Boy Oh Boyers

For those of you who wake up first thing in the morning clamoring for a new Picture of the Day, you would have been disappointed today. (I just posted one, so enjoy.) Anyway, you should know that my general mention of having been sick has turned into quite the ordeal indeed: Monday morning, I was diagnosed with pneumonia! The doctor figures it's secondary to the relatively minor virus that Rowan and I both had shortly before Uncle Rob's visit. Rowan got completely well, whereas I got almost-normal then took a turn for the worse with another high fever and more serious respiratory symptoms. I'm on the mend now; after several days of being almost completely bedridden I'm at least able to sit up and focus on something for a little while. We've had such wonderful help with Rowan: Mary came Monday and yesterday, Yolanda is here with Kayla today, and Galina comes tomorrow. Tom has still had to work from home a little to fill in the gaps, but we are so thankful that even though our families are far away, our dear friends here truly care for us and go to great lengths on our behalf.

Now, enough of the dreary news. Let me go search for a cute picture and add it to this post as a bonus! :-) Ah, yes, here's one! I snapped this picture on the first evening of Uncle Rob's visit. We all ate at Ted's Montana Grill, where Uncle Rob got the Bison Pot Roast, but could hardly wait to share the pre-dinner yeast rolls with Rowan (who, obviously, accepted the gesture with gratitude!)

Despite the scorching heat, this Saturday was a foray to a couple of Raleigh food landmarks. Mommy, Daddy, Rowan, and Uncle Tim went to Red Hot & Blue, one of our favorite barbecue restaurants. Despite the fact that North Carolina is famous for its barbecue, Red Hot & Blue is a Memphis-style barbecue restaurant, which means their food is more like Georgia barbecue. This happens to mean it suits native Georgians Mommy and Uncle Tim far better than the strange clear-vinegar-basted stuff they call barbecue in the more "local" establishments. Daddy doesn't really eat barbecue per se anyhow, so he doesn't care much. After dinner we stopped by Cup-a-Joe to get one of their amazing chocolate chip cookies. We left with two chocolate chip cookies, a huge Rice Krispie treat, and a piece of "peach cobbler bread". Hungry to come visit us yet? :-) Well, feast your eyes on this cute photo of Rowan on the patio at Cup-a-Joe. Oh, and speaking of food, you should know Rowan has tasted and given his enthusiastic stamp of approval to two more delicious southern foods: watermelon and fried catfish! Yippee!

Here's how it went down. Josh and Leah came over this morning to drop Karis off for a couple of hours. (For those of you far and wide who don't know who they are, Josh is the pastor of our church and Leah is the secretary of our church. They are parents of Karis, who is almost exactly one year older than Rowan. Josh and Leah were our friends before they were pastor, secretary, or parents.) Anyway, Leah was sitting on the floor and Rowan was standing up holding my hand and walking. He was about 4 feet away from Leah when he released my hand and stood there on his own, at which point I thought to myself, "Hmm, that's odd, he's not falling down." He then proceeded to take several unassisted steps forward straight into Leah's waiting arms! Josh and Leah immediately realized by the shocked look on my face that it was the first time I had ever seen Rowan do that. He repeated it several times with Leah, and this evening I got him to repeat it over and over with me. By the time we got Tom to take the video, Rowan was very sleepy, so he was not doing as well as he had done earlier in the day. Nonetheless, there are clearly unassisted steps going on here. It's so exciting! Enjoy the video!

I bought Tom a Father's Day card last week. I lost it. Found it just a few minutes ago, after Tom had already gone to bed (I'm up later working on some travel details for my upcoming trip). So, he'll get his official Father's Day card one day late. But this post is about a Father's Day card Tom got in the mail a few days early from one of our dear friends. Here's what the hand-written note inside the card said:

Kristy may be Rowan's first teacher, but you will be his first role model. His first idol. His very first hero. The man that you are is the man that he will work to become. As he grows, it is your face that he will see in the mirror, your voice of confidence in his mind. He will measure himself by the tracks and trails that you leave. He will ask questions of you to understand himself.

As far as Rowan is concerned, Thomas Michael Boyer is the greatest of men. Every attribute you have will inspire him to be more.

I look forward to watching your son grow into the fine man that I know his father is.

Happy Father's Day, Tom. Or, as your day-late card says, Happy Da-da's Day!

I've made it to Montreal to attend some stimulating conferences for work. Meanwhile Daddy, along with Papaw, Grammy Sue, and Great Aunt Karen are back at the Boyer house partying. Here's a shot from the evening the family arrived, showing Rowan's fascination with Papaw's glasses! (Daddy's glasses meet a similar fate, which is why poor Daddy must check them at the door upon arriving home.)

