Monthly Archives: July 2013

The big event in the month of May was a big trip back to the States – 10 days of so, built around Great-Grandma L.’s 90th birthday party. There was plenty of sleep for Mommy and Daddy, and playtime and grandparental spoilage for Nyan – exactly how it should be.

The jetlag on return was pretty rough; the first couple of nights he woke up around 1am and couldn’t/wouldn’t go back to sleep for two or three hours Read the rest of this entry »

April was poised to get off to a good start: the four-day Easter weekend started at the end of March and featured Easter bonnets, a trip to a museum, a swimming lesson, and plenty of hanging-out time with Mommy and Daddy. April 1 was Easter Monday, and though it was chilly, we had every reason to believe it would be a good day too.

But no. The young man had woken up coughing, and as the day progressed, he got more and more lethargic and cough-y. Mid-afternoon he felt feverish; our cheap drugstore thermometer told us he had a temperature of 105.6 F, or 40.9 C. Read the rest of this entry »

Ah, March. Springtime. Birds chirping, abundant sunshine, flowers poking out. Perfect time of year, right? Except not so much in London this year: March ended up being colder than December, January or February, and in fact it was the coldest March in something like 40 years.

We tried to make the most of it though, and signed up the young man for his first-ever swimming lessons.  Half an hour in an indoor, heated pool on Sunday afternoons, from early March through late April. Read the rest of this entry »

By February, Nyan was walking pretty much all the time. Dancing too. And just being lovely. We wrote at the time: Nyan is at a pretty fun stage – he’s just happy all the time, exploring, somewhat independent (sorta), talking… just a joy.

He was becoming more and more conversant (still babbling, sure, but obviously in his head he was making perfect sense no matter what he was saying). And ever-more observant of the world. Read the rest of this entry »

After an action-packed month of December, with lots of traveling and holiday activities, January was relatively slow. It didn’t help that it got cold and dark and uncharacteristically snowy in London, which kept us all house-bound more than we would have liked. But we made the most of it. Hanging out with friends, reading up a storm, poking around the house, and – especially – working more and more on our walking.

He’d taken his first steps back in November, of course, but even at Christmas was still mostly crawling, although trying more and more to walk. But by mid- January, as we reported at the time: Read the rest of this entry »

December was, understandably, all about the holidays. We kicked off the month with a Christmas party at the nursery on a Saturday afternoon, wherein Nyan got his face painted, ate some cookies, and met Santa for the first time. How did it go? As we reported at the time, he was a little standoffish at first but soon warmed up. Santa gave Nyan a wrapped present; Nyan looked at it, smiled, and handed it back to Santa! He’s a giver, our young man…

A couple weekends later, Nyan took Mommy and Daddy to a nearby restaurant and met about a dozen of his carers from the nursery. Read the rest of this entry »

November was a month of a lot of big steps – literally. There was his first real haircut at a real barber, and there was his first time standing on his own. But biggest of all? His first real steps!

Tentative steps, sure, with nothing resembling balance or control. But still! We were, naturally enough, quite chuffed, as they say over here.

Read the rest of this entry »