Boy Oh Boyers

Meal times are truly amusing adventures now. There's no type of feeding that doesn't bring with it great excitement! Nursing Rowan means being on constant alert for signs that he's about to bite down with the new chompers. Thankfully the injury to Mommy has been minimal so far, and I'm sure with strategic use of the cheek-flicking technique, we'll avert the need to wean early. (Cheek-flicking might sound harsh, but it has proven its effectiveness a few months ago when Rowan went through an awful clamping-down phase. Even without teeth, that was horribly painful! A few days of flicking, and we broke the habit.) Anyway, breastfeeding is the lowest on the suspense scale.

Slightly more suspenseful is wondering if, when I place a delicious spoonful of food in Rowan's mouth, he will choose to show his delight and appreciation by saying "Yum!", or at least some 7-month-old variation of the word. Such an exclamation is, as you might imagine, accompanied by a strong exhale to communicate the enthusiasm. And said exhale is, as you might also ascertain, accompanied by little bits of flying pureed food. Yesterday Rowan, the high chair, and my shirt were covered in tiny bits of carrot. It looked like someone took a clogged orange spray paint can to us all!

This morning I learned there is yet a higher level of suspense to be experienced during a meal. It's so suspenseful because when it happens, it carries the most gross of all the consequences so far. Yes, as you might have guessed from the title, I'm on the edge of my seat wondering whether Rowan will sneeze with his mouth full of something! This happened for the first time at breakfast today, when I was sprayed with a shiny combination of peaches, oatmeal, and snot. Eeeeeeeeew! Rowan thought it was positively hilarious.

Well, at Rowan's 6-month checkup one of the "developmental milestones" I had to address was whether Rowan was yet afraid of strangers. I answered a cheerful "nope!", thinking "this outgoing baby isn't going to get afraid of strangers! He loves people!" Boy, was I wrong.

Today I brought Rowan to the office with me briefly. He was in his stroller, happy as a clam. Well-fed, well-rested, comfy. Smiling at me as we rode the elevator and walked down the hallway. We saw someone I know, so we stopped to chat. This person who shall remain nameless knelt down to say hi to Rowan, who promptly crunched his face, took in a long serious breath, and screamed. And screamed! I had to apologize and walk away before the entire building was disturbed by the wailing. Then, past my advisor's office I walked, and he was inside and called out to me. I strolled Rowan up to the door, but not inside, and when greeted by the friendly bearded stranger from across the room, Rowan started screaming again! All in all, we had seven screaming encounters before I made it to my office. Once I was holding him, all the strangers could say hello and Rowan was smiling and cooing again. Sigh. Progress.

On most Sundays now, we have a little routine. Mommy wakes up and goes to church early for music practice, while Daddy and Rowan play. During the service Rowan is usually awake and playful, sometimes in the nursery with the other babies and sometimes in the arms of someone who wants to hold him. When we get home, we have one very tired baby on our hands. This shot was taken just after Rowan woke up from his seriously restorative Sunday afternoon nap. He was ready for some food, thank you very much, but never too busy to give Mommy and Daddy a huge grin!

Rowan helped me figure out how to copy video clips from our camcorder this afternoon, and then he wisely advised me on how to upload them to youtube. So, now, for your enjoyment, savor this 2-minute (and many megabytes...sorry Clyattville folks) video featuring many of Rowan's charming expressions and sounds.

It seems about time for another of those laundry list posts that explains in detail the antics that Rowan's up to at present. So, here goes!

In the motor skill department, Rowan sits on his own now and rolls over easily at will. He loves to stand on laps and holding onto tables, though standing near hard objects has to be supervised closely because the balance is quite precarious. One of the favorite playtime activities is to tip things over, be it the toy box or a toy itself. Things seem to look just as good upside down to this baby as they do right side up.

Let's see, then there's eating. Rowan wakes up and nurses sometime between 5:00 and 6:30am. Then he takes breakfast of fruit and oatmeal (mixed with breastmilk, of course) about an hour later. There's nursing again around 9:00, then a solid lunch (usually sweet potatoes or carrots or some other starchy veggie) followed by early afternoon nursing. Then a mid-afternoon nursing, usually around 3-4pm, followed by solid dinner. The new addition about a week ago was meat to dinner, delicious (not!) pureed chicken or turkey, depending on our mood. Rowan took to them straight away, and now has a balanced meal of meat, veggie, and carb around 6pm. It's at this meal that Rowan feeds himself the little "puffs" while Tom and I eat, then Rowan gets his "real food". (Sometimes I've been caught feeding myself and Rowan at the same time when he gets too antsy. It's not plausible to feed him first, because once he's done eating, he is done being in the high chair.) Finally, a goodnight nursing at 7:30.

Sleeping is still a bit unpredictable. Bedtime is the one super-routine, smooth-as-silk part. We do a bath at 7:00, Rowan nurses at 7:30, and then it's diaper change, teeth brushing, and Goodnight Moon. We lie Rowan in his crib between 7:45 and 8:00, and he usually smiles at us, turns his head to the side, wiggles a few times, and goes straight to sleep. I marvel at it every day. About half the time he wakes during the night and fusses momentarily, but we don't go in. If he fusses at 5:00am or so, we go offer a pacifier. Sometimes that buys us another hour or more, other times only two minutes. It certainly stays interesting!

Socially, Rowan listens intently, inspects people's features, and I actually think his first word has been "Woof!". Whenever Angel comes and pays attention to Rowan, he gazes at her intently and moves his mouth as if he's talking. Only once or twice, I feel sure he has said "Woof!", which of course is what I say to her on a regular basis. Tom and I have our dueling attempts at "Ma-ma" and "Da-da", but these bring only laughter out of the mouth of the babe. Why he finds the names so funny, we do not know! Peek-a-boo is a great success now, both with parent-removed covering and recently with Rowan-removed burpcloth. Quiet, quiet, quiet, shriek!

Well, I think that's a reasonable spread of news for now. Enjoy the details!

Tom, Rowan and I made an unplanned drive to Georgia this weekend because Grammies (Great-Grammies to Rowan) wasn't feeling too well. She did have to go into the hospital Monday morning after visiting her doctor, but we arrived in time for her to spend a fun Sunday afternoon with Rowan. She made quick improvements and will go home from the hospital in a few days. With things piling up at home, we couldn't stay any longer so we headed back home and arrived late last evening. This story will be short because I'm truly in dig-out-of-the-backlog mode after being away from email and work, but I just had to tell it!

We stopped at a travel plaza to stretch our legs and give Rowan a diaper change. I took him in to the ladies' room where the changing table was, and two of the cleaning ladies were in there wiping the mirrors. Rowan loves looking at people in mirrors, and I stood him up on the changing table so he could charm these two ladies for a moment (after staring at the back glass of the minivan for 6 hours, he deserved a little recreation). The ladies were immediately smitten (of course), and came over to admire him. One asked how old he was. I said almost 8 months. She said, "Wow, he makes my 9-month-old look huge!" And the other lady said, "Well, this baby is definitely small for 8 months." Small? My baby? Well, I had to stop and think about it. He definitely is not small, but I realized he is also no longer particularly large for his age. The addition of solid foods, and greater physical activity on Rowan's part, have seen a slowdown in the frantic pace of growth. He's actually still wearing all his 9-month clothes, after zooming through the 6-month stage. We've got some 12-month sleepers that fit fine, but the 9-month sleepers are still perfectly wearable too. Needless to say we're waiting until the last possible minute to buy Spring clothes, just to see what this baby is going to do!