Snow Baby

Rowan has been a little under the weather, but that hasn't stopped him from getting out on a few different occasions to enjoy the snow. On Saturday, Kyle was outside shoveling. When Rowan noticed him on the deck, he said, "Bood, bood! Mama! Bood!" Translation? "Get my boots on me, Mama!"

16+ Months

I’m way overdue to post about what Rowan’s been up to. It’s just soooooo hard to find the time. It’s also really hard to sum up what’s going on with him at this stage in a concise way. When he was a little baby, it was big news if he could touch his hands together. Now, he’s saying lots of words, and being silly and playing little pretend games. So here’s my best attempt!

On the Communication Front
I originally started working on this post when Rowan was just over 15 months old. At that time, I had a pretty good list of words he used on a regular basis. Just in the last few weeks, however, he’s started to pick up new words like crazy! I’ve created a very incomplete list below. He seems to pick up something new every day now, copying the words that we say. Often, only Kyle or I can understand his intentions, but we’ve become pretty good at deciphering his language. The sign language helps too.

AWESOME New Phrase:
I love you (Ilaauooh. He just started saying this two days ago!! He usually gives a kiss after saying it – just like mama!)

Other Words He Uses:
All gone (gah gone)
Apple/pineappole (papoh)
Ball (bough)
Baseball (ba bough)
Bath (ba, with his tongue sticking out)
Blueberry (bloobleoobleoobleoobleooble – he will keep going until he gets a blueberry!)
Book (buh)
Boost (boo, to get a boost onto the bed or the couch)
Bubble (buboh)
Car (cah)
Cheese (cheece, he also uses this for cheeks)
Chocolate chips (cheecey peecey)
Cold (code)
Corey (coh)
Cracker (Kahkuh)
Dada
Eggs (Ehs)
Elmo! (uh oh, someone has been watching some Sesame Street! We’ve also heard Big Bird and Oscar)
Football (fuh bough or buh bough)
Grandma (maaama)
Grandpa (bumpa)
Heidi (Highdle in a really high voice)
Jason (Jitso)
Juice
Maddox (Maaah)
Mama
More (muh)
Pasta (pata)
Poo poo
Scott (Cott)
Uh oh
Up
Water (bah bah)
Yeah

That’s all I can think of right now. He’ll pretty much try to repeat any word you say (not always clearly) but the above are the ones he uses most frequently. He’s also starting to put some words together. For example, if his cup is empty he’ll say, “Bah bah gah gun” (water all gone). So that’s cool! He still makes lots of animal noises when he sees animals that he recognizes. He’ll bark if he sees a dog or moo if he sees a cow. He also shakes his head yes and no say “yeah” or “nuh” after you ask him a question, which I don’t think he really did at 12 months.

Signs:
All done
Milk (which we use for nurse)
Help
Eat
Drink
Diaper change
I don’t think we’ll add many more signs at this point. The ones above are the most useful and he seems to be picking up words and learning other ways to communicate now as well. We’ll see…

On the Motor Front
Rowan continues to run faster and faster. He also loves to shake his booty and dance -- especially in his diaper! He started doing "sort of" summersaults about a month ago. I'll say, "Can you do a summersault?" and he'll bend over with his head on the floor. Sometimes he'll flip over by himself and other times I'll help him. It's all around pretty cute! He loves to climb, which is getting a little scary. I think we need to do a new level of toddler proofing around here! He also still loves spinning in circles and kicking and throwing balls.

On the Eating Front
Rowan's eating more and more different types of solids. He LOVES spices! He dips little pieces of fruit in pumpkin pie spice or little pieces of veggies or meats in cumin. I tried this one day in a desperate attempt to get him interested in sitting still to eat for more than 10 seconds. The novelty worked! Dipping in general is enjoyable to him. He dips crackers and thin apple slices in yogurt, and fish and meat in sauces. Sitting still is still tough for him, but as long as we keep things fresh and new, he's pretty good to go. He also loves "on the go" foods like raisens and cheerios that don't require table sitting.

Other Stuff
Rowan is just overall such a cool, funny and cute little person now! I loved him as a baby, but now I feel like I have this interesting little buddy to hang out with every day. We play games and read books. He pretends to feed his baby and change its diaper (baby is becoming a pretty important friend around here). He pretends to be a dog or a cat. He hides from me and then jumps out and says "peekaboo" in a really excited voice. He's just SO FUN! I love him to pieces and I hope he never forgets that!

I thought this picture looked a lot like pictures of my dad when he was a little boy.

Here's a cute one of Rowan with his baby. He looooooves his little baby!

Here's Rowan with one of his favorite toys -- books!


