aah dah!
Vanya is growing so fast, I thought I’d share a little about him.
April 30, 2009
Oh how time flies. Just a minute ago Vanya was tiny sweaty sticky baby searching for milk on everyone’s breast, arms and shoulders. Now he eats everything, talks and almost walks.
This week Vanya had chicken and rice, pasta and yogurt, slices of cheese and avocado. He routinely says “aaah dah,” (all done) when he is finished with his meal or even his “ga caca” (Graham Cracker). He tells us when he wants “duh!” (down) and is working on remembering “uh” (up). He knows “mama” and “papa” and has privately been practicing “baba,” (Katya’s name for her grandfather). “Katya” and “Mya Mya” (Katya’s name for her grandmother) cannot be far behind. Vanya shakes his head and says “ne ne ne” as he pulls the trash can over, plays with the electrical cords, and puts rocks in his mouth. He climbed two flights of stairs today with little assistance to get from his grandparents to his house for a nap. He pushes Katya around in a little red wagon and wrestles with her on the grass, the floor and mamapapa’s bed. He is always into something and requires constant care. Even Katya helps watch that he doesn’t eat anything he shouldn’t (dog food is his number 1 goal) or play with anything too small.
All this at ten months. What will he be up to when he is eleven months?!?
May 6, 2009
One week later and Vanya is saying “Kaka,” exactly what Katya called herself for the first two years of her life.
Today, I heard from a little bird that Vanya found one of Katya’s bubble blowing bottles, the non-spill kind in the little bottle with the bubble wand sticking out. He picked it up, pulled out the wand, and (I know what you are thinking, and he DIDN’T stick the wand in his mouth) he held it up to his mouth and went “whooo whooo.” He tried to blow bubbles!
I woke this morning at 5:40 am to do zazen (sitting zen) as I have been doing for the past couple of months. Recently, I have many times woken at 5:40 am only to find out that Vanya is also awake, making it somewhat impossible to sit zazen. So I have been trying different strategies to enable me to sneak down the stairs without waking anyone up. My very first effort was clever but a little too effective. I ordered a vibrating alarm wrist watch thinking it wouldn’t wake anyone else up. And it worked. No one woke up… including me. Then I tried closing the door to Katya and Vanya’s room when I got up to go downstairs. That ended yesterday in a storm of grunting and yelling. Vanya woke up and started grunting which woke up Katya who saw that the door was closed and started screaming “Why is the door closed? Why is the door closed?” So this morning, I woke up, sat up, turned off the alarm. I sat very quietly for some minutes hoping that everyone was sinking back into deep sleep. I stood up. I heard rustling from Vanya’s crib. I dropped silently to the floor in a split second decision to sit zazen right on the floor beside my bed so as not to make any noise at all. Silence. One minute. Rustle. Rustle. Two minutes. Ruuuustle. Silence. A small voice, “Aaa Dah. Ahhhhh Dahhhh.” Pause. “Mama.” Pause “Ahhhh Dahhh.” No way to feel irritation. Just joy, amazement, bewilderment. Who is this small boy?