roseyphoenix

Once Corin starts at childcare, I am going to make a more concerted effort to start getting my own 'thing' ticking over again, so I will try and write a brief update on my own doings each month.

HEALTH
No problems. My breast surgery date was set for July 13, but there has been a change of plan. While doctors used to encourage preventative mastectomies, now that they can test for the BRCA genes (and therefore for the probability of a separate occurrence in the other breast) they now only recommend this proceedure for patients with the gene. I tested negative, so my doctor thinks I shouldn't have that part of the operation. In fact, getting my right breast removed might even increase my risks because the new cell generation involved in healing means an opportunity for mutation. Given that nothing will be happening with the right breast, I'm tempted to go for a flesh reconstruction rather than an implant on the left, which is a bigger operation to start with but requires less maintenance over time than an implant. I'm meeting the surgeon on 24 May to talk over the options in more detail. I hope I will still be able to have surgery over summer while Ravi is around, but unfortunately this change of plan means potentially being bumped down the queue, so I'll have to wait and see.

EVENTS
As noted on Corin's entry, not a lot to report. Back at the start of April I was a participant in a seminar at the Shakespeare Association of America conference, so that was quite exciting. I enjoyed having three days away from domesticity doing the scholarly thing, although I quickly found that the conference wasn't really my cup of tea. There were something like 1700 participants, and the set up was not what I was used to. Instead of people giving papers one at a time, we were organised into panels and papers were precirculated and then the issues the papers had in common were discussed on the day. In other words, you wrote a paper and then no one outside your little group had a chance to hear it and you couldn't go and listen to friends giving papers either. Very odd. I did manage to catch up with a couple of people from Aussie/NZ so that was nice, and I also got a little boost of enthusiasm about trying to get more bits of my thesis published, so that's all to the good.

CAREER
All set to start my Masters of Library Studies (Archives) in September. I haven't even started and I'm already grumpy with my school, Simmons College, they're unbelievably disorganised. Getting clear information is not at all a simple matter. For example, I want to know the dates for my break over Christmas so we can plan our next NZ trip but they haven't decided yet. In NZ, academic calendars are decided YEARS in advance. They have an on-campus compulsory course advising day in early July to help people decide which papers to take, so hopefully that will be a chance to clear away some of the confusions.

A friend of mine, Mike, set up a meeting for me with a friend of his, Jess, who works in an archive. Jess was very friendly and had a lot of useful advice about getting started in the profession. Three points made a particularly strong impression on me: 1) That while the Masters qualification is compulsory, your experience is more important in affecting employers' decisions of who to hire. This is a skill-based field so they want to know that you can DO it. As a result of this, I have decided that instead of trying to get through this quickly, I am better off taking the course slowly and stacking my timetable with as much experience as I can find. 2) That I will need to find ways to distinguish myself from the cohort I graduate with who will have the same qualification as myself. I've been looking around and there are some other programs I could do in addition to my Masters to give myself a bit more of an edge: a Rare Books summer school at the University of Virginia, for example. 3) I will need to balance getting a broad knowledge of possible technological tools (because you never know which a given library will want you to know) against advancing in an area of specialist knowledge. Job descriptions ask for 'three years cataloging experience' for example, not just 'three years experience.' So a lot to think about.

Excitingly, Jess has been able to offer me a voluntary position with her archive: the Congregational Library. Starting in September, I will spend one day a week sorting through and cataloging unprocessed parts of their collection. A paid position would be nicer of course, but you have to start somewhere.

: )

ISSUES
1. Health
Pollen season is finally winding down, thank goodness, so Corin's allergies should be clearing up soon. We have reluctantly found a new home for the kitties which they will move to tomorrow, so that will hopefully make things a whole lot better.

2. Sleep
A few weeks ago, Corin started pulling up to standing in his crib and getting him to bed went from being a cinch to being a struggle. It is as though he is unconsciously compelled to try and stand in his crib to the extent that he will struggle through the motions even when he seems to otherwise be asleep. You pretty much have to stand by the bed and lay him back down every time he stands up, to which he responds with vigorous protest (what a waste of my effort! Now I will have to do it again!), until he is finally exhausted and in despair at which point he can be cuddled and soothed and persuaded to drift off. Even then he sleeps in a position from which he is ready to start crawling at any moment:



According to my baby book, this need to stand should fortunately just be a phase and should fade over the next couple of weeks, which will be much appreciated!

3. Teeth
Corin is still working hard at chewing everything, presumably to try and help bring his lower canines through. He has very pronounced bulges in his gums, but unfortunately they look like they have a way to go yet.

4. Childcare
Corin starts at Rogers-Pierce in two weeks time, on May 21st. I have arranged to go in the week beforehand with him, and have a couple of 'easing in' sessions. I've been busy trying to get everything ready - buying lunch stuff, labeling clothes, etc etc. I want to smooth his transition as much as possible because while I am confident that this is the right decision and that he will come to love it, there will probably be an unhappy adjustment period : (

DEVELOPMENT
1. Perambulation
Corin is just zooming around at the moment. Now that he can crawl, pull himself up to standing, is just starting to learn to stand up from the floor, crawl up stairs, do a little climbing etc he can pretty much accomplish the actions he wants to perform without as much help, which is fantastic for his autonomy. Still falling quite a bit, particularly when he is still a bit dopey after sleep or in unfamiliar environments, but even then he doesn't get as distressed about it as he used to. Now that he can move, he loves moving fast. He has lots of chase races with his sitter Nikki, and enjoys getting up some speed on ride-on toys. Here he is on the ride-on slide at the Gibbs Gym.



Unfortunately I had to stop filming to help him get off, but I can assure you he was pretty happy.

2. Communication
While much of what Corin verbalizes is still babble, you get the feeling that he intends meanings whereas before he was more just experimenting with sound. He parrots/echoes a lot so it is difficult to tell sometimes whether he has said a word knowingly or is just repeating something he has heard. Because most of his words are approximates, we may also just not be understanding him a lot of the time.



A big breakthrough in communication: Corin has mastered shaking his head for "no." I feel confident that this will reduce his frustration and improve intergenerational serenity.



He understands a great deal more than he can communicate too, so we try and create opportunities for him to express opinions as well as needs and wants. Here he is picking out his outfit for the day.



3. Eating/Drinking
Still going well.

4. Fine motor control
Now that Corin has reached some gross motor milestones, he spends most of his time rushing about, but we can occasionally get him interested in more detailed tasks requiring greater concentration. We introduced an etch-a-sketch a while ago and he wasn't interested in it for ages, but has just started playing with it. Here is the first scribble he put serious effort into.



For quite a while he really wasn't very interested in the little figures that accompanied his toys - the passengers on the school bus he liked crashing into the wall, for example - and would often biff them over his shoulder to get them out of the way of the buttons he wanted to push. But since we got him a farmhouse with animals he has become much more into them - although he is mainly interested in posting the animals through doors and windows.



5. Problem-solving
Corin's first response will often still be to look to us for help when he can't reach something or do something easily, but he is starting to try and figure things out for himself a bit more.



6. Social skills
We have been able to play games with Corin for a while - peekaboo and so forth - but these mainly involved us doing an action and him giggling. Which was lovely : ) He is starting to be able to participate a bit more now.



EVENTS
No major excitements, just lots of little bits and pieces. We took Corin to meet the new baby of some friends, tried to attend 'Arts First!' at Harvard but it was windy and anti-climactic, went to a few used clothing sales, spent an afternoon at the apartment of a friend who is going away for work for a while...

A highlight for Corin would be getting a water table. One plus of living in such an affluent area is that the rubbish people throw out is amazing! Our upstairs neighbors spotted a water table and a ride-on-cart sitting next to the trash in front of a house a few blocks away so I went and scooped them up. Here is Corin splashing happily in his water table.



That was a great activity for an unusually hot week. It is cold again now, but by the end of May we should be into summer so I expect it will get a lot more use.

FACEBOOK UPDATES
Another reason to ♥ the Boston public library system: the museum passes programme. Boston has many cool museums but they get pricey ($20 for an adult and $10 for a school age child would be about average), especially for families. However, every library has one heavily subsidized family pass to every museum for every day and library users can get one such pass per month. This past weekend Corin and I went to the Museum of Science for $7, instead of about $30. We will definitely be taking full advantage of this system!

I know I am being grinchy, but I will be delighted when Vacation Week is over and all the schoolpersons go back to their respective enclosures. We can't do outdoor activities like playgrounds at the moment because of Corin's pollen allergies, and all the indoor venues are either closed or heaving. I prefer Other People's Children in sub-mob quantities.

Can crawl = must crawl. Yesterday Corin crawled in his bath, crawled up some stairs, and fell asleep in bulldozer position: bum in crawl position but head on his sheet.

When your home is a workplace, your relationship with your partner can all too easily devolve into colleagues-with-benefits scenario: shift work and shop talk and not much else. Thanks to Liz G (and to Becky and Phillipa and Nikki on other occasions) we are looking forward to a date night tonight and some much needed non-work us time.

Beauty may be only skin deep, but cuteness is a 'get out of jail free' ticket. Corin is at a difficult stage for organized activities: no longer content to be a sit-on-the-sidelines observer, but not yet capable of being a constructive participant joining in action songs, dancing, shaking instruments, etc. I mostly take him to free play style activities where this isn't an issue, but he loves music so we still go to singalongs 1-2 times a week and he runs around the room being disruptive, banging on stacked chairs, crawling up the steps, and trying to get everyone in the room to wave back at him. Yet somehow, while other children get glared at for exactly the same behavior, Corin just gets indulgent smiles...

The toy in someone else's hand is clearly more awesome than every other toy in the box.

