Tuesday, April 28, 2009

A shoutout to distant Rohan fans


The great thing about blogs is their ability to bring diverse audiences together.

This post is dedicated to those Rohan fans whom we don't get to speak to personally, at least, not often, such as the devoted staff of Upper Merion Township Library, and Rohan's Krishna-dida, who just got her own computer (yay!).

I hope you'll understand that sometimes Rohan (and his parents) might be too busy learning new tricks, reading new books, and making new sounds, and might not get a chance to visit you in person. We are sincerely sorry for this, and hope that watching little videos like this one might make you part of a day in the life of your friend, Rohan Gage.



Tuesday, April 21, 2009

dangerous introspection on a Tuesday night


Rohan's preferred way to examine and evaluate is to taste. Whether it is Daddy's watch, my hair, Hansapuppy's ear, or his Octopus shoes, two little teeth and a tongue wreak much havoc with the victims of his oral fixation.

Most tragically, he grabbed my left hand last week and shoved it toward his mouth, attracted by the diamond's sparkle on the ring Mike gave me almost 5 years ago. He cried out in pain, lip bleeding. It was the first drop of Rohan's blood I'd seen since the scalpel nick he'd received at birth.

Later, I took off the diamond ring and put it in the jewelry box, until some ill-defined, "safe" future date, and cried a little more. Though it's temporary, my role as a mother has taken priority over my role as a wife.

Before I write more, I am realizing that none of my blogging parent friends typically moan/groan about the dark sides of life... after all, what gushing grandparent wants to hear about the battles against madness and all too frequent tears? So I will stop by merely noting the poignant contrast between the worlds of blogspot and reality.

Now, back to happy pictures, of fun in the high chair, and "helping" me cook. Picture of Mike above: credit to Dr. C.C-Y. Kung.

Friday, April 10, 2009

Teeth, Spring, Nana, Papa come to Boston


Despite the valiant efforts of relatives to make Rohan into a Pennsylvania boy (with progressively larger Steelers outfits and Nittany Lion shirts), his formative years are sure to mark him as a Beantown native. Most recently, he took his Nana and Papa candlepin bowling (kudos to Mom for her bowling victory) at Sacco's Bowlhaven, a relic of the early 1900s.

Like most of New England's sons and daughters, Rohan will grow up with little wooden balls with no finger holes, no pin resets within frames. He will call this "real" bowling, and he will consider big balls and "duck pins" to be his parents' pastime and therefore démodé.

Nana and Papa brought Rohan a tree swing for our backyard, to mark his first spring. Of course, again, Rohan will grow up thinking that spring starts (in earnest) sometime in May or June. But that doesn't stop his parents from celebrating the end of winter with some old-fashioned swinging and tree-climbing. Forget that the tree does not actually have leaves yet, and that the ground is still pretty bare.

After all, spring technically started at the end of March, in fact, just a few days after Rohan's first teeth appeared. "Now you can eat all kinds of food, going kutush kutush, like a mousie," wrote Rohan's Dimoni, with killing onomatopoeia.

A toothy mouse, and also a mighty mouse -- sitting up by himself now, and rolling all over the place, Rohan today accomplished the Great Escape from his Bumbo seat in order to reach a plastic egg. "Look out, Easter Bunny! Your teeth are nothing compared to mine!"