Whew, the holidays

Well, I've finished with 1st christmas. That one was here at my parent's in Texas. I had to work xmas day, so I got up an hour early and everyone got up with me. We opened presents pretty quickly and then I ran off to work. I'm pretty sure that everyone else got to take a nap while I worked on my feet for 12 hours. :) It was worth it though.

Eric and Rowan had 1st christmas too. They opened a few presents and went to dinner at one of our neighbor's house. Rowan of course took all the attention over there. He enjoys being in big groups of people.

On the other hand, Eric dug up some potatoes that he grew this year. This is the picture of one that he found. I'm reasonably sure that our soil is not contaminated with any radioactive waste. It should be just a normal over grown potato :) I think they ate it. We'll see if Rowan gets a growth spurt.

I hope everyone had a safe and happy christmas with their family and friends.

New picture

Here's a picture of Rowan. He loves to climb all over the dogs all the time. They're not so sure about it, but they do really well with him.

Apparently, he really likes grapes. He knows the sign for grapes and makes the sign all the time for Eric. Of course they have not had any grapes for a long time, but Rowan still remembers them and keeps asking for them. It's become a joke between them. Rowan signs "grapes?" and Eric says "nope, no grapes in the house" and Rowan laughs. Hope springs eternal I guess :)

I've been busy working extra shifts to help out at work. It's good for me too, or at least good for the wallet. I'm tired tho.

The busy season

The christmas rush is upon me. I have been working a lot at the hospital. I try to pick up a few shifts, but when they need me, I'm tired, and when I can work, they don't need me. Seems crazy. Mom and I have been busy at the house baking and setting up decorations. We have the outside ones up, and will move to the inside ones shortly. Mostly, I'm just trying to stay busy to not miss my guys. They are doing really well.
Rowan has transitioned to one nap a day. I'm not sure if that's easier or harder :) Eric is teaching him all kinds of animal sounds. He now knows owl (whoo whoo), snake (sssssss), goat (hahaha), and wolf (ooow ooow). I think it's really cute and funny. Eric says whenever he sees an animal in a book or when he's out, he makes their sound. I guess lots of animals look like horses to him, he neighs a lot :)
Eric is very busy trying to keep the cats away from Rowan. I hear he likes to throw things at the cats and pull on their tails. Hopefully that won't continue for very long.
I don't have any pictures right now, Eric hasn't had time to send me any. Oh, but the other news is that Rowan is finally getting another tooth. So all that crankiness and fussiness has been for a reason. Whew! I thought we might have to return him for another model if that didn't stop soon! Just kidding!
Love to everyone and Merry Christmas!!

Turkey day update

Well, Rowan was only sick for about a day and a half. Thank goodness. Eric is glad that he didn't get sick too. Eric and Rowan are doing generally pretty good. The only big problem is that Rowan is having a lot of trouble sleeping. He's usually pretty good at getting 10-11 hours of sleep at night, and lately it's only about 8, and waking up in the middle of the night too. His naps are only 45 minutes for the most part. He used to get between 3 and 5 hours of sleep in naps throughout the day. He wakes up cranky and crying, although he gets better and is happy most of the day. Every few days he'll have a good 3 hour nap, but that's probably only because he's so tired. We thought it might be teething, but it's been going on for a long time. The pediatrician's nurse said that teething shouldn't wake him up in the middle of the night. Eric has an appointment for him in two weeks, but we're not sure if we should have him seen earlier. And what are they going to tell us to do anyway?

But, Eric is happy he's able to spend time with Rowan. They are reading a bunch of books. Rowan knows which ones he likes to read and brings them to Eric. Rowan "helps" out with the chores and follows Eric around the yard feeding the chickens and goats.

I miss them both a whole lot. It's only 5 more weeks till I see them again. I go back to Idaho on the 30th of December. I'm not sure where I'll find another assignment yet. I'm looking for one closer to home this time.

I have a few pictures of Rowan that Eric sent. There are new ones on Rowan's site as well. (The link is to right of my posts)

As for Turkey day, Eric is cooking a turkey with all the trimmings for him and Rowan. Mom and Dad are cooking here for Jude and I, and a few other family members.

I hope everyone else gets to spend time with family and enjoy a wonderful day.

Happy Thanksgiving

Love to Everyone

Catch up time

Ok, maybe I'll get better again. I was afraid that I would be bad at this blogging thing. I'm actually impressed that I've kept it up this far.

These are just some pics of Rowan during bath time and at Chuck E. Cheese's

Since my last blog, Mom and I took Rowan to see Thomas the Tank Engine. It was a lot of fun and Rowan got some pictures in front of Thomas. We rode Thomas for a half hour train ride. I'm sure he had no idea what was going on, but the pictures are cute. There was a petting zoo with miniature horses. He thought they were cool. He also got a "tattoo" of Percy the engine on his arm. For a few days he would point to it when you asked where his tattoo was.

