Jeyanth Joshua Goringe

More Grandparentals

Three more lots of photos up...
At home with Granny and Grandad
With the animals at Featherdale
Beach Holiday!

Fruit Language

Last week I wrote that Jeyanth hadn't yet figured out that words were for communication. Well, now he has. In particular, he's discovered that pulling a parent into the kitchen, pointing up at the bench where the fruit bowl sits and saying "apple?" or "nana?" in a hopeful (or insistent, depending on mood) voice is a pretty good way of getting a snack any time of the day.

Grandparentals

A few photos from the grandparental visit. More to come.

Trophy Boy

So, last friday, Jeyanth and I went in to Avaya briefly to get a photograph with the guest of honour...

Yes, that gold thing at the bottom is what it looks like.

Dave Barry on Early Education

Dave Barry writes about his experiences with choosing a kindergarten...

It turns out that this is not about kindergarten at all. This is about LIFE. And when I say ''life,'' I of course mean, ''Harvard.'' You need to get your child into the right kindergarten program, so that she can get into the right elementary-school program, without which she cannot get into the right middle-school program, without which she can't get into the right high-school program, which means SHE WILL NOT GET INTO HARVARD AND ALL BECAUSE YOU FLUSHED HER LIFE DOWN THE TOILET BY PICKING THE WRONG KINDERGARTEN WHEN SHE WAS 5 YEARS OLD YOU WORTHLESS UNCARING PARENTAL SCUM.

Grandparents

Apologies for the delay since our last update, but everyone has been far too busy with the long awaited arrival of Jeyanth's paternal grandparents. They've now headed off for a trip to Melbourne and the Perth before coming back for another week with Jeyanth, so we have a chance to take stock...

Any concerns we might have had about whether Jeyanth would take to his Granny and Grandad (who he last met when he was six months old) were immediately put to rest - within a couple of minutes he was playing quite happily with them, and within 24 hours he was saying 'andad' and (less frequently) 'anny' relatively fluently (probably the fastest he's learnt any words...). When Sureka and I were both at work on Tuesday Granny, Grandad and Jeyanth spent the day quite happily together.

Photos soon (hopefully).

Jeyanth's also picked up a few new skills in the last week or two. Walking backwards (for no reason other than the pleasure of it), standing on tip-toe (mostly trying to reach something he shouldn't) and mimicking words (he'll often repeat back the last couple of syllables of a sentence).

He's also got a rapidly growing vocabulary; besides (now old news) 'no', 'ba(ll)', 'pa(l)' (milk), 'te-de', 'up' and 'doggy' we also have 'b-dee' (birdy), 'by-by', 'bottle', 'boo(k)', 'baa' (bath), 'play doh', 'oh dear', 'bunny' (a gift from Granny and Grandad) and 'borter' (water - but starting with 'b'). Plus, of course, 'anny', 'andad', 'tata', 'amma/ammamma' and 'dada'. We've also had the occasional 'train' and 'pambu' and probably a couple of others I've forgotten.

However, Jeyanth doesn't seem yet to get the idea of using words to communicate - they are mostly used as exclamations when he sees something, and only very occasionally as requests. To get what he wants he still grunts, points, pushes and pulls; this seems to be quite a sophisticated language in its own right, and generally gets him what he wants.

There must be a lot more to say about the past couple of weeks, but I can't think of it right now. Maybe Sureka will post some more :)

Small World

I thought this merited a reference on the main blog, rather than being buried in the Guestbook, where no one ever goes.

So my husband, the singer Paul Austin Kelly, was awake in the middle of the night, and instead of turning on the light to read & wake me up, he crept to the computer and began faffing about. He did a Google search for Walking Oliver just to keep an eye on what kind of results turn up, and we ended up here on your blog. Putting on my deerstalker cap this morning, I clicked around, and discovered the backstory– Hester bought a Walking Oliver CD from us in June, and it's obviously made a journey to the Southern Hemisphere as well. Glad to hear that kids & Mums around the world are dancing to our music...

And Hester, if you're reading this, I thought I'd mention that Paul is singing a 'real' gig down in Plymouth this weekend, with Ten Tors Orchestra, a performance of Benjamin Britten's "Les Illuminations."

As Americans living in the UK, we enjoyed immensely the electronic voting link that we found on the site. We've sent in our absentee ballots, but don't hold out much hope.

This is a great way for you to keep in touch and watch each other's families grow from afar. It's an amazing world. Thanks for letting us drop in.

Best,
Carol (and Paul, currently out on the Downs with dog & child)
28 October 2004

'Walking Oliver' was mentioned in the Fancy Footwork entry.