Time for a cut

Rowan needed a haircut something fierce this week and Angela was only too happy to oblige. When I was a child my father used a razor blade to cut my hair that was encased in a sort of comb-like device. As far as I was concerned it was ripping my hair out. Memories. Rowan does pretty well in the chair with his Yo Cracka Cracka playing. With his new styling, he looks like a much more professional toddler.

Happy Birthday Grammy Donna

Happy Birthday Grammy Donna. Since Rowan wouldn't sing over the phone, here it is via the interweb.

H1N1

As Facebook followers already know, Angela came down with what is likely H1N1 last Thursday and spent all of Friday through Sunday in bed. She has been up and about since Monday so hopefully she'll be back to normal soon. While she was out of it, I assumed command of the household and did an admirable job keeping order. Between keeping the kids fed, napped, bathed, changed, and keeping the house clean, I was tuckered out at the end of the day. They call it women's work for a reason I guess. The rest of the family has shown no flu signs and Angela is walking around in facemask as a precaution.

UPDATE: This post was originally written Monday night. As of Tuesday, Angela is back to feeling poorly. Not as bad as the weekend, but still tired.

In Recovery

Sorry for the lack of posting. I've been busy recuperating from surgery on my wrist for carpal tunnel. Either that, or I was bitten by a tiny badger. It's kind of hard to tell from the picture.

I'm surprised by how much it doesn't hurt anymore. After I got my stitches out today, the nurse said that I could go without my brace during the day, as long as I wasn't lifting anything heavy or doing repetitive tasks. I'm so happy that I don't have to wear the brace for three weeks continuously, which is what the doctor led me to believe. And that's a good thing when you're taking care of two little rambunctious kids.

While I was at the doctor's, Jeff took the kids to Best Buy. Over the past few weeks, we've become very familiar with the two-kid shopping carts available at the various retailers in the neighborhood. I think Best Buy wins the award for the coolest. It also appears to be easier to wrangle the kids in this configuration, since they sit up near the parent, facing forward to see where they're going.

Locked Out

Last week, I was having lunch at home with Rowan (Lydia was down for a nap) and I went outside to get the paper off the driveway. Since we have kitties in the house, I made sure to close the door behind me so George couldn't escape. When I came back, I turned the doorknob and it was LOCKED. The cleaning ladies must have locked the doorknob when they left our house earlier in the week, because we never lock the doorknob, only the deadbolt (a handy tip for all those burglars out there reading our blog).

After panicking for a second, I realized that Rowan knows how to open doors now and he could open it for me. Unfortunately, he's only strong enough to open interior doorknobs and the outside knob was too stiff for him to turn it far enough to unlatch.

"Help me, Mommy!" I could hear him say through the door. "Oh sweetie, I need YOU to help ME!"

Then I got the bright idea of having him flip the deadbolt on the door to the back porch. Luckily the screen door was unlatched so I had Rowan go into the family room to help me. I asked him to drag the small white ottoman over to the door so he could reach the bolt. It was too heavy and again he asked me to help him. Since I couldn't, he started to get frustrated and I could tell he was on the verge of giving up and crying.

I started wracking my brain about what I could do to get in the house. Our spare key is at the Browns' house at the end of the street, but I wasn't sure if Aaron was home, plus I didn't want to leave the kids while I went to retrieve it. That left breaking a window– but then I remembered that Rowan's little blue chair was under the other door out to the porch and excitedly told Rowan to go over and try it.

He ran over and got up on his chair and tried turning the bolt. After a couple of tries, he was able to flip it open and let me in. Yay, my little hero!

Candy Candy, It Goes Crazy in your Tummy

After having a dinner of Whoppers (the malted milk kind, not the Burger King kind), I can truly say that the Yo Gabba Gabba song speaks the truth. I can't believe how much candy we have now. Rowan really got into the swing of trick-or-treating this year, even approaching doors on his own and saying "Trick or treat!" and then "See you later!" We hit most of the houses in our neighborhood, and Rowan's pumpkin was almost full.



I figured we'd go to five or six houses, Rowan would get bored and we'd come home in time to give out candy to our own trick-or-treaters, but Rowan stayed out for more than an hour. As a result, I gave away almost none of my 100-count bag of candy. So not only do we have Rowan and Lydia's massive stash to eat, but our own as well. Rowan said he is up for the challenge and ate three and a half Reeses' Cups before I noticed what he was doing. No word yet on how crazy his tummy is feeling.

Lydia wisely stuck to carrots:


Thanks, Emilee, for hosting the pre-party. It was a lot of fun to trick-or-treat with a group of other parents (the Browns, the Becks and the Johnsons). Emilee has a bunch of great photos over at Lolapalooza.

Art Lover

Tomorrow morning, Marmie and Grandfather are leaving on an exciting trans-continental trip to see Uncle Wesley in San Francisco. They have decided to entrust the care of their three favorite children to Jeff and I while they're gone. Seeing as how they're cats and do not need of a lot of attention, I feel confident in our ability to care for them adequately.

Major Skiffington is seen here trying to worm his way into my affections by admiring my favorite painting that I did while in college. Brown noser.

