Boy Oh Boyers

Mommy is so glad to be back home with Rowan! I arrived as scheduled on Thursday evening, in time to celebrate the 4th of July with all the wonderful family who are visiting. Grandmommy has been here the last week and a half taking care of Rowan while I was away, and she was joined by Papa, Aunt Julie, and Uncle Bobby. Naturally Rowan's birthday was a day of festivities. We took Rowan swimming in the hotel pool where Aunt Julie and Uncle Bobby were staying. You can see a snapshot of that fun in today's picture of the day. He didn't lose that big grin the entire time we were in the water!

Rowan's birthday party was absolutely precious, with friends and family celebrating and spoiling him (just a little, of course). He had a respectable attention span for opening the gifts, he played very well with everyone, and really the only downside was that he definitely did not react to the cake-eating ritual in the way we had imagined it. I had pictured him pressing his hand deep into the little cake we had made for him, pulling out a fistful of cake and frosting, and eating it excitedly. Instead, he dabbled in the frosting, put a few fingers in his mouth, and then proceeded to rub it all over his face and in his hair, and then cry! Needless to say many paper towels were killed in the cleanup.
Naturally, all was well once Rowan was delivered from the high chair and back where he really wanted to be, playing with his new toys and his old friends!

Rowan and I met Daddy for lunch at a little restaurant nearby. It's a cozy place, and after we got settled at our table and ordered, Rowan was antsy for food. We didn't want to fill him up with Cheerio's so I got him out of the high chair to walk around until the food arrived. He did the usual thing, which was hold onto my hand and lead me around the restaurant. This particular place has dark red rugs laid in series so they look like one very long red carpet that goes the length of the place. Something about that vast expanse of red rug must have been appealing to Rowan because he let go of my hand and just started walking out ahead of me! It was the first time he has walked without a person, or a couch, in front of him to catch him. If he fell, he'd have been straight down onto the carpet. But he didn't care! He was going for it. It was a surreal feeling to be walking behind my child instead of beside him or carrying him. I looked back at Tom who was just watching with his mouth open. We knew Rowan would take off unassisted like this, we just really didn't expect it to be yesterday, at that restaurant. It's just another example of Rowan keeping us on our toes!

Rowan recognizes many words. When asked, he'll point at lights, nose, ear, shoes, water, refrigerator, cup, and many more. He can say many words also, but the set is smaller. Obviously he says "mama" and "dada", though "dada" is uttered more often because Daddy leaves and returns more frequently than Mommy does. Rowan is also quite familiar with the animals in our lives: he says "dog", which sounds like "dah", and "fish", which sounds like "gih". There's a sticker of Nemo the clownfish on Rowan's bedroom wall (which Grandmommy diligently pointed out to Rowan frequently while she was visiting last time). Rowan lovingly calls it "nee-nee".

Dave, the owner of Gypsy Divers, gave Rowan a beautiful stuffed sea turtle when I bought some dive equipment recently. We talk about the turtle regularly, and Rowan has been able to point it out when asked, but today was the first day he has done as complex as series of actions as I'm about to describe. Rowan stood in the middle of the living room and looked across, surveying what at that moment was quite a pile of toys. Near the edge of the pile was the turtle, and Rowan's eyes settled on it. He pointed at it and clearly said "tuh-tuh!" Then he walked over to it and picked it up and repeated its name, "tuh-tuh!" Carrying it on his head, he walked back over to me and handed it to me, reaffirming one last "tuh-tuh", in case I had forgotten what it was. Then he giggled a little giggle and walked away, settling on the next toy worthy of his attention. Fun!

This weekend we drove to the beach with our friends Rachael and August. Scuba diving was planned, but it didn't materialize due to an ironic turn of events. What did materialize were large waves due to tropical storm Cristobal churning right off the coast. Saturday morning we woke up blissfully unaware of what awaited us that day, and it was wonderful stepping out onto our oceanfront balcony and enjoying the morning view. Hooray for last-minute room vacancies!

Rowan had a wonderful time on the beach. He sat and played in the sand as long as we allowed him to (which was as long as we figured his SPF 50 would last). He also ran headlong into the waves without a bit of concern for them; we had to lift him up so the waves weren't over his head! Several times while he was playing in the sand the water came up and splashed him in the face and he just laughed. Honestly I was a little too distracted to take many pictures of Rowan in the sand -- I was mostly either enjoying him enjoying the beach, or I was out leaping into the waves myself while Rowan and Rachael played in the sand. There will be a couple more pictures coming from the beach, though. What a fun time!

