Fall flew by ...

So, this post originally started on the eve of the first day of school.  Sigh.  School has been harder this year and I have definitely felt much more stretched.  It was so amazing last year being able to have Ben home for awhile.  I really wish he could just stay home, our schedule is so stressful.  I wish I could envision it changing one day.  I suppose once Rowan is in school Ben could try to start working days ... but then again, we might have another kid.  Someday.  Oh well, we do have the summer to enjoy time as a family.

Rowan definitely changed this summer.  At the beginning of the summer, he was still very prone to anxiety and still needed one of us to be quite nearby in order to feel comfortable and to play.  We had made a lot of progress with playgrounds and visiting Grandma's house, but it wasn't until about mid-August that he started to really relax.

We spent a lot of time in Fredonia this summer.  Rowan got comfortable at Grandma and Grandpa's, played at the playground a lot, and learned how to do a somersault (sadly, I didn't get a good picture of that.)

Super impressed

Tumble Attack!!

Check out ma belly!

Working on his climbing skills

 In other news, Rowan definitely has a best friend.  We have started hanging out with our friends Kris and Emily and their son Miles.  We have known them for a long time, but since the boys are the same age we have finally started hanging out a lot.  I think playing with Miles has really helped Rowan to be a better problem-solver and more comfortable trying new things.  Actually, Rowan calls him "friend Miles."  And Miles calls him "friend Rowan."  It is THE cutest.

The boys mostly hang out at the playground, our houses, and the market - but we did manage to pull together a trip to the farm in August.  Sadly, this was before Rowan really found his bravery and coping skills - he spent a lot of the visit whining. :\  The boys did do some playing and exploring together.  And Rowan loves all the instruments that Uncle Kevin lets him use. :)

Exploring the farm

Sharing - kind of :)

Pensive piano player

Rowan continues to be very interested in drawing.  He still appears to prefer his left hand for drawing and lately he has gone back to the hilarious thing where he will shake his right fist furiously while drawing with his left.  He loves shapes and knows a LOT by name, including the basics (square, circle, triangle, oval) and the not so basic (trapezoid, octagon, hexagon, scalene, pentagon, crescent, etc.)  He is still mostly in the scribbling phase, but he will request that Ben or I draw a certain shape for him then he will "color" it.  He can draw a circle and he is working on the others.  The other day I watched him color in all the little random shapes created within one of his scribbles.  It's fun to watch him draw.

He really concentrates on it.

Cool, weird little symbols on steps

Must mean something to him

Rowan was really slow to accept the concept of the playground in general and even slower with swings.  He was willing to swing on his belly on regular swings, but it wasn't until he started hanging out with Miles that he finally gave the kid swings a try.  Lo and behold, he LOVED them.  For awhile in August and September, "going to the playground" meant swinging for a half hour straight.  Nowadays he'll try just about anything at the playground.

With another favorite: BALLOON!!

I still think of Rowan as a picky eater, although he's not really.  He definitely eats way more healthy foods more willingly than a lot of his peers.  He's just still texture-averse and not really keen on anything that requires much chewing.  This means lots of soup (he eats lots of varieties which I make and which contain tons of veggies), pasta (mac & cheese or orzo with tiny diced veggies), yogurt, some fruits, crackers (graham and pita), peanut butter, goat cheese, and of course the pouches.  We have had some limited success with french toast and pancakes.  He just won't do cooked vegetables or meat.  He seems to think mashed potatoes are some kind of poison.  He would eat ice cream all day if we let him.  Adorably, his favorite thing is poutine - hand-cut french fries topped with gravy and cheese curds.  Fortunately, this is a Rochester favorite.  We usually go to the food truck Le Petit Poutine, but he's also had it at the Tap & Mallet.

Sometimes he just wants ketchup.

He won't eat them, but loves to "help"

We managed to get down to Ithaca in early October.  Unfortunately, Ben had to work, but Amy came with Rowan and I for a quick visit.  The weather was beautiful and perfect early fall.  Rowan had a great time picking apples and eating donuts.  He also really enjoyed playing with Grandma and Grandpa - he even let Grandpa pick him up! And take him out of the van! And carry him away from Mama! It was crazy, it was like I didn't even know him.  In a good way.