And a sweet one of Rowan with baby and Teddy.

My little sweetie! How did we get so lucky?!

Just Ducky!

Rowan got some sweet Valentine duckies from Grandpa Kevin and Grandma Connie. He just loves them and has quite a bit of company in the bath now!

Not for the Squeamish!

I'm posting this video against Kyle's orders! He thinks it's just too gross. BUT I think it's also pretty hilarious (possibly in that "only a mother would laugh" sort of way). The setup? Well, let's just say Rowan likes to "fake" sneeze, but sometimes still produces results.

Enjoy...or not...hmmmmm...not sure what's appropriate here...

-Angie

Will You Support My Mama?

You know what they say about babies and puppies: CUTE SELLS! So here's a little shameless (and ADORABLE) exploitation to encourage you to support me in raising funds to participate in The Breast Cancer 3-Day Walk. I need to raise $2,200 to participate in the event in late August.

I'm walking with and in honor of my mom, who was diagnosed with breast cancer in August 2006. In the months since her diagnosis and treatment, our family faced the additional tragedies of losing both of my mom's parents to cancer and stroke. This walk is not only a way to support a noble cause, but also a way to prove that the past five months haven't crushed our spirits!

I'm documenting my journey along with my mom, her sister Kris and my sister Heidi on a new blog! Check it out and consider supporting me with a financial contribution today.

Love,
Angie

*Coming soon: Rowan's long-overdue 15-month post (well, maybe it should technically be a nearly 16-month post!)

Animal Noises

Consumer Reports Retraction

Hi all-

Just wanted to let everyone know (if you haven't already heard) that Consumer Reports is retracting its carseat study. A full article can be found at:

http://www.cnn.com/2007/AUTOS/01/18/car_seat/index.html

It's so frustrating that carseat safety is so difficult for consumers to research! Who can you trust? I just wish we had higher standards and better independent testing!

-Angie

Such an Old Man!

Rowan turned 15 months old on January 12. He acts so funny when we tell him he's 15 months old. Here's a cute video showing some of his antics. Notice the funny walk he does after we tell him he's sooooo old.

He also attempts to hold Maddox in this video. Quite funny since Maddox weighs a whopping 17+ pounds!

What year is it?

We broke out some of Kyle's old clothes from when he was Rowan's age (in the 70s!). Rowan looked so cute in his oversized collar and slim pants. He's since had his hair cut, but a shaggy style really compliments his vintage duds, don't you think?

Christmas Eve Recap

Oh, I'm so behind on my posts! Life with a toddler seems to be much busier than life with a baby.

Before I move on to more recent happenings, I have some more Christmas pics to share. On Christmas Eve, we had brunch at my mom and dad's house and opened presents. I was really surprised how much Rowan enjoyed opening his presents. I thought he'd still be too young to care, but he LOVED it! Every time he pulled out a toy, he'd start frantically doing the sign for "help" so that someone would get the toy out of its packaging (why is there so packaging!?). We had such a fun and relaxing morning!

Grandma Michelle helping Rowan open a present.

Rowan with his new Legos.

Rowan with his new wooden block train.

Rowan with his beautiful new push/pull sled from Grandma and Grandpa. We've only been able to use it once so far (what's up with winter?!).

In the evening we traveled to Kyle's Uncle Brian and Aunt Jenny's house to celebrate with Kyle's dad's side of the family. Rowan had a fun time running around Brian and Jenny's new house and opening MORE presents!

Rowan with his new football (foo bough, according to Rowan) and mini picture of Great Grandpa Obert and Great Grandma Alice.

Rowan with his new John Deere tractor.

Christmas Day Recap

On Christmas day, we went to Kyle's mom and dad's house to have dinner and open presents. Rowan enjoyed yet another day of wrapping paper and brightly colored plastic! But he especially loved climbing on the presents before we opened them (see picture below).

By the end of the night, Rowan was down to his skivvies and taking rides in the new Radio Flyer wagon he got from Grandma and Grandpa. What a wild night!

After the pajamas finally went on, Rowan got another ride in his littler wagon. Cozy!

One of Kyle's favorite presents was the "big guy" "little guy" shirt set that he and Rowan received. Kyle can't wait until Rowan is big enough to fit in his "little guy" shirt.

Infant Car Seats: Buyer Beware!

I received a Consumer Reports e-mail alert today about infant car seats. Apparently, only two seats (Graco Snugride and Babytrend Flex-loc) performed well. All of the others they tested FAILED! We used the Snugride with Rowan and are now way beyond the infant car seat phase, but I thought some of you might be interested in seeing the article and ratings.

