Iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii

In his continuing quest to discover all the sounds he can possibly make, which include guttural sounds made only by obscure tribes in the darkest parts of Africa and sounds otherwise only heard in the animal kingdom, Alex has discovered he can produce a high-pitched and literally painful (at least to Rob and Cindy) screeching noise. It is not a sound he makes when he is upset, or tired, or angry, but instead he mostly makes it when he is having fun and happy. And because Alex usually is happy, we get to hear this assault on our eardrums quite a lot! We have been experimenting with different ways to discourage him, with mixed results. Asking him to stop does not work, perhaps because he does not yet know what we mean, or because he simply chooses to ignore us. Making a painful look makes Alex smile and screech again, as if to say: `Look what I can make Mommy do!' Our current effort is on trying to get him to understand the meaning of ssssh, but so far the only effect it has on Alex is to make him get a quizzical look ... followed by more screeches!

Up and down the stairs

Alex has displayed a fondness for stairs since before he could walk, but now that we have a house with our own stairs Alex' love for ascending and descending has taken on new proportions. The very day we moved in, Alex went up and down the stairs about 15 times with Rob, about 15 times with Cindy, and quite a few times with his grandparents, who were visiting and helping with the house. The next day, Alex went up and down the stairs dozens of times with each and everyone of us, and we all felt that seemingly endless repetition was more fit for babies than for us. So the next day, Rob put up a gate at the bottom of the stairs. At first Alex found this very annoying, but soon after the gate itself became object of intense study, and the rest of the week Alex was pulling and pushing the gate, trying to figure out a way around it. So far, Alex has not figured out the secret to opening the gate.

Push and Shove

Alex is a curious fellow and always wants to find out what it is we are doing. When Rob was putting in the laminate floor in the kitchen, Alex wanted to be exactly where Rob was trying to put in the next piece. Whenever Cindy would pick him up to take him elsewhere, Alex would come back straight to the next spot where Rob was working.

His curiosity was entertaining while we were preparing for the move. If we had cleared a particular spot, Alex would immediately come over and investigate. For example, when we had removed the books and shelves from the bookcase, Alex regularly went over there, got up on his little stage, and started babbling and gesturing. When we removed the drawers from a chest of drawers, Alex made this small space his little hut.

Sometimes, though, Alex is curious about things but is a little nervous about exploring them at the same time. His solution to this problem: find the nearest parent and push him/her to the object of desire, and let the parent demonstrate that the object is fun to play with or not at all interesting.

Changes to this Website in the Past Month

No changes have been made since Dec 31, 2002.

Next major update: Mar 15, 2003, although minor updates with new text, pictures and sounds will be added earlier.

Do you think you may have missed something? Check our list of previous homepages. If you want to be informed when this website has been updated, send an email to webmaster@robandcindy.net.