Big Steps, Little Steps

I know what you may be thinking with a title like that. But let me be upfront about what I do not mean: Rohan hasn't started walking yet. At least without help. As you can see in the picture though, he has started to climb steps. One more reason to keep the door to the cellar closed. He seems pretty confident about going up the stairs, but has some problems going down. At least going down in some sort of control.

After a very busy week for Chandreyee and I at work, it has been a wonderful start to the weekend so far. We grilled some burgers last night and went to the Middlesex Fells today as an early birthday present for me. I wanted to go mountain biking and eat at the Korean BBQ place for my birthday. So we loaded the bike on the car and had the baby backpack so Chandreyee and Rohan could do a little hiking while I was riding. I had a great time zipping along the trails, fire roads, and single-track. I got a bit of a surprise when I called Chandreyee after my ride and found out that she had ditched me and was at home instead of hiking with Rohan. In fact, she said "I am not where you think I am, but the story is more complicated than that. I'm in front of Li and Eunice's house. I'll call you back in 10 minutes." Perplexed, I waited the 10 minutes to find out that our friends were locked out of their house after flying 18 hours back from Hawaii. That was certainly a good enough reason to ditch me and I had an extra 20 minutes of road biking to get home and see the exhausted Kung family patiently waiting for the locksmith guy to come to the house. Luckily it only took the locksmith 30 seconds to open the "new, unpickable" lock on their house. Unfortuneately, those 30 seconds of work were very expensive.

Here is Rohan taking some little steps behind his walker. He just loved pulling himself up on his great grandmother Kay's walker, and he is starting to use this one. At least until he gets distracted and sits down. I've been thinking a lot about grandma Kay and we have all been praying and wishing her well. We are also thinking about Rohan's other great grandmother Dimoni, who has a bit of fever this weekend. Our thoughts and prayers are with both of you and please know that we love you dearly.

Sometimes, I wonder what little Rohan is thinking. Like in the picture below, is he thinking "what am I doing riding a big yellow bug with my mom?" I can hardly wait for him to tell us with his own words what his world is like. We hope to make it a loving and happy one for him.

Thanks for listening,

Mike

The Great Escape

After three solid weeks of rain, anyone would be in the doldrums. But for Rohan and Chandreyee who really love to be outside it was especially hard. It felt like summer would never get to Boston. So we had to hit the road and find summer for ourselves. The first stop was in Wellsboro, home of the grand canyon of Pennsylvania and also to Uncle Nathan, Aunt Susan and cousins Madeline and Olivia. Here Rohan is playing with Olivia's Duplo blocks. Maybe I should get some for him for his birthday which is just around the corner. Anyway, we were successful at finding Mr. Sun. It was a beautiful warm day on Saturday for the Mansfield 4th of July parade and some swimming in ice cold water. Well, only Mike and Madeline were brave enough to get into the pool freshly filled with well water. We had a great visit and Rohan is starting to like to play with his cousins instead of just playing near them.

Next up on our travels was a visit to Clarion PA, which in addition to hosting ALF (the Autumn Leaf Festival not the lovable sarcastic alien from the 80's sitcom era) is home to Grandma Kay, Aunt Kathy, Uncle Jim, Jen Derrick and Dylan, Jeremy, and Eric. It was another beautiful day we spent in the pool, relaxing on the porch and watching the new classic movie "Napolean Dynamite". Rohan really took to his great-grandma Kay and really liked to play with her walker. And I think that Aunt Kathy has set a record for the person able to hold Rohan while he is awake for the longest time with out him squirming around. Cousin Dylan is such a wonderful boy and very tolerant of his younger cousin Rohan. It was fun to see them playing together and I'm looking forward to seeing them get together when they are older.

We then took a small detour from visiting family and spent a night in Cook Forest State Park. Here is the little camper sleeping off a bit of a rough night. He had fun in the tent, too much fun as you can see in the video below and didn't get to sleep until about 10pm when it got dark. And then he kept scooting himself off his sleeping pad until eventually he slept inside daddy's sleeping bag with blankets on top. In the morning, I awoke to see that Rohan had appropriated all of the covers for himself. Strong little boy.

The last stop on our trip was also the longest and in Bloomsburg, the only TOWN in PA and home of among other things The Bloomsburg Fair and whoohoo the anual Monster Truck Rally (it was actually going on while we were there, but we didn't attend any of the competitions). Nana and Papa were very happy to see little Rohan and I think he wore them out a bit with all of his antics. We went to World's End State Park and hiked along the river, had a wonderful time at Knobel's Grove amusement park, and visited with some of Chandreyee's family who were able to come up and see him. Rohan loved the merry-go-round and splashing in Nana's pool. After a long day at the park and a wonderful meal at Nana's house, Rohan spent some quality time playing with Aunt Jayatri and Uncle Steve. Then Uncle Steve was able to calm Rohan down with some stories after getting very excited playing with Dimoni. The next day was spent playing in kidsburg in the town park before a meal at Kristy and Russell's where a couple seated next to us was kind enough to take our picture. Then it was off back to Boston. We were hoping that summer had decided to come to beantown while we were away and thankfully it had. While it was nice to get back to work, I really miss the fun week we had in PA chasing the endless summer.

For anyone who would like to see more pictures, you can check them out on our website. Thanks to everyone who made this trip so much fun.