazed by you.  Happy birthday Calvin.  We thank you for coming into our lives, turning them upside down and inside out, and brining us the beautiful light of hope.  We cannot wait to find out what the next year has in store for the three of us!

 

It's a party! Until someone gets hurt...

Party at the watering hole!  We go out for a walk after dinner every night, as weather allows, and are often treated to close encounters with ducks, and distant encounters with rabbits.  Tonight, however, was a very special treat all its own: tonight we were visited by ducks, by rabbits, by a muskrat, AND by a great blue heron... all sharing the same square footage on the pond.  We had a great time taking pictures of everyone partying on the other side of the pond and Calvin had a great time signing duck, over and over and over again.  He was so happy he didn't even mind when we started down the path heading toward home, unfortunately, that didn't last long - first he tripped over a crack in the path (yes, it is possible), and though that wasn't a problem, as he's good at catching himself, when he went to get back up one of his arms was caught in his jacket sleeve and he ended up pitching forward, mouth first, onto the asphalt.  He only cried for about 20 seconds, but he left blood all over his mother's shoulder.  Poor little boy!    So he came home from his first party at the watering hole with his very first fat lip.  But after the first bout of crying he didn't seem to even think about it again, although he kept trying to suck on his bloody lip, which made the swelling worse, but as soon as we got home we gave him his frozen teething toy and that helped a lot.  We hope it heals by his picture appointment on Monday.

Duck nurse more cat dog

Those are the baby  signs that Calvin seems to have finally started using.  We've been throwing signs at him consistently since he was a newborn, but he just showed no interest in mimicking them at all, though he did seem to understand when he saw them.  But the last week or so seems to have been a language explosion for Calvin.  The first sign we noticed him mimicking was duck, not surprising since he goes to the neighborhood duck pond at least once a day, and though it started out as merely mimicking after only a day or two he was performing the sign without parental preface.  And it wasn't more than a day or so later that he started doing the signs for both nurse and more. Of course the way he does them the signs for duck and nurse are pretty much the same thing, but context makes the meanings pretty clear.  And what's amazing to us is that he didn't just start showing the signs, he seems to fully understand when and how to use them.  Well, for the most part.  His only downfall is that he finds it so exciting to be able to communicate that he will stop nursing just to make the sign before going back to it, and he will ignore the food on his tray just to sign for more.  We've had to adapt by giving him just 2 or 3 pieces at a time so that he has more chances to use his new skill.  Life with Calvin is surely a riot.

Consequences of a toddler...

...they move a lot faster than crawlers.  That's how this happened in the amount of time it took his mom to turn around and yell at a dog, then turn back:

Already as tall as his dad?

Well, not quite, but he does have a new vantage point on walking trips now.  Calvin has pretty much outgrown the sling and the front carrier, and he sits in the stroller just fine, but it's hard to see the zoo animals from that position, not to mention that strollers don't do park paths very well, so we got him a backpack instead.  He loves it.  We tried this new method of travel while out for our evening walk Monday night and you'd think we'd given him a space shuttle!  He reached for every tree as it passed him by, continually poked and grabbed at his dad's hair and neck, and laughed and chatted the whole walk (a great step up from his usual zombie-like behavior when riding in the stroller).  It was clear that he could see the ducks better when we got to the pond, too.  Of course it's now cold again, but we're sure outdoor weather is just around the corner and this will definitely be our first choice for outdoor travel from now on!