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Ronan is clearly a melancholy baby. |
Ronan will be eight months old on December 4. I don’t know if that has anything to do with today’s post; the older he gets, the more he imitates me.
It started when he was just a few months old. He would lay on my chest and listen to my heartbeat. I would absent-mindedly sigh. He would sigh. It wouldn’t happen every time but it happened enough to be more than coincidence.
Then he graduated to staring at me all the time. When we are home together, when he’s being carried out of the room, and unfortunately when it’s time to eat and sleep and all points in between. He still stares at the cranes but a lot of his time is making sure that I’m in the room. Which is frustrating for Terry when she can’t get him to sleep or eat.
The next step was call and response. He discovered that I could imitate him, and he started to imitate me. Ronan especially likes dolphin noises. We spend the better part of an hour each day going “ack-ack-ack-ack-ack” at each other.
The really weird thing is his fascination with computers. I spend a lot of time while he’s puttering around our baby-proof nursery on my computer, and often it’s on a table next to the chair in the living room so that I can check email and do work when he’s asleep.
Now that we’re engaged in full battle with him over when to sleep, I’m not as perky in the morning. Ronan used this as an excuse to send his first email. I was holding him and I closed my eyes for a second in the middle of emailing Terry something (probably something about how much we miss her during the day) and suddenly Ronan giggled and started pounding away on my keyboard. Not only did he erase my entire message, but my signature as well. He then send the Mac into Exposé mode, and still kept typing away, giggling madly the whole time.
At first I thought he just liked the keyboard, but now I’m wondering if he isn’t imitating me. Any chance he gets, at either my laptop or my desktop, he starts banging away on the keyboard. He will lean way over to get at my keyboard, and he loves doing it, even if the computer’s off. He types so hard he knocked my wireless keyboard off my desk and dislodged the space bar. He also likes to use the mouse.
The whole time, he’s giggling like a maniac and very intent on what he’s doing. The first thing I thought was, “Jeez, he’s really enjoying this. I wonder if it’s the keyboard or if he thinks that’s what I do all day long?” and the second thing was, “Jeez, I’ve got to cut back on my hours!”
It’s weird to think that at eight months Ronan already is picking up my habits, or at least imitating them. It’s also frightening to think he’s concerned about grown-up behavior already. On the other hand, it’s pretty impressive that he recognizes my computer use and wants to imitate it.
If he isn't imitating me – maybe he’s just really into something with so many buttons? It’s hard to tell.
Whatever is going on, it is nice to see his face light up with joy every time he sees me, or when Terry comes home, or when he’s in the bath, or when he wakes up in the morning, or when he gets his bottle, or when he sees his rattle, or just because. This kid smiles and laughs and giggles a lot, and that’s great.