Rohan discovers his funny bone (and his foot.)

It started just before the holidays. The occasional, Pillsbury-dough-boy type of giggle, brought on usually by nuzzling his belly during a diaper change. But Rohan's first all-out, body-shaking guffaw came on December 21st, at Nana and Papa's house after the Gage kids opened presents. Cousin Madeline was bouncing on her new "jumpoline," a request from my sister-in-law in hopes of saving her furniture at home with an outlet for Madeline's Tigger-like bounciness.

Rohan kept staring at Madeline, so I propped him up next to her and bounced him a little along with her, accompanied by "Boingyboingyboingy" noises. Suddenly Rohan began to laugh, and the laughs just kept pealing out, a stream after the first snowmelt of spring.

Since then, eliciting those laughs has become my purpose in life. A day is not complete without one. Luckily, we've discovered many things that tickle Rohan's funny bone.
1. Watching people bounce up and down, not necessarily Madeline, and not necessarily on a trampoline.
2. His Ma squealing "meepmeepmeep" in a high pitched voice. No, Daddy does not work.
3. Daddy making funny faces, especially the dog face.
4. Me yawning while saying, "Haiyamung!" (don't ask.)

Here is one example of #1 captured on video. I am the bouncer in this case.

Holidays 2008-2009

We drove down to Pennsylvania for the holidays and Rohan continues to show us that he is patient with driving and generally a happy little fellow. We had a great time visiting relatives, hanging out and wandering around Philadelphia. We also enjoyed taking over Caroline's parents' house with a giant sleepover.

Here Rohan is enjoying the annual Christmas Party at Chris and Eileen's house. It didn't look like they were going to move to a new house in a month. Rohan got some new Steelers ware a cool wagon and toys. And I was the lucky "pickle finder", a game where a pickle ornament is hidden in the tree and the finder gets a prize. In this case a neat ceramic candle holder. My winning tactic was to just look in the places that Chandreyee had already looked in and soon enough I found it.


I am going to have to keep an eye on this guy. He can't eat solid food and already he has designs on my pretzel. Good thing his aunt and uncle and grandparents live near Philly so we should get good ones often.

As I said, Rohan was mostly chipper, but at one point he needed well, ...... let's just say prune juice was required. In fact, as we were going in the door of Caroline's parents' house, before we could properly greet everyone Chandreyee shouted "Rohan needs prune juice now!". The expected happened sometime after midnight and he was back to his usual self. Then in the morning Eric casually said "So did everyone hear the big event?". I thought, well it was a pretty big event, but I'm not sure that everyone heard it or needs to know about it. It turns out that there was a small earthquake in Lancaster that shook the house (~3.3 magnitude acording to a Digg article). I guess that living in San Francisco for 6 years made me able to sleep right through it. And Chandreyee was awake and didn't feel anything. I guess we need at least a 4.5 or it is just a little tumbler.

After we got back home, we went sledding and Rohan liked it a lot (sorry no pictures of that). And he was very happy to host a Penn State vs. USC football party. Unfortunately Penn State didn't win, but we had a great time and Rohan even sang along with his mom's Christmas gift ABBA sing-star for the Playstation. Ocassionally I am able to think of a good gift for Chandreyee and I'm glad she likes it. It was pretty easy this year as Chandreyee loves ABBA and karaoke. As bad as my voice is, I even sang along to some of the songs on the other disc which had '90s music on it.

We also went to two playoff NFL parties and I guess that Rohan helped the Eagles to win and hopefully there will be an all Pennsylvania Super Bowl. I learned a funny thing today on the NY Times. At one point, during WW II, there was a shortage of players and teams were combined to keep the games going. So for one season, 1943, there was a team named the Steagles. Pretty Weird. Maybe that will help someone out with a trivia question someday.

We also found out one thing that absolutely captivates Rohan and will hold his attention despite hunger, cold, and anything else... ceiling fans. I guess it is like a giant mobile that spins really fast. He can't get enough of them. He sat watching Ami's fan for like 30 minutes until we had to turn it off so he would eat and again sat transfixed watching the one at Mike Springer's house.

We had a wonderful holiday season and hope you did as well. Thanks to every one who helped us celebrate the new year.

Mike G