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Our funny little Nikita passed away this week, quietly curled up in her favorite bedding spot. Niki was a tiny little ferret with a huge personality. We hardly knew what to make of her when we first brought her home, 8 weeks old and pouncing all over toys that were bigger than she was. She was a little unsure of herself those first few weeks, and was our only ferret to bite Jeremy’s finger and break the skin, so we named her Nikita, our own miniature femme fatale. But within a week or two, true to her namesake, she had begun her reformation, and remained a sturdy, spunky little girl to the end. Our big boy, Ajax, only a few months younger than Niki, has always been her best buddy despite their tremendous size difference, and I know he’s feeling lonely with no one left to curl up with in the hammock. God bless you, Nikita; your curiosity and cheerful bounce will certainly be missed around here.

We took Nolan to the Oregon Zoo for the first time today. We headed out early to beat some of the heat, but I think we picked a pretty great day weather-wise because it didn’t get too hot or bright while we were there. Here are a few pics from the day.

Nolan fell asleep in his carseat not long before we arrived, so he was pretty groggy for the first few minutes, to the extent that he couldn’t even be bothered to pull off his baseball cap. That didn’t last, though.

We found as we went on that Nolan was almost more interested in people-watching and checking out the fences than he was in the animals. They had to get pretty close to him to catch his attention, and most of the time when we tried to point at the animals, he would automatically point the same direction without looking (or grab our arm to try and get out of the stroller). What he was mostly ignoring in this shot was a hippo.

Since the weather wasn’t too hot, we were lucky to see quite a few of the animals active, which helped catch Nolan’s eye. This hippo was moving around pretty good for a hippo, but that’s not saying much.

We visited the petting zoo area, but Nolan wanted nothing to do with the pygora goats. Every time I lowered him down close to one, he clung on to me for dear life and tried to get away.

Nolan seemed to like watching the birds because they were so bright and busy, and these lorikeets came very close to everyone in hopes of getting some nectar. He was just about ready for a nap at that point, though, and slept in the car the whole way home.

Here’s hoping everyone had a fun 4th and stayed cool! We tried to combat the heat by getting Nolan a baby pool, but he wanted nothing to do with it—a shame since his swim trunks are appropriately themed for the holiday. (If you look closely, you can see his bottom two molars in this shot; the tops are about halfway through.) And what, you may be wondering, is more Nolan’s speed?

Yeah.

…and grand-daddies!

June 19, 1999

Nolan’s favorite time of day is letting the dog outside with his daddy. If it’s nice out, they chase her around and throw sticks for her, and generally have a blast. We still have a little night owl… this was before bed, probably 10 or 11 o’clock at night, and Nolan wasn’t remotely tired (neither were Jeremy or Freyja, for that matter!).

Jeremy finally got Nolan his very own Red Sox cap. It’s on the big side yet, even though it’s adjustable, and Nolan is not a hat fan these days, but we managed to get a few photos of him in it. I particularly liked this one because they were both waving at Mama.

Nolan isn’t walking yet. He was doing really great hanging onto my hands, but ever since he learned how to crawl, walking is vastly less important to him. When we can get him to practice, he always reminds me of Godzilla or something, with his huge, solid stomping.

We finally got some good photos of Nolan’s unique little crawl. This is the basic shape, which we call his Spider-man pose…

…and then he’s off, always with the left foot flat and the right shin on the ground. He moves around surprisingly fast this way, but it is hard on that shin. Jeremy took bunches of photos of him like this, trying to crawl off the edge of the porch (of course!).

He is less certain of himself when we put him in the grass, though, and wants to stick pretty close to me.

This expression cracks me up… it’s the same one he has when we put him in a shopping cart at the grocery store, with his hands pulled against his chest so he doesn’t have to touch anything. (We don’t have to worry about Nolan chewing on the shopping cart handle, lol!) I know the grass is doing a jungle impression—spring in Oregon!—but we mowed it a few days later.

Nolan got a little more acquainted with the grass, but he started getting warm sitting out in the sun after a few more minutes, so we called it a day.

I’ve been trying to pull myself away from the computer and back to the drawing pad. Here’s a couple of drawings of Nolan that I’ve recently completed. Not the best photos, I’ll try to get better ones posted before long.