It rained one afternoon, and since I didn't let him play in the mud the day we took him to Chuck E. Cheeses, I figured he needed to play in the mud. He had a great time.

Oma took him to the military base one day and they had a fire prevention day and gave him a hat. He doesn't like hats too much, so he's not very happy with it on, but he looks cute anyway.
We took him to a pumpkin patch for "picture day" He liked all the pumpkins and really liked pulling off the price stickers. I guess pumpkins aren't supposed to have stickers on them. I figured he should have the experience of carving a pumpkin. I cut open the pumpkins and let him "help" me clean them out. He wasn't enthused about the slimy stuff in the pumpkins, but he liked the idea of the spoon in the pumpkin.

Then we had Halloween. Rowan was dressed as a cow, a costume that Oma and Opa had bought him for this year when he was only 2 weeks old. He didn't seem to mind the outfit, but he wasn't too sure about Mommy being dressed as a farmer. He got to go trick or treating with his cousin's and seemed to get the idea of going up to the door, but would turn right around and head out again. He didn't know that he was supposed to wait for candy. He had no fear of any of the costumes that night, I guess he just figured everyone was being weird, so whatever:)

The next week, Rowan and I flew home to see Eric. Rowan was very glad to see his Daddy. He follows him everywhere and cries when he goes out a door. They have a lot of fun together. Which is a good thing. Eric has missed Rowan and me so much this last 4 months. He can't do anything about me being gone, but he asked to keep Rowan this last bit of my contract. I think they'll have a great time getting to know each other better. My contract is up the end of December, so it'll be about 7 weeks of them being alone together, and me just being alone. I just left them yesterday about 10:30am. I already feel lonely.

Of course, no sooner do I leave than Rowan gets sick. He started early this morning throwing up and crying all night long. Eric took him to urgent care and he has "the bug that's going around". As Eric says, there's always a bug going around. He's supposed to be on pedialyte and water for a day or two. Of course, the baby didn't get the memo that food will just upset his stomach, so he's cranky from being tired, sick and now hungry. Eric's doing great. I guess if they make it through this, they'll make for the 7 weeks.

I'll try to update again with how the monkey is doing with "the bug"

It's been a long, long time

well, um, yeah, so it's been over a month since I've blogged. It's one of those things, you wait a while, then you realize it's been a long time. Then before you know it, it's been a month.

Well, Rowan and I went home to New Plymouth in September for 2 weeks. We had lots of fun. We took Rowan to the Discovery center in Boise. Eric and I got more out of it than Rowan did. I don't have any pictures, they're still on the camera at home. We mostly just spent some time with Eric. Rowan loves spending time with his Daddy. His favorite thing is to bring him a book and show Daddy all the things he wants named. Dog, cat, airplane, and so on. It's pretty cute.

Rowan learned to blow his train whistle while we were home. He doesn't blow very hard, but you can hear the whistle. I think it's pretty amazing for a one year old to blow a whistle.

We came back to Longview, Tx the end of September. I'll be here until the end of December and will go home for a week the first part of November. We've been just hanging around mostly while I work.

Last week we had a lot of fun. Mom and I decided that he might be old enough to go to Chuck E. Cheese's. So first we stopped by Aunt Vivian's house. The sprinklers were on and Rowan found out he likes sprinklers. That was fun, but when we left the house, he couldn't find the sprinklers and went looking for them. Needless to say, he found his first mud puddle, just as we're leaving to go to Chuck E. Cheese's. So now it's a wardrobe change and wipe off.

Now, we're at Chuck E. Cheese's. There's a mechanical horse that looks like fun. Mom put him up on it and he wasn't so sure about it. I put a coin in and he started crying and reaching to get off. Ok, no mechanical rides, I guess. So we sit down to eat and guess who comes out to see the kids? Of course, Chuck himself. Well, Rowan decides he's about the scariest thing ever. I had to take him out of the high chair he was so upset. He watched that wierd mouse person all the way around the restaurant until he went back stage. So later I tried to put him in another ride, but there was a plastic Chuck in it and he didn't like that at all. He did enjoy walking around and watching people play the free throw game and the skee ball game. He figured when people put their tokens on the ground, they were fair game. He managed to upset several other little kids that way. But, I think overall he enjoyed most of it. We just have to keep a look out for giant mice men :)

Well, that's all we've really done of big interest so far. I'll try to be better with blogging from now on. I'm trying to add pictures, but blogspot is having issues. I'll put some up in the next blog :)

First Birthday pictures

Here are pictures from Rowan's birthday party. Here he is dressed for the "Train" party. Everyone kept asking if he likes trains. I said "well, I found train stuff at the party place, so yes, he likes trains" :) He looked so cute in his conductor outfit that Oma found. He didn't like the hat very much.

He really hates to wear hats most of the time.

