DADA, weekend fun, shoes, and cars!

At last, and to Christian's utter delight, Ronan has expanded his vocab to include the mellifluous word "DADA!" After months and months of "mamamama" Ronan now loves saying dada. He plays with his tongue a lot, thanks to his two huge top teeth that are coming in, and I think dada is a very satisfying sound to make. He grins and giggles every time.

We had another busy weekend! On Saturday Ashton came over for brunch and mimosas. Ronan took one look at the gift basket of bath goodies that she brought and decided he just had to have it. We let him play with most adult things as long as they're not dangerous, so we set the entire box on the floor for him. He managed to untie the ribbon, remove the plastic cover and take out all the stuff. He was well on his way to chewing through the wrapping of the coconut soap when I had to take it all away, poor baby. Later that afternoon we zipped through the mall to get him his first pair of walking shoes, cute Robeez with little brown puppies on them. The rest of the evening was spent working on the car-buying process (more below).

Sunday morning we hit REI with Uncle Matt to pick up some snowboarding gear. Hopefully we'll take a family trip up to Tahoe soon-- after the new car purchase! Got home just in time for a quick feeding and an even quicker nap before having a bunch of neighborhood families come over for a potluck. It's been great to get to know the families in our area. With all the things you need to learn about preschools, housing, childcare, sleep, feeding babies, etc., having a network of local families is so valuable!

So... cars. We're in the final stretch of what has been a loooong car-buying process. I'm surprised my 94 Camry has lasted this long, but to be fair it really is a terrific car. Just wish I didn't have to spend so much on annoying little repairs each year. And I wish it had more space to carry our stuff when we go on road trips. After much research and back-and-forth on cars vs. SUVs, we've decided on the Toyota Highlander, a mid-sized SUV. Yes, yes, we know it's a gas-guzzler and yes, we do live in crowded SF where finding a parking spot requires high-level strategic planning. But -- the Highlander is super-safe, gets awesome reviews, has decent cargo space, drives like a Camry, AND it's cheaper than the Volvo and Lexus models we were considering. And did I mention it comes in a sweet Millennium Silver? Clearly I'm excited!! :-) We've been using carbuyingtips.com and fightingchance.com for negotiating prep. Hope it pays off! If all goes well, we'll make the deal this week (keeping fingers crossed!).


Ronan's new ride?

On another note, it's funny how babies' personalities unfold and develop every month, every week even. Now that he's almost 10 months, Ronan is more curious, active, and intense than ever before. He's very mechanically-oriented, much more so than I have ever been! Perhaps he gets this from his Daddy? Or from Great-grandpa Jeong, who loved all things electrical and could talk at great length about specific magnetic properties and the intricacies of oscilloscopes? Hmm. Dunno. In any case, Ronan truly and seriously studies things, like the hinge on the cabinet, the swinging arc of the door, the antenna on the radio. In just a few weeks he figured out a hefty amount of household mechanics -- hence our rush to babyproof. He loves pulling out the pots and pans and banging them around, all the while singing (screeching?) at top volume! There are very few times when he's not scrambling everywhere, babbling, twisting, and slapping his cute little hands on something. And he's not even walking yet!!