Settling in

Calvin is no longer a Californian. He is now a Marylander.

We left LA four weeks ago and spent a week in Ohio. Calvin slept a lot on the flights and enjoyed the lush greenery and exciting thunderstorms of the Midwest.



























Calvin is now 18 months old, has 12 teeth, and loves to climb. Some pleasures new to him in MD include riding in shopping carts, visiting Civil War battlefields, and day trips into DC to visit the zoo.





































We are now living in a little house with a yard. Calvin has a bedroom and a pool! Here's a video of summertime Calvin and more videos can be found on Keith's YouTube channel.

Major changes

Sorry for the very long wait between posts. It has been an eventful time. A quick rundown:

Brigid finished her PhD and graduated.














Grandpa and Uncle Ted visited for the occasion. They taught Calvin some basic baseball skills, as seen in this video.

Calvin has vastly increased his sign-language vocabulary. He is very excited to show off his sign for bird, as seen here and here. He lets us know whenever he sees or hears one. He seems to be getting closer to a few spoken words, but his signing of basics like "help", "more", "milk", "water", "diaper", and "all done" have saved him and us from lots of frustration.

We've also recently enjoyed visits from a great aunt and uncle and once-removed cousin; a Father's Day trip to the zoo featuring lethargic animals and Calvin's first taste of churro; an outdoor concert; and countless playground trips.











And a few people have asked when we'll teach Calvin to play poker. We haven't started on strategy, but he's started handling chips.














We are preparing for a cross-country move. The next post will likely be from our new East Coast home. Wish us luck as Calvin's time as a California baby draws to a close.

Growth spurt

Calvin seems to have recently hit a growth spurt. We don't have any exact numbers, but he has recently gained enough height that we need to baby-proof another foot of vertical space in the apartment. He's also gotten good at climbing onto blocks, boxes and low tables. He's less adept at getting down, but here is a successful dismount.










Here are his favorite activities of the moment (with links to videos where available):
1. Dancing. He'll dance to any music or to anything resembling music.
2. Eating. Mandarin oranges are a new favorite and he's fared well on recent restaurant trips.
3. Putting things into other things, taking them out, putting them back in, taking them back out...














4. Talking on the phone (or pretending to).
5. Befriending strangers. He's caught on that when he smiles at people, they'll often smile and wave back. It's very charming.














6. Headbutting. This is a terrible development.

Thirteen Months

Today, Calvin becomes a teenager. He's tied the record for youngest person ever to 13 months, which is pretty impressive. (He shares the record with about half of all people born in February - 393 days.) Like any teenager, he's rebelling by growing weird hair and putting himself into physically dangerous situations. Also, he got a job pushing an ice cream truck.

Here he is going down a slide at the one-year birthday party for his buddy Owen, who is soon to join him among the precocious thirteen-monthers.











Rather than poorly embed our videos here, we'll just link to them. Here's Calvin working on his spoon skills. Note his rebellious hair style, a mullet of sorts. I try to shame him out of it by telling him he looks like Terry Bradshaw.

Here he is putting himself in bodily danger by climbing on some boxes. And here he is wearing sunglasses indoors like some kinda jerk.


Here's Calvin with his ice cream truck. No customers yet. I think it needs a refrigeration unit.

We survived year one!

A year ago, we were insanely tired, but crazy about our new baby. We are still insanely tired and still crazy about Calvin, but he's practically a grown man now. A grown man who pretends he's in a Coke commercial when he drinks form a sippy cup:














He's still working out some of the details of sippy cup use. For Calvin's birthday, we had a bunch of people over to our apartment and some refused to honor our "No gifts, please" request. So Calvin's had quite a week wearing cool new clothes and playing with new toys. Here he is enjoying a plush car.














Calvin loves to give hugs and playfully wrestle with others. On a possibly related note, another child at daycare recently chomped down on Calvin's hand, leaving some tiny teethmarks.











At birth, Calvin was in the 97th height and weight percentiles. At one year, he's hovering down around the 45-50th. So his mom's genes might be kicking in. The doctor did declare him "perfectly proportioned."

Here are some videos (not right-side-up, and poorly formatted for this blog--sorry, we are working out the kinks of getting videos off of our phones) of Calvin lifting a palm frond and playing in the park.

The final days of infancy

Calvin is fast approaching his first birthday. He's matured a lot in the last few weeks. In the new year, he's gone from a crawler to a walker. Here's a video of a short walk taken last week. He can now walk the apartment from end to end.



His maternal grandparents recently visited and got to see some major progress on the walking front. He hijacked grandpa's BlackBerry and very nearly sent his first email.











Calvin is having a love affair with doors and hinges (that I've warned him will end badly). Our apartment has french doors that keep him busy. He opens and closes them, looks through the windows, and tries to slide things under them.














Other minor milestones: first successful sitting in a restaurant high-chair, first pair of shoes, and moving up to the "young toddler" room at day-care. So three days a week, Calvin is hanging out with some very mature one-year-olds.

Any recommendations for a first birthday celebration?

Calvin in the new year

Our Christmas was a subdued affair. Calvin didn't get as into the ripping open presents as we thought he might, but he's definitely loving all the boxes that are around.



As a safety precaution, he licked most of the presents before we opened them.











In non-holiday news, Calvin can now push his stroller around the apartment sans-parent. And he is occasionally taking a step or two, but still prefers crawling.














He enjoys playing with the clear drawers of his dresser--pulling out clothes, putting them back in, and sometimes hiding a Cheerio for me to find later.