We're all very thankful for Skype so we can have long video conferences in the evenings. This lets Mommy keep up with the playing, the talking, and the walking that changes daily for Rowan. Here's a screenshot from my computer as we talked this evening, Daddy and Rowan playing with blocks (in this one, Rowan is trying to feed a block to Daddy). Rowan is saying some words now (you have to know what he's saying to understand it, but it's obvious he's referring to objects around him). Today on the phone he said "mama" to me several times! He has other basic words too, like "block", "bottle", "dada", and so on. I can't wait to get home to see him, but it will be a week from today when that happens. I love you, Rowan!

While Mommy has been away from the family, she's found some time for a little recreation. Along with presenting at the conference and attending very interesting sessions, Wednesday I rented a car and drove to a little town called Prescott in Ontario. I met a divemaster there, Chris, who educated me about Ontario shipwrecks. Then he took me diving in the St. Lawrence River to see the wreck of the Rothesay, a wooden side wheeler that collided with a tug in 1889 and sank. Despite the fact that I found the diving conditions challenging to say the least, the local divers gave me a warm welcome and I left thrilled to have explored this new underwater destination. For more pictures of the adventure, you can visit my picasa site.

I wrote this note to Rowan several months ago when I was traveling to Oregon for a 3-day conference. Now seems like the right time to post it here.

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Dear Rowan,

I am on a plane somewhere over Idaho. You're back at home in North Carolina with your dad and Meemaw. You're 8 months old, an active, soft, bright baby. I will spend tonight away from you, our first night apart since you were born. I have realized some things today as I pondered being away from you. I'll start with the mountains I've just seen from the plane, then I'll tell you about my dreams. Finally, I'll tell you a little bit about you.

I had the airplane window closed for a while after the plane left Texas, then I opened it and looked down into the setting sun to see snow-capped mountains. They were vast networks of ridges and valleys, white and brown with snow and soil. I gasped when I saw the scene. My eyes expected brownish gray terrain, and instead I saw vibrant white and rich brown. I was mesmerized by the sight and looked out the window for quite some time. Then we went through some thin clouds, and the scene was veiled by translucent fog that muted all the colors and made me feel even farther away than the 34,000 feet or so that really stood between me and the mountains. My attention, so absorbed by the view, was released and I could feel myself take a full breath again instead of shallow, bated ones. This is the first story I wanted to tell you: some mountains in their splendor captured me and a cloud brought me back.

Now, I need to tell you about the colors of my dreams. You see, I dream every night and usually remember the dreams. Sometimes they are mundane, but usually the dreams are fantastic with impossible events. But the important thing I need to tell you is about the color. Imagine that every color you know and love, the red, blue, gold, and green on even the most exquisite natural and manmade things, are actually only a muted shell of what's really underneath. Imagine if that veil were gone, exposing a more real reality: a drenched, clear, illuminated world with colors beyond what human eyes have seen. This, I think, is the world of my dreams. So, this is the second thing I wanted to tell you: your mother's dreams are drenched in spectacular colors that have no names.

Now, finally, I get to tell you about yourself. The thing is, Rowan, your birth was a rebirth for me. I was reborn as someone who gets to experience overwhelming, fantastically rich beauty because I have met you and you are part of me. I don't know how to express that it's your very existence, as much as your presence with me at a given moment, that provides the beauty I'm describing. It took being away from you to realize that; it took this absence for me to realize I've been taking shallow sips of air since the day I first saw you, entranced by the brightness of your life like I am drawn in by the mountains. Your life, so tender and young, is overwhelming in its beauty and promise. Overwhelming like the nameless colors of my dreams. We are so blessed.

For those of you who don't know, "IM" stands for Instant Message, and it's how we refer to typed messages sent online. Skype, the program we use for video calls, also allows text IMs. Today Rowan was so determined to type on the keyboard, I suggested that Tom open the IM window so Rowan could type a bunch of stuff without messing up the conversation (I'm sure in Skype, one of the buttons Rowan pushed would have ended our call). Anyway, here's an adorable screen shot of the conversation plus the IM screen. On the left you can see the gibberish that Rowan was typing away. I love his focused expression!

This is Mommy signing off. I'm leaving now from Montreal, headed straight for Madrid, Spain. Never a dull moment.

I made it safely from Montreal to Madrid with only an annoying set of flight delays between the two. After arriving in Madrid, disaster struck (ok, maybe not disaster...but it happened to me so I´m allowed to be a bit dramatic). On the subway between the airport and my hotel, somebody stole my wallet out of my bag! It has certainly added a layer of challenge to my visit here, but I´ve been able to do everything I needed to. (That college Spanish came in very handy at the police station when I had to file a report.)

Of course it hasn't been all bad -- the conference is interesting and last night a group of us ventured down to the city square where lots of people were gathered to watch a soccer game on a humongous screen. It was a very important game (maybe a European championship, I'm not actually sure) between Spain and Germany. Needless to say here in Madrid the fans were going crazy all day and all night (if the noise level from my hotel room was any indication!) I'm having fun, taking the bad with the good, and counting down days until I see my wonderful Rowan again.