Here's the article (copy and paste the URL): http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/babies-kids/child-car-booster-seats/car-seats-2-07/overview/0207_seats_ov.htm

Here are the ratings (copy and paste the URL): http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/babies-kids/child-car-booster-seats/reports/child-car-seats-ratings/ratings-child-car-seats/latest-ratings/index.htm

Frankly, I'm horrified that NONE of the seats got an "excellent" rating. I'm also more than horrified by how rediculous and inadequate our testing standards are (30 mph? what would happen in a highway collision?)!! Europe has much tougher standards and the car seats sold there are WAY safer than the ones sold by the exact same companies in the U.S. Makes me want to order a car seat from England! Oh wait...using European seats is prohibited in the U.S. (how convenient).

Sometimes I really wonder about this country...

-Angie
*On a Rowan-related note, I promise to post the rest of my Christmas pics and about a few more recent happenings soon. I've had a bad cold and haven't been very motivated lately (Rowan keeps me upbeat, though).

Christmas at Grandma Adeline's

We celebrated Christmas at Grandma Adeline's on the day before Christmas Eve. Many (but certainly not all!) of the great grandchildren gathered for a group picture. Rowan was a little slow to warm up to everyone. The party was during his usual naptime, so he was tired and a bit overwhelmed by all of the people.


He wasn't too fond of Santa, either. But that's to be expected from a 1-year-old. Maybe he'll have more fun next year!

World's Largest Gingerbread House

Before Christmas, we visited the world's largest gingerbread house with my mom, my sister and baby Maddox. Rowan enjoyed seeing the Santa's workshop display inside (the elves moved!). We also did some shopping and hit the jackpot when William's Sonoma had large samples of their molton chocolate cake. Yummmm! Rowan enjoyed it too!

Greetings from the Christmas Elf

Rowan looked like a little Christmas elf in his red pajamas and green bib on Christmas Eve morning at Grandma Michelle and Grandpa Rob's house.

So, we had him play the part in front of the Christmas tree and snapped some pics. Sooooo cute!
We'll have lots more Christmas pics soon!

Taking After Mama and Grandma Connie

Rowan definitely likes chocolate. Until now, we've been living in that blissful time before children understand the difference between regular old food and treats. Now, Rowan is starting to realize that brownies and chocolate cake = yum. So we're having to be more careful about eating treats ourselves, which isn't too hard since we rarely have sugar around here (except for my homemade brownies;-).

Grandma Michelle (who's not so much a chocolate lover, but a great baker) made a wonderful homemade chocolate cake when we went up north after Thanksgiving. It had lots of high-quality French chocolate in it (and other wonderful ingredients). Yum! After a few bites, Rowan was practically howling at the moon. I guess he was making up for eating NONE of his vanilla birthday cupcake.



Maddox, unfortunately, was still too young to partake. Poor kid! You'll get there someday, I promise!

Of course, we don't plan on feeding Rowan chocolate all the time, but the occasional homemade cake or brownie is a wonderful treat! And he really is still too young to whine or ask for treats, so we're lucky there. As long as he'll still eat blueberries and yogurt, I'll be happy to let him indulge from time to time (Lord knows I will). I found a recipe for healthy brownies that contain frozen spinach. Maybe we'll have to give those a try. I'll let you know how that turns out.

Play Time!

We recently brought Rowan to a cool indoor play park. He had so. much. fun. The park had a little toddler area, but Kyle also took Rowan through the larger climbing structure since there weren't many kids there when we visited. What a great way to work out all of that toddler energy!

Climbing through the mesh tube.

Bouncing in the inflatable castle.

Playing with the bead maze.

Climbing up the slide.

Looking for mama (boy, was he tired!).

We all kinda like each other!

Mmmmmmm Blueberries!

One of Rowan's favorite treats of late is defrosted organic blueberries. He giggles when they pop in his mouth and I say, "Ooooooh, that was a juicy juicy blueberry!" They make for quite a mess, though. Sometimes his lips will be purple for the rest of the day!

Rowan smiling in anticipation of a blueberry.

Rowan crushing a blueberry.

Rowan showing me how tough he is (hmmmm...still looks pretty sweet to me).

One Year!

Updated 11/19: I almost forgot one of the coolest things Rowan can do now. He can identify most of his body parts! He can point to his eyes, ears, mouth, teeth, hair, fingers, toes, belly button and (ahem) penis when you ask him to! If you ask him about that last one, though, you risk him trying to pull off his diaper. Silly baby! Ooooops...I mean silly toddler!

**************************************************

I can't believe he's 1 (yes, I know this is late)! Here's a little report on what Rowan's doing at one year (and, of course, some cute pics). There are two more new posts below, too, since I had to make up for my lack of posting lately.

