Photographs and Memories of the 1st Birthday

OK, it has been three weeks since Rohan's 1st birthday. That's long enough I guess to think about it and write something memorable and philosophical. Unfortunately, I have spent most of the intervening three weeks learning about data structures and algorithm analysis and reductive alkylation chemistry instead of reflecting on Rohan's big day. So I'll just give a recap and some big thank you's for various presents that we and Rohan have enjoyed. In summary, Rohan had a great time celebrating with his Dimoni and Dadan.

Dimoni made not one but two cakes. The first one was for me and was shaped like a football, my favorite sport, and featured realistic green coconut grass. Very Cool, but it was nothing compared to the cake she made for Rohan which was a series of stacked cake blocks and a top cake. And it had yummy sides of chocolate animals. I for one am glad that Dimoni decided to take cake decorating classes. I don't think we'll ever have to make a cake for Rohan's birthday. You can check it out yourself below.














And as if the cakes weren't enough, Dimoni and Bapik got Rohan a set of Duplo blocks and a lego table. I have to admit that I'm enjoying this gift as much as Rohan is. I actually like it when Rohan decides to play demolition derby with my planes, trains and other things that I make for him. I can't wait until he can build his own toys using his imagination, lego blocks were one of my all time favorite toys growing up, if you had enough pieces you could build whatever toy, spaceship, or robot that you wanted.

He enjoyed the wooden puzzle from Chris and Eileen, the pegboard gane from Jaemin and Soomin, his wagon from Nana, and the set of stacking cups from Aunt Susan and Uncle Nathan. Rohan was so excited about the stacking cups that he was going "uh, uh, uh" continuously until I could get the box open. And he plays with them pretty much every day. We used the wagon this weekend to go apple picking. Rohan had a great time riding and met a couple of new friends there as well as developing a taste for peaches. Chandreyee and I were so happy that we found another fruit that he likes. He has started off as a kind of weird kid: prefers broccoli to ice cream, doesn't like fruits or sweets, and has started to read material that is over the heads of most one year olds.


The fun times continued the next day when everyone went to the Boston Commons and Public Garden. It took 3 people to keep Rohan from jumping head long into the frog pond and we were unsuccessful in keeping him from crawling through the sprinklers at the tadpole playground. Luckily we had some extra clothes for him with us. The only bad thing that happened all weekend was when Rohan was bonked by one of the "make way for ducklings" ducks and gave him a bloody lip. OK, I know that they are inanimate objects, but I will always be a bit more careful around them now. It was very sad for Rohan to have to say goodbye to Dimoni, but with Chandreyee's webcam working again, she is just a phone call away.

Thanks everyone for your gifts, cards, and especially for your thoughts of Rohan on his special day. We wish you a wonderful start to the fall season.

Mike

Mirror friends

In our living room, Rohan has a very good friend who looks a lot like him, and appears to live just behind the door to the coat closet. They smile at each other, bounce up and down the same way, finish each others' sentences, and give each other sloppy kisses. They're so much alike, it's sometimes hard to tell which one is Rohan. Here's a video of the two friends having fun.


This past weekend was otherwise a typical summer weekend of parties, playground, beach and pool. Rohan loves swimming in his baby float, in Upper Mystic Lake, ringed by trees and quacked at by ducks. And, tickled by a gaggle of pretty little girls. Unfortunately, we do not have a good photograph of the ladies' man in action, fawned over by the 4- to 7-year-old set.

Rohan begs to be taken to the lake whenever he sees his float now -- we've tried to appease him by setting the float on the lawn and pretending that the grass is water. Now, where to find a bunch of adoring girls?

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.

Chip off the old block

No one who looks at Rohan has any doubt that he is Mike's son. The chin dimple. The blue eyes. The impish grin. The hearty laugh. One thing he does not yet share with his father is his definition of "morning". As if he knew it was father's day, Rohan woke me up at 6:20 so that we could get some molten chocolate cakes ready for Daddy.

Rohan and his father shared much excitement together today, including a friend's birthday party, and a trip to Daddy's lab to rescue sensitive chemicals from a broken cold room. An extremely hyper baby is finally asleep, and before his mother follows him to dreamland, she will post:

The Things That Father And Son Both Like to Do:
1. Eat pretzels















2. Sleep with arms folded behind head.













3. Take bubble baths. (Yes, I was surprised when I first met Mike, too.)










4. Manage a systems biology laboratory.






Happy first Father's Day to a patient, sensitive, funny Daddy. Can't wait for many more days in the years of parenting we will share.