Food preference genetics
Mango Em No. Ravi Yes. Corin Yes.
Brussel sprouts. Em Yes. Ravi No. Corin Maybe.
Slightly spicy bean dish. Em No. Ravi Yes. Corin Yes.
To be continued..,

May science experiments
Corin is busily categorizing the properties of all objects he comes across by undertaking the following tests:
- car or not car?
If it can be pushed while making car noises, it is car. Bulk packet of six rolls of paper towel is car, dirty laundry bin is forbidden car.
- mail or not mail?
All objects that can be carried from A to B, and ideally deposited into containers or posted through slots in furniture etc = mail. Mummy's iPhone is mail, cuddly penguin just about as big as Corin requires a courier service.
- climbing wall or not?
Now that Corin is pulling himself up, he is learning by trial and error which items are pull-up-on-able. Crib is climbing wall, flimsy child's chair is not.
- bang on vs bang with
Furniture, windows, walls are bang on and all movable objects are bang with - although some such as potlids can also be bang on.

The naughty circuit
I can't wait for pollen levels to drop so we can start taking Corin to playgrounds again, as those are the best way to top up his fun tank and run down his busy batteries. It takes a lot of library and singalong time to wear him out! As he gets smarter and more social, playing with toys at home (however blingy the toy) just doesn't keep him interested and it isn't long before he is literally banging on the front door begging for an outing. It didn't take him long to learn about the powers of negative attention. If we ignore his pleas for excitement, he commences The Naughty Circuit: doing everything he knows is wrong that he knows we will have to react to - trying to pull the corner padding off the speaker, touching the electrical outlet cover, running off with cellphone or remote control... There are downsides to having a smartypants child.

Climbing the walls
Since Corin learned to stand up in his crib, bedtime has turned into tenpin bowling: no sooner do I get the pin lying down than it automatically pops up again. Even if I get Corin asleep before putting him down, he will keep struggling to go through the motions of pulling himself up until he is finally exhausted and stays down. Last night I assumed it was game over and kissed him goodnight and left the room. But about five minutes later a wail of distress came through the monitor and when I got to his room he was standing in his sleep and I was just in time to see him lose his grip and fall. Oy vey. If I get a grey hair every time C hurts himself, I am going to have more than 100% grey by the time he is two...

"DadaDA!" (combined with vigorous twisting in his booster seat) translation: "Done. Adequate nutrition has been consumed. You have three seconds to release me from this Chair of Constraint before the food throwing will begin, followed by the sippy cup throwing, the spoons throwing, and the throwing of everything else within reach. 3...2...1... Green beans away!"

Near-tragedy experiences
Before becoming a parent I used to read those stories in the newspaper about kids bitten by dogs or run over by cars or all the other horrifying accidents that happen, and think that if I had been the parent the accident could have been prevented. Now I know better. Sure you can take precautions, but a lot of the time whether the outcome of an incident is tragic or trivial is more about tiny judgement calls, timing, coincidence and luck - good or bad. Yesterday, for example, Corin and I saw a neighbor and their dog out for a walk and went over to pat the dog as we have done lots of times. With his face just inches from the dog's jaws, Corin shrieked with excitement and the dog freaked out. The neighbor intervened and the risk passed within seconds, but it could easily have gone another way. Please pass the Valium...

Best quote from the weekend
Ravi (to Corin): Daddy does the cooking round here so he really should have taught you not to pee on the stove.

Now that Corin can play happily by himself for a few minutes at a time while I prepare his lunch etc, I am learning a new skill:
Remote parenting
- Crash but no wail = situation normal, no response needed
- Wail but no crash = frustration, response "Try and do it yourself honey and mummy will be there in a minute if you need help"
- Crash followed by wail = fallen and hurt, instant response required
- No crash and no wail = up to no good

After singalong yesterday, I needed to pick out a new DVD with which to bribe Corin to sit still for his nebuliser, which he is increasingly unkeen to do. The DVD area is right next to the elevator. Someone came down the elevator with a stroller and in the 20 seconds my back was turned, Corin ran into the elevator and pushed the alarm button. Just as well he did, because otherwise the doors would have closed and he would have been whisked off to another floor and probably wandered off looking for me, and who knows how long it would have taken to reconnect. Little monkey.

My mantra for this year: Persistence despite Resistance
The books don't actually admit this, but I am learning that parenting a toddler is largely about deciding on a course of action and then getting your toddler to comply, gritting your teeth against the struggles and screaming. We give Corin as much autonomy to make choices as we can, but he is simply never going to choose to leave a playgroup when it is hometime or to have his poopy diaper changed when he would rather play with his trucks. We have to make those things happen, however much he doesn't want them to. Obviously persuasive coercion is preferable: coaxing, cajoling, distracting, and their less charming associates bribing, threatening and scolding. But a lot more of the time than I would like it comes down to brute force - prising Corin's fingers off dangerous objects, carrying his thrashing little body to his stroller after playgroup and holding him down so he can be buckled in. I used to think that child abuse was a separate category of action that I could be smugly confident of never committing, but now I see how easily it could creep into these moments of conflict, when it can be hard to control you own impatience and frustration with your child's inability to understand that you are trying to care for them. If I don't try my hardest to be gentle and calm, the parent yanking their child's arm in the supermarket or scolding them angrily on the bus for pushing the button too much could well be me on a bad day.

When I am out with Corin, my bottom opens doors.

RAVI FACEBOOK UPDATES
You call them "baby teeth," I call them "mandibles of pain." Got my leg and arm chomped already today. Poor teething wee one, we both feel your pain.

ISSUES
1. Health
Unfortunately we are still in peak allergy season - for example, today's pollen level is rated at 11.8/12 by an allergy forecast website - so Corin is wheezy and snuffly and we are all having broken nights. However, most allergies are related to a specific type of pollen and most trees only disseminate pollen for a few weeks, so once his particular tree-nemesis stops spawning irritants he shouldn't have to deal with this again for another year - and once he is more than two years old we can give him some antihistamine to help. In other words, it is lousy, but this should be as bad as it is going to get, it shouldn't last much longer, and hopefully we will be able to minimise it in the future. So that's some comfort.

The other factor affecting Corin's health this last couple of weeks is that he is particularly accident prone right now. He is walking independently and gaining in confidence, but that sometimes means he overestimates what he can manage - carrying unwieldy items while walking, for example, tends to be a disaster waiting to happen. Also he tends to look straight ahead rather than watching his feet, and as the floor is littered with discarded toys, there are plenty of opportunities for tripping. Which all amounts to at least 3-4 accidents per day. Most minor nonevents easily fixed by a cuddle and some distraction, but he has a collection of bumps and bruises from the nastier falls. He had a black eye for a while, from clocking his cheekbone on the windowsill on his way to the floor, and that made people give me filthy looks when I took him out in public. But the worst was his first official injury so far: a torn superior labial frenulum (the piece of skin joining the upper lip to the gum). He fell while carrying a little box and it cut his mouth, but we didn't realize for several days that there was internal as well as external damage. Fortunately we were giving him ibuprofen anyway for teething so that would have helped with the pain. I took him to the doctor once we realized, and we were extremely relieved to find out that this is a fairly common injury and isn't going to cause any ongoing issues like speech impediments etc. Phew!

2. Sleep
As mentioned above, Corin's night-times have been pretty patchy because of his allergies. We elevated the head end of his crib to help with congestion and that was useful, but as of last night he can now pull himself to a stand in his crib which makes an uneven mattress an unsafe proposition so we're back to flat. While nights have been rocky, we are making progress with his nap training. He had previously been in a pattern of taking two fairly short naps daily, one in the morning and one in the afternoon, but his schedule at daycare will involve one longer post-lunch nap so we have been moving him towards that. Now that that routine is quite well established, I've started getting him to take his nap on his portacot base in the lounge rather than in his crib, as he will be on a mat in a public space at daycare so needs to get reaccustomed to noise in his environment. So far so good.

As another aid to relaxing and sleeping away from home, we have introduced a cuddly toy we hope he will bond with and be able to use to comfort himself at daycare. He doesn't seem that interested yet, but then he hasn't been very interested in cuddly toys in general so far. But we are keeping putting it with him when he sleeps so at the very least it will be a familiar object. Here he is snoozing with Leo the Lion.



3. Teeth
Corin's bottom two molars are all the way in, his top two molars are most of the way in, and now he seems to be starting to work on his lower canines. Poor buddy. That said, he only has to get 20 teeth total and he already has almost 12, so if he can get it over with more's the better.

4. Childcare
Back before Corin was born, I scoped out the daycare providers in our area with the expectation that I would either be getting back to work quite quickly or be too sick to look after him and either way he would need to go to daycare. Neither of those scenarios eventuated, so we have been able to look after him at home with help from sitters (first Alex and then Nikki), but as I am starting my Masters of Library Studies in September we want to get him into care part time. Another benefit of daycare is that Corin will get socialised with other children, rather than continue thinking that he is the center of the universe and that all the toys he sees belong to him. True while he is at home, of course, but much better to learn about sharing and so forth early on.

When I originally looked I chose AITC (Arlington Infant & Toddler Center): http://www.arlingtoninfanttoddlercenter.com/

The website is pretty low-tech, but I really liked what I saw when I visited the center. The children were happy, there was a lot of artwork around, and I knew from encountering the staff out with the kids in the community that they took trips to the library, playgrounds, and so forth on a regular basis. However, when I called up just after Corin's birthday to discuss starting him once he reached 15 months, I discovered that the part-time slots I wanted might not be available until September. Understandable, given that part-time attendees are more difficult to accommodate than full-timers, but annoying given how early we booked. I hunted around a second time and the conclusion was that Corin is now enrolled in Roger-Pierce Children's Center:
http://www.rogerspierce.org/

He will start on May 21st. After an easing in period, he will attend three days a week (M, W, F), 8am-3pm. Because my breast surgery falls during summer when some children will be away, we will be able to upgrade Corin to five days a week for the month that I am recouperating which will be much easier than trying to keep him at arms' length if he was at home with me.

DEVELOPMENT
1. Perambulation
Corin has made huge progress in getting around in the last couple of weeks. He walks confidently and quite quickly now and can manage some multi-tasking (bending to pick up objects, carrying objects) whereas before this almost always led to falls. Here is a clip of him at Together in Motion (a tumble gym I take him to).