Turning 2 + more things we did this summer

Rowan is officially 2 years old ... and officially the size of the average 3 year old.  He had his 2 year check-up a few days ago - he is just over three feet tall and about 32 pounds.  The doctor said "people might look at you weird and wonder why your three year old is acting like a baby." Oh well, Rowan is plenty charming and he still has quite a baby face.

He put the red dot on his nose.

At the bakery with the Cookie Lady

Rowan is getting better and better at communicating his needs and wants and we keep pushing him to use words as much as possible.  This has resulted in some adorable, if slightly incorrect, sentence structure.  He relies heavily on the phrase "I can have."  For example, he might say "I can have peanut butter?"  but he also says things like "I can have some hold hands?"  He also tends to answer his own questions quickly and with the answer he wants, while mimicking Ben's and my own speech patterns ("I can have some peanut butter? Ok, fine, have some peanut butter!")
A major point of pride for us is his ability to spell his name: "R! O! W! A! N! Rowan!!"  It's super cute.  He also still loves counting, especially in Spanish.  He tends to fall back on counting to ten in Spanish when he is showing off.  We are also very proud of how good he is getting at recognizing letters and numbers.  Ben has been reinforcing the letters with the sign alphabet and that seems to be helping.
Rowan also really likes to help, so we try to include him as much as possible.  He MUST ALWAYS close the microwave and press the button ("I want to press the beep!!!!"), he likes to grind the coffee beans, and the other day I sat him on the dryer and handed him clothes to throw down into the washer.  He got a HUGE kick out of that.

Helping Daddy make baguette

We made it down to the farm again on July 12th.  Rowan took a little more time to warm up to the place this time, but eventually he chilled out.  We picked lots of cherries and some raspberries.  Kevin took us to the far field and Rowan had a wonderful time rolling around with Mary the cat.  (Sadly, I didn't have the camera or my phone with me.)  Lauren made some fresh tomato soup which Rowan happily ate (and some grilled cheese that he declined, as usual.)  Rowan also spent quite a bit of time playing with some of Kevin's drum collection.  I hope we can squeeze in another trip before the end of summer.

Heeey ... what's this lady trying to rope me into??

Awww nice daddy :)

Goofing around in the garden

Jamming with Uncle Kevin

Rowan's birthday party was good, relatively low-key, and similar to last year.  The party was loosely based around the theme "art" since Rowan is so into drawing and painting.  Since he's never been really wild about cake but dives at ice cream any chance he gets, we decided to do a make-your-own-sundae bar in lieu of a birthday cake.  And we went pretty wild with it.  Lauren and Ben made almost three gallons of homemade ice cream - french vanilla, green tea with fresh mint, and green tea with candied ginger.  I made a sundae bar of fixins' including homemade sauces and Amy made brownies from scratch (she was nervous about messing them up but they were delicious.)  We didn't snag as many pictures this year, but at least Rowan didn't cry into his birthday dessert (probably because we didn't try to sing this year.)

Fun sundae bar with the BEST salted caramel sauce.

Rowan was definitely pleased.

Rowan was all about water last year - it actually made us nervous, because he tried to dive out of our arms in pools and lakes, and we didn't feel comfortable just letting him go.  I know that parents are starting to teach kids to swim really young and that babies often have natural abilities, but without any training or experience, I didn't want to just "let go."  Sigh.  Now of course this year, now that he's even bigger and stronger and I've taught him the basics in the tub, he REFUSES to go near any pools or lakes.  He was still willing to use the sprinkler back when it was super hot in early July, but even that has lost it's shine a bit.  We tried to go to Kershaw Park in Canandaigua a few weeks ago and he LOST it.  Just hated almost the entire visit and wouldn't go near the water.  Siiiigh, I know that soon enough I won't be able to drag him out of the water, but this new revulsion has been very frustrating (although thankfully the last couple weeks have been a lot cooler.)

On hot days, he cools off in paint.

Smeary-smeary

We spent a few days at the end of July staying at Family Camp at Barton with Ben's parents.  Rowan actually did really awesome with camping.  And he even lifted his own personal water embargo and played a little at the edge of Cayuga Lake (it's possible the seclusion helped a lot - there weren't really any other people around.)  He seemed really happy to just run around and play at camp - I think he felt like - Cool! So were just going to live at the playground? Sounds good to me!  He had a little trouble sleeping at night, but it was pretty chilly the first night and he has really outgrown the travel crib we brought.  But we made do and he took a good nap in the cabin the second day, so he wasn't to worn out.  We actually went back to Ithaca the following weekend for David and Liz's "Baby-Q" - again he did reasonably well, but by the end of that excursion he was DEFINITELY exhausted. 