Here is the cake that we made. It took me all day to bake and ice this baby. Whew!! I had so much fun though! I thought it came out pretty good for my first attempt at using piped icing. This is Rowan with cake and icing all over. Oma finally got the icing in his hair with "Rowan, where's your head?" That brought his hand right to the top of his head. :) She's been working on that all summer. All that hard work finally paid off.

I found the trick to keeping a hat on. You must first fill both hands with something to keep him occupied. Then he looks really cute. I wish we had thought of that before the cake. I had to remove the outfit. It looked as if he had been attacked by a birthday cake. He kept signing "please" for more cake. He was on a sugar high for another hour after the cake :)

I want to thank all the people who came to his party and brought such wonderful gifts. He definitely will not want for anything if this is the show of love and support that he has. Thank you again everyone for making his first birthday so much fun for us.

Vacation time

Rowan and I had so much fun while we were in Boise. At the zoo, Rowan actually saw and watched some of the animals. He really enjoyed the penguins. He also rode his first carousel. He wasn't so sure about that at first, but then started to get into it. After the zoo, there was a Soul Food Extravaganza in the same area as the zoo. Rowan apparently likes jumbalaya, red beans and rice and cajun chicken.

The big news is that Rowan is really walking now. He does so good. He can change direction, stop and start again and even pick something up off the floor without falling over. It's amazing how quickly he picked it up. It really seemed as if he was just waiting to see his daddy before he took off with the walking bit.

We got back to Dallas without much drama at the airports. Both flights were delayed, there was no running between gates, and it took forever to get the luggage off the plane. But Rowan was a trooper and everyone on the planes was very nice to us and let him get away with all kinds of stuff. They all think he's just the cutest thing in the world. I totally agree, of course, but I'm really glad that he doesn't really understand that yet. His head would be so huge!!

It has been so hot here in Texas. The temps are up to 100, but the heat index is something like 103. It always seems like a good idea to stay inside. We did get the pool out and Rowan got in the pool. He wasn't so sure about it, he didn't want to sit down. But today he sat down and splashed and splashed and giggled. He had a good time.

This past weekend my cousin, Mike, had a big backyard bar-b-que. There was a large mostly empty swimming pool. All the younger cousins were splashing around all over and getting rough. Rowan was fascinated. He watched for a long time. This picture is him with Brooke, a cousin. We all had a great time.

Made it home

We made it to Boise airport on time, by the skin of our teeth. We got off the plane in Denver at 7:20. Our next flight was listed as "on time" at 7:30. We were 20 gates away. All I can say is thank goodness for the moving walkways. Also, the plane boarded late. We showed up at the gate huffing and puffing, but on time. Whew!!
Rowan did great, slept the whole first flight. Was awake the entire second flight and fell asleep in the car on the way home, then slept all night until 6:30 am. Not bad for him. He was very glad to see his Daddy.
Then, last night after dinner, we had a mini, pre-birthday party for him. He ate carrot cake. Well, ate may be an exaggeration. He had it everywhere, which is what you do with birthday cake. We have a lot of it on video.
Eric got him a push-n-ride train that steers and makes all kinds of sounds. It's great, Rowan loves it and walked several steps toward it. He also got a nest of stuffed dinosaurs. He thinks it's great to lay on top of it and take power naps. While he was high on carrot cake, he was walking a lot. We'll see if he keeps it up today.
Today we're going to the zoo and a Soul Food Extravaganza in town. Should be a lot of fun. It's only going to be about 95 degrees today. :)

Somber Monkey

Rowan is moving around more and more on his feet. He prefers to hold onto something and walk along, but if it's not too far away, he'll take a few steps on his own. He's even able to take a few steps and stop and think about what else he wants to do.

Last week, Mom and I took Rowan and had some pictures taken. He was pretty stingy with the smiles, but the photographer was really good at getting the few smiles onto film. We had quite a few interesting expressions. He kept us all on our toes trying to make him smile.

I've been busy this weekend. I worked Sunday through Tuesday. Mom told me after my last blog, that maybe I shouldn't blog right after a three in a row work week :) I'm tired but it was a good few shifts. Rowan and I leave tomorrow to go to Boise. I can't wait to see Eric, it's been two months. Next time, I'll make sure that I get a break earlier in the contract. Whew!

One really crappy week

I had a really tough three days at work this week. I had several difficult patients all three days. Thank goodness for the two or three really nice patients that made up for the difficult ones. Friday was so busy and a couple of patients kept me running. It seemed that as soon as you sent one patient home, another one was waiting in the hall while the room was being cleaned. I spent a lot of time with some patients who felt that we should have better food, a bigger room, a nicer nurse, and "what's all the noise about" why can't you shut that thing off? Why do I have to be here? When can I smoke a cigarette? I don't have to put up with that!" People who don't want to do what the doctor ordered, but want to get everything that they want NOW!

