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.
Ah, October. Leaves changing, days getting noticeably shorter, crisp fall nights, all that.
We didn’t really notice the changing of the seasons all that much, I suppose, kept busy as we were by an ever-developing young man. Just the usual: playing, exploring the house, eating (sometimes – he’s never been the world’s greatest eater), reading, generally being a happy little guy.
We had a special treat mid-month when Grandma L. and Grandpa L. flew over – and brought Great-Grandma L. too! Nyan of course loved being spoiled. Read the rest of this entry »
August was a great month. September was not so great.
The month started out fine: we had a lovely Saturday afternoon at Daddy’s new job’s summer party; we bought a new car, which Nyan loved to pretend to drive (still does in fact); we all finally made it in to the Olympic park to see the swimmers in the Paralympics. Mommy and Daddy were settling in to their new jobs, and Nyan was settling in to his new nursery.
Folks, another year has come and gone, and in just a few short days we’ll be celebrating Nyan’s second birthday. I know, we can hardly believe it either. To build up some anticipation for the big day, we here at Nyan Thomas World Headquarters will be taking a quick look back at the last 12 months, one month at a time. These posts will be on the brief side, and may be a bit inconsistent in their timing, as we’re in the midst of a move and have no internet access. But in any case, enjoy them as they come.
First up, his first month as a one-year-old: August 2012. (Yes, yes, technically his first month as a one-year-old started on July 26, 2012, but that’s awfully wordy. Let’s just round up, eh?)
We haven’t posted a lot lately, ’cause we’ve been busy packing house (more on that later). But this weekend, in fact the last week or so, the weather has been just perfect. Sunny, warm, no rain, no humidity either – lord knows we’ve earned a spot of good weather! So on Saturday afternoon, we took a little break from shoving stuff into cardboard boxes and spent some time in the backyard.
Among the highlights: Nyan and Daddy laid on the grass at one point, looking up at the sky. Daddy asked: What color is the sky? “Green!” Uh… But then an airplane went by, of course. “Airplane! People!” Yes, that’s right, there are people on there. “People going! bye bye!” Yep, they’re going. Where do you think they’re going? “Iowa!” We realized later, the only place he’s been on a plane (at least since he’s become somewhat conscious) has been to Iowa. So he associates planes with going to Iowa. Clever kid.
Other highlights were captured on these two videos. Here is he running (remember six months ago when the kid could hardly walk?), looking at the sprinkler, singing the ABC song, and asking Daddy for a cuddle – though only because he wanted to get high up so he could examine the bird feeder.
Later, he started picking up these solar-powered garden lights that we have shoved into the ground (yes, he’s been told not to, but hey…) and playing with them. Early on, Daddy tells him to not throw them in the air ’cause he’ll hurt himself. So he stopped throwing them, but still managed to poke his belly with one. And had to explain to his dense Daddy what happened. (Not to worry, folks: kid was fine after Daddy gave his belly a little get-well kiss.)
More from our trip to Iowa, now almost two months ago: Mommy and Grandma went shopping one day, with Nyan, and came across a big Bob the Builder ride – one of those deals where you drop in a few coins and it rumbles and shakes and blares music for a few minutes. Did Nyan love it? He did.
(It’s not that he’s into Bob the Builder – he’s not really into any of those mass-commercialized characters, be it Disney or Nickelodeon or wherever Bob the Builder comes from; that’s very much by design. But the young man is very much into tractors, trucks, loud noises and the like. As we’ve said before: he’s definitely a little boy.)
Remember six weeks or so ago when we all trekked back to Iowa? Well, we took lots of photos. But have only posted a small handful. Here, let’s correct that with this assortment of random photos of Nyan doing his thang in the great state of Iowa.
This is a new one. We’re not sure where it came from, or what to make of it, but it’s certainly fun.
Quick backstory: this afternoon, Nyan was playing around with giant Lego blocks and came up with a little tower of blocks. He proudly showed it off to me and said: “Robot!” Not sure what to do with this, I said ‘Yes, it does look like a robot! Well done!’ (Where did he learn about robots?!) And as soon as he heard me say robot, he did this thing: he stretched out his face, opened his mouth, and did this weird spastic dance. It was actually hilarious – and he kept doing it, so of course we egged him on. Here, a few videos of Nyan Thomas doing the robot:
This last one is blurry – the power of the iPhone camera, I guess – apologies for that. But it’s probably the best example of The Robot we have:
Again, we have no idea where he learned the word ‘robot’ or where he got that odd little dance. The only thing we can figure is, of course, at daycare/nursery – but it doesn’t really seem like they’d be discussing advanced robotics with a room full of 1-year-olds, ya know? Eh, whatever. It’s just Nyan being Nyan.
No great theme to this batch, just a handful of photos of the little man from the past few weeks. Nyan with Mommy and Daddy; Nyan driving a golf cart at the country club up the road from our house; Nyan dragging a pack of toilet paper to the closet (kid loves to help out around the house!), Nyan in various moments of play. Etc. Just Nyan being Nyan, really. Click any photo to enlarge and start a slideshow.
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