Likes: Solid food, toys that rattle
Dislikes: Teething, being left alone to sleep, not being able to crawl (yet)
While it might be cliché, this holiday season didn’t pan out the way we expected it to a year ago. We had assumed that Johan would meet his Israeli Goodstein relatives over Sukkot, his American Goodstein relatives over Thanksgiving, and his Hirsch, Gruss, and Redisch relatives at various other times. To some extent, those introductions did happen more or less when we expected them to, but they took place on Zoom rather than in person.
The Goodstein Family Reunion, which has taken place each year for the past 75 years, went online this year (instead of being held in Alexandria, VA as planned, saving us a whole 50 minutes of Thanksgiving weekend related driving). This meant that Allison got to make a turkey on Thanksgiving, something she rarely gets to do. Johan met his extended Goodstein relatives via Zoom. We hope to teach him someday that the wider world doesn’t just exist in boxes on a computer screen, and that he comes to love the conventional Thanksgiving reunion the way his mother, aunt, and Savta do as he gets older and actually attends in person.
Having now completed a nearly full cycle of holidays, we’ve all found that Chanukah is arguably the holiday where our celebrations were least impacted by the pandemic. We lit candles at home, as we would have each night anyway. Johan inherited a felt chanukiyah from his mother which he “lit” with assistance each night. He also got a wooden chanukiyah of his own as a gift from his Savta and Aunt Lisa, which he lit with even more assistance from his parents (i.e. they did it for him, lest he try putting a real, lit candle in his mouth). He also got several new books to add to his library and new toys to keep on his playmat (including a singing cuddle bus from the New York Transit Museum) over the course of the holiday.
Johan attended his first wedding (also streamed into our living room) in early December, and dressed up for the occasion. Even he rarely dresses up these days. We took Johan to a drive-through holiday light display, which was not Johan’s favorite activity. We aren’t sure if he just didn’t want to be in the car, or if the lights were too bright, or he wasn’t in a good mood that night. We were able to enjoy it enough, but we wish he had as well.
Johan has also been “revving his engine” and seems to be getting closer to figuring out how to crawl on this own. We have been babyproofing our home in advance of this milestone, but expect him to show us things we missed as soon as he can. You may recall that last month, we weren’t sure what Johan thought of solid foods yet, but we can now say he seems to like (both eating and playing with) them. Peas and avocados were among the foods he has had in the past month and seemed to enjoy most. Finally, we think Johan’s first tooth is on the verge of making an appearance, maybe there will be something newsworthy to report on that front next month.
As usual, we’ve been posting photos that can be seen here. We don’t usually do this, but Johan was not at his most cooperative while doing this month’s photoshoot, which resulted in some of the outtakes being shareworthy on their own merit for various reasons.