I usually don't have too much trouble with these types of people. I found that if you can let them have some choices, they start to feel like they have some control over this horrible thing that has happened. But with three or four of these, for three days in a row, I really had reached the end of my rope by 7pm tonight.

Then to cap it all off, I was walking out of the hospital to the car. I go past the emergency department to the parking lot. There was a family and one person was crying very loudly with the kind of cry you only connect with someone who's had a great loss. I've been close to tears all day and that just ended my day very badly.

Thank goodness that when I come home, Rowan has a great big smile for me. It doesn't quite make the day dissappear, but I can laugh with him for an hour before he goes to bed. He's very much into making things with wheels move around. He loves to push cars and trucks all over the floor.

Here's a picture of him eating an m&m. He got the blue all over his face :) Also, you can see some of the impetigo on his nose and ear. That has all cleared up now. He just has a little bit of redness that shows up when he's excited or hot.
I hope I didn't depress anyone too much. I just needed to vent a little to a whole bunch of people. I hope everyone else has a good week.

HE DID IT!!!!

We were all over at my Aunt and Uncle's house last night. My cousin Mary Beth was playing with Rowan and she had him standing and facing toward the dog and me. He was taking a few steps with her help and then she let him go and he took two steps all on his own!! He did it again tonight. I never thought I could be so proud of a couple of steps :)
I'm sure in a couple of weeks, I'll be saying I wish he was crawling again. It was just such a surprise after watching him stand there and think about it, but decide that he'd rather crawl.
Also, the impetigo looks so much better now. At least he doesn't look like a leper anymore. He just has a small sore on his nose left. Now I can take him out and not worry that everyone is gonna ask what's wrong with him. Whew!
Oh yeah, and he's now found his voice. He has become very loud, and he loves to tell you all about his day. When Mom and Dad were first taking him to church with them, everyone commented on how quiet he was. Not so anymore. It's a challange now to keep him in his "inside voice" :) I think it's pretty cute how he tells me about what he's doing.

long time, no blog

Ok, so it's been forever since I've been able to get on to the internet. My mom's internet service has been out since last Monday. It finally came back on yesterday, but I worked all day. Whew, this working thing can be a big drag sometimes :P

We've been trying to get used to the high humidity and all the rain this season. Everyone here in Texas keeps telling me about the horrible drought of the last couple of years and I should be glad it's not so dry this year :) Ok, but I'm thinking about building an ark. Wasn't it 30 cubits, by 300 cubits? And I don't think I can hammer that well.

On the other hand, Rowan has been dealing with some sores on his ear, nose and parts of his face. First we thought it was bug bites, so we've moved him out of his room and sprayed for bugs, steam cleaned the carpet and washed everything we could. Then, the sores just weren't healing right. I finally broke down and took him to the doctor today. Of course, we're between insurances right now. This couldn't have happened two weeks ago or three weeks from now. But anyway, the final diagnosis is Impetigo. At least it was something worth taking him in for. I feel better paying for a doctor bill knowing it's not just a worried mom thing. The doctor said that it should look better in a couple of days. So no pictures of the monkey today. He looks like he has leprosy and should be ringing a bell where ever he walks.

On the Idaho front, Eric saw an ad for a dog that needed a home. After some discussion, we decided to try Maggie out. She's another great dane, blue merle, like Morgan and only 2 years old. She's been playing with Morgan like crazy, Eric says. I think when Morgan reaches her full growth, with the 4 dogs, we'll have around 500 lbs of dog! Wow! I can't wait to meet her. Here's a picture of her.

Rowan and I will be taking a quick trip up to see Eric the first week in August. I guess we'll have to celebrate our anniversary, Eric's birthday and Rowan's birthday all at once :) It'll be nice to be in a dry climate again.

At Oma and Opa's

Rowan is standing up quite well now. He's able to stand up without holding onto anything, for a little bit anyway. He hasn't taken any steps with out holding onto something yet, but I'm sure he's close. He likes to wait until he's really ready, then he just takes off. I'm sure that two days after his first step, he'll be all over the place. I don't have a picture of him standing just yet. Soon, though.Here he is with a chocolate chip cookie that Oma gave him. Looks like fun, doesn't it?

One thing he's doing is prefering to go to Oma or Opa rather than his own mother! Of course, this usually happens after being with them all day while I'm at work. He leans over to come to me, but as soon as he's sure I'll take him, he wants to go right back to Oma. Hmmm. I'm sure this is just a phase, right?

On the plus side, I've been able to get Yahoo IM to put our webcam online. This way Eric can see Rowan. If anyone else wants to chat with me on Yahoo, my login name is bluprnc. The webcam even works on dial up connections. It's not great, but it's better than nothing :) Hopefully, I'll see someone online soon.