And here is one of him almost running around on a day that Ravi took Corin along with him to the Math department at UMass Lowell. [no audio]



Most children crawl BEFORE they run, but as Corin is a genius he does things in a more creative order. After months of reluctant commando-style crawling, Corin is finally getting about on hands and knees. As the weather has been improving recently we have been taking the chance to give him a little 'naked bottom time' (good for rash prevention), and nudity somehow provided the breakthrough he needed. Perhaps his hips were more mobile without a diaper on, or perhaps - as a friend of mine described her son's motivation for crawling - he didn't like dragging his penis on the floor. Either way, we have tummy lift!



As you can see in the clip, hands-and-knees crawling had immediate benefits: having been unable to get from lying on his tummy to a seated position, Corin can now achieve this by moving into the crawl position from his tummy and then sitting back on his legs. He can also crawl to the windowsill or table and pull himself up to standing rather than floundering and wailing in the middle of the floor. It has only been a couple of days since this breakthrough but he is already noticeably less frustrated and dependent. So hooray! The next step for him will be learning to stand up from the floor without needing something to pull up on. He has done this once but hasn't repeated it. Still. Huge huge progress!

2. Communication
Corin hasn't said "Hi" again, but he is communicating more and more comprehensibly. Words I think he has: Mama (rarely), Dada (often), dat (that), dis (this), up, bus, crash. He says "ash!" ("crash") quite audibly in this clip.



He also makes car noises and waves constantly.

3. Eating/Drinking
We have been working on weaning Corin off the bottle and onto sippy/straw cups, and off baby formula and onto cow's milk, and this has been going fairly smoothly. Nearly there, with just night time bottles left to be eased out. Another change is that we have moved Corin from his high chair to a booster seat. He disliked the restraint of the highchair and got wriggly and impatient for release quite quickly at mealtimes, but now with the greater freedom of a booster seat he is more willing to take his time. He has lost interest in self-spoon-feeding for the time being on the whole, but has become pretty good at eating with his fingers.



EVENTS
Whereas before all excursions tended to affect Corin equally, with the supermarket being as stimulating as the zoo, these days he gets much more of a kick out of new experiences and it feels much worthwhile expending the money and effort to take him to new places. Boston has many exciting destinations, so we are trying to start a regime of family outings on Sunday mornings to add some extra interest and fun to the week.

1. Boston Aquarium
Corin found the aquarium thrilling, almost from the moment we arrived. Outside the front of the aquarium is a big seal tank, and he and I watched some trainers giving a demonstration with the seals while Ravi queued for the tickets. To paraphrase what I think he would be saying in the following photo: "Mum, do you know there's THINGS in there?"



We looked at penguins and all sorts of fish, but the highlight of Corin's trip was definitely the tidal pool interactive exhibit. Here are a couple of clips of Corin getting hands-on.





2. Museum of Science
This was an extra bonus trip. We have been trying to restrict Corin to indoor activities to limit allergen-interaction, and this left few options for a Saturday afternoon. The public libraries here have a fantastic system of offering heavily subsidised museum tickets but the weekend tickets are usually booked well in advance. In this instance, someone had cancelled so I was able to get their tickets and C and I had a great time pottering about.

3. The Institute of Contemporary Art
This was our second family outing and was not as much of a success as the first, but we had a cheap coupon so that didn't matter much. Corin probably quite liked some of the big colourful canvasses, but we had to keep holding him back from sharing his sticky fingers with the artwork. However, this slightly fizzer occasion turned into a big success when we spent the remainder of the morning shopping at Ikea. They have great stuff at good prices, so we got some nice bits and pieces for Corin including a child-sized chair and table set to help him get used to sitting for his snack as he will at childcare.

FACEBOOK UPDATES
Corin is a big fan of lift-the-flap books these days, which unfortunately means me acquiring another new skill: amateur book repair. Three fix ups so far (two on library books - the sacrilege, it burns!) and I am less than impressed with my efforts. I know enough to use 3M invisible tape, but if any book repair veterans out there gave pointers to share I would love to hear them.

Exotic animal noises performance anxiety
Being from New Zealand, I can do a Sheep that would make dogs bark, and I learned the rest of the classic Farm along with my alphabet. IBut Zoo animals are another matter entirely. Back when i was studying drama i could approximate Lion and perform a reasonable Elephant, complete with arm-trunk. But that was a long time ago and somewhere along the way I have lost the knack - I just can suspend disbelief in myself anymore. Oh sure I can still crawl around the floor of the public library being Chicken, but that doesn't mean I know how to vocalize Buffalo or the difference between Leopard and Cheetah. I can fake it for now, sure, but with what consequences?

The can of worms principle
Don't do/permit any activity with a toddler that you don't want to have repeated as many times as said toddler shall want.
Corin used to be a bit freaked out by the vacuum cleaner, so a while ago I played a game with him to help him overcome his fear - giving him the power to turn it on and off. The strategy was a success but now the vacuum cleaner may no longer be used without his participation.

Conversation at the Aquarium yesterday.
Me: Look Corin, SEA-li-ons. Look at the SEA-li-ons....
Male bystander (having put up with my commentary for about 2 mins): They're SEALS, lady. *points at really obvious sign*
Me: Look at the SE-ALS Corin!

The toy minefield
Sure any toy looks innocuous enough when you are playing with it, but once it has been discarded to the floor it turns its upper surface slippery, it grows extra sharp corners, and puts out tripwires. Corin toddles across the floor with his eyes fixed straight ahead rather than watching his feet, like a tightrope walker, so doesn't see the groundclutter conspire around him. Once half a dozen toys have joined the floor, any playspace becomes a minefield which toddlers repeatedly bumble across in search of new entertainments. Unfortunately Corin is not very interested in soft toys, otherwise I would be tempted to take everything else away and just give him beanie babies for the next few months.

Babies are such busy little scientists. Corin conducts experiments all day long. His research used to be of the blue sky variety (what happens if I prod this?) but these days he is clearly testing particular focus questions. At the moment he seems especially interested in questions of volume and capacity. Can I put my sippy cup in my school bus? Yes. How about my penguin? No. Does the garbage truck driver fit through the bus window? Yes. Does mummy's cellphone? No. Which of my plastic veggies can I post through the slats of my crib? Cucumber yes, lettuce no. Toy reunification at the end of the day just got a whole lot more entertaining.

After about a month of at least 3-4 tumbles per day, Coron is finally starting to learn how to break his falls. Hopefully we won't have such a high bruise tally this next month. Nothing makes you feel more like Parent of the Year than the looks people give you when your baby son has a black eye ; (

Backseat hairdresser
An extra bonus of backpacking baby is that they will redo your hair as you go along. Combs or clips will be removed and thrown on the ground, excess hair will be pulled out by means of the 'reins maneuver,' and any food or drink provided to sustain baby will be used as hair gel. By the time you arrive at your destination you will be completely made over!

The Toyborg
Corin starts daycare in a month. To help him comfort himself and relax for naps when we are not around, we are encouraging him to bond with a 'lovey' - a toy he can cuddle whenever he wants. In order to prevent insecurity resulting from loss of the security object (a la Knufflebunny)*, it is wise to have duplicates. Thus lovey is one but it is many. Corin currently takes naps with Leo the Lion 1 of 3.
*Knufflebunny: A cautionary tale about how a bunny lovey is almost lost at a laundromat.

Tupperware Fetishism
These days Corin mostly eats finger foods bento style - a little bit of this, a few pieces of that - from a collection of (plastic) dishes. This style helps us get a protein, at least one vege, some carb or grain, and fruit into every lunch and dinner and helps broaden his palette with different flavors and textures. But the preparation time far exceeds the 1-2 minutes I can be away from Mr Accident Prone to organize his meal and sometimes even that is too much - two falls while I was trying to do dinner yesterday : (. The solution? Tupperware! Ravi makes up enough baby carrots etc for the week and we stash the supplies in the fridge and then assembling Corin's buffet is like putting toppings on a pizza. Suddenly all those Tupperware features that didnt seem important like stackability, clear plastic etc now seem like fantastic innovations. Just as well Tupperware parties are no longer in vogue or I'd be buying the 23 piece deluxe set.

Historic moment: first toy dropped in the toilet

Naptime laws
1. Don't mess with naptime or lack of naptime will make things not go smooth.
2. Don't count the chores you will get done until the baby is sleeping.
3. Naptime seems like a great chance to get some food prep done but do try not to set off the smoke alarm.

These days Corin waves like the queen: a continuous wrist waggle as we promenade down the street with the stroller. People in his kiddy music videos and books are also waveworthy.

One shopping trip and I'm an Ikeaddict. Not only is their stuff styly AND cheap ($20 for a kiddy sized woodish table and chair set? Ridonkulous) but you get to put it together when you get home which is like righteous adult Lego and makes you feel like Barbara the Awesome Builder. Can we assemble it? Yes we can!

Corin's newest accomplishment: standing up in his crib. What can we/do we need to do to make this less dangerous? No more enclosed sleepsacks obviously, so I have ordered some with feet. I will put the bumpers back in to hopefully stop him putting his foot through the slats and then falling. Anything else?

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(before Corin was born)
god: First dibs for you this time.
devil: I give him allergies.
god: Then I make him like veggies.
Hooray for our little veggie lover.

Corin is past the one year point now, so his prematurity should start to matter less and less so I am not going to track it any more.

ISSUES
1. Health
We had a spell of freakishly warm weather for Boston in March, which was lovely, but unfortunately this meant that Corin's spring allergies came back with a vengeance. Wheezing, coughing, runny nose, weepy eyes, the whole bit. It was just miserable for him and made it difficult for him to sleep well because he got all congested and gunked up. I took him to the doctor and she explained that this sudden flare of symptoms was due to his immune system re-encountering his allergens for the first time in a while, so hopefully it won't be this bad all Spring. We cleaned everything we could and Ravi put in the air conditioning and cranked up the air purifiers to filter out pollen and kept Corin inside for almost a week, which was rough because going out and seeing the world and having adventures is his absolutely favorite thing to do, and he banged on the front door suggestively several times a day just in case we hadn't got the message yet. Now we are back to cooler weather and the pollen levels have gone down again thank goodness, so hopefully we are past this for a while. I've started taking him to indoor-venue activities again but we will stay away from playgrounds and nature walks for a while just in case. He is still a little sneezy/wheezy and other parents often end up giving me the evil eye as though I'm bringing a plague rat into their midst. We are seriously considering getting him one of these tops..



