- Duvan had a busy couple of weeks of fighting off some annoying medical issues! He experienced his first little bit of high fever. His temperature never really topped 100 deg F, but he felt really warm to the touch, and just seemed out of it for about 3 hours. That was on Saturday, April 17th. By evening he seemed fine, but had a little rash early the next week, which cleared up after 2 days or so, the doctor diagnosed this as "baby measles".
- Well we're very happy to announce Duvan's first tooth! Lower right tooth made its way through the gum on April 25th. It's struggle to work its way through that gum left Duvan extremely undone for most part of 2 weeks. He needed to be in our arms almost constantly, and we could not figure it out! Finally one evening Duvan was biting into Jan's thumb, and there it was, the slightest of pricks like a tiny thorn hidden within his mouth (Marésa could tell a couple of days before this by just looking at his gums, but Jan had to feel it to believe it ;)). The second tooth (lower left) made it's appearance only a couple of days later, following right after the first.
- Crawling is approaching rapidly now, and we're expecting him to start doing it properly any day now! He started sailing on his stomach on April 26th. Although quite effective at propelling his body, it didn't help much at this point that it was in fact backwards. :) All the right motions are there though! He got the direction right about a week later! By May 8th, (despite Mom & Dad's overly ambitious predictions), Duvan made some serious progress on figuring out the motions, with his left leg definitely appearing to be the stronger. We read somewhere that it requires 14 independent skills to master crawling. We now realize he has about 3 of those down. He's getting quite comfortable lepecrawling around the house, and really enjoys the mobility, allowing him to satisfy that thirst called curiosity which drives him to and from all he lays his eyes upon!
- Duvan had his first visit with a daycare provider. Marésa started working part-time, which meant Duvan got to hang out with some other kids as well. His first day went really well, though he would not allow the care-giver to put him down for a second! He was still coming out of a somewhat brutal teething spell, and needed a lot of reassuring hugs.
- Clapping hands! Duvan gave 3 well orchestrated (and planned) claps on May 5th.
- Duvan's 2nd scheduled visit to daycare got upgraded to a day with grandmom and great-grandmom. He thought this to be a quite splendid arrangement, and thoroughly enjoyed their company. Their visit also marked the end of 3 weeks of having a hard time sitting by himself. Having worked hard to push out the first two teeth, Duvan finally mustered up enough courage (with gentle encouragement from grandparents) to play on his own again. This has brought quite a relief to Mom's back, which started to feel the strain from having him in her arms most of the day.
- "Give to Mommy". On May 7th, a most satisfying new development in Duvan occured. He started handing objects to Marésa when she asks for it. It is so amazingly cute, and so much tender thought goes into it that you almost want to do it constantly. Duvan has started to put objects on random places, one thing on top of another, etc. Marésa asked Duvan for something, held out her hand, and he gave it super long thought, then gently put it into her hand. She would hand it back to him, and he would repeat it again and again. It is so special, the way human interaction grows between us.
- First major puzzle solved. Duvan figured out how to open his wipie box. Now, this may seem fairly trivial, but the wipie box has a "dual" lid, the big lid and a smaller one that open to dispense the wipies. He started using his pointing finger to gently lift open the smaller lid. We would turn the box around so he has to find the other side of the lid, and he promptly went there to open it. In our minds, this is the first major puzzle solved by Duvan (the tortoise shell of last time's entry ranks close to this one). He seems to think so as well, because the simple act of opening and closing that lid has kept him busy for probably a cumulated 2 or 3 hours over the last 4 days. :)
- We praise God for the amazing amount of development occuring in Duvan. He's bursting with new abilities every day, almost as if he had kept so much down for a couple of weeks together with those 2 bottom teeth. Two of the most challenging weeks also brought on two of the most rewarding! What a blessing!
Duvan's number one fascination at the moment are things that are inside a box or container. Particularly, the fact that he can actually remove them from inside this container. You can tell why he wanted to open that wipie box! He's so fascinated by things that are hidden in square objects.
First the peak to see what's inside...
Then to send in that hand so it can be retrieved...
Finally, victory! It's as if everything that he removes from the box becomes a brand new toy, there's pure exhiliration in the fact that he removed it himself!
All this playing can get you tired, and when sleep comes, Duvan normally defends the land of the Awoken like the brave heart of William Wallace would fight for Scotland. But sleep always seems to kick dust into his eyes, and he eventually has to give up a brave battle.
Duvan is becoming Mr. Curious all over again. Actually, every day we're amazed at how busy he is getting, not seeming to be satisfied until he's explored everything around him! This look is the look of determination. That mouth says "I'll ignore your requests not to druel on the camera as I inspect and study every corner of it!"
Duvan sure is a handsome little guy, he's really starting to get the hang of these photo shoots, too.
This picture ranks among our favorite on this website.
Wow, what a handsome little guy. I can't believe how grown-up he looks already. The pictures are great! Thanks for keeping us all updated!
I miss you,
Andrea
Posted by: Andrea | June 8, 2004 07:20 AM