Settling in

Well, here is a picture of Rowan sitting in a chair with my cousin Mary Beth. He really likes her a lot. She plays with him and talks to him. He thought the best thing about that chair was that he could lean all the way back and touch his head to the floor.
He has been having a lot of fun most of the time. He loves to meet new people and there are always different people around here.
Here he is helping Opa cut the grass. Oma thought they were a perfect match in their bib overalls. Maybe we should get some overalls for Opa with Winnie the Pooh on them to match Rowan's? That would be a sight to see, wouldn't it? Anyway, Rowan liked the ride on the mower. I remember riding the mower at my aunt's farm when I was little, too. One of my best growing up memories.
Here Rowan is with Mojo. Mojo lets Rowan pull on him and climb all over him. And they share toys and kisses too! Rowan also signed his first word the other day. Of course his first word would be "dog". He's done it many times since, so it's not just a fluke. Imagine, not quite ten months old and already signing! I can't wait until he signs more words. I've been working hard, getting used to working day shift. Uggghhh! I don't really like the getting up at 5:30 am to get to work. Although, for some reason getting up at 5:30 pm would be no problem. Go figure. :) Oma and Opa are having a great time with Rowan. We are getting close to teaching him that he's not supposed to eat the dog food, but he thinks it's great to spread the kibbles all over the floor and spill water everywhere, too.

Start of the hot, wet summer

Well, it sure has been a busy week!!!
I worked Wednesday, Thursday and Friday nights and came home Saturday morning, finished packing and tried to get a couple of hours of sleep. That didn't work. For some reason, I couldn't fall sound asleep. So I got up, Eric drove Rowan and me to the airport and said our good byes for most of the summer. It's exciting and a little scary too. At the airport, we asked if there was an earlier flight to Dallas. Our original one had us coming in at 11 pm and having to drive another 2 hours to mom & dad's house in Longview. I was not looking forward to getting to their house somewhere between 1 and 2 am. Ugghhh! There was an earlier flight, but that only gave me about 1/2 an hour to get to my connecting flight. But the plane would land at 8pm. I decided to go for it. We ended up getting in about 12:30am. Better any way.
Rowan was very good on the first flight. He played with the 6 year old girl sitting next to us the whole way. He was in a very good mood. At Salt Lake, he was a little confused with the run through the airport and not very happy that he didn't have time to crawl around before getting on the next flight. Also, he wanted a bottle, which I hadn't had time to make for him. The flight attendant wasn't able to get any warm water for him until the plane levelled off. By then he was screaming and the whole plane was willing to wait while she made him some warm water! He got his bottle and went right to sleep. He slept almost the entire rest of the way. He really does travel pretty well.
We got into Dallas, were picked up by Mom's Taxi, went to eat at the five star restaurant, Denny's and drove home to Longview. Rowan and I slept most of the way. We were able to take Sunday and get some much needed rest for both of us.
I started the new job today. I oriented to the hospital and met my boss. I have my schedule for the next few weeks. Basically, they fit me in wherever they needed me. I'm a little split up, but it's not too bad. At least it's not Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday!! That would be horrible. :)
I have tomorrow off, and I don't know if I'm gonna try to rest some more, or go out with Mom. I guess we'll see if the draw of shopping is bigger than the draw of sleep. Hmmm....
Pictures to come soon, I hope. Rowan is starting to cover his face with his hands. It's pretty cute and Oma is trying to teach him to blow kisses. Opa feeds him bananas, whole of course! And Uncle Jude makes faces at him. He and the dog are sharing toys. She takes them right out of his hands or mouth, whatever the case may be.

The newest one!!

Well here it starts again. We found a home for Kharma, the lab that we had adopted last summer. She found a really good home with another lab and three cats. Also, Christine's decided she needed to move into a house closer to town. That means we'd be down to two dogs. Tigger is getting older and Gwen needs someone younger to help keep her on her toes. We thought we'd just keep an eye out for something interesting. Well, of course as soon as we decide to look around we found an ad for mastiff/great dane cross puppies. We went to see them and fell in love with a merle female. Her name is Morgan. She's about six weeks and 12 lbs and loves to chew on Rowan and Kayleigh. They like to chase her around too. It's hard to believe that this little puppy is gonna grow to be over 100 lbs!! We're looking forward to watching her grow and learn with Rowan. Her parents are very friendly and very big! She's spending a lot of time sleeping, eating and pooping. Sounds very familiar. The good news is she's already sleeping through the night. That's much better than Rowan or Kayleigh ever did :)

Summer News!

Well, the biggest news of the week is that Rowan and I are going to spend 3 months in Texas with my mom and dad. Eric and I had talked about needing more income and travel nursing was mentioned. Just on a whim I started looking at different companies and where I could get an assignment. I was hoping for a job somewhere within an hour of Longview, Texas. That’s where mom and dad live. I talked with nine different agencies. Only one had an offer right in Longview. There were a lot of offers in Tyler, about an hour away, and one that I really liked. But in the long run, I decided to take the one in Longview, because of the gas prices and the commute time. It’ll be nice to only have a 10-15 minute commute instead of a 45 minute one. The great part is that I’ll double my income. Eric will be able to get a lot of projects done around the house and maybe pick up some free lance web design work as well. I’m a little scared but excited too. If I like it, I can continue with 13 week assignments where ever I can find people to put me up (or put with me). Or sometimes there are shorter assignments worth more money. Who knows what this could all lead too.