Video break

For those who are wondering why Mike's posts are about 10 times as long as mine -- well, maybe it's because I'm a writer, so I spend almost 8 hours a day writing... and by the time I'm home, I'm a bit written out. Even though writing about my family is different from writing about RNP immunoprecipitation, it's exercising a similar muscle. In fact, I could use a massage like the one Rohan's getting here (from his friend Sierra.)

Anyway, I'll take a Video Break this week and post some movies -- if a picture's worth a 1000 words, then these movies are probably worth 1,440,000 (approximate number of frames) words.
First, Daddy introduces Rohan to the excitement of crib-sitting. Recently he has figured out how to sit up in his crib on his own. Cute, you say, but it's definitely less cute at 4:45 AM when some crib-lying, or even crib-sleeping, would be better for the whole family.

Second, Rohan demonstrates two new skills: clapping, and eating penne pasta.

Just for fun, now, I will list all the words in this post that I'd never, ever use in my "day job":
1. crib
2. sleeping
3. Mike
4. home
5. clapping
6. penne pasta
7. Daddy
8. cute
9. 4:45 AM
10. sleeping

10? That's all?? I'll have to try harder next time.
That massage should help. Hint, hint.

Happy Little Hiker

A couple of weeks ago, we went hiking at Leominster State Forest. It is a perfect place for families that live near Boston. It is right off route 2 about 30 minutes from our house in Arlington, has a swimming area, BBQ grills, a rock climbing area, and several miles of mountain biking and hiking trails. We pulled into the lot and right away the park ranger lets us know "uhhm, you guys don't want to park here." I was pretty sure that I did, but I let the guy continue. He informed us that the rock climbing area was down the road a bit on the other side of the road. The ranger had seen Rohan hiking backpack and the rope loops and assumed that we were climbers. And occasionally we are, but Rohan is still a bit young to climb outside and he is too easily distracted. After we cleared that up, we were on our way. In my typical fashion, I had only a vague notion of the area, but we had a map and so off we went up the hill. First Chandreyee carried the precious cargo and I took the water.

It was a lovely day, with very few bugs, lots of sun, and everything was green. About 3 miles and about an hour and a half in, Rohan got hungry and tired. Not too bad you might think, but the spot where he demanded food and rest was about 5 feet from Rocky Pond and millions of mosquitos, flies, and ants. So Chandreyee and I spent about 45 minutes shooing away the bugs from Rohan and when we had a chance ourselves.

After the rest, we continued on with Chandreyee occasionally saying "are you sure this is the trail?" "Of course it is, Rocky Pond is right there." About an hour later, much less sure of myself, we stumbled out of the brush onto a fire road. Which was good, except we weren't supposed to be on a road. Luckily there was a trail marker not too far down the way and we realized that somwhere near the pond, we took a wrong turn and added about 1.5 - 2 miles to the hike. It was still a beautiful day and we continued along the road, the trail very occasionally passing other hikers or bikers. Although the parking lot is always full, the trails are lightly used with most people going to the beach and swimming or playing volleyball before eating a large barbequed meal. In most cases this is fine, but we were still kind of lost and maybe could have used some directions. About an hour and a half from the end of the hike, Rohan got tired of riding in the backpack and so I carried him in my arms or on my back the rest of the way. He seemed to really enjoy that, but was pretty thirsty by the time we got back for our picnic. Drinking out of the CamelBak is a bit trickier than his bottle, so he switched shortly after the picture was taken.

We made it back all right, but I will try to do more research before blindly heading out on an unfamiliar trail. All in all a great day and hike. We really did deserve the pistachios and PB&J sandwiches when we got to the beach.


Mike

P.S. The penguins did make it to the Stanley Cup finals against Detroit, but unfortunately Detroit seems to be getting the better of the Pens (3-2 Detroit as of today). [EDIT: They won last night (series tied 3-3) and now just have to find a way to win in Detroit.] [EDIT2: The Penguins just won the Stanley Cup finals. WhooHoo!]