On the motor front: Rowan gave up crawling shortly after he turned 1. He's getting pretty quick on his feet now! It's actually really nice that he's up on two feet. Now I don't feel so bad about putting him on the ground in stores or at the mall since he doesn't have his hands all over the dirty floor.

In addition to walking, he enjoys dancing and spinning in circles. And he's become pretty skilled at kicking and throwing a ball. He climbs up and down stairs with ease (sometimes a little too quickly for mamas nerves!) and can easily get down from furniture. He loves to climb, too! He climbs on my old toy box all of the time and then shakes his booty when gets to the top. We went to REI today, and he LOVED climbing around in the children's play area.

On the communication front: Words that we're sure Rowan says include mama, ball (bah), duck (duh), dog (dah), car (cah), all gone (gah gun while doing the ASL sign) and bye bye (buh bye while waving one hand). Bye bye is BY FAR his favorite phrase! He politely says bye bye to every morsel of food that he drops from his highchair to the floor. He says bye bye before he throws a ball. He says bye bye every time a door shuts or someone leaves the house. He even says bye bye to his baby doll before he puts it in his toy box. Sooooo funny!

We think he's been saying daddy (dee dee) more consistently, but it can be hard to tell -- especially since he's a pretty hard core mama's boy right now. He seems to call his water cup bah bah, which I don't understand since he's never had a bottle. Maybe he's trying to say water? He also says buh for books sometimes.

He also barks, quacks, hoots, says cockadoodledoo (cookiedookiedoo), makes a horsie noise and a monkey noise, and blows fishy bubbles. We have some of his funny noises on tape, so I'll have to upload them sometime soon.

He knows and uses the ASL signs for more, cup, all gone and eat. He picks up the signs really quickly, but I'm afraid I haven't been good about teaching him knew ones lately. I've started working on "help" since he often searches for assistance reaching things or getting up on the furniture. I'll have to dig out my book and teach some other new ones as well.

On the eating front: Rowan is starting to eat more at each meal. He's not a kid that just loooooves to eat any time any place (he'd almost always rather not be in his high chair -- too much to do!) but he sits down to couple of pretty good meals every day and has a couple of snacks in between. It seems one meal always ends up mostly on the floor (bye bye). I wouldn't call him a picky eater, since he tries pretty much anything when he's interested in eating. He just doesn't like to slow down and be strapped in a high chair.

When he's interested in eating, though, there's no stopping him and he'll wolf down his food in no time flat. Breakfast has been the meal he's usually least interested in. But then yesterday he walked right over to his highchair and then happily ate a baby cereal and whole wheat pancake and a yogurt/fruit smoothie. He's kind of unpredictable that way. Just when I'm ready to throw in the towel, he'll greet me with a big appetite and some resounding mmmmmmm's. But our pediatrician says to expect now that since toddlers eat fairly sporadically. And since he's still nursing he's getting lots of calories from milk.

Rowan's favorite foods are meats (homemade turkey meatballs, free range chicken dogs, Mexican spiced chicken), pasta, egg yolk, fruit of any sort (blueberries, pineapple, apples, oranges) and some veggies (sweet potatoes, green beans, tomato sauce). He's starting to like yogurt more now. I make him smoothies with plain organic yogurt, fruit and a little splash of organic grape juice. Otherwise, he drinks mostly water from his cup. Our pediatrician isn't big on kids sipping juice. It's clear from all of the newer recommendations on feeding babies/toddlers that there's a stronger push toward healthy eating habits to curb the childhood obesity epidemic. We try to feed Rowan whole, organic foods as much as possible -- especially since every morsel you can get into a busy toddler is so precious!

On the learning front: It's been clear for some time that Rowan understands almost everything we're saying. He follows instructions and laughs when we're being silly. He's got own funny little personality now, and we have so much fun together. He loves to read books (often over and over and over again)! I know that's a good thing, but how many times can you read Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear before going completely insane! ;-) His favorite book now is a baby animals picture book. He points to each animal, and I say the name of the animal and make its noise. Reading books together is really special because he actually sits still for a minute!

We go to ECFE classes and we've starting going to a drop in time for 12-24 month olds. It's funny to watch Rowan react to the other kids, especially the older ones that are running around and being crazy. He gets this wild look on his face like, "watch out mom, that's gonna be me someday!"

OK, it's getting late now! No doubt our brilliant Rowan does many more fascinating things, but I'm in desperate need of some sleep! So I'll cease with the bragging and leave you with some cutie pie pics taken shortly after his first birthday.