Also, Rowan is pulling himself up on everything now!! Oh my god, I’m not sure I’m ready for a more mobile child. J He’s eating better, too.As long as I disguise vegetables with fruit, he eats it. And Rowan’s big news is that he is finally getting another tooth!! Whoo Hoo!

We're Standing!!

So last week, Rowan was in the bathroom with me and I was looking the other way. I happened to look down at him and he had pulled himself up beside the tub!! As far as I know, that was the first time he had stood up on his own. I finally got some pictures of him doing it. He's so mobile now it's crazy. He knows when he's not supposed to get into something, cuz I say something to him and he looks at me and grins "I'm too cute to be in trouble" He and Kayleigh are great at finding things to get into.

Also, he's eating better. Of course, I can only rely on him eating fruit without protest. He denies the need for vegetables of any kind, except for sweet potatoes. I have found that a half spoon of veggies and a half spoon of fruit goes down, but eventually he figures it out and turns his head to it all until he's absolutely sure there are NO veggies in that spoonful. I suppose he'll learn to like vegetables at some point.

He's having some trouble sleeping at this time too. He wakes up about 4:30 am almost every day. I try to ignore him and wait until at least 6 am. It's hard though, cuz his room is right next to mine. He did better today, he waited until 5:15 am!! Still not even close to when I want to get up :) I guess I'll have to kiss sleeping in bye-bye for a while.

With all his fussiness and not sleeping and not eating, I keep thinking (and everyone tells me) that he's probably teething. Well, I've been thinking that for 2 and a half months, but still no teeth. I guess he's just that way. Any other suggestions?

Where did the time go?

Ok, so I haven't posted in a while. Oops. Time just got out of hand there for a little while. Rowan and I took a trip to see my parents in Texas last week. We were there for 10 days. We just got back on Wednesday. We had a great time. Oma and Opa spent a lot of time with Rowan (I was able to get lots of naps!) Uncle Jude was great with the monkey. Rowan thinks he's pretty funny.

When it comes to projects, Mom and I found out that we've been over enthusiastic with buying material for scrub tops for me. Both of us see material on sale and buy it. So we had a collection of 18 pieces of material for 18 scrub tops. Oops again! I told Mom that since I can't sew, I would cut the patterns out while she sewed them together. We were pretty industrious and I cut out 10 tops and one pair of pants. Mom was able to sew together 5 tops for me before I came home. She's getting ready to go to Delaware and visit a bunch of sisters and brothers for a week. I hope she has fun catching up on all the gossip :)

Just before we left, Rowan had started to crawl. By the time we got home, he's been out of control. He's everywhere now. On one hand, it's so fun to see him able to explore his environment so much more. He really loves to be on the ground and moving now. On the other hand, I really have to keep an eye on him at all times now, cuz he's into everything. Whew!! That's more work. He's so funny. He still is a lazy susan sometimes, especially when he hears me say "what are you getting into?" Then he spins around looking for me to see if he's in trouble :)

Also, I went out to ride the horses, Gus and Maggie. I was riding Gus, when Maggie sat back and broke her lead rope, so Dad spent the rest of the time we were out exercising her and working off all that excess energy. So that was fun and I decided a day or two later to ride again. Dad and I went out together and we were grooming the horses, when Maggie decided she didn't want her feet cleaned, so I was helping when she slammed her hoof down on my foot. So we got her taken care of and I went to get on Gus and the bucket went out from under me and I scraped my other leg on the bucket. Now I'm bruised up all over.

Then, on Tuesday, Mom and Dad drove us to the airport in Dallas, (two hours away from Longview) and we found out that my flight was delayed for an hour and a half. That was ok, I checked in and Mom and Dad started home. Then my flight was delayed another two hours. Now I'm getting concerned. So I go stand in line. Just as I get to the front, my flight is cancelled. They say I can get to Denver, but not home to Boise tonight. I decided to try and stay in Dallas, cuz it would be easier there than Denver. I called Shannon (a cousin who lives very close to the airport) and she was able to rescue Rowan and me. We scheduled a new flight for 7:40 am (YUK!). That one was on time, but the connecting flight was an hour late. So, nearly 24 hours after we start our travelling, we are back home.

Now, I have a nagging cough from being on a plane (aka: flying viral factory) and Rowan's sleep schedule is off and he's not sleeping through the night. Nor is he eating either. He usually eats about 6 bottles a day, plus solid foods. Now he's just eating maybe 2 bottles and some solid food. He's pretty fussy and I don't know if he's sick or tired or both. But he's gonna run Eric ragged this weekend while I'm at work. I just don't know what to do. I tried ibuprofen but it didn't help. Any suggestions anyone?

