Jeyanth Joshua Goringe

PowerHair

You might have noticed in the photo below, that Jeyanth has rid himself of his shaggy mop and acquired the short back & sides required to subscribe to the yuppie executive look.

For posterity (hello posterity!) we note that the hair cut was last Saturday (25th Sept), and though his 5th haircut, it was the first time the clippers were used on Jeyanth's hair. What you see before you is a neat #4 shearing, with electric razor-work for the sideburns and bottom edge, and the top and front being styled with scissors. We duly acknowledge Yvonne at the hairdressers for care, dexterity and good-humour in the face of non-cooperation above and beyond the call of duty.

New photos

Two new sets of photos in the archive.

Hexapod Eidolon

Every now and then you come across something that simply transcends satire. Allow me to introduce the Hexapod Eidolon:

Before opening the box, we pause, just for a moment, to inspect the key value propositions of this toy:

Yes - it's feet will smay for ward, which is just as well, as I hear Ward has great difficulties smaying for himself nowadays.

Finally, the toy itself is revealed to us...

I originally intended to include here an audio clip of the Hexapod Eidolon in action (incidently, although it may be correctly described as "Bump and Go", they forgot to mention that it is also "Don't Bump and Go Anyway" - unless the "Bump" they had in mind was the on/off switch). However, my lawyer advises me that I may be responsible for any harm caused to my readers were I to do so....

Accidents

Although Jeyanth has had a fair number of falls in the process of learning to walk, until yesterday he hadn't actually managed to injure himself in any way. Now he's done it twice in two days.

Yesterday he was outside, trying to run, and tripped over his feet. He failed to fully catch himself, and ended up with a split lip, a fair amount of blood, about a minute of tears on his part and much longer than that of racing heartbeat from both Ammamma and Daddy.

Then this evening, just before he went to bed, he lost his balance (for no obvious reason), slipped and bashed his face on the edge of the coffee table. Fortunately there are no sharp edges, but he still ended up with a cut (and some swelling) on his gum.

In both cases he was perfectly happy again in a minute or two, and the bleeding stopped suprisingly quickly.

Evolutions

OK OK we've been a bit slack. Time for a monthly update on developments.

WORMCATCHER
The main feature of the last month has been the early mornings. With the sun rising earlier every day, so are the babies across the city. Our little treasure has been known to be bright eyed, bushy tailed and bouncing in his cot at 5am recently. We have become the sort of people who celebrate getting a "lie-in" till 6.30!! Five more weeks to daylight saving and counting!

INDEPENDENCE
We are pleased to report that Jeyanth has again read the rule-book, and appears to have overcome the worst of his separation anxiety. Though he is much more discerning about who he will go to than he was as a baby, and will often want to hang around someone for a little while in a parent's presence before accepting a carry or a cuddle, he no longer bursts into tears when I leave the room, and what is an immense relief, he is extremely happy at CSIROCARE. He barely manages a teary look when I wave good bye, and yesterday, he just walked away from me into the garden and started playing as soon as I put him down - instead of clinging to my trouser leg while I fill out the logbook, which he used to do.

CUDDLE INITIATION
A little while ago, I was moaning that my newly walking cherub had become too active and independant to stay still for long cuddles. This is still true, except when he is tired or sleepy. But there has been a fantastic development, which is BY FAR a better deal! Jeyanth will now decide, from the other side of the room, that he wants a hug, and get up, trot over wearing a wide cheesy grin, and throw himself into your arms, loop his little pudgy arms around your neck and nuzzle his face into your shoulder. There is no cuddle as delicious as one spontaneously initiated by your child, not because they're tired, not because they're hurt, but just because they saw you across the room.

MULLALLAI
Jeyanth is not an early talker. However, though he is nowhere near saying 'Alburquerque', he has shown significant progress with linguistics in the last month.

Till this week, the only three words that we could confidently identify as Jeyanth saying in the correct context was 'Up', 'Dadda' and 'Amma'. And I don't think you're allowed to count 'dadda' and 'amma'. However, he has recently added to his repetoir: 'Thatha' which is Tamil for grandad - Tamil for granny is 'ammamma' which Jeyanth mixes freely with 'amma'. He can also manage 'train', 'tedde' (teddy), 'baw' (ball) and 'paa' (paal - Tamil for milk).

But what surprises me most about the watching Jeyanth learning language(s), is the huge gap between his ability to speak and his ability to understand. We discovered a few weeks ago, that he could identify about 25 common objects by name, and fetch them on request. And even more bizarrely, he seemed to understand prepositions in simple contexts - like "the block is behind you" or "you thunny (water) is on the table" or "please put the lid on your bottle". But I guess most of these instructions have normally been accompanied by hand gestures, so eventually, he gets them without the hint. I don't know how this fits into Mike's theory of language development.

