Travel

We are thinking of traveling with Lillia again. First would be the relatively short trip to the Bay Area to visit with Lillia’s grandma Bonnie, then later this year to New Zealand to check out that part of the world. Suzanne and I have decided that parenthood is no reason to stop traveling, and New Zealand is a place we have always wanted to visit.

Now, some may consider voluntarily traveling with an infant to be foolish behavior, perhaps a “cry for help” on some level, best medicated and spoken of in hushed tones.

Nonsense. While it is true that Lillia , when in fire alarm mode, requires endless marching up and down airline aisles, and while it is true as well that traveling to New Zealand will take a minimum of 15 hours, what is this compared to the enrichment our new daughter will gain through exposure to pinched accents, kiwis, and non-rabid short-tailed bats?

Here are some pictures from our last trip, to New Jersey in May to visit grandma Joan.

Peekaboo!

Aunt Janet, Lillia and Joan

Toddling in Joan's kitchen

Hangin' with Joan

Suzanne and Joan, getting some well deserved rest.

Foodplay

Suzanne here, with Lillia's new suggestions for fun things to do with food:

1) Lillia recommends this one for beginners. You simply hold the food object out over the edge of the tray and let go. It should land on the floor with a satisfying splat.

2) A more advanced technique. Stuff your mouth with food until your cheeks bulge. Masticate well. Then blurp the whole slimy bolus out onto your bib. (Okay, blurp isn't a real word, but it should be.)

3) This is a technique that works especially well for soft foods such as oatmeal, yogurt, or pureed anything. Refrain from swallowing until you have a good mouthful, then expell forcefully with a loud farty noise. This will spatter the tray, Mommy, and anything else within a two-foot radius.

4) Lillia's current favorite. Chew any food well. Then stick your fingers way into your mouth and pull it out again and
a) mash onto the tray, or
b) smear in your hair.

5) Oh yeah, food can also be swallowed. This is strictly for losers.

P.S. Tom wasn't kidding-- I really did catch Lillia gnawing on the kitchen cabinets. You can still see the little teeth marks.

Lillia Walked Today!

I came home to find Lillia and Suzanne standing in the dining room, Suzanne leaning against a chest and Lillia holding onto the dining table leg. Suzanne started telling me about Lillia's nap when the little girl, with no encouragement, suddenly let go of the table leg and toddled over to me in about seven steps. Daddy gave her a big hug and Mommy jumped up and down.

More excitement later.

Tom

Cavegirl

Lillia is entering toddlerhood. In The Happiest Toddler on the Block, Dr. Harvey Karp describes toddlerfication as a process in which infants gradually emerge from their monkey-like, protosocial state. First, they develop into early caveman-like Australopithecoids who agree, in general, that it is better not to poop in the eating area next to the fire or in the part of the cave designated for sleeping. Next comes Neanderthal and Cromagnon stages with their slowly advancing social skills and better abilities to control their primitive impulses ("use your INDOOR voice when biting the dog, dear"), and, eventually, the tykes develop into little village people. Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny on the social as well as the biological level, and soon together we all sing "“YMCA"” while performing silly dance moves.

But whether or not androgeny truly recapitulates philosophy, Lillia has developed into a little cavegirl. She chews her food carefully and sputters out between her lips what she has stored in her cheeks, forming multicolored designs on the kitchen floors and walls. She has developed a finely-tuned sense of personal ownership, acknowledging that Mommy's purse is hers to empty and Daddy'’s paper is hers to tear and eat, and responding to limit setting with howls of outrage.

We still love her, of course. More than ever, really. Even when she screams about the unfairness of not being allowed to play with glass or sharp objects, or not being allowed to play with goose poop in the park. I'’m dealing with the shark patrol conundrum by only sticking my finger in her mouth when absolutely necessary, like the other day when she decided to bite off a piece of a crumpled aluminum foil ball that I thought was safe to let her play with.

Anyway, more pictures:

Me and Lilli with Elayna and mom Judy from our travel group to China. We are at the CCAI 12th Annual Reunion. There were many parents, lots and lots of kids, booths representing international schools for immersion Mandarin bilingual education in Denver, dragon dancing entertainment, and loud, LOUD music.

Jason, our excellent guide and translator in Guangzhou, was visiting the US for the first time.

Singing Happy Birthday at Lillia's first.

Birthday Cake!

Molding cake into a more interesting objet d'art.

Her Caveness.

Spatterart with yogurt and cantaloupe.

Hanging out with Tani and mom Sally. The dowry is still being negotiated.

Love to all,

Tom

Shark Patrol

When Lillia bites, she bites hard. This is not an unusual event in the life of a one-year-old though it caught us by surprise.
***
Act 1, Scene 1. Enter Lillia, stage left, crawling about living room floor as her slightly addled older parents watch her in deep admiration. Lillia moves about floor in Roomba fashion, putting shoes, pens, magazines, objets d’art and other interesting items in her mouth, complaining bitterly whenever they are taken away or placed out of her reach.

Suzanne: Oh look, Tom, Lillia is kissing mommy’s toes.

Tom (laughing): HO HO! It appears that our daughter has developed a cute new foot fetish.

Suzanne (screaming): Ow! No! Stop! Don’t bite!
***
Act 1, Scene 2. Naptime in the Nursery. Tom is holding a smiling, laughing Lillia as the nap turtle plays a lullaby in the background.

Tom: Oh, how sweet. You want to give daddy a good night kiss.

Suzanne: Tom, I’d be careful if I were you…

Tom: Ow! No! Stop! Don’t bite!
***
Act 1, Scene 3. In the bathroom.

Suzanne (warily): One of us has to brush her teeth.

Tom: Or so the dental police would have you believe.

Suzanne: Look, we have to do this. And she only has seven of them.

Tom: Which she uses to quite good effect.

Suzanne: Tom…

Tom: Suzanne, you’re the one who saw her gnawing on the kitchen cabinets this morning. I swear the girl is developing a dorsal fin. I’d be afraid to go in the water if I came across her at the beach.

Suzanne (louder, holding Lillia): TOM!

Tom (with finger toothbrush in Lillia’s mouth): Ow! No! Stop! Don’t bite!”
***
The books say that this is a stage (yes, all the world's a stage) that she is going through, and to overreact is to provide reinforcement. So Suzanne and I are keeping it cool, wearing shoes and long-sleeve shirts and re-enforced gloves, watching for signs of her dorsal fin receding.

I will continue to update this blog as long as I have fingers left to do so.

Tom

Godzilla

Every night, around 9 o’clock, Lillia decides it is time to become Godzilla and rampage through Tokyo. In a way it makes sense, given the deep-seated animosity between China and Japan stretching back to the Sino-Japanese war. Still the transformation is intense, with Lillia growing an impressive tail and green scales. And her roar is quite convincing. She needs help getting going, and we have not actually let her destroy Tokyo yet (Suzanne and I both feel quite strongly that current trade disputes need to be worked out through normal channels), but when this little girl is ready, not much will stop her.

Dancing

Lillia and me dancing; she lets me lead.