All Aboard the Potty Train

Overheard recently in the Brown household:

"Mommy! I have to go potty!"
"Okay, Rowan. You go ahead, I can't get up right now because I'm feeding Lydia."
(continues playing)
"I need a nakkin!"
"Don't worry, I'll clean it up in a little bit."
(retrieves a kleenex from the bathroom)
"I got a nakkin!" (cleans the little puddle on the floor) "I cleaned it up, Mommy!"
"Okay, good job, Sweetie."
(sound of kleenex being thrown away in the trash can)
"I gotta use the potty!"
"Go ahead, I can't get up right now."
(sound of liquid pouring into a plastic training potty)
"I did it! I went potty!"
"Yay Rowan, I'm so proud of you!"
"You want to come see it?"
"In a second. I'm still feeding Lydia."
(drags potty out into the hallway)
"Look, I went potty!"
"Yes, I see it, great job. Now be careful, you don't want to spill it."
"Empty it!"
"Oh, I will in a second. Just leave it there, and I'll get it."
"I do it." (Takes the plastic bowl out of the potty. Mommy holds her breath, anticipating urine all over the floor. Sound of liquid pouring into the toilet.)
"I poured it out."
"Great job, Honey."
(reassembles the training potty and runs over to the couch)
"I went potty, Mommy!"

Peak Fall Color in Ohio

Thanks to the cool, wet summer, the fall foliage around here has been outstanding. I was pleased to see that our big ash tree at the new house turns bright yellow in the fall, and that Dodie had seen fit to plant a red maple in the back yard. All we need is a sugar maple, and this yard will look perfect in the fall. One of the benefits (or drawbacks, depending on if you do the yard work or not) of having some mature trees, is that we have plenty of leaves to rake into a big pile. And this year, Rowan is big enough to enjoy playing in them. (And Lydia is big enough to enjoy eating them.)


Grumpa's chairs are the perfect color to compliment the fall foliage.


Rowan recites his poem, "Ode to a Yelyow Tree".


Lola comes over to play in the leaves, too.




All in all, it was a couple of perfect fall days, only marred by the fact that Daddy was in a meeting in North Carolina and had to miss the whole thing.

Rite of Passage, Part II

She's not at the point that Rowan was in this video, but she's working on it. She's crawled up a step or two before getting bored with the whole process. Luckily I was nearby to help her down or she would have tumbled backwards and had a nasty bruise for Mommy to explain to the doctor.

Also, I wanted to show Grammie Donna that she can still wear her sweater and hat from last spring. For a couple more months, at least.

Rite of Passage

This looks very familiar...

Try a Plane Day

Sadly for Rowan, that's not exactly true. We met the Browns and the Becks over at the Air Force Museum for Family Day on Saturday. After all the fun at Try a Truck Day last weekend, Rowan figured that this was going to be more of the same, only with airplanes. Even though he was the cutest fireman there, I don't think the elderly museum guards would have appreciated it if Rowan rushed the barriers and started putting his grimy paws on the antique planes.

Family photo with a Flying Tiger:



Afterwards, we met for lunch at Beef O' Brady's. This kind of looks like Lydia and Sam are on a date, doesn't it? Since Sam is almost twice as old as Lydia, he might be a little old for her right now.

Busy Boy

Rowan's got a lot of things to do every day, so multi-tasking is a must.

Sleep Study

Daylight Savings Time is coming up soon, so I've decided to beat the rush and start fretting about it right now. When we were younger, the best time change was in the fall, because you could stay out and party later and then sleep in longer in the morning. With kids, it's the opposite, because they have no sense of time – their bodies wake up at the same time every day (more or less) independent of the numbers on the clock. So a 7:00 wakeup time for Rowan suddenly becomes 6:00... A.M.!

The biggest problem is that ever since I was pregnant with Lydia, I have needed massive amounts of sleep. Eight hours is a minimum for me to function during the day. When Rowan was still in his crib, I was able to train him to hang out and wait for me to get him between 7 and 7:30 every morning. This even carried over to when he was in the big boy bed. But after Rowan gave up his pacifier a few weeks ago, mornings have been somewhat of a struggle. Without that soother, he won't roll over and go back to sleep anymore, and will instead stand next to the door and cry and yell for Daddy to "Open the door!" (we have a child-proof doorknob thingy on his side of the door). If this goes on long enough, it'll wake up Lydia, which makes Mommy VERY unhappy.

So Mommy, being the genius that she is, decided to put a little stool under the light switch so he could turn the light on, which would make it easier for him to play with toys and read books quietly (so as not to wake up me and Lydia) while he's waiting for me to come get him in the morning. So now (and this is where the genius part comes in), he's been getting up earlier and earlier every day because he's SO EXCITED to turn the light on and start playing with his toys. Today he woke up at 6 a.m. Which in two weeks will be 5 a.m., thanks to Daylight Savings. Genius! I planned that out perfectly.

Wanted: Better Coverage

Here's Lydia doing her best Zapp Brannigan impression.

I dug this out of my HUGE bag of Lola hand-me-downs, and thought "Oh, what a cute robe! It'll be perfect for Lydia after her bath." I guess it's meant to be more of a swimsuit coverup, because Lydia started complaining that she was feeling too much of a breeze on her nether regions.