(mullallai is Tamil for the hard-to-understand-speech of toddlers)

PHYSICAL
Now that Jeyanth is walking, to say nothing of trotting, his physical confidence and gross motor skills have advanced beyond recognition. Last month this child couldn't walk - this week he climbed up the ladder of the slippery-dip at school, and thinks that hauling himself out of the bath is funny!

The good weather means he's out doors for much of the day; which means that he's getting plenty of activity and he also seems to be developing quite a tan on his hands and face, despite the daily dosing of sunscreen. More evidence of the Dravidian roots!

He's also getting cannier with understanding space and shape. Jeyanth has a set of bath toys, which are 5mm thick flat foamy plastic, cut out in the shapes of different kinds of fish (when wet they stick on tiles). A few weeks ago, Chris noticed that Jeyanth had the habit of picking out all the star-fish and trying to stack them. Yesterday, during a game of peek-a-boo (still a winner), his muslin fell off his head behind him, and without breaking eye contact with me sitting in front of him, he reached his arm around his back and deftly picked up the cloth. I don't know now long he's been able to do that, but I reckon that's cool!

Scandinavian Toddlers

We have concluded definitively that Jeyanth is either more resourceful or more devious than the average Scandinavian toddler.

We recently installed cupboard and drawer locks from Ikea^* to help keep our little fidget-machine out of trouble in the kitchen. However, Jeyanth just reaches up and flicks the cupboard locks open, and though the drawer locks stop the drawers from opening fully, they
a) open wide enough for little hands to get inside
b) allow the drawer to slam shut again, with little fingers still inside
and
c) snap off the first time someone opens the drawer a little enthusiastically

Ah well, Ikea do an awful lot of good stuff!

[^* since writing this, we realised that the totally useless drawer locks are, in fact, not from Ikea, but from an Australian supermarket. The totally useless cupboard locks, however are. It's hard to understand how a company which produces such excellent baby and child stuff in general - almost all of Jeyanth's favourite toys are from Ikea - could have got this one item so totally wrong.]

Theological Milestone

We are pleased to announce that Jeyanth has now finished the (excellent) "Children's First Bible" that was given to him by his Lawrence God-parents. Since he was given it at his dedication, on September 14^th 2003, this means he has, as a good little proto-evangelical, completed his first 'read the Bible in a year' :).

He has now progressed to "Stories Jesus Told", which he seems to enjoy just as much.

The difference a year makes

17th August 2003	16th August 2004

An unexpected problem

Today we had a problem that we hadn't anticipated.

After a couple of weeks of being pretty unhappy at daycare, and then a couple of okay weeks, today Jeyanth didn't want to leave. He was having so much fun, he didn't even seem inclined to come to give Amma or Daddy a cuddle, and he cried (albeit briefly) when we took him home.

I think it's partly him getting over his textbook case of separation anxiety, and partly the fact that now he can walk confidently there is so much more he can do at school - especially on a beautiful day when he can be outside (which he loves).

Squirmeister

Its another of those "I can't believe he's grown so much" posts, I'm afraid.

Just over the last week, Jeyanth has truly adopted walking as the preferred mode of travel. And he's already got one bruise from a headfirst tumble attempting to run!! But with this transition from baby to toddler, comes another quite distinct change.

Jeyanth is no longer quite as patient with parental demands for snuggly-cuddles. Though he's still quite good at them when he's sleepy and when he wants comforting, the rest of the time, he's just too busy. We now have a squirming, wriggling, ants-in-his-pants little perpetual motion machine, who still wants his hugs and kisses, but just doesn't want to hang-around in them!

So when I come home from work, where we used to have a good 10 mins of cuddles and canoodles, I now get a cursory hug, and he's back to the main business of playing. I have to settle for the fact that he will sit down to play within touching distance, and will turn often to check that I'm there and smile, and offer me toys etc. The only way to get him to sit in my lap for any length of time is to read books to him, and even then, it's a challenge to get him to last the distance. De boy is all grow'd up!

Eyes

Just an update on Jeyanth's eyes; he seems to be a lot better, this morning there was no gunk at all in his eyes so he was able to go to school as usual. As the puffiness goes down it also gets easier to get the ointment in his eyes, which is a relief for all concerned.

Apart from occasionally rubbing his eyes (and his response to parents applying application) the whole business doesn't seem to bother Jeyanth at all. He's eating and sleeping well, and generally happy during the day (when he isn't incredibly clingy).