Baby diary: 15 months 2 weeks

 Alan’s developed a mild pacifier habit (there are a couple knocking around the house and he figured out how to use them on his own), and a raging Dave and Ava nursery rhyme YouTube video habit. I’m butting heads with my mom as she thinks nothing of letting him watch YouTube the entire day, being of the generation that believes in unlimited amounts of “educational” TV; meanwhile, she’s stressed that I take him out for fresh air, since the child will evidently catch COVID if we walk through a patch of air someone coughed in 3 hours ago. One of these is a government-mandated activity in daycare, though, and the other is not. :p

I’m still WFH, but otherwise boredom has set in. Whatever Alan finds interesting, I find interesting. Every morning we watch the flock of sparrows that perch in the trees outside my bedroom window, and take an interest in the doings of our neighbors: the couple across the street paper training their puppy, the still-not-socially-distancing Sikh youths (last seen coming home with 3 cases of Budweiser), whoever owns the yellow Jeep now perma-parked on the curb. Today - oh, red-letter day! - two Hydro-Quebec crane trucks pulled up and the Hydro guys settled in, mysteriously, waiting for masons to pull down a chunk of third-floor facade. We went out in the stroller, to look at the big wheels up close. There are a pair of mallard ducks in the park, and geese migrating overhead, and dogs and other parents with children - not up close - when we pass each other on the sidewalk we make eye contact and move to either side - but Alan is just as absorbed by staring at the ground, wheels rolling over gravel and mud. 

It must be said that Alan stands straight enough to be measured against the kitchen wall, though still not unassisted. 79.5cm, and 26.9lbs in a clean diaper, a 2-kilo jump since February. He eats a lot, gets chubby, then grows in the night, accompanied by fitful screeches and wailings. He now likes to read books, as long as they’re interactive, and will repeat words, if the concept interests him. (“Car,” which he renders “ga,” or “do te,” Shanghainese for “throw away”. Everything is for throwing away!) Won’t eat avocado, or cheese, but evinced a surprising liking for asparagus, as long as the stalk is not too bitter.