Update on the Munchkin

Some of you blog readers (and there are a surprising lot of you) are not that into Geography (can it be?!).  No, seriously, you just want to hear about our life here without all the academic commentary.  Ok, to satisfy those of you who are just wondering how J is doing… here’s an update on him. 

He’s great.  Such a resilient kiddo, especially considering the amount of change in his life.  Lydia, our nanny/housekeeper extraordinaire, is primarily responsible for J during daytime hours M-F.  She plays with him outside most of the day, kicking a ball around, letting him run like a lunatic, listening to him laugh out loud like a hyena (he gets that from my side of the family), enduring him pointing at every car and yelling, “CAR!” as if it’s the first one he’s ever seen. J has gotten very into “cooking” that involves much banging of pots and pans.  Lydia sings lovely Swahili songs to him.  I hope he’s picking up the language.   J plays with another kid his age named Noah and his older sister, Isla, when she’s back from school and whoever else is around.  This could be other kids from the complex, the guys who  maintain the building and wash cars (Abdi and William), the guards, this random Chinese lady who lives in the complex (Terry), or the building manager (Lois).  All these people are looking after J on a regular day. 

J cooking and eating:

He comes inside around noon.  Usually I make lunch.  Then he takes a nap for no more than an hour and a half.  He’s never been a good daytime sleeper.  You know, regular one-year-old stuff. 

I have considered that he probably really benefitted from all the songs, games, and activities that he participated in at daycare.  He doesn’t have much of an organized life here.  He draws when he wants to, eats when he asks to, and has his diaper changed when it’s apparent that it needs to happen.  I don’t have a strong sense of which lifestyle is better for kids’ development and it probably depends on the kid.  All I know is that he’s happy, far healthier than he was, and his needs are taken care of. 

On new tricks: He does prefer holding crayons and markers with his right hand and is now able to draw, “read”, or otherwise occupy himself for 15-20 minutes at a time.  This is an important development, as up until now he didn’t want to be alone at all.  J’s language has exploded.  I can’t count the number of words he knows anymore, there are new ones every day.  He uses both nouns and verbs although not together yet.  He still eats most everything.  

It isn’t all sunshine and rainbows, though.  Getting J to sleep at night has become a challenge, sometimes requiring me to strap him to my back and do laps around our livingroom coffeetable.  He has the full range of emotions and can be obstinate and sad in particular when saying goodbye to his daddy in the morning.  But as I said, normal one-year-old stuff. 

Here’s him wearing daddy’s shoes.

It’s hard for me to believe that he won’t remember anything at all about this year.   Even so, I’m hoping that certain things imprint even if they are beyond his conscious memory.  I hope he will always know that people come in a range of colors, even if we live in a primarily white place after this.  I’m hoping some of the Swahili sticks.  I hope he gets it that even places across the globe can be part of his concept of home.