Well, this blog is so long, sorry. I really should have kept it up more, but it just seemed like too much to do at the time. Now that I'm all caught up, I'll do better! ;)

Also, Rowan's site is updated www.rowanasmith.com

Forward!!

Rowan has finally achieved forward motion. He's been able to get up on his knees lately, but didn't do anything but stay there and then fall down (usually farther away from his goal than when he started) But yesterday we all noticed that he was bouncing back and forth on his knees. And today he really was moving his knees independently and moving forward. He's so happy, he's spending much more time on his stomach now. For the past week or two he's been wanting to sit up, when he would fall over he would cry because he didn't want to be on his stomach.

He finished his antibiotics for his ear infection last Tuesday. While he was on the antibiotics, he hasn't been eating solid foods very well. I thought he might be showing a picky eaters' personality, but it seems that the antibiotics were either upsetting his stomach or making everything taste funny. He's now eating very well again. He ate apples today, he makes funny faces and isn't too sure that people should really eat apples, but he works up to it. Also, today he's making raspberries with us. He had a good day today, except for the waking up at 5 am. UGH!! I wish I had some way of letting him know that really, 5 am is much too early to start the day. Even 6 would be acceptable at this point. And of course I still can't break my habit of staying up late. Although, my late night is now only 10:30 or at the very latest 11:30 instead of 12 or 1 am.

First spring arrivals!!

Well, we started this winter with 8 chickens, two roosters and 6 hens. About a month ago we noticed that we only had 5 hens running around. When we didn't see her for a full week, we decided that she had fallen to one of the many predators around. Yesterday, Eric was doing some yard work and came upon the hen with a bunch of little chicks!! She had sat on ten eggs and hatched 6 of them, through several winter storms, too! He estimates that they are only a few days old.We were going to try and let her raise them free range, but Ollie (one of our great orange hunting cats) thought they would make a nice snack. So Eric chased the hen and the chicks through a wood pile and finally caught all of them and put them in a make-shift cage for a little while. We figure that she hadn't eaten the whole time she was sitting, because once she was in the cage, she ate for a solid hour :) Mom and chicks are doing well. Hopefully we'll have pictures up soon.

A cook out and sick kids

This happened because Rowan was playing on the piano and Kayleigh, of course can't let him have anything without taking it from him. So she sat on his lap to play the piano. He didn't seem to mind much and they were like that for about 5 minutes before Kayleigh got bored! I can't believe how cute they are together sometimes.

In other news, Saturday we went to a neighbor's house for a pit roasted pig cook-out. When we arrived, somehow the fire had gone out in the pit and the pig was raw still. So we had hot dogs and hamburgers instead. The kids both enjoyed the outing. The next day we went back over for lunch and the pig was done this time. It was very good. We're talking about having more pit roasts in the future.

Monday night, Kayleigh was very sick. She got sick in her crib no less than 5 times that night. Christine was just about worn out with staying up with her. So Tuesday, Christine left Kayleigh home while she did some errands. When she came home she didn't feel good and didn't eat dinner. She was sick three or four times before bed time. She felt better on Wednesday. Then Wednesday night, we were keeping Rowan entertained before bed and he got sick all over and had to have his outfit changed. He got sick three times, I think, in about an hour. I put him to bed and checked on him several times, but he only spit up a little bit during the night, and it didn't even wake him up. The long and short of it is, who's going to get sick next? Me or Eric. I have all weekend off, so this might be the best time for me to get sick, I guess. So far so good, no one else is sick.

Oh and on Monday, Eric and I went out and bought another goat. This one is a little older and will be ready to start practicing packing soon. He's a little overweight, so we're trying to condition him. He's very nice. He's a LaMancha goat. The breed sounds spanish, but was really developed here in the states. His name is Gordon. Eric is teaching the younger goats to follow on leashes, and they are doing very well. They are still very funny playing around, but very boisterous. You have to watch your head as Eric found out. He got a chin butt by accident. Mostly they are very good with our kids. They try to untie shoelaces and chew on hair, but Kayleigh thinks they are hysterical

growing fast

The exciting thing this week is that Rowan is getting up on his knees. He doesn't go anywhere when he's up, but he still pushes himself backwards and away from his toys. That doesn't go over very well usually :) Oh yeah, and when I gave him a bath last night, he had so much fun splashing!! I've never seen him have so much fun in the water. He's also getting upset when Kayleigh takes his toys, and he's starting to hold onto them more, which makes her a little upset. I see "fun" times in our future!

