Tuesday, April 8, 2014

My Brithday List


One of the reasons I love birthdays is that we as a culture choose to celebrate them...often times in grand fashions.  They are happy occasions.  (Oh yeah, and there's usually cake)  My family would always let the birthday person choose dinner that night, make them their favorite dessert, and of course give presents.  We usually got to bring treats to school too to celebrate with our friends and have a birthday party.

My birthday is next week (the 15th), and I'm super excited for it!  I usually celebrate a birthday month, but I'm a bit behind already so I'll settle for a week or a half month.  But I have to admit, as I've gotten older, it's been harder and harder for me to answer the question "what do you want for your birthday?"  I have always liked the surprise of gifts-not knowing what it could be and finding out what people think I would like and/or use.  Well this year, I have complied a list of things I want for my birthday.

I want people to do something good for another person or the world.  I want my friends and family to perform some service to help make the world a better place.  I would LOVE it if among all my friends and family (and whomever they share this list with), all of the 29 things (in honor of me turning 29) on this list are done sometime next week.  Most of them are pretty small.  Some are a bit bigger.  A lot don't require much (if any) money.  But I can promise even the smallest of gifts on this list can mean the world to some people.  So will you please help me get everything on my birthday list sometime between now and the 19th?

I am going to do all of these sometime between my 29th and 30th birthday.  I want to make sure I've done my part to help make the world better.  If anyone wants to check off all 29 with me, that would be the best birthday present ever! 

Now in the spirit of full disclosure, I can't say I came up with this idea all on my own.  It's been a compilation of quite a few different people and things in my life, but I would really love if my friends and family would help me give some of these gifts next week.  It's really all I want for my birthday.


Thank you, and happy giving!

1. Pay for the order of the car behind you in the drive through
2. Offer to babysit so new parents can have a night out
3. Send a real card or letter in the mail-not for an occasion, but just because
4. Donate blood
5. Call a friend or family member you haven't spoken to for a while
6. Volunteer to help out a neighbor (yard work, cleaning, cooking, running errands, etc)
7. Become a mentor to a youth
8. Donate clothes/house hold items
9. Recycle!
10. Plant a tree/flowers/garden
11. Bring dinner to someone who may need a night just to relax
12. Tip generously and/or leave a note of thanks
13. Thank uniformed personnel for their service
14. Say sorry to someone you've hurt, even if they don't deserve it or you didn't do anything wrong but because they were hurt
15. Donate toiletries to a homeless shelter, diapers to a women's shelter, food to a food bank, pet food to a humane society, and/or money to a charity you support
16. Do a chore someone in your household HATES to do
17. Go out to lunch/coffee with a friend to hear their story
18. Take public transit
19. Donate books to a school or daycare
20. Plan a date for your significant other around their favorites
21. Make something (yarn crafts, fabric crafts, art, etc) for someone
22. Visit a nursing home
23. Give someone flowers or a plant
24. Take your dog to the dog park (aka Doggie Disney Land)
25. Give someone who needs it a hug
26. Let someone jump in line ahead of you at the grocery store
27. Buy local
28. Frame some art done by your child to proudly display on the wall
29. Turn off devices for a night to really 'be with' your family

Saturday, April 5, 2014

Old MacRowan had a farm

Guess Rowan has managed to pick up a few animal sounds along the way. No idea where the pig came from though...



Wednesday, April 2, 2014

Oh yeah...

...and then there's this:

Daddy duck, mommy duck, baby duck, baby duck!
Yup!  Rowan's going to be a big brother!  Again, this baby 'ruined' my plans for running a half marathon in Kansas City in April, but I guess I won't complain too much.

We're due towards the end of September, about 2 weeks after Rowan's birthday.  I guess when Ian and I had talked about having kids 2-3 years apart, we decided to shoot for almost exactly 2 years apart.

