Movin' and more

Sorry to be out of touch for soooo long. We of course had a wonderful time visiting all of our family this summer. Rowen was so excited to see everyone and gave Lucie a special nick-name, "Ducie". Which he still uses around the house and will often talk about "Ducie". We got to all the grandparents and that was great for Mr. Rowen. And we were able to share in the great joy of Whitney and Jacob's wedding! What a perfect day. And of course Aunt Lisa soaked up much Rowen time. And Rowen loved seeing the twins!

Rowen is talking up a storm. We can no longer keep track of the number of words he knows. He now says 3-4 words in a row. He will say, "Sit right here", "Where did Jacob go", "all better dear", and "one more book please".

I wanted to share with you a random collection of stories about Rowen - to give you a flavor of life with Mr. Rowen.

In no particular order....

1. When we came back from vacation, Rowen changed to a "toddler room" at school. He is now a "Duck" and has two new teachers. He moved with all of this friends, which made the transition easier. After the first day, Bryan and I went to pick up Rowen. I asked the teacher, "What will you be focusing on this year in class". She said, "this year the kids will learn all their numbers, colors, and shapes". I stopped and just looked at her for a minute. And she said, "We realized today- Rowen already appears to know his numbers, colors, and shapes. Today, he was the only one that knew the answers. We will begin to work on letters later in the year". Ahhh....only 22 months and already bored at school, what to do with our little genius?

2. Since he was about 18 months we have been working with Rowen for "patience stretching". I read this in a parenting book as a stratigy to help avoid tantrums. We indicate this by saying, "One minute Rowen". He has done well with this. He likes to feed Titan in the evenings. So one night he was filling Titan's bowl, one little Rowen hand full at a time. And Titan was eagerly waiting...Rowen turns to him and says "One minute Titan". Priceless!

3. Rowen was looking out the window and saw a spider on the rail out side. He would then lean away form the window and say "where spider?" Then lean back in to see out the window and say , "OH, Right There!". Over and over again.

4. We brought Rowen to the new house for the first time and we stayed for about 20 minutes. A few days later we had Priscella over to watch Rowen while we got things organized for the move. She said, "Rowen you are moving to your new house?" And Rowen said, "New House YELLOW". He was right. It is yellow. I had never even noticed. Amazing, he is always taking it all in.

5. We have on occasion let Rowen watch video's on internet (YouTube). He loves to see pictures of trains running, helicopters flying, and a video short of the song "monkeys jumpin' on the bed". Today we were looking at flash cards and Elmo was sitting at a computer. I said, "Rowen, what is Elmo doing". Of course, "Five monkeys jumpin' on the Bed, Elmo- five monkeys."

6. Rowen has mastered taking turns. When he wants somthing that you are doing or working on he will say, "Rowen Turn! Rowen Turn!". Which, by the way sounds like "Momen Turn!"

7. When Rowen falls or hurts himself, I will often ask "Can you shake it off? Do you need a kiss?" The last time he hurt himself, he said "Kiss MaMa". So I gave him a kiss and without thinking much about it I said, "All better dear". Then he started pretending to hurt himself, asking for kisses and saying, "all better dear". He then would take his teddy bear bump his head on something, kiss teddy and say, "all better dear".

8. And finally, snuggles. In the morning sometimes we will bring Rowen into bed for "snuggles" before getting the day started. Now (fortunately or unfortunately), he stands in his crib every morning and hollars, "NUGGLES Mommy, NUGGLES!" Who could resist!