Considering this particular water ...

Tossing stones with Daddy

Hm. To throw or not to throw?

Ben's blonde doppelganger

"I see big water!"

Super beautiful week on the lake

I love Rowan's crazy scribbles :)

Climbing and playing with Daddy

Salted caramel cone at Purity

Well, I hope Rowan isn't all funned-out just yet - it's off to Fredonia tomorrow for a family reunion!

Summertime + time at home

Look at that! It's been exactly one month since my last post.  We are now fully into our summer routine (or lack thereof, really) but other than my being home more, not a lot has changed since my June post.  I was pretty antsy when school first ended - I often have a hard time adjusting from being very busy to not so busy.  With the longer days and later sunsets, Rowan has been going to bed a little later at night and then making up for it with a longer afternoon nap.  At first I wasn't really sure what to do with that time, but I ended up really throwing myself into the yard.  Our vegetables and herbs are looking really good - I can't wait for the tomatoes to come.  Rowan was good about helping pick them last year, I hope he has maintained that skill.

Still no major haircuts :)

Rowan still often gets antsy or upset (or sometimes downright hysterical) when we take him to new places or he meets new people, but he is getting better.  My parent's house has finally become a comfort zone - he is just about as comfortable and relaxed there and with Grandma and Papa as he is at our house with me and Ben.  It makes trips to Fredonia generally less stressful since he accepts Grandma's house as "home base."  Rowan and I have already made a couple extended trips to the Fredonia area this summer.  Both times he did really well at Grandma's and the neighboring playground, but not so great when we tried to venture other places.  During our most recent trip I tried to take him to Angola to visit with college friends - he spent almost half the time we were there just hysterically crying.  Finally, he calmed down a little, but the only activities he was interested in were throwing rocks in the pool and running around naked.  Fortunately, almost everyone at the party had a child under 3, so they were understanding.  Of course, as soon as we returned to Grandma's, everything was fine - and thank God, because if I hadn't been able to sit in a cool bath for a little bit, I was going to start hysterically crying, too.

Yay!! Papa has a cool yard!!!

Oh, nooo! (How he refers to the sprinkler)

Hey, Little Boy Blue!

The trip before this last one (a couple weeks previous) we had the same problem - no major issues at Grandma's, but we tried to take him to Midway Park and we might as well have been torturing him.  Granted, it was very hot that day.  Maybe next summer he will feel a little braver and follow his cousins onto some of the rides.  Kevin and Kate were really great about it, though, and Kate tried to gently coax Rowan into some participation with essentially a V.I.P. tour (Kate manages the park.)  But he was just not feeling it.  However, we went back to Kevin and Kate's for a little while after dinner and Rowan was pretty relaxed playing in the backyard with Geoffrey.

One thing he DID like at Midway

Throwing stones in water - always a fave

Goofy cousins :)

Other than our Adventures in Other Counties, the summer has been pretty quiet.  We have our usual haunts - Ellwanger & Barry Park (our favorite playground in the Southwedge), Hedonist Ice Cream,  and Highland Park.  I like taking Rowan to Highland Park for walks because I can actually relax a bit - the winding path is quiet and I don't have to worry about him trying to make a break for it and run towards the street.  We tend to take our time meandering around the park, then Rowan tries to keep up with the big kids at the playground by doing crazy things like climb the rock wall (which is taller than me!)

Oh, hi.  Just meandering.

Crazy rock climbing action!

Demolishing a cone at Hedonist

Sliding at E&B park

So strong! :)

I try to mix it up a little, too, without spending a fortune on daily entertainment.  The Rochester zoo is great and actually a good place to go cool off in the summer (there's a pretty shaded playground and water play area in the center of the park.)  We'll probably get a membership when Rowan turns 2 (he's free until then.)  I took him there a few weeks ago on a Saturday morning and he actually did really well.  He was very good about getting in and out of the stroller so he could check out animals.  Actually, he was more into just running around than looking at animals, but at least he was in a good mood and cooperated with moving around the park.  He did say hello to several animals, including the tiger, the snowy owl, and the penguins.

(Rowan was busy running in circles.)

A cute little turtle!

Playing on big slides with big kids