2. Sleep
Because of his allergies, Corin has got into a pattern of waking up during the night, so we will have to do some work to re-establish good sleep. That said, Corin is very good about going to bed these days and we are working hard at getting him into a good nap routine too. He had been having two 45 min-ish naps per day, one at some point in the morning and one at some point in the afternoon, but once he starts daycare (I will discuss this below), he will be on a schedule of one nap per day after lunch, so we are trying to help him transition to that which should also help him sleep better at night. But sometimes he just can't make it and snoozes off during lunch.



3. Teeth
Corin has been working on his molars for weeks now, poor love. 1 of 4 seems to be all the way through now and 2 of 4 part way through with the remaining 1 of 4 yet to make an appearance but causing lots of swelling. He is gnawing madly on everything, to the extent that I had to remove him from the library the other day for biting a chair. I wasn't that bothered but the person sitting in the chair at the time was pretty appalled. Ravi read an article the other day warning about the danger of cavities in small kids, so we have introduced tooth brushing to Corin's daily routine. The toothbrush is met with fairly fierce resistance right now, but hopefully Corin will come to see it as just another thing that happens.

DEVELOPMENT
1. Perambulation
Corin becomes more and more confident and capable with his walking all the time. We still hold his hand outdoors or on unfamiliar terrain, but inside the house he toddles around capably on his own - usually still in short bursts between furniture handholds. He can multi-task more successfully now and often walks while carrying or pushing something, but this is also the leading cause of him losing his balance and falling which, alas, happens probably 3-4 times a day. He is very staunch about it but has quite a collection of bumps and bruises.

Right now he would rather push his stroller than ride in it. Here he is letting mum help.



His newfound impatience with being wheeled about passively had me looking around to see what options were out there. I noticed one kid at singalong who had a little ride-on car with a long push handle for their caregiver to push with, and it occurred to me that that would be just the ticket. I advertised one the Arlington parents list, and then it turned out that our wonderful upstairs neighbors had just the right thing and were ready go let us borrow it. I think Corin may be in love... Here is a close up of him with his car and a clip of his first ride.





His mobility is not just limited to walking. He can bend over and pick up objects and also dance. Here he is with his 'dance party device.' His little jiggles are sufficiently cute to prevent me from lobotomising this annoying toy by removing its batteries.



While he loves music and dancing and is just starting to get into action songs (we do Pattacake many many times a day), he also is starting to find sitting still very difficult so singalong is not the entrancing experience it used to be. I expect in six months or so he will be able to join in the actions/dancing, but right now he just wants to wander off. I understand how he feels...



2. Communication
Corin has been babbling a lot for a while now. He has been saying "dada" for ages and
"mumma" for about a month, but only recently are these sounds used exclusively to refer to us. Here Ravi was clandestinely filming Corin letting Mummy help push the stroller when he got spotted. If you listen hard you can hear him say 'Daddy!' before he charges across the driveway to say hi to his main man. Unfortunately the camera was far away so it is pretty faint. He says it a few more times when I am carrying him back to the stroller.



Some of his other sounds may have intended meanings ["caa" (car), "ca" (cat), "ba" (ball), "dat" (that)] but he might also be parroting us or just babbling. But on the morning of March 18th he said his first distinct word! I was queueing to buy a drink and he turned to the random stranger in the queue parallel to ours and said "Hi." Perfect pronunciation, appropriate usage. The stranger said "hi" back and smiled and then went back to reading the menu on the wall, oblivious to the honor that had just been bestowed on them. And Corin went back to banging his sippy cup around in his stroller tray, indifferent to the heights of his achievement. Me? Rushed home to tell Ravi and the rest of the world that there is further proof our son is a genius.

While Corin's spoken vocabulary is small, there is no doubt that he understands a lot of what we say to him and he is pretty good at communicating via charades. Here is a clip I made while we were waiting for his sitter, Nikki, to arrive one afternoon.



He finds language pretty funny, especially when we use silly voices or say words fast. Lots of emotional communication : )



EVENTS
Not much to report because we've been keeping Corin at home. I have been trying out a few new playgroups etc and took Corin on the bus for the first time the other day which went pretty smoothly.

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1 year olds make the best audience. According to Corin, my rendition of 'I'm a little teapot' is a song and dance number worthy of clapping along to and my animal noises are literally thigh slappingly hilarious. Playing exclusively to my fanboy gives me a dangerously overexaggerated view of my talents and ends up with me taking the show on the road, bellowing out 'Yellow Submarine' as we stroll around suburbia. Some people just don't appreciate art.

Corin still doesn't say distinct words but he occasionally parrots with surprising accuracy. This morning I was trying to catch up on some zzzs when Ravi brought Corin to wake me up and remind me we have an early start today.
Me: Oh s**t.
Corin: S**t!
I think there's a lesson in there somewhere.

Parents owe a huge debt of gratitude to the advocates for the disabled community who worked so hard to make it mandatory for public buildings to be wheelchair accessible. The ramps, automatic doors, elevators, larger toilets, busses that kneel etc have made navigating the world with a stroller so much more doable. Thank you!

Leg limpet: clingy toddler.
Took Corin to 'Together in Motion' this week, which is a tumble gym - lots of balls and brightly colored vinyl shapes for climbing on. I thought it would be a great place for him to free range because it has a padded floor. However when I tried to get him to walk on his own he turned into a leg limpet. I realized that the wide open space that I thought was great was a problem for him because there were no 'islands of safety' he could join the dots between. Once I held his hand he was off!

Another exciting opportunity to become neurotic: toys with lots of components. I must spend at least ten minutes a day on toy reunification - repatriating pieces from where they have been strewn around the house and hunting under furniture for the missing shape from the shape sorter. I just can't bear the thought of having to pass on these toys -once Corin is done with them - branded with the shameful proviso 'piece missing.' It is enough to make a momma OCD.

At singalong this week the scheduled performer was a no-show so one of the other parents, Ms American-mom, ran the session as though she'd been waiting for this opportunity all her life. One of her innovations was opening up the stage for audience contributions because 'it would be lovely to have some songs from other cultures.' No response. The Japanese mom in front of me looks uncomfortable. Then from the side of the room a shy Latino mom volunteers. Ms American-mom is delighted. Here is Ms Latino-mom's song:
Five little monkeys swinging from a tree
Teasing Mr Alligator 'can't catch me!'
Along comes the alligator quiet as can be
And snap! Grabs the monkey right out of the tree.
Four little monkeys...
Etc

"But Corin darling, Mummy could build you a much nicer tower to knock down if you let Mummy use all the blocks and stop pushing it over. Wouldn't that be more fu-" *crash*

Corin is our garbage collector's biggest fan. On Tuesdays when the big truck comes rumbling down the street, whoever is watching him rushes him to the window to bang and wave. Yesterday I was playing with him in the yard when I heard the truck, so I ran with him to the street and he got to see the rubbish collecting action up close and personal. The driver honked at him and the collectors waved. Corin was nearly epileptic with joy.

The other day when I was wondering around lost, I went up to a guy in a bus stop to ask him for directions.
Me: Excuse me, -
Him: No. *makes shooing motions with hands*
Note to self: I know it is hard to find the time and Corin doesn't care either way, but when leaving the house try to make the effort to brush hair and put on non-sloppy clothes so that people don't think you're a homeless person trying to hit them up for change.

Stealth Babyfood
Stealth babyfood exhibits properties comparable to invisible ink. In the privacy of your own home, your efforts at post-meal damage control seem to have been successful. But then as soon as you go out in public and baby is exposed to sunlight, it becomes apparent that they have orange gloop all round their nostrils, a smear of something on the left cheekbone and a little forehead splatter. At the next post-meal cleansing, you are more thorough. Your efforts at damage control appear to have been successful. But then... (repeat)

The Battle of Wills and Won'ts
Now that Corin has the beginnings of comprehension, we can start working on shaping his behavior/teaching him about the rules and boundaries of his world. Now that he has an ever increasing sense of self, preferences, and wants he has his own ideas about how things should go down. The result is a series of staring contests, with the loser being the person who blinks first.
Me: Mummy will brush Corin's teeth now/put Corin down for a nap/wipe Corin's face &...
C: Won't!
Me: Will!
C: Won't!
&..,
Alternately
C: Corin will pull your glasses off and bang them around/eat that piece of rubbish off the floor/...
Me: Won't!
C: Will!
Etc...
Some days we win and he complies, other days yelling and screaming have the upper hand and manage to delay if not postpone the unwanted attention.
I feel confident that this is just a passing phase. I am sure he will have got the hang of surrender by the time he is 2, and by the time he is a teen, he will have come to realize that I am always right.

Corin Loves:
Shaking, squeezing and tipping water bottles; the color yellow; balloons; carrots, bananas, purees in squeeze tubes, crackers, drinking through a straw; crashing his vehicles together; balls; his ride-on car; push toys; books; bubbles; getting to watch tv while having his nebuliser; dad, mum and Nikki; cats and dogs; strangers; swings and slides; bathtime; medicine (it is sugary); singing and dancing.
Corin Hates:
Having his nose wiped or suctioned; having his teeth brushed; diaper changes; being un/dressed; having his face cleaned; the moment of being strapped in to a stroller/carseat etc; being told 'no' or having items confiscated; being left alone for 2 minutes while his caregiver goes to the bathroom; being in bed when he doesn't want to be
Emotionally, he has very few options on the spectrum between the extremes of love and hate. He is a joy-grief yoyo.

Ok Ok Apple, I admit that you have a more user-friendly interface than PC. But can we leave my son out of this please? He's only 13 months old. Stop enticing him with you shiny smoothness and easily pushable buttons. He shouldn't be able to work out how to get the play-music shortcut coming up on the iPad when mummy didn't even know it existed, even if he is a genius. No, we are not getting him his own iPhone. Back off just for a few years, ok?