On Monday, while Christine slept, Eric and I took Kayleigh and Rowan to the Greenbelt in Boise. It's an 11 mile walking, jogging, biking path along the Boise River with parks and museums and shops along it. Kayleigh had a lot of fun looking at the ducks, she didn't see why she couldn't go into the water after them! Rowan enjoyed the scenery and took a nap. I'm sure he'll enjoy it more as he gets older.

standard week around the farm

Ok, so they didn't find anything wrong with Kayleigh. That's the wonderful news. Of course, now we have no idea why she had blood in her urine. But she's acting fine and is normal in all ways now. Go figure.

We've been busy this week. Eric has had his hands full taking care of and training the goats. They finally have names. The one with white ears is Buzz, the one with black ears is Deke and the brown one is Gus. They are all named after astronauts. They are so much fun. Kayleigh thinks they are hysterical and Rowan isn't sure what to make of them. They nibble on his fingers some. :) I think they're funny when they jump all around and on everything. The chickens have been busy laying eggs, but since they're free range it's our own little easter egg hunt every day!! I think our nieghbors are getting some eggs as well. :) Eric has also been reinforcing the goat's fence to keep them in and loose dogs out. So far so good.

Rowan has been full of life lately. He's learning to crawl now. His arms are pretty strong and he hasn't figured out his legs yet, so he tends to go backwards. He gets pretty frustrated that he's further away from the toy then when he started. And he still is a lazy susan!

I'm about ready to wean him totally to formula. I keep getting frustrated when he doesn't eat well, then I think "that's it! I'll just quit now." but then I don't want the last time I feed him to be when he fought me. So then I wait for a nice easy feeding. But then I think "see, he does fine, why should I quit?" Ha Ha. I think the joke is on Mommy, now. But I finally decided that I would quit when he's 7 months old. That's just a week and a half away, yikes! But I'm sure it'll be easier all around.

Well, the monkey is awake now so I'll talk again soon

What a week!!

We had a very hectic week. Christine's little girl, Kayleigh, had been sick a week or two ago. Then Friday, Christine thought she saw pink in the diaper, but decided it was probably the light. Later that day, she saw it again and we cut the diaper open and it was definatly pink. We called the doctor who said she could see Kayleigh first thing in the morning, but if it got worse to take her to the ER. We agreed to take her in the morning. Christine and I went to work, leaving Eric with both kids. Kayleigh got fussier as the night went on and then she wouldn't go to sleep. Eric decided to bring her in. Christine took off from work and met him there. I was able to take a break and go get Rowan for a visit to my floor, to give them a break. It turned out she had a bad kidney infection, and they sent her home with instructions to follow up on Monday. At this time, we're waiting for the results of some tests. Hopefully it was just a scare. Kayleigh of course is being her usual fun loving self and learning to climb on things. Much to her mother's dismay :)

On the other hand Rowan is learning to be mobile. We can no longer expect him to be where we put him when we put him down. He also spins around on his tummy and we call him the lazy susan. He's learning to eat solid food. He's up to carrots now. He likes to blow a raspberry just as I give him a spoonful and spray me with carrots. That's a lot of fun!! He loves to watch Eric. He was fascinated by Eric vacuuming. I'm not sure if he can't wait to help or make a mess that requires the use of the vacuum. He thinks Daddy is one funny guy! He loves to laugh with Daddy.

Newest additions

So, how could I forget!! Last Monday Eric, Rowan and I went out to a goat farm and came home parents of three 2 week old kid goats. They will be pack goats for Eric and friends for Rowan. They are very cute and funny. They have names from the farm, but we are looking at changing them. Two of them are twin brothers and the third is a male from another mommy. They are having fun climbing on anything in their path and trying to eat anything they find.

I'll update you on them soon

The only day off

So yesterday, Rowan went to the doctor's. He weighs 17 lbs even and is just over 25 inches long. According to the charts, he's 100% average, right at the 50% for height, weight, head size and length. What else do you expect from a kid born to two average height parents :) Of course, he will be brilliant to make up for the averageness in everything else. Actually, we were thinking he was a little slow in the development area. By 5 months he hadn't rolled over, or said any word sounds or responded to his name. But last week he started rolling over every where, we have to watch him close now, and he said "bababa, dadadada," and even started blowing bubbles and giving us the occasional Bronx cheer. It seems he wants to save things up and learn to do things all at once. Who knew?

So today Christine and I sat around with the kids and watched two weeks worth of Grey's Anatomy and ER. I hate to get behind more than one week, otherwise it's easier to just wait for reruns. Tomorrow, Kayleigh has an appointment for her 1 year visit. So I guess we both are going in to get some shopping done and just hang out in town. Of course I just found this out, so now all the laundry I was gonna do tomorrow is not going to get done I guess. Hmm. nothing new. I suppose I should try to get some done tonight, and some done tomorrow, maybe that will get it all.

first post

This is my first post. As usual, I am putting off going to bed and am doing something that I can do some other time. :) Who needs sleep any way? I really don't regret it until the monkey wakes me up early in the morning. Well that's that for the first one