These days, watching Rohan when he’s not sick is a really great experience. With the scientific curiosity and the knowledge of dog behavior and how to train them it is highly interesting to watch Rohan play. At the age of 8 months, his motoric system is still in the development stage – sensor feedback is almost non-existent, which makes his movements very coarse (German: Grobmotoriker). Also he thinks in straight lines. He’s very careful to navigate the labyrinth of chairs under the breakfast table, knows to lower his head when crawling sideways under the chairs with a lower sidebar. If he can’t reach his toy in a straight line though, he rather gives up than searching for a non-direct route – just like dogs, he thinks in straight lines. On a different game he tried to reach a particular toy in his toy chest, that he could touch on the top surface, but couldn’t grab to lift it up. After having tried for five or six times to no avail, he pulled the whole box towards him in a 45 degree angle to have more range in the box and move the toy closer to him (it rolled inside the box). Then he continued with his previous and now successful strategy to lift it out of the box. You should have seen his face holding the toy up in the air looking at me! This was very touching.

Little Oggle Poggles (this is what we call him sometimes – derived from his first sounds oogle poogle) was sooo cute today! He was in high spirits all evening long and played a lot. First with his toys, then with his food (we’re not yet at the stage were I have to tell him that he can’t play with food :)) and last with the dogs (he got to ride on Pixel, who got very confused about that baby on his back :)). At the end of the evening Meera put him into his crip so he would sleep. 5 min later I walked into his almost dark room to check on him and there he was sitting wide awake in his crip, chewing on his little rubber giraffe and smiling a big smile at me: Daddy! !?!! My heart just melted. I made a point to not pick him up and walked out to warm a bottle for him. When I fed it to him he was slowly calming down and I layed him down again. I turned on his mobile and he started humming along like babies do (maybe I need to record that sometimes). When the mobile stopped, his singing continued for a while, until sleep took over a minute later. All there was left was the peaceful breathing of little RoRo. I could have cried of happiness at that very moment. Not for his falling asleep, but for the peaceful beautiful moment I was priviliged to witness. Thanks little Poggles – you make our lives complete!

SLEPT! This might sound weird, but since Rohan has arrived my days have been torn apart and sleep of more than 5 hours in a row is hard to come by. Last night though after having had dinner I took a warm bath with Ro in the big bath tub and got him ready for MrsM to feed. Then I layed down myself with the dogs and fell asleep immediately at 8pm. The next thing I remember is waking up at 7am the next morning. What a relief, what a night! I haven’t slept for 11h in a row forever! I feel so reenergized this morning!!! This was awesome! Thanks for letting me sleep MrsM!