How babies get so much stuff
(Two adults in a mall carpark)
Personal assistant to baby (A): Ok, are you ready for this?
Personal assistant to baby (B): I'm ready! I'm focused! I left my wallet at home!
PA: Good. And what are our targets?
PB: Some short sleeved onesies and some shorts and nothing else.
PA: That's right. We don't want a repeat of last time.
PB *shame*
PA: Let's make this quick and clean, snatch and pay, in and out 5 minutes tops...
PB *chimes in*... and $30 maximum. Got it. I'm ready.
PA: Go go go!
*sliding door noise*
PB: OK I think the onesies are over h-
PA: Oh look, pajamas are on sale!
PB: Yes but-
PA: Three piece set for $8!
PB: Well I guess that's a top and some pants.
PA: Yes and look! This one's got a picture of a monkey on it!
PB: That IS very cute. We could just get the monkey.
PA: And the turtle. Look at the little turtle!
PB: That turtle IS adorable. OK, the monkey and the turtle. And maybe this penguin.
PA: Absolutely. They ARE only $8.
PB: That IS a very good price.
PA: What about slippers? Do we have slippers?
PB: Nooo, but...
PA: We need some cute slippers to go with these cute pajamas!
PB *loses all ability to resist*: Yes we do! And maybe they have matching monkey and turtle and penguin ones!
Resistance is futile. Once you enter the store it is already too late.

Corin's allergies seem on the improve, thank goodness, but he still can't sleep through the last few hours of the night without being cuddled. A plus of him being independently mobile is that when he wakes up and decides it is playtime, I can set him on the floor and he will toddle off and entertain himself for maybe fifteen extra minutes of snooze time. A downside is that I am becoming a connoisseur of unpleasant ways to be woken once that fifteen minutes is up. This morning I was bludgeoned over the head with 'One Blue Hippo' which he wanted read to him. But even that was an improvement on last week when he made the exciting discovery that an adult nostril is just the right size for his pointer finger proboscis to explore.

After a week of being housebound to keep Corin away from lawn-mowing and pollen, I am delighted to be back to our usual roundabout of singalongs, playgroups, and playdates. The most useful parenting advice I have received was from my sister Cathy: "Try to get out of the house everyday." Even the most fantastic plastic Fisher Price whizzbang can't compete with the thrills of patting a dog or stealing a ball from another child.

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Corin's toy from NZ. A brave Kiwi it is setting a good example, showing no fear before heading down the Superstar headwall. — at Killington, VT.



Corin's new favorite activity is to push things he's supposed to ride in: stroller, baby car, shopping cart.

Through most of history baby Corin would have worn white (easily bleached), but if he were born from about 1850-1950 then he would have worn pink, a dress, and grown long hair until age 6. Gifting pink to C is just fine with me, but alas, I'll pass on dresses (though Emily will no doubt accept it).

I have been meaning to get around to writing this for a while, but I have been working like mad on a chapter for a book that was due two weeks ago. I finally submitted it about 11pm last night so I am free! Well, very temporarily. I am giving a paper at the Shakespeare Association of America conference at the start of April, so have to spend the next couple of weeks making powerpoint slides and reading the papers of my co-seminar participants. But this weekend at least I am trying to clear out my mental inbox and get back on top of all the undone things. Including writing this update.

CAREER
When I found out my contract was going to end last year, I was highly annoyed because teaching composition part time was a convenient holding pattern for me, but I eventually came to terms with the conclusion that I was not going to find a permanent position in academia. I would love to be a lecturer, but my PhD topic and research bliss is a bit too obscure to align easily with a teaching position and that makes me a weaker candidate than someone who hits the bullseye. I also have a number of other factors counting against ever being able to get a lit job in Boston: I am from a uni people here have never heard of, English Renaissance manuscripts is not exactly a useful research field here, and Boston has some of the top unis in the world which annually graduate candidates who would beat my cv before the application committee even opened the envelopes. It became clear to me that if I was really really lucky I might (and that's a big might) get a full time composition job I wouldn't actually want, but that rather than being the bottom rung of a ladder that would lead to a literature job eventually after I'd done my time in the grammar dungeons, it would only make me further qualified to teach composition. And even more likely than a full time composition position would be adjuncting on an insecure semester-by-semester basis, probably at several different universities. Having spent a semester sharing an office with a guy who was working three different adjunct jobs and had been waiting for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow for ten years, I consider myself lucky to have read my fortune this quickly rather than wasting more time going further down that road.

So. That was the state of play when I left for New Zealand. I had applied for a whole lot of jobs, some academic, some other stuff, some postdoc grants, with the idea that I would just see what eventuated while I was away. Answer: a pile rejection letters.

My first idea for a lateral career shift was to go into the publishing industry. My reasoning was, well hey, if it is my destiny to correct apostrophes all day then I'm going to do it in a nice office and for a decent wage. Meanwhile I was having nice little fantasies about having tea and cake with some of my favorite authors and giving them critique about their books to which they listened with careful attention. But having spent about a month looking into working in the publishing industry and applying for a few jobs, I came to realize that the job I wanted didn't really exist. These days, an editor isn't a literary midwife who helps an author give birth to their book, their role is more like that of a project manager coordinating marketing with printing and nagging authors to meet their deadlines. Yes there were plenty of jobs correcting apostrophes, but in Home and Garden magazines and medical journals rather than the latest pop lit. So that lost its appeal pretty quickly.

I looked into a few other things and applied for random jobs but I really wasn't going anywhere. I had a hard think about the people I know and whose job I would most like to have, and the answer was Bunni, a guy I met when I was in the UK who roamed around stately homes cataloguing their libraries. I wrote to him and asked him what he had to do to get that kind of work and he said a Master of Library Science. I looked around Boston and it turns out that there is a school here with just such a programme: Simmons College. Here is their Graduate School of Library and Information Science page: http://www.simmons.edu/gslis/ I am all signed up and will start in September. Corin will be starting part time daycare in mid-May and depending how he does, I may study part-time and parent part-time or if he really loves it then we might both go full time. We'll see.

HEALTH
No news is good news on this front. I will have to keep taking a bunch of meds - including having monthly injections - for the next couple of years to keep my hormones suppressed in order to reduce the risk of the hormone-based cancer coming back and I had some problems with those for a while, but I am getting the side effects of that under control and it is all becoming manageable. Next up on the agenda is having more surgery over summer. I am having a voluntary right mastectomy in order to rid myself of the type of tissue my type of cancer most likes to grow in, and then having a double reconstruction. I met with the surgeon's nurse the other day to discuss options and it is amazing what they can do these days. I am going to go with boring old implants (with help from some donor muscle from my back), but they can create new breasts for you from donor fat and muscle from your tummy or buttocks. The downsides of those surgeries are that they have a long recovery period and during that time the blood supply to the new tissue is pretty precarious and you have to avoid any kind of trauma to the area. I just don't see that as realistic for me right now. All it would take would be Corin bowling into my chest once for me to lose blood supply and then I'd have dead tissue and all sorts of bad complications. So I'm going for the quick fix of implants instead. That said, 'quick' is a relative term. Initially they will install 'expanders' in my chest. Expanders are like uninflated round balloons with a thick skin which have a magnet inside them. Over the next three months I will have a number of visits to the doctor to get the expanders slowly filled with saline to gradually stretch my chest skin/muscle. They have a gadget they use to locate the magnet which tells them where to put the needle. Then once I'm stretched to the right size, there's another operation to switch out the expanders for the permanent silicon implants. I can't believe people do this voluntarily! So not pleasant, but in terms of wound healing it is by far the least dramatic option and the recovery time is only a month for the first operation and a week for the second operation. The plastic surgeon has to coordinate with the mastectomy surgeon so I don't have a date as yet, but we are hoping for June as Corin will have been in daycare for a month by then and Ravi will be on summer break.

PROJECTS
Since getting back from NZ I have been flat out with job applications and the two papers i Have been writing. One is for the Shakespeare Association conference coming up in April, and is called 'Posed and Captured Proofs: Looking at the Literature-History relationship through a new lens.' In it I draw an analogy between photographs and literature as sources for history. The second paper which I just submitted last night is called 'Whose Letter is it Anyway?' and is about seventeenth century women's use of secretaries to write their correspondence, particularly focussing on one women I studied in my PhD, Lady Elizabeth Hatton. That will be a chapter in a book called 'Acts of Writing' at some point in the future. In the next few weeks I have to prep my presentation for the SAA conference, but then after that I am looking forward to revising the quirky little comments I make on Facebook about parenting into a manuscript which my sister will illustrate. I think it has potential as a cheeky baby shower present. We'll see.

Apologies for the delay in updating Corin's record. When we got back from our lovely trip away I had to face the consequences of slacking off for a month and have been frantically working on two papers. One has now been submitted, the remaining one is due in two weeks, so this entry will be a bit brief I'm afraid.

ISSUES
1. Health
It has been a rough month for Corin. His gastroenteritis seemed to be getting better when I last posted, but he kept having relapses for almost two weeks. After the first week, the dr said that his internal workings had probably got out of balance so we gave him yoghurt and electolytes and various things and that seemed to help. But then he started running a fever. We took him to the dr twice in two days and the most popular theory was that it was a urinary tract infection caused by diarrhea in his diaper, so they had to put a catheter in the poor wee love to get a sample. That was a nightmare. The drs office people obviously didn't catheterise a baby every day and they were poking around and he was screaming and after all that they didn't get a useable sample. That night his temperature went up to 104 and we took him to the emergency room at Children's Hospital. They again thought UTI and did the whole procedure again, but it turned out not to be the problem. The drs didn't really have anything to go on and sent us home, predicting that he must have a second illness going on on top of the tummy bug and his immune system was struggling to cope. Sure enough the following day he came down with a flu-ish thing. His temperature dropped thank goodness, but he was still miserable. He had a few weeks of being better and now he has a cold again. And then a couple of days ago we had to take him for his 12 mth check up which involved 3 jabs and a blood test. Oy vey.