Portrait of Nolan

Nolan Pacified

Nolan is 14 months old now and has finally got the hang of the crawling thing. He still has his own unique little crawl, though—right leg bent under his body, left foot flat on the floor—and he really makes good time with it, although it looks really awkward and uncomfortable to me. He’s having a blast with his newfound independence, and is starting to explore and get into everything, just like a toddler should.

He has gotten much more confident pulling himself up to standing on just about anything now, especially if it puts him in a better position to reach stuff he shouldn’t have.

Nolan also really likes chasing us around the house. One of his favorite times of day is when Daddy comes home from work—he crawls over to intercept Jeremy on the way to the back door, and they take the dog out together.

Nolan is getting to be such a busy boy that he really wears himself out. He’s started falling asleep in our arms again, but now he sleeps soundly enough that we can transfer him to the crib without waking him, something he’s never allowed in the past. (But sometimes Daddy just watches baseball and snuggles with him instead.)

This picture just cracked me up. The rest are nicer shots that Jeremy took with the camera on manual. He’s actually been working on some drawings of Nolan based on some of these images, and hopefully he’ll post photos of those himself before long.

Nolan has been a very busy boy these past few weeks. He can now sort of point at things (looks more like he’s saying “I’m number 1,” but we get the idea), wave hello and goodbye (when he feels like it), and pick out the hiding Curious George on every page of his favorite book. He’s also finally figured out how to say the vowel O, but no words yet.

Nolan isn’t walking on his own yet, but his activity level has doubled or tripled. He pulls himself up against my knees and cruises back and forth along the sofa most of the day. Give him a finger or sleeve to hang onto, and he sets off immediately, often on the trail of Freyja or one of her toys. His steps are getting much more confident, and he stomps his little feet so firmly on the floor as he goes that the dog thinks someone is knocking at the door.

But Nolan is almost as busy when he’s sitting on the floor now too. Since he is firmly anti-crawling, he used to sit pretty still and just play with his toys, but he has figured out how to dig in his heels to spin around 360 degrees like a little top. He also stretches so far forward to grab at toys he can’t reach that his little bum comes off the ground. This weekend he combined those motions to come up with his own unique mode of transportation, the likes of which I have never seen.

I was taking pictures of Nolan when he first started wiggling around on Saturday, but I wasn’t able to get a clear shot of it. This is a bad pic of Nolan, but it’s the most descriptive shot I took. He puts his hands on the floor in front of him, stretches forward until his butt comes off the ground, and then tucks his left leg behind him. To move, he pulls forward with his right heel, and pushes off with his left foot, balancing with his hands. It would almost be crawling if he moved his right leg back and dropped his knees, but when we help him into that position, he just freezes and starts fussing.

He can scooch a couple feet at a time with this funny little motion, which has always been enough to get him over to whatever he’s trying to reach (mostly toys, dog, or mama). You can see how his left leg is still sort of tucked under him here. Sometimes he finishes flat on his belly stretching his arms to grab it, but he is able to push straight back up into a sitting position from his tummy now (thank heavens!)

Nolan has been playing with blocks a lot lately. He likes the sound they make when he bangs them together, and he likes knocking down stacks that I set up for him. He’s learning about sharing, so there is also a lot of handing blocks back and forth…

And seeing where he can reach… (You can see his two side-by-side cowlicks pretty well in this shot… The dominant one is on the right and goes counter-clockwise, the one on the left is clockwise, so it all clashes together at the top.)

And he’s particularly fond of smacking them on the linoleum, which makes a much more satisfying noise than the carpet.

Then he wheeled around with his heels, pulled the tray back over to him, realized he was halfway under the jumperoo and couldn’t sit up straight without getting bonked by the seat, and wailed for a rescue. Have I mentioned that in addition to all of this activity, and some seriously swollen gums (wish those molars would just get it over with and break through), he has quite a case of separation anxiety? Only Mama will suffice, and it doesn’t even count if he’s on Daddy’s lap and I’m right next to them. And no more self-soothing or self-entertaining in the morning if he wakes up before I come in; we’ve had at least 3 early days in the past week—by which I mean 6 or 7am, compared to his usual 9 or 10am.

Nolan is doing great. He isn’t walking yet, but he is definitely working on it, and spends a good part of his time standing up, clinging to our knees or the furniture. He’s not thrilled at the idea of balancing all by himself out in space yet, but he’s managed to stand up a few times unassisted for a 5- or 6-second stretch, so we fully anticipate that he’ll be off and running soon.