I can't believe it's been nearly two weeks and I've forgotten to mention that Rowan's pacifier has gone the way of the baby swing. (That is to say, Rowan doesn't use a pacifier anymore.) The story honestly seems too good to be true: a couple of weeks ago I thought it's probably time for Rowan to ditch the "paci", so one morning for his nap I just put him down without it. And that was it. It was a cold-turkey, approximately painless transition to the pacifier-free life.

Speaking of freedom, let me just say: we're not ruling anything out permanently, but all you grandparents out there shouldn't be expecting another grandbaby, at least from us, anytime soon. While several of our friends say they can't wait to experience the newborn phase all over again with their next child, Tom and I are relishing every little step Rowan takes away from newborn-hood. I was afraid I'd look back longingly at the nursing and the rocking, and maybe when Rowan is a full-fledged preschooler and wants nothing to do with cuddling I'll change my mind, but for now, I say bring on the walking, talking, feeding himself, pacifier-free, pack-a-little-bag-and-go life!

Now, the other half of this title mentions problem-solving, and you're going to love this little story. Just this morning when Tom was about to leave for work, Rowan and I were playing on the living room floor. Tom walked over to say goodbye, and Rowan handed Tom a small ball we had been playing with. Tom showed Rowan the ball, then closed it in one of his fists and swirled the two fists back and forth to confuse Rowan. Then Tom said, "Where's the ball?" Rowan chose a fist, and it was empty. He inspected it carefully to see there was no ball. Then he opened Tom's other hand, giggling when he found the ball. Tom decided to repeat the game, so he closed the ball in his fist, swirled the fists around, and said, "Where's the ball?" Rowan looked for a moment and then simultaneously reached up and opened one of Tom's fists with each hand! Our baby is not constrained by the implicit rules of the game, so he figured the sure way to get the ball was to yank open both fists at once! Naturally the ball fell onto the floor where Rowan grabbed it while Tom and I looked at each other with a silent "Wow." Tom said he had expected Rowan to try some new strategy, but he just wasn't expecting that strategy. You go, Rowan!

Yesterday was Rowan's one-year checkup. (Yes, it's a few weeks late, but our favorite doctor is only in the office on Mondays and Wednesdays so we take whatever appointment we can get.) As you can see from the picture below, Rowan weighed in at 22 lbs, 12.5 oz, which is the 50th percentile for weight at his age. He's at the 90th percentile for height, measuring 31" tall. He scored the highest possible score on the developmental tests of large motor skills, fine motor skills, and some other categories I can't quite remember. He scored one point lower than the highest possible score on communication because he doesn't yet shake his head when he means "no". (Who knew that was a developmental milestone...I guess if I asked him more questions to which he wanted to answer "no", he might have developed that particular communication skill. I'll get right on that.) ;-) Summarizing the developmental stuff, scores in each category range from 0 to 60, and Rowan had all 60's except one 50 (each item counts 10 points). They do further testing if any category scored under 10, so obviously (as we all knew anyway) Rowan is developing marvelously!

After the checkup, we had an interesting afternoon. Rowan and I walked to a nearby park to meet our neighbor Kelly and her daughter Kellyann who is just a few weeks younger than Rowan. We had a little picnic under a pavilion and then we took the babies over to the play area where they enjoyed swinging and running about. Rowan was highly adventurous on the play gyms, holding my hands to climb the steps, jumping around on the rope bridge, and going (in my lap) down the slide over and over and over. It was evening, around 7pm, and the park was shaded so I didn't think much of the temperature. But apparently it was all a little much for him, since when we got home we had the first vomit episode of Rowan's life. (As you might know, he wasn't a spitter-upper as an infant, so we can count the number of milk spews on one hand. This was definitely vomit, though, as we're well past anything that could be called "spit-up"!) We learned that while Daddy is the braver parent when it comes to cleaning up doggie messes, Mommy is the fearless one when it comes to messes Rowan makes. Rowan did have a rough night, waking up several times (once I gave him a bottle since I knew his tummy was pretty empty from throwing up before bed). Thankfully, this morning he woke up his normal, playful self. He took his breakfast and morning bottle like normal and he settled in for what is shaping up to be a normal-length, uninterrupted nap. It seems all is again well with the world. But I have learned to be more aware of what we do in the steamy outdoors, and I'm sorry I didn't think more carefully about taking him out after the vaccinations he had earlier in the day anyway. Live and learn, I guess.

We're off for a wonderful long weekend at the beach! Sorry, but I ran out of time to post pictures of the day ahead of time...so I think there might be two more but then you'll have a couple of picture-less days. They're on the computer and ready to go, I just don't have time to upload them. Wouldn't want to have to rush packing the cooler! See you on the other side of the weekend. :-)