Generally I've been feeling good.  All the pregnancy symptoms I had with Rowan are nowhere to be found.  A whole new host of them are.  I am SUPER crabby about 14 hours of the day (thankfully that's getting better...I don't know how Ian would deal with 25 more weeks of a crab-a-potamos living in our house).  If I don't eat, I start to get some major gagging and dry heaves going on.  I was ex.haus.ted. during the first trimester.  My energy is coming back now that we're about 15 weeks long, but it's still not 100%. I am also feeling way bigger way faster than I did with Rowan.  I looked at my profile today and saw a definite belly.  Looking back at 15 weeks with Rowan and I BARELY had a belly.  At this rate, I'll be the size of Texas when we're due.  Oh well.  Give me reason to break out the maternity clothes a bit earlier I guess.

Ian and I are really excited to see Rowan become a big brother.  He loves little babies though he does have a hard time sharing mom.  He had a hard time waiting to be held when I was feeding my newborn niece or nephew, but I can't say I blame him.  He'll adjust as we all will when another little one joins our house.  And who knows, maybe by 2 it will be a little bit better.  It may be worse, but at this point we'll just have to take it day by day and see what the sibling relationship develops into.

18 months

Oh, that mess?  Yeah...I did that.
Well, Rowan is 18...ok almost 19 months old.  He's quite a busy little boy, though his favorite games are to dump toys out of buckets and spread them around the room.  Then you do the same with books.  Then the same with the trains in our bins.  Then you pull things off the couch or table.  In other words, we like to make a mess.  He's pretty good about cleaning them up when you direct him to...some of the time.  Ok,  he's better about it for me than he is for Ian, and he really only listens if I help him clean up...but I'll take what we can get.

He is breaking into toddler hood quite well-including the hesitation to share his toys, shaking he head no, screaming when he doesn't like something, and hitting when he doesn't get his way.  He's definitely testing his boundaries, but responds well to redirection.  That or if we take something away for a few moments he gets mad, but then behaves when he gets it back.  Guess this is where the 'real' challenge of parenting begins huh? 

Goofy little boy
Rowan's still a peanut-weighed in at 21 lb 3 oz at 18 months.  He's pushing 22 pounds now, but he's just a little guy.  Skinny as a rail, but generally eats well.  He'll go in spurts where he eats a lot, and then go in spurts where he boycotts food.  We can usually get him to eat cheese and popcorn during his boycotts though. Well balanced I know, but on a day where he boycotts food we figure calories are calories.  We know in the next day or so he'll be back on track eating and he'll get a good balance of food in. 

Walking at the zoo
He has JUST started to walk.  He's a real stubborn little boy when it comes to walking.  He'll happily walk along with you holding one or both of your hands, but he's real hesitant to walk on his own.  This week (a week before he turns 19 months) he has started to walk on his own for more than 3 steps at a time.  We still have to walk near him or give him something to carry as a distraction, but he's taking a lot more independent steps.  I'm sure we'll have a runner on our hands soon though.  Then it will be time for park days and playing outside...come on spring!!!!!

His words are coming too.  He says please, up, out, mama, dada, nana, banana, cheese, eye, hi, and help.  There are a few other words he 'says' that don't sound right at all.  His word for 'cookie' is WAY off base, but he knows what he's saying and kind of makes the sign along with his word (thanks Rena!).  Most of his words are mostly vowels or soft consonants. But my goodness does that boy jibber-jabber.  We have NO idea what he's saying, but he certainly tells stories.  He tells jokes too.  Ian says he'll be jabbering along and then start to laugh...so whatever he said had to have been hilarious.
Rowan loves Church.  Church...tolerates Rowan.

We did make the decision to get tubes put in his ears this week.  He had back to back double ear infections in February.  That, paired with his struggle learning to walk, limited vocabulary, and constant fluid in his ears-we figured tubes wouldn't be a bad thing.  He handled the surgery well, but was MAD AT THE WORLD when he woke up.  He managed to calm down fairly quickly, once we got back to the room with mom, dad, and a little Elmo on TV.  It's only been a couple of days, but we're looking forward to seeing the changes in his balance and talking. 

So that's that!  We're still pretty amazed by our little boy.  Cannot wait for the nicer weather so we can play outside more!