COGNITIVE EXPLOSION

Yesterday, 08/08/08, the Olympics began in Beijing, China. We watched on television, Nanners, Daddio and I, and slo-mo'd the U.S. team to look for "Auntie" Shea-Shea. We didn't see her. But we know she's there.

We have just arrived home from a week of family vacation in Santa Cruz with Daddio's family. Oh, what a time we had! The impact of all that travel, day care and family chaos on our little baby? Daddio summed it up last night when he marvelled, "She is so much smarter today than she was one week ago."

So last weekend we drove up to San Francisco to spend time with "Auntie" Sandi and "Uncle" Jim. After trekking all over the Cliff House and bath ruins, we headed to - you guessed it - Chinatown for dinner. A redheaded Chinese boy at the park claimed Nanners as his own (see photo of him kissing her like in the movies). We had dessert at Ghiradelli's, then home for a James Bond movie. Vanessa impressed all with her marathon stamina, outlasting pretty much everyone.

Next stop, the family reunion, which is held at a Christian family conference center with hundreds of other people. Daddio's family has been going every year since, oh, 1920.

While I can scarcely recall all the events of the week, I can distinctly remember the kickoff event: Vanessa was sprinting with glee, caught her toe, levitated, and came down square on her forehead. The ensuing crack! was heard by everyone within a 100 foot radius - even across the street. Luckily, Nanners screamed and cried for 5 minutes straight - a good sign that she was probably okay. During that 5 minutes, a purple and yellow goose egg materialized. The poor dear.

With no loss of consciousness, listlessness, vomiting, bleeding, or other noticeable behavior changes, we felt confident Vanessa had escaped a concussion. So what did we parents do? Took her to the big family picnic and let her jump all over the bouncy house with the big kids, of course. She only looked woozy once. Thankfully, no one knocked heads. She screeched a lot. It was fun.

The next morning, at breakfast, V-Dog was sprinting through the conference dining hall when she slammed her forehead right into the back of a chair and was thrown backward. Too bad I don't have a video of that. Unfortunately, it did hurt and she added a second goose egg to her forehead. But it didn't slow her down one bit.

A day later, I began to wonder if she could have fractured her skull without sustaining a concussion, so I asked her Uncle Jimmy (a surgeon who handles trauma cases) to perform an evaluation of her skull. She passed with flying colors. No fracture. No concussion. No problemo. Diagnosis: giant head. Secondary diagnosis: high center of gravity with subsequent instability.

Maternal paranoia aside, Vanessa had an awesome time of it at the reunion. We immersed her in every activity available. The family conference offers day care every day from 9 am to noon and again for an hour and a half after dinner. We tried day care last summer when Van was 7 months old. Disastrous. This time it went much, much better. There was even a kitten in the yard across from the day care. She loved being with the other kids, except when she got hungry.

Here she is, stalking the grey kitten under the tree.

When she wasn't at day care, Vanny was wowing her relatives, eating crayons, yammering every new word she heard, playing cards, chasing the big kids on the ball field, screeching, swimming in the pool, learning to sing "row, row, row your boat" in vivo (in a row boat on the stream), or dragging adults around by the finger.

One day in the conference dining hall after lunch, she dragged me by my finger up to the "stage," spied a live microphone, grabbed it, and began singing into it. The entire lunchroom went quiet for a moment, surely trying to decipher the child-like screech at 100 decibels, until two staff people charged out from the kitchen, grabbed the mic, and shooed us away. They were furious. I couldn't stop chuckling, wondering how the heck our little baby knew what a microphone was and what to do with it. How?

New words this week: kids, outside, pass (a card-playing term), kitten, Caddy, boo-boo, salsa, close (the laptop), applesauce, walking, Cheerios, day care, crayon, cookie, coins, monkey, off, mine. She's been working on please, thank you, and [you're] welcome. She calls Uncle Bobby "Hubbub," but she can say Uncle Mike clear as a bell. Today she said, "Mama and Dad," which is pretty darned cute.

When we got home, V. walked into the kitchen, spotted a couple quarters and dimes on the table and said, "Oh! Coins!" and began to play with them. Then she sauntered from room to room singing, she was so thrilled to be home again.

So I'm beginning to wonder... maybe that crack on the cranium actually knocked some sense into her...