Happy New Year!

Today is the first day of Chinese New Year. 2008 is the Year of the Rat (although our celebration will not involve any of those). I think 2008 would be the year 97 on Taiwan’s calendar, since Ryan’s hospital records from October 2006 list his birthdate as 10-1-95, and he was definitely not 12 years old when we met him in July 2007 (we could tell by the drooling). We have decorated with bowls of oranges (which symbolize good health and long life) and fresh flowers (flowers blooming on New Year's Day signify a prosperous new year). We also bought Ryan a new red shirt to wear today, since it is traditional to wear new clothes on the first day of the New Year, and red is a color of happiness and celebration. We also have little red envelopes picturing an orange and the Chinese characters for “blessings,” in which Ryan will receive some "lucky money" (which is given in brand-new bills). He is planning to spend some of it on a new copy of Goodnight Gorilla since his original has started falling apart at the spine.


Unfortunately, we aren't able to incorporate the best aspect of the New Year celebration as observed in Taiwan –- an entire week off from work. But the lack of time off provides us with an excuse for skipping the tradition of cleaning house (although I think it counts for something that I took out the trash yesterday). We also "cheated" this year by ordering out from our favorite Chinese restaurant last night, instead of making a big dinner featuring a whole fish or whole chicken. We’ll try to incorporate more New Year traditions as Ryan gets older.

Below are some other recent pictures of Ryan. It's getting hard to take pictures of him these days because as soon as he sees the camera, he comes running over and wants to look at the image on the screen -- he doesn't understand yet that I have to take a picture first. He has also started putting on an exaggerated smile when the camera comes out, as in the last picture below :-)


Ryan's canine teeth came in last week. He now has all of his teeth except for his second (farther back) set of molars. According to his pediatrician, he (and the rest of us!) will now have a break from teething for several months, until he's about 2. Maybe that's the reason for the big smile:


In other Ryan news, our little guy has been pacifier-free (during waking hours) for a full two weeks now, and has been pretty accepting of the new policy, except that he starts to miss his pacifier around 9:30 every morning (after having been up for 3 hours, but not yet ready for his nap, which is usually around 11:00). So, every morning for the past week, right around 9:30, he walks up to me and does his tired routine of holding his “napkin” up to his head, rubbing his eyes, and pointing to the location where we keep his pacifiers. When I tell him that the pacifier is only for "night-night," he responds by waving and pointing toward the stairs (since he always waves good night when he goes up to bed.) So I carry him up to his room and give him his pacifier, and he lays contentedly in his crib for 15 minutes or so before deciding that he’s not ready to nap yet. It’s so cute and funny, and works out great for both of us -– Ryan gets some extra time with his pacifier, and I get an extra 15 minutes of downtime every morning!

He has started running away or trying to hide from me when it's time to have his diaper changed. This morning, he "hid" behind a cereal box:




Happy New Year to everyone!