2. Sleep
Many broken nights due to the above, as you can imagine, but things finally seem to be improving which is just as well as we are all getting pretty exhausted.

3. Teeth
After a few weeks of well-timed respite during his tummy troubles, Corin is teething again. He is hard at work on his first molar, which is twice the size and at least four times the misery of the other teeth he has cut so far. As it is further back in his mouth it is harder to gauge what is going on, but the other day the teething biscuit he was gnawing on had blood on it so it seems like it is finally cutting through. A bit of the bad stuff to go and then hopefully some rest.

4. Weight
Corin has gained a few more pounds (now 31lbs) and about another inch of height. His growth is now following a much more gradual curve and the drs aren't concerned, although we will check back with the geneticist for a follow up in a few months. I'm finding it difficult to lift him at times, particularly if I have to hold him at old angles (getting into highchair, crib etc). Fortunately he prefers to be down and walking than up and carried these days.

To give you an idea of how amazingly far Corin has come, take a look at this photo of Corin on his birthday. The baby doll at his feet is wearing an outfit Corin wore at three months of age.



DEVELOPMENT
1. Perambulation
This continues to be the main focus of Corin's activities, as he gains confidence and skill in manouvering himself about. Because he had got pretty good at walking holding our hands, he expects to get through life at speed which makes balance more of a challenge than if he was doing a cautious totter.

Here you can see one of his first efforts at independently getting from A to B. He is a lot like new skateboarder: bursts of success followed by equally spectacular crashes (he was fine).



Since then he has got a little less headlong and could walk from one person to another over a distance of 1-2m. Most recently he can make similar sized trips from one island of safety to the next - with the encouragement of yoghurt treats.



Just today, he made another advance. I was at the library with him, trying somewhat futilely to find board books that were not totally banal, and he was standing next to me leaning on the shelf. He obviously got bored with me taking too long and headed off under his own steam! He got a couple of meters before he was stranded hanging onto the arm of a couch, but I was most impressed.

We have been trying to encourage him to crawl on hands and knees rather than commando, which looks painful and slow and doesn't really liberate him that much. No great success thus far. We are also working with him on pulling himself up, so he can transition himself from floor to standing rather than needing our help all the time. More independence would be nice for everybody.

2. Language
Corin chats all the time but still no distinct words yet.

3. Social Skills
Corin is very much a people person, and one of my resolutions for the upcoming months between now and when he starts child care is to try and give him lots of opportunities for socializing with other kids. He already goes to a playgroup on Wednesdays, I'm starting to look into some other playgroup options for other mornings, and trying to make playdates for him to hang out with his other little buddies. He has also become more interested in friends of the cuddly variety...



4. Feeding
Now that Corin is 1, we will start weaning him off formula and solid foods will become the basis of his nutritional intake. We have been working on self-feeding with him, both with his hands and with a spoon. He got quite good at conveying a preloaded spoon into his mouth, but loading the spoon was another matter requiring a wrist twist that is actually quite tricky. Ravi found some specially designed cutlery for new self-feeders, where the head of the spoon is shaped more like a shovel than a bowl and this was an almost instant success. But we still have a lot to work on...



After finishing his meal and tolerating being wiped down, there is nothing Corin likes more as a reward than being tickled with an ex-cat-toy. Obviously.



5. Interacting with the world
Corin's world is really opening up at the moment. The more things he can do, the more things he can do and enjoy. He likes storytime a lot more now that he can participate.



Now that he is 1 he is also suddenly eligible for the next age range up of programmes run by the local library etc so I have been trying some new things with him. So far I took him along to a playgroup in a basement that I wasn't a big fan of, and to an activity thing in this big gymnasium that was pretty awesome - awesomely loud, that is! Several more new activities to try on the to-do list. Finding new activities has also led to finding out about existing opportunities I didn't know about. It turns out that our local library lends out toys to be played with in the library, which has been a great option during the sudden cold snap we've been through in the last ten days or so. The first time we borrowed some toys, I picked a little metal kitchen playset and Corin banged away so vigorously I thought it best to leave the library and come home to re-enact the experience. Here is our future drummer:



EVENTS

1. Birthday
The big event since I last posted was, of course, Corin's first birthday. I decorated the house and we had a bunch of friends over for cupcakes.




Not made by me, I hasten to add. Maybe next year...
One of the cupcakes had a candle on it for Corin to blow out, but I hadn't thought to prepare him for the experience and to our horror he grabbed for the flame instead. Ravi had had his camera right ready for the magical moment and got it all on film. Fortunately he recoiled pretty quickly and there was no harm done.



And he forgave the cupcake.



2. Corin's room
Just before we left for NZ we realized that Corin's room was too cold because the upstairs flat has a staircase down to the basement behind one wall. So we swapped rooms with him, but since we had just finished safety proofing our bureaus remained bolted to the wall in his room for about a month after we got back. We finally got around to swapping everything round to its proper place and now his room is a fund place for him to be - especially as we bought him a secondhand toy kitchen for his birthday. Here he is cooking al fresco.



FACEBOOK POSTS
Let it be known that there shall be no more being carried at the playground. Though the ground be muddy and the shoes be new Toddlerman cares not for such matters. Toddlerman must walk! Hold hand please ta.

Learning to walk is a school of hard knocks. Corin is getting better and better and only needs to hang onto one finger for reassurance most of the time, but several times a day he will slip or lean too much or turn too sharply and lose his balance. It seems like Corin's head is pitting itself against every object in the house. Head vs floor = head loses. Head vs toys = depends on the toy. Head vs doors = head loses...

Corin: I call for an end to object discrimination. Why should only so-called 'toys' get played with? All objects in the world have an equal right to be pounded on, shaken, and chewed on. I vow to personally do everything I can to make things right.

I think I understand how 'maternal intuition' works. You worry about everything that could possibly go wrong and at some point you'll be 'proved' right. I can see that worrying has evolutionary value (it is like my brain is on safety-proof-scan mode whenever we enter a new environment and I can identify the hazards quite quickly) and I guess overtime you become more finely tuned to the type of accidents your kid has. At the moment I look for objects he could hit if he fell so I position my hands to catch him and stop it. Your predictions could potentially get more and more accurate until you could mistake yourself for a prophet.

I am going to have to learn to pronounce Pachycephalosaurus properly, and what the difference is between an Archaeopteryx and an Ankylosaurus.

Mr Snuffleofagus (sp?) has now been a series of different sicks for 2.5 weeks. This is an unusually bad patch, but he has been sick on average at least half a week every month of his life. Someone is home with him all the time, so this is disruptive but not disastrous. If we were having to take sick days off work to look after him we would have run through our allowance months ago and bosses would be losing their patience. I don't know how people manage really.

May have to ban paper clips.

Corin's first birthday and Ravi and my first becoming-parents-aversary. What a transformative year it has been for all of us. Looking forward to celebrating with friends.

Thanks to everyone who came to Corin's party yesterday, he had a wonderful time. He got so much great stuff that I figured a little at a time was a good idea and stashed some of his toys around the house to play with later. As far as he was concerned this morning, I had organized a treasure hunt for him and he dragged me round the house finding his goodies, cackling with glee and pulling everything onto the floor. Loot!

Corin is not quite the evil genius he will probably soon become. His favorite game yesterday was to go to look at himself in our bedroom mirror (permitted, obviously) but then snatch a tissue from my bedside table (not previously permitted) and rip it in half and then charge through the house chortling gleefully waving half in each hand like a midget demented Morris dancer before stopping somewhere, ripping the tissue into confetti and trying to stuff the bits into his mouth. I still hold his hand when he is rushing around because he has too many accidents otherwise, yet he is always surprised when that tissue gets confiscated...

Can't rave enough about the awesomeness of public libraries. In winter, if you are not religious, public libraries are literally the only indoor destination to take a baby to that won't cost money. We are lucky to have a particularly awesome public library within walking distance that runs free children's programs (including the singalongs) and I have just found out they even loan out toys to play with in the library. How cool is that?

Really enjoying playing with the toys that I - err, Corin - got for his birthday. Yoga is great and all, but if you want something really relaxing you should give building blocks a go. New business idea for a few years from now: 'regression therapy.' Stressed out corporate execs can pay by the hour to play with bubbles, hug teddies, build block towers, be made to take their naps, and be told that they are very good boys and girls. I'd be like a professional Mominatrix.

Yesterday I rescued a truck driver from under the bed, a duck from going through the laundry, a book from mastication, a chest of drawers from being hit by a baby, and a cat. That is about as much hero as I can fit in one day.

Poor Corin is hard at work on his first molar: twice the size and four times the misery of his other baby teeth. Discomfort makes everything just that bit harder to cope with, so normal experiences like frustration now come with extra whining. My new mantra: The whining is loudest before the nap time. The worse the wailing the closer the cup of tea.

Young Mr Corin is already showing strong communist tendencies. He devotes much of each day trying to equalize the distribution of property in his world. If he isn't ensuring the bathroom has enough building blocks, he is dispersing stacking cups equally through the house. Though inequality in the world keeps reestablishing itself, yet he labors on. A tireless crusader for equal rights to puzzle pieces and teething rings.

Enjoying being a parent to a small person about 1000% more than parenting a baby. Much easier to spend time with someone who is happy most of the time than someone who cries a lot. Well d'uh.

I keep thinking we are done with safety proofing, but then so many household objects seem benign until you imagine a baby putting them in their mouth: paper clips, push pins, plastic tags from bread bags, those h-shaped plastic things that hold price tags onto clothes... I should go through the house with a choke-test sized vacuum cleaner and suck up everything smaller than our son's mouth.

I totally get how parents can end up spoiling a kid. Unbratty is a good longterm goal to aim for, of course, but the immediate gratification of giving your kid some joy is pretty irresistible. The compulsion is even stronger for the flipside - I want to respond instantly when Mr C is unhappy, but in the long term that will just teach him to fuss/whine to get what he wants.

