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

December with Rohan

This week's installment is being written by guest author Nana Gage.
The last two weeks have sped by too quickly, and I fear the last week will be as brief.
Rohan has been on this earth such a short time but already has enriched our lives immeasurably. He provides smiles, squeals, and laughter endlessly. His most recent goal involves turning from a supine to prone position. He exerts a tremendous amount of energy and concentration in his attempts. I fear he will become very frustrated when he accomplishes his goal, only to discover that he has inflicted "tummy time" on himself.
He greets each day with a smile, knowing he is loved and cherished by those who surround him. Every day brings the promise of experiencing a new and wonderous adventure.
He has mastered grasping the rings on his activity mat, has licked them (see picture), and found them much to his liking.
On last Saturday, Chandreyee's friend Kay visited, and we all trekked to downtown Boston. Rohan enjoyed strolling through Boston Commons, where we were treated to beautifully decorated trees, and ice skaters enjoying the outdoor rink. From there we ventured to Chinatown where we enjoyed a delicious dinner. Rohan sat placidly in his stroller entertaining us, fellow diners, and wait staff alike.
We have had such fun during these short days, but I know there will be much more to come......

An open-air market of Moons

Over the river and through the woods we drove last weekend, to Wellsboro, Pennsylvania, where Rohan met his cousins Madeline and Olivia for the first time. Though attacked by Madeline's zealous displays of affection (see video at end) and baby Olivia's pokes of curiosity, Rohan parried only with smiles and squeals.

Rohan's Dadan (my father) described this picture as "jeno chander hat boshechhe." Literally, "as if there's an open-air market of Moons."

In Bengali, children, as pure as moonlight, are often referred to as "chand" (Moons). Certainly, Rohan's beaming face, Olivia's round eyed stare, and Madeline's impish grins haunt me daily with their moon-like simplicity.

In one short day at Uncle Nathan/Aunt Susan's house, we even managed to go sledding, which Rohan loved, despite having to wear Olivia's dunce-cap snowsuit.


After 9 months of pregnancy, childbirth, and newborn-baby-boot-camp, I hadn't been ready to think about a brother or sister for Rohan baby, but after Thanksgiving with the Wellsboro Gage cousins, I can't imagine a greater gift for our son.

The next two weeks..

...were as good if not better than the first week. I felt more confident and was able to make Rohan happy most of the time. Although I still can't differentiate his cries. Chandreyee claims he has a tired cry, a hungry cry, and an I'm wet or stinky cry. To me they all sound like "Whaaaaah!", but I just go through my checklist: check diapers, stick a bottle in his mouth, carry him around in the baby bjorn until he gets in a better mood. But most of the time he is a real joy: laughing at daddy's funny faces or noises, looking with rapt attention at the latest book from the library, or just licking his fist. That is one developmental area that I was worried about. He never really sucked fingers or his thumb except for a few times after he was first born. What he does for comfort is ball up his fist (usually his right, right-handed?) and then lick it like it was an ice cream cone. I guess he is unique in at least one respect. I also discovered that he absolutely loves Sesame Street. While we were playing on the ground, and after I was done watching our daily 30 minutes of Sports Center which Rohan also likes and decided to switch to PBS. His eyes were glued to the set as Elmo and Robert De Niro were talking about imagination. He was kicking his legs furiously and waving his arms as he laughed and giggled. He slept through today's episode, so he'll have to wait until next week to see another one. Next week is my last week alone with him and I will miss our time together. But I am happy that his nana will be up here after Thanksgiving weekend to take care of him until Christmas break.

Thanks for listening...

Mike

Dad's first week home alone with Rohan

I was a bit nervous, truth be told, to have the responsibility of watching Rohan by myself. I think he either knew this or wanted to make sure that I had a good 1st week. He treated me with smiles, laughs, and coos even if I really didn't do anything to deserve them. He only cried when he needed something and slept for several hours each day so I could do some little projects around the house. He even laughed as I was cooking. Not an entirely unexpected reaction, but I would have thought that for someone on such a limited diet as his, he would have been more forgiving.

I think that I am slowing improving in my ability to read aloud to him, especially the hard books like Dr. Seuss. I never really appreciated as a child, how hard it is to read with expression while holding the book so someone else can look at the pictures. Fortunately, he seems to have a good attention span while we are reading books and we get through the long ones and he is still thirsty for more, as long as he isn't thirsty for milk. I guess at this point though, he really has no choice and can't go anywhere, but he is smiling and cooing and focuses on the weird pictures of elephant-cats and the other denizens of Dr. Seuss' imagination.

I can only hope that all of his days are so happy. I'll keep doing my best to make him happy while I'm home. I hope the weather for this next week is a bit better so we can go outside. The window guys are finishing up this week and they have done an excellent job. Sometimes Rohan likes to watch them work, but when he is sleeping, Rohan doesn't like all the hammering and sawing.

My only regret this weekend was that I didn't watch the Penn State game with my good luck charm. He was sleeping and so couldn't help them beat Iowa.

I'll update you on my progress learning how to be a good parent at the end of next week. I had a short, but good week this week as the changer of diapers, feeder of bottles, and reader of stories.

Halloween in Arlington, MA

I was inspired by the $3.99/lb live lobsters in our grocery store, one of the occasional things that strike me as being major perks of living in New England. A few pieces of felt, packaging scraps, and a Goodwill store later, Rohan the Lobster was born.

Mike took the (beautiful, warm) day off, so we joined troops of Arlington babies, toddlers and parents in a "parade" down Massachusetts avenue. Rohan got almost as many comments as did Mike, who wore his outrageous pirate captain's costume. Though rather different comments than the ones he used to get on Castro Street in San Francisco.

Back at home, we removed a much spat-upon (spit-upped on?) lobster outfit, and a rather unthreatening pirate and I passed out candy to Arlington's youth. Highlights of the evening included:

1. Two little Roman centurions. Mike identified them, upon which their mother remarked, "Wow, there are a lot of educated people around here!"
2. The Spanish Inquisition. "No one EVER expects the Spanish Inquisition."
3. A little boy who said to Mike, "I know you're a pirate because of your ripped pants and your bare feet. And your eye patch, which you Aren't Wearing." Noted.
4. Speed Racer. "Do they still show it on TV?" I asked. "There's a movie," said young Speed Racer, who looked about 8 or 9. "You can see it on Comcast On-Demand or FiOS On-Demand."
4. The sweet politeness of children in general. One pair of boys asked, "How many are we allowed to take?" "As many as you want," we said. "I love these houses!" (grabbing fistfuls.) "Thanks for letting us load up!"

I like our town. Next year I'm bringing my harmonica to the parade.