Boy Oh Boyers

Rowan has been in Georgia for a couple of days now, and I was consoling myself by watching a wonderful video of him singing one of his favorite songs. It's from The Sound of Music. We were driving home from shopping, and I happened to have the camera in the passenger's seat. When we broke into song, I turned on the camera and aimed it at him, just hoping I was getting him in the frame. I was thrilled to watch it back and see what I had succeeded! Anyway, enjoy.

While I'm at a conference in Milwaukee, Daddy headed down to Georgia to pick up Rowan and to attend Zack and Maegan's wedding. (Congrats, guys!) I have really missed Rowan but I'm so excited to see him tomorrow. Here's a picture (from Gram's camera phone) of Daddy and Rowan looking very handsome!

Rowan has only been back in preschool for two days now after his lengthy trip to Georgia. The principal and his teacher warned me that any adjustment challenges he faced before would be even worse after a time away. But we've prayed for him a lot, because he was so sad at preschool the first few times, and Gram read him the Berenstain Bears Go To School about three hundred times while he was there. Success! He had a great day yesterday and today; he only cried briefly when I first left, and then he settled right in. Today his teacher said he "enthusiastically" participated in circle time (that is really a breakthrough!) I can see his room's webcam while I'm working, which I really love. Here's a shot from yesterday when Ms. Iris broke out the Dora puppet. Rowan is still talking about that!

It was supposed to rain today but we brazenly decided on this first official day of Spring, we were going to grill out. We got the burgers ready, took everything outside, got settled down, took our first bite, and...drip!...little tiny rain drops. We refused to budge, and surely enough after only a few drops, no more rain fell. Woohoo!

Oh, after my visit to Brighton, England last year where I had a most delicious arugula (a.k.a. "rocket") salad, we've taken a liking to it back home, and thankfully it's readily available on the cheap at Trader Joe's. I'm not sure if Rowan eats it because he likes the taste or because he likes rockets, but I'm alright with it either way!

If you follow me on twitter or facebook, you may already know this saga or else be a bit confused by posts you didn't understand. Here's the whole story.

Last Sunday morning Rowan woke up with a bead stuck on his finger; the kind of beads that have been around for decades and that you've probably seen everywhere. They look like this.

We tried water, soap, a bath, everything to slide it off. We cut the tip off so we could pour slippery soap down inside. No success. It was stuck. I had to go to church to lead the music, so Tom was left with strict instructions to take Rowan to an urgent care clinic or the E.R. if they couldn't get the bead off after a few more minutes. They couldn't.

At the urgent care, Tom says Rowan got lots of attention; the staff claimed it was the first time they had dealt with this particular "foreign object removal" task. They had to cut the toy lengthwise to get it off, and Rowan tells the tale in no uncertain terms. "The scissors were SO BIG!"

We are very relieved that the ordeal is over, and we have all learned an important lesson. It might be a different lesson for all of us. For me, it's "little boys are rascals!" For Tom, it might be "next time try the scissors yourself to save the trouble of going to the urgent care," and for Rowan it might be, "next time that happens, I should hide my hand under my shirt for days so nobody knows what I have done." Time will tell! ;-)