Yesterday I took Corin to his first session of baby circus, aka 'Toddlers and Twos at the Gibbs.' My months of singalong training have helped me get used to how it feels to be in a room with about 60 kids plus caregivers, but having all 60 of those kids running round a gymnasium squealing just about frazzled my brain. Which of course meant Corin loved it. It was as though he sensed I would like nothing more than to retreat asap and went into overexcited hyperdrive: new thing! (2 minutes) new thing! (2 minutes) including going on each of six identical ride-ons that I had to fold myself in half to help him use. Alas his excitement was such that I will take him again and again. Stupid vulnerability to cuteness. But next time I will take some sports water and book a chiropractor...

Corin is such a player these days. Whereas he used to want the same book read over and over (to the extent I actually hid a few of them for a while) and had favorite toys he played with all the time, now several times a day he will search the house for new conquests: will it be the lint roller, the set of coasters, the file folder or the watch? Once he has located a suitable target he will give his full attention over to playing with it until he suddenly tires of it and moves on in search of the new...

Playing with blocks good.
Treading on blocks bad.

RAVI'S FACEBOOK UPDATES
Apparently the US Census Bureau says Emily is the 'designated parent' and if I watch Corin it's a 'child care arrangement.' Hmm, why don't I get paid?

Emily tells me that there's a baby walking around the house, hands free!

Great news from Emily : "Snowing here. From after lunch Corin has been wanting to get lifted to the window every 5 mins to watch. Definite future snowboarder."

It is hard to believe that Corin will be celebrating his first birthday in just two weeks' time! Definitely time for a developmental summary, even though I touched on many of these points in the travel logs.

ISSUES
1. Health
Corin did really well almost the whole time we were away, with the exception being our first night in Whangarei where something made him wheezy. We think it may have been the airborne mosquito repellent, so we removed that and he seemed to improve. On our return his symptoms got very bad for a few days, because the house was full of cat hair and dust. Once we cleaned thoroughly and Ravi started a regime of brushing the cats daily, we stopped having to use the nebulizer. He was just getting over that when he (and we) got a cold, and then he was just getting over that when he got gastroenteritis, poor wee love. A week of misery later and he is finally coming right. Hopefully we have some less fraught times ahead!

2. Sleep
Apart the start of our trip where Corin didn't adjust to the L.A. time zone and started every day at 3a.m., he actually did really well with sleep during our trip. It took 3-4 days to dejetlag him once we were back, but it wasn't a big drama. All the illness has meant inadequate sleep for everyone, so hopefully now Corin is getting better we can start getting back into better patterns.

3. Teeth
Corin got two more top teeth (one on either side of his front pair) about the time we were in L.A. and got the matching bottom teeth on our trip home - one of which is still not entirely through. Next come the molars apparently, and advance reviews from some friends of ours who have just been through it are not glowing.

4. Weight
At a recent doctor's visit for Corin's gastroenteritis, he weighed in at 31lbs. So he has gained a little more - I would guess by putting on some muscle. He is getting very strong these days!

DEVELOPMENT
1. Perambulation
This is the big news - Corin took his first steps! He doesn't seem particularly keen to do much unsupported walking, which is probably very wise as he still loses his balance suddenly and often. As it happened, I was taking a video of him cruising along our windowsill at the precise time he decided to make his attempt, so caught it on camera.



This also means we can pinpoint exactly when this event occurred: Saturday, 28 January 2012, 10:20:11 a.m.

Corin has also, finally, started crawling forwards. He has an awkward commando-style crawl going at the moment, but hopefully with more practice it will stop looking so painful! No clip yet.

2. Language
It is hard to say whether Corin has 'words' yet because although he makes word-noises (dada and mumma being our favourites) he is not quite using them intentionally only to refer to the named object. He babbles away chattily and occasionally parrots words we say with surprising accuracy. I was reading him the Berenstein Bears' 'Inside Outside Upside Down' a little while ago and said 'Outside' and Corin repeated 'Outside' perfectly! I'm working with him on various command-type words (up, in, out, more, all done, etc) so that he can communicate what he wants without getting too frustrated, and I would hazard to say that he understands the words but can't use them yet. His receptive language is definitely leaps and bounds ahead of his spoken language, he seems to understand a surprising number of words. Here is a clip of him chatting away while I am trying to get him to sleep.



3. Social skills
Corin has always been super-friendly, but lately he has started including others in his play. Here is a clip which I have posted previously, of him feeding blocks to his Granddad John.



He has learned to give objects when I say 'Ta' and we can roll a ball back and forth between us.

EVENTS
We haven't had much time since we returned during which Corin has been feeling well, but we have had two events.

1. A week ago we took him to the Boston Children's Museum. Obviously he won't get the full benefit of their interactive exhibits until he is quite a bit older, but he was nonetheless wide eyed and fascinated.



2. His friend Oliver, who is about six weeks older, had a belated birthday party (having turned one during his own trip to NZ). We didn't take any photos at the party, but here is a shot of Corin and Oliver together.



Here is a final clip of Corin doing his normal thing - zipping round the house, poking into everything. Note his use of a hand-sign for 'through the gate'



FACEBOOK UPDATES (since return to Boston)
We weren't sure how much Corin would remember of Boston, given that the month we spent traveling accounted almost 10% of his life, and a much larger proportion of his sentient/interactive time (since about 5 months) when he started relating to his world. But last night he wasted no time in doing a circuit of some of his old haunts (turning the air purifier on and off, opening and closing the laundry bin - good times), and is busy getting reacquainted with his toys.

Corin Ross-Montenegro 007
Your mission for the morning:
Get the rectangular green block from the toy box and hitch a ride to the coffee table. Taste test, bang on the floor, repeat taste test. No good? Discard and kick it under the couch. If there are any items on the coffee table get them onto the floor immediately. Then hitch over to the bookcase and pull out half a dozen books. After a few have been read to you, hitch around the perimeter a few times, grab the baby gate bars, look out the window, just generally check the place out. Anything happening? No? Right, back to the toy box. Now, get the black and white teething ring and the blue rattle...

Corin's pointer finger proboscis now doubles as a magic wand. One imperious wave of his little fist and he gets the toy or book of his choice. Another and he is told the name of the object he is interested in. Another and doors open before him. Another and lights go on and off. We started this latter magic on the plane where it was a useful distraction, but now he sits in his high chair distracted from his meals by trying to get the lights turned on and off I think that particular trick will have to become extinct.

First Contact
To start with, talking to a baby feels like talking to someone in a coma, putting messages in a bottle, or sending radio waves into space - you get no response for the longest time. So it is really exciting when messages start coming back in the other direction. Sure most of them are in a foreign language and it will take a while for our species to understand each other, but for now charades (and lots of pointing) are getting us by.

Now that Corin is literally teetering on the brink of walking, our role has changed again. No longer are we puppeteers stepping our little marionette in patterns we choose. Now we are belaying a rock climber, constantly adjusting the amount of tension and slack in the support we provide so he can find his own footholds without fear of falling.

Really going to have to start vacuuming a lot more frequently as Corin's latest hobby is pincering up little pieces of grit and lint and trying to eat them. At the moment I thwart him 9/10 times, but he is fast cultivating the sleight of hand and swallow-on-capture skills of a budding KGB agent...

Corin is going commando! And no, this is not a comment on his underpants' status.

Sick baby = more splatter than a B movie.

Corin may not yet be old enough to ask 'What's that?' and 'Why?' all the time, but he has the curiosity already. I have a lovely red pimple on my chin at the moment and whenever C is in my lap his little pointer finger creeps up to prod it. He has even tried to scratch it to see if it comes off. Trust me, honey, Mummy's tried that and it doesn't work.

RAVI'S FACEBOOK UPDATES
Corin's first status update: lllllllllllllllllllllllllllll=\N;.,/10o5 gggggggggggggg h n mmmmm

As on the way to New Zealand, we broke up our travel by spending a few days in California with some of Ravi's family.

Jan 18
We arrived in San Francisco the morning of the day we left New Zealand - time travel is weird. We had a five hour layover so walked Corin all over the place chatting to strangers. Corin loves attention wherever he can get it, but we have noticed that he tends to particularly devote himself to disinterested targets - the guy trying to do work on his laptop, the person with a sleeping mask over their eyes, the woman talking on her cellphone. He was pretty well behaved towards the people who sat next to us on plane trips, with one notable exception. On one trip (can't remember which) we sat next to an unfriendly man who was reading the New York Times on his ipad and Corin repeatedly banged him on the leg with his little red truck. I apologised profusely and the man very huffily said "It is what it is" - whatever that means.

The waiting finally passed and we took a tiny and very noisy plane up to Redding. Amazingly Corin wasn't distressed by all the noise and slept most of the way - hooray for having run him ragged in the airport. We met Ravi's mum, Patty, in the airport and we all went to the airport's Chinese restaurant for dinner. Then we got settled in at the Gaia Shasta Hotel.

http://gaiashasta.com/

This wasn't just any hotel. Ravi's dad, Rico, had been a landscape contractor for the hotel when it was originally built, in return for which he negotiated for his daughter Nessa's wedding to be held there free of charge.

Jan 19
We took our huge pile of laundry over to Ravi's parents' house and had lunch there while Corin played with his cousins Daven and Harper. Daven and Harper are Ravi's youngest sister Vanea's kids and his parents look after them sometimes. We intended to do all our laundry ourselves, but as events played out we ended up leaving it there and Patty delivered it to us later all washed and dried, much to my shame. Here is Corin sitting amongst the toys in Patty and Rico's lounge. Having had a dozen small toys in a bag for the last month, his eyes at wide at all this bounty.



We headed to Vanea's place for the afternoon, where Corin continued to have lots of fun with Daven and Harper - and their dog Zoe. Here is a clip of Corin playing with Zoe.



In the evening, we all headed over to the house of Ravi's oldest sister Nessa, her husband John, and step sons Sam and Cameron.

20 Jan
Vanea's husband Daniel is self-employed and does several jobs including being a soccer referee, a personal trainer, and a masseuse. When we were at his house the day before we had kidded around about needing massages because of all the time we spend bent over holding Corin's hands while he walks about. Daniel offered us appointments on the morning of the 20th and we were delighted to accept - and even more delighted when Patty and Rico offered to watch Corin and give us the morning off. After that sensuous luxury, we took Corin back to the hotel to nap while we started packing up yet again. In the evening we headed back to Vanea's, for Harper's 3rd birthday party. Harper had a Thomas the Tank Engine themed party, and Vanea really outdid herself with the decorations. All the food on the table was presented in boxes decorated up as train carriages.

Alas we had to leave pretty early, to prepare for the final leg of our journey.

21 Jan
Flew back to Boston. Fortunately it was only a six hour flight because Corin was awake and antsy for most of it, but we worked hard to entertain him and he was very well behaved. We arrived to -7 degrees and a snowstorm. Our taxi cancelled because of the snow so I stayed in the airport with the luggage while Ravi and Corin took public transport home to fetch the car and come back and collect me. We managed to drag our luggage inside, say hi to the cats, dig out Corin's immediate essentials, and then collapsed with exhaustion. We had a wonderful and amazing time, but travelling with a baby is really hard work and it is good to be home.

Jan 13
Update from Facebook:
After a 3a.m. start to the day, three turbulent flights, and a tight connection that had us speedwalking through Auckland airport, we are up North! Corin was not the slightest bit bothered by the rocky ride, he just chilled out with his teething rusk hanging casually from the corner of his mouth like Churchill's cigar.

My aunty Beryl, sister Cathy, and nieces Amelie, Isla, Anabelle, and Eva met us at Whangarei airport. We loaded up all our gear into their van and their car which they were lending us for the duration and went out for lunch at the deck, before heading to our accommodation: Aro'a Cottage in McLeod's Bay.

http://www.holidayhouses.co.nz/properties/5630.asp

In the evening we headed into the town basin to a really innovative playground, followed by dinner at an Italian restaurant called Amici.

Jan 14
Unfortunately Corin had a really bad night. Our suspicion is that the fumes from the plug-in mosquito repellent set off his asthma, but we are really not sure. He was very distressed and unfortunately there wasn't much we could do to help. Although we had brought his nebulizer with us, when we tried to use it we found that the converter plug we had bought specially for this purpose did not relay enough voltage for the nebulizer to work. Luckily his condition improved on its own, once we had him upright and calmed down.

The plan for the morning was to meet up with Cathy, her husband Danny, and the girls at Ocean Beach but we ran very late and arrived only about half an hour before they were ready to leave. All the same, Corin and Ravi managed to have a bit of a splash in the water and Corin made time to eat some sand. Here is a picture of Corin and his closest-in-age cousin Eva (born only nine days before him) at Ocean Beach.



He looks terribly exposed, but I assure you he was slathered with suntan lotion (despite vigorous resistance) and was wearing a hat most of the time.

From there we headed back to Cathy's place for lunch and an afternoon of hanging out. Corin had a marvellous time. Here he is with Danny's cricket bat, which he carried around; and in their swimming pool with Ravi, Cathy, and three of the girls.





Corin had a swing in the swing in their carport and had a great time pushing round 'Green Bike' - an old riding toy I gave the girls a long time ago.



15 Jan
We loaded up our gear and headed north. We stopped for lunch at the Whangarei Falls and watched locals jump from a tree into the river while we ate our corner dairy pies. Then we continued on up to Paihia, where we were staying at the Copthorne Hotel and Resort.

http://www.millenniumhotels.co.nz/copthornebayofislands/index.html

This was a much flasher sort of place than I would usually go for, but we got a special deal on our room. That website shows the rock-edged swimming pools which were Corin's highlight for the day, a little too chilly for me but refreshing after a sticky car ride. After we had settled, swum and showered, we headed into Paihea township for dinner. We went to a little Thai place and the manager was so taken with Corin that he ended up carrying him around giving Ravi and I a chance to eat at the same time for the first time on the trip!

16 Jan
We had planned to drive to Omapere on the 16th, but it turns out I had messed up and booked both Northland accommodation places for the same dates - oops! Fortunately we were able to stay at Copthorne for another night, and that worked out for the best anyway because it meant less packing and unpacking and meant Ravi was able to go on a dolphin watching trip.

His Facebook post about it:
Lessons from today's fantastic 6 hour catamaran trip around the Bay of Islands:
-- Do not learn how to snorkel by jumping off a boat into deep water
-- Otherwise your swim with dolphins will end up as bobbing near dolphins while gasping for air
-- Do not pull things from your bag while sitting on a hull of the catamaran, or your glasses may end up being worn by dolphins
-- Do learn how to snorkel in a cove with fish and sea urchins

Meanwhile Corin and I wandered to the local playground before heading back to the hotel for his nap. He slept until 2 by which time I was starving, so I resigned myself to overpriced hotel food. I loaded Corin into the frontpack and headed over to the cafe/cocktail bar and ordered a $16 toasted sandwich with fries. I took Corin out into the sunshine while I was waiting for it to be ready but didn't want to bother the cocktail loungers so went to the farside of the patio. It turned out that that spot had a good view of the rockpools where Corin had so much fun the day before, so he got very antsy, wanting to get down and go swimming. My food showed up and to quiet him down I gave him a little piece of chip. Now I usually vet his food very very carefully but on this occasion I was flustered and wasn't as cautious as usual and it was too hot. His poor wee face screwed up as it burnt his mouth - with his displeasure only increasing when I hooked the offending item out. I quickly took him over to the garden area to distract him by pointing out the colorful flowers and turned around just in time to see seagulls sitting on my table stealing my fries. And thus it was that I shouted "Oh bugger off" in the middle of a fancy cocktail bar. And consequently finished my sandwich quickly and scarpered.

By the time Corin and I had fulfilled his wish to swim, Ravi was back and it was time for dinner at 'Jack's Rib Shack.'

17 Jan
Leaving Paihea, we drove across to Omapere to see where we would have stayed (an equally beautiful but less commercial beach), then we continued on to the Waipoua forest to see Tane Mahuta - the kauri tree renowned as the biggest and oldest in New Zealand. Here we are in front of the tree - although Corin is actually fascinated by a couple of buskers singing waiata (Maori songs).



From there we drove back to Whangarei via Dargaville and spent the evening and night with my Aunty Beryl.

18 Jan
After a final airport farewell with everyone, we flew back to Auckland. Ravi paid a visit to a colleague at the University of Auckland, while I walked Corin around and around Auckland airport. This strategy paid off because when we eventually boarded our plane he slept 10 of the 12 hours of the trip back to the States.

Here is a picture of Corin minding our 200lbs pile of luggage.



Here is Ravi's Facebook update the day we left:
Goodbye to summer, to the letter Zed, to plastic money, to carry-on bags without xrays, and to all of Corin's (and Emily's) relatives in NZ! See you next year!

8 Jan
We managed to get all our gear into John's car in the morning and after a fairly mad scramble at the airport, flew to Dunedin. Our time in Dunedin was mainly spent catching up with my friends, which was fabulous for me but would be boring to go into too much detail about here so I will be brief.

My friend Stacey picked us up from the airport and took us back to her house for lunch with her and her family, which was lovely, and then helped us with grocery shopping before dropping us to our flat.

We had reserved a rental apartment fairly close to town, but the landlord pulled a bait and switch on us, moving our booking about a week before we arrived to a place further away and - as we found out to our dismay - up three flights of stairs. So that was an annoying hassle, but once we were settled in it worked out fine.

That evening we had dinner with my friends Peter and Linda and their kids. Their kids have changed so much since I last saw them two years ago! Linda made pavlova, which was the first proper pav I'd had since I left NZ. Yum.

9 Jan
We met up with friends Anton and Maria for lunch at the Dunedin Museum.



They have a great children's play area there, which we ended up coming back and back to on subsequent days between social appointments. Here is Corin playing with a ladybug abacus. Early interest in Maths perhaps? To his right you can see a very tempting red barn with a protruding pole for winching up goods. About five minutes after this photo was taken, Corin grabbed the barn with both hands and yanked it towards himself ramming this pole into his forehead. Ouch!



After lunch, we went with Anton to the Tropical Forest butterflies exhibit that is housed in the Museum. Here is Corin investigating a butterfly feeding station and doing some Extreme Leaning to check out some goldfish.





While the butterflies were exciting it was also very very hot and humid in there so we couldn't stay long. After a quick browse through the hands on science part of the Museum, we headed to the public library for some children's books and downtime. This was also a place we kept coming back to during our stay as a very useful location for letting off steam.

That evening we had dinner with my friend Koji and his wife, at Jitsu - reputed as the best Japanese restaurant in Dunedin. Koji taught me salsa back when I lived at Abbey College.

10 Jan
Met up with my friends from the English department (Catherine, Cassie, Lynda, and Mathew) at Everyday Gourmet for lunch. This was a fairly disastrous choice of venue, as it is a delicatessen and there were all sorts of interesting packages and jars on shelves at floor level. I wandered Corin up and down the street outside for some of the time, where to my horror he took up a new hobby of trying to pick up rubbish and eat it. From there we wandered through the university, catching up with more friends along the way (Amber, Amberleigh, and Tasha). Here is a picture of a very small Ravi in front of the University of Otago clocktower.



Ravi then headed off to spend the afternoon watching penguins, while I popped into Abbey College to see John and Gretchen and then took Corin to the Botanical Gardens playground with my friend Anton. Here is Ravi with a penguin.



11 Jan
Very busy social day. Morning tea with my friend D at Good Earth cafe, then lunch with Cy and his wife at Saigon Van, a quick visit to see my supervisor, then dinner at Nova with my friend Carol and her son Zac.

Corin vs Shakespeare, in my supervisor's office.



12 Jan
Pancake lunch with some friends from Abbey: Kyle, Dustin, Peter, Michelle, Paul, and Oli. Lovely to see them all again. Corin was particularly taken by playing with Kyle's hair.

From there we capped off our time in Dunedin with a trip to the Cadbury Chocolate factory, home of the world's only chocolate waterfall. They don't let you take any pictures on the tour, unfortunately, but you can see it here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmWLPid-Pbc

For our last supper, we had Hell's pizza - an old favourite of mine from when I lived there.

13 Jan
Flew to Whangarei.

To be continued...