Girls

Walking more, finally!

Bits and bobs.

On Thursday, Rowan told me quite a story when she got home from school.  There is this boy in her class, M, who is really just the nicest kid ever.  He was at her birthday party in June and was one of the few kids who behaved nicely, did his project, used good manners, and was just, over all, good.  I like this kid.  He’s a good one.  Rowan likes this boy, too.  She likes him likes him.  She has for a while.  And, on Thursday, she went up to him after school and said, “Hey, I like you.” and walked away.

Brave girl!  I don’t know if I have ever done that!  Ever!  I always wait for the boy to like me first.  Guarded little heart, and all.

Friday, she came out to the car with the biggest grin on her face.  Apparently, at recess that day, she and M were playing basketball or doing something, and he said to her, “Hey, about yesterday?  Me too.”

ADORABLE!

She has been walking on cloud nine ever since then.  She wrote all about it in her diary (that I am pretty sure she started up specifically to document this event) and has been just glowing since then.  Oh my.  It starts early, doesn’t it?  I mean, at this age, it isn’t a big deal to have a “boyfriend” or whatever, but it is crazy how early this whole thing starts.  I am pretty sure I had a crush on BW in fourth grade (EVERY girl did), but boyfriends and girlfriends at that age were pretty harmless and cute.  I do have to say that her crush on M has led her to be better about her hygiene, specifically brushing her teeth and taking more showers.  It can be really hard to get her to clean up; she’ll do it, but she will hem and haw and complain.  This morning, though, she wanted