EVIL!!

Checking in with Gung-gung and Por-por

Rowan never got comfortable being held by Gung-gung, as demonstrated here, where he flails about in an effort to escape. Gung-gung gives a defeated smile as the child wrestles in his arms. Rowan, meanwhile, looks as if this is all in a day's work.

On the other hand, Rowan LOVES Por-por in all her pinkness. She plays with him, holds him, poops him, and occasionally feeds him despite her insistence that she can't. True, he drinks more bottled milk from me, but that's only because I've had more practice. Come on, Por-por, just keep at it!

And now for something...

Yes, I know it has been a while, but after finishing classes and taking a couple of trips out of town, it's been hard to find time to add to the blog. But here it is nonetheless. I love this above picture of Rowan taking a bath (Joseph took it--in fact, he took almost all of the ones you'll see here, except for the bottom one--Winnie took that one). In any case, Rowan has been obsessed with grasping falling water, and sometimes gets a little mad when he can't do it. Rowan's anger, by the way, is hilarious. He shakes his whole body and lets out this frustrated grunt, his little face getting red, his features rigid, his eyes wide with fury. Here, though, he's just curious. Another funny thing about this picture is that there are three different hands all assisting in Rowan's bath--way more than necessary, the spoiled little shit!

In this photo, Daddy shows Rowan how it's done. Rowan, however, begs to differ. I imagine Rowan saying to himself, "Daddy is a tool."
Yes, Rowan, but I'm not the one wearing the cherry blossom robe.
"Touche, Daddy, touche..."

The new faces of Rowan

At 10 months, Rowan has begun to take on a new persona, informed in part by the new skills he's been acquiring: crawling (at a frighteningly fast pace), hoisting himself up to standing position, and "talking." Really he's got three basic words--baba, mama and gaga. Where do I start? Mama does not mean Mom. It means "I'm in distress" or "I'm pissed off." Baba is harder to define, but we think it just means everything's generally fine. Gaga, his new word, we first thought meant "dog" (the Cantonese word is "gau," hence the 'g' sound). Lately, though, he's been using it to draw our attention to various things, including people, other animals, trucks. I do find it pretty cool, though, that when we're feeding him, and he suddenly says "gaga!", a quick look out the window usually reveals a dog passing by. This kid's pretty smart. And just look at the maturity in that face (or what I see as maturity--it's the same look I see in Winnie).