Rowan is 11 months old. Now that he is crawling, he is into everything. Not since Fiona was a baby has the house been examined so thoroughly -- actually, I don't remember Fiona being this adventurous (though there are a lot of things I don't remember). Rowan loves cords, cables, outlets, door stops (best toy ever, boiiiinnng!), cat food (Otis now eats on top of the hoosier cabinet), Fiona's toys (which are STRICTLY FORBIDDEN), Otis's toys, rocks (I've had to dig a few out of his mouth lately), and balls. And of course there are the things that could fall on him: the coatrack, the fireplace grate. And there are the stairs to consider, the hot oven, the toilet brush, the ajar dishwasher door. I can't even open the refrigerator door without him trying to yank things off the first shelf.
So we're all pretty busy: Rowan exploring the world, and Mama making sure he doesn't choke, fall, or get knocked on the head. We spent a week down the shore. The weather was a mixed bag, but the change of scene, with the beach just a half-block away, was pretty great. The boardwalk offered the usual fare: t-shirts with inappropriate messages on them, ice cream, candy, pizza slices the size of your head, salty cheese fries to rival Uncle Britt's preparation at Devils games, minigolf every 200 yards, and amusement park rides. One night, we bought 25 tickets for $20 and let Fiona have at it. She ran from ride to ride: the carousel, the jumping frogs, the roller coaster caterpillar, the boats, the fire trucks. While Fiona was in awe of the Ferris wheel, she decided she was "a little bit afraid" of it, and the weather didn't really cooperate long enough for her to reconsider. Maybe next year.
Rowan at 9-1/2 months is changing at a rapid clip. Who is this big boy? Otis wants to know, too.
Months ago, Rowan went through a brief phase where he would say "Haaaaah" and sort of wave his arm in the air. It was usually a greeting in the morning from his crib, so it seems to safe to say that "Hi" was his first word. Coming in at number 2, there's "Ffffff." This does not mean "Fiona." Like every other infant, Rowan loves ceiling fans. There's one in his room that he gazes at a lot. On Thursday, I picked him up from his crib and he threw his head back to look at the fan, which was on high speed (we went from cold and rainy to hot and humid. Just can't win). I pointed and said, "Fan. Can you say fan?" Lo and behold, he said, "Ffffff." I said, "Yes! Fan!" So he said it again and giggled. Now whenever we go into his room he looks up and says, "Fffff." Bittersweet, and I hesitate to say it's a real word, but let's just say the syllable "ma" is coming out, on repeat. Rowan only ever says it when he's in distress. But he's gotten to the point where he consistently says it in distress. "Mamamamamamama," he'll cry. Argh. Like I said, bittersweet. Fiona's interested in time, though it's still a very confusing concept for her. We tell her, "You can not wake up Mommy and Daddy until the first number on your clock is a 6." She seems to get that and, after a few weeks of popping up at our bedside when the clock said "5" ("The clock needs new batteries!" she'd cleverly but wrongly declare), she is back to getting up at a more reasonable hour.
Sometimes, Fiona looks at the big clock face in the kitchen and announces, "It says 11 and 5." I respond, "Yes. That's 11:25." She likes numbers. We count lots of things, like numbers of bites she has to take of my delicious dinners. "Four more bites," I'll say. She looks at her hands and holds up the correct number of fingers with an inquiring look. Lots of Fiona's sentences begin, "Nexterday, . . ." This is a great word. It covers all of the territory between past and present, "next" and "yesterday," so it really flummoxes the listener. "Nexterday, when I swing on the swing, I got a booboo." Okay. Pretty sure this was "yesterday" or "the other day." Past. But, "Nexterday, at Isaac's birthday, will he have a Spiderman cake?" This was a question that came up prior to Isaac's birthday, so in this case we're looking into the future. Fiona surprised me with her knowledge of language twice today: once when we were reading a book, and she said, "Why is there a zoo?" Sure enough, while the text was about a museum, Fancy Nancy had drawn a map of her town including her house, the museum, and the zoo, indicated with big "Z-O-O" letters. No animals, just the word. Awesome. The second time was when I spelled "Disney" to Brian, explaining that Uncle Britt and Aunt Amy were heading there soon. I'd hoped to avoid the 99 questions that would follow when Fiona heard the name of one of her favorite places on earth. Instead, she said, "Are they going to Disney?" HOW DID SHE KNOW THAT'S WHAT I SAID? Fiona's first ice skating lessons was 1-1/2 weeks ago. It didn't go well. As much as I'd tried to prepare her for the cold reality of walking on slippery ice while wearing blades on your shoes, it didn't sink in until she was doing it. And then the crying started. A gruff woman sort of dragged Fiona along the ice while Fiona gripped a metal frame (a walker) that slid along with her. Finally, the woman called me over so I could wipe Fiona's nose, and that's when Fiona stuttered between sobs that she was too scared and didn't want to skate anymore. Long story short, she ended the session by sitting at the edge of the ice, occasionally standing up while I held onto her. I tried to reassure her that while the prospect of falling was scary, the worst thing that would happen is that she'd get yet another boo-boo to add to her collection of boo-boos.
This week, things are looking up. We went to lesson #2, and the other, sweet young teacher remembered last session's hysteria and did a good job of encouraging Fiona on (the grumpy lady took it upon herself to take a hike. Hooray!). Fiona clutched her walker, but by the end of the lesson, she was clutching the walker and moving along the ice without any prodding. She was smiling and laughing. She liked it. Hallelujah. |
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