Update 1

We had a fun Thanksgiving in Pennsylvania at Chris’s mom’s house. My parents and our friends from Salisbury, MD joined us as well. Nik did well with meeting a lot of new people as relatives stopped by to visit. He had fun playing with our friend’s 5-year old. By the second day he was very attached to his Grammy and crawled over to her to be picked up. He also seemed to really like her big black lab, Abby. Nik gets a little overwhelmed by the full-face licking, but so do I. At one point, Nik was playing on the floor in the kitchen and someone let the dog in, who went right over to Nik. We put Abby back outside really quickly, and Nik crawled over to the door crying until we opened the door to let him see the dog again.

Nikolai is so funny. He is starting to imitate us a lot, including fake coughing when we cough and pretending to chew when we are chewing a crunchy snack like nuts. He says several words, but I do not think he knows what they all mean. I always thought he would start saying a few simple words for things he likes the best, like bottle and bath. Instead he seams to repeat words he has heard, often out of context. We let him gnaw on an apple after I ate the skin (and after he threw a fit because I was not sharing) and since then he has been randomly saying “apple, apple.” Many people use signs with babies, so we tried to teach him the “more” sign. Now he will say “more” over and over and if he gets desperate he will add the sign. Unfortunately he appears to think that “more” means Gerber puffs. He will have a tray full of cheerios and baby food waiting, but will keep saying more until the puffs appear. I want to reward him for communicating and making it clear what he wants, but I really do not want to reinforce his belief that “more” means puffs. Plus, a baby really cannot live on puffs alone. He says “uh oh” every time the pacifier comes out of his mouth, and whenever something falls – even if it is a ball he drops intentionally. He seams to have decided that Chris is “dada” even though we have always called him “papa”. Apparently someone (possibly a grandparent) taught him dada and it has stuck.

We bought a Christmas tree last night. We put it up after Nik went to bed, and I was anxious to see his reaction in the morning. This morning he was a little sleepy and playing with his toys and finally noticed the tree. He stopped playing and very seriously said “oh”. He crawled over to it and I picked him up to get a closer look. He cautiously touched a branch and pulled his hand back. This evening he still seemed wary of the tree, which hopefully lasts for the next 3 weeks!

I started looking at daycare facilities since I have to go back to work in January. The first Kindercare place nearly made me cry. The room for the babies and toddlers was about a quarter of the size and with much fewer toys than Nik’s room at the baby house. Plus at the baby house there is usually a 1 to 3 ratio, while daycare facilities only have to have one adult to four babies. I could not picture my active boy being confined to such a small space all day. Many places I called have a waiting list until July or August, so I did not bother visiting them. Today I visited a different Kindercare that I liked a lot. There are a lot more babies in the room, but the rooms for the babies, wobblers, and toddlers were big and clean with lots of toys and room to play. To enter the baby room, we had to take off our shoes, which seemed very Kazakh. The staff seemed good and calm. The wobblers (a transition stage between baby and toddler at this facility) were actually in a quiet environment for a nap, which would clearly never happen at the first Kindercare. I decided to reserve Nikolai a spot at the center and while I was writing the check, they let Nik play in the baby room. When I went in to get him, he had already accumulated two toys and was trying to get another toy out of a little girl’s hand. He may be trouble at daycare. He was a little upset that I cut his play so short when we left.