The life and times of Oscar Marcos Perez-Cytron. Born Thanksgiving Day 11/22/01.   Archives << current   If you want to add something to Oscar's baby-blog, send an email to megan@alpha60.com and we can set it up so you can post...

oscar's life   Friday, September 27, 2002 10:59 PM posted by Oscar   I noticed today that Oscar's feet are getting flat on the bottom. Until now, they were rounded and chubby. I didn't realize that feet had to be broken in--all of his standing and walking around is really changing his body. He's starting to look less like a baby and more like a little boy. He also finally learned how to crawl (and not belly-flop), though his walking/creeping is coming along so well that he's not all that interested in it. I predict that he'll take is first unsupported steps sometime in the next month. He's been branching out with food--eating a lot of what we eat. Today: prunes, sancocho criollo; yesterday: avocados, channa (garbanzos), grapes, zucchini, and, of course, tofu. Whenever he sees us eating, he begs like a dog for a bite of whatever we're having. The other day we were eating at Sakana and Christian and I competed for his allegiance to our favorite japanese ice cream--Christian representing the "red bean clan"; me working the "green tea society" agenda. He still doesn't understand the political implications of his disjointed family culture, so he willing accepted it all without prejudice. He is making more sounds now--sniffs, snorts, trills, and strange guttural combinations. He's just trying everything and occasionally hits upon something profound. Today he turned his favorite video on, hung up on Abuela when I was talking to her on the phone, body-surfed over Christian's little wooden stool, and "slapped his mama" repeatedly (he's been abusing me with pokes, prods, slaps, scratches and bites a lot these days!). He's really going through a destructive phase where he tears apart everything and everyone he can get his hands on.... Thursday, September 19, 2002 5:18 AM posted by Oscar   Oscar has been going through a pretty intense biting phase. He's got eight teeth now and is biting Christian and I like crazy. I've found myself saying "no" to him a lot more often, as he seems bent on his own destruction. He actually does seem to understand what "no" means. It stops him for a few minutes, but ultimately just sets him on another dubious path. We've been taking him to the parks nearby (Kalorama and one on 16th Street). He's made some little friends. He had a real encounter a week or so ago with a little girl, Isabelle, who is just a few days younger. It was amazing to see them interact. They just stared at each other and very gently touched each other's faces. It almost seemed like they were looking into the mirror. My mom and Laverne visited this past weekend. We took Oscar to the zoo and to museums. I think he really enjoyed all of the extra attention. He's still creeping along the furniture, but with more confidence. He's also still eating tofu like crazy. He just can't get enough of it! Last night we took him to Churreria Madrid and he ate all of the carrots and potatoes out of my menestra de verduras. He also managed to stuff three pieces of bread into his mouth. Not much time to write these days. Christian has been working on some pretty tight deadlines and we're still working on the basement in our spare time... Thursday, September 05, 2002 7:57 AM posted by Oscar   Just put up a few new photos of Oscar standing at http://www.alpha60.com/oscar/oscarphotos.html... 7:25 AM posted by Oscar   Oscar is now standing, sitting, crawling (well, doing his frog-like jump...), climbing, creeping along the furniture, and even taking proverbial baby-steps. He can really get around and move from one position to another with ease, which means he can cover an amazing amount of ground in no time at all. A lot of our time now is spent just keeping him in "containment," in other words keeping him safe and ensuring that most of his crazy ideas never come to fruition. So that we don't feel too bad about keeping him down so much, we are creating a completely baby proof room on the second floor. All we'll have in it will be a couch and some pillows. The TV and electrical cords are going in the closet... There have been a lot of people passing through this past week. Jane and her husband Christian visited last weekend. Champ got back from Italy, he's going to be living in our basement. And Christian's aunt Kathy and Bill came up to drop off Mary Kate who is going to be living here for a year. It will be nice to have more family around. I know Oscar will love the extra attention. Oliver (Shannon and Patrick's dog) was staying with us over the weekend. Oscar loved having him around and, by the end of the weekend, it almost seemed that Oliver could tolerate him too. For the most part, Oscar just followed him around laughing. We all got sick for about half a day and had a fever and almost immediately got better. I've been trying to kick my cuban coffee addiction. I went cold turkey two days ago. It's really been rough in the mornings, I'm easing off it by ingesting large quantities of green tea. I hope I can stick with it--I really don't like to be so dependent on a substance (even though Xian's coffee is liquid perfection) for my daily functioning. I've been taking a woodworking class--it's been nice to do something completely different. Christian is still playing at Tryst and doing some other music stuff. Today he took Oscar over to Webster's apartment. Webster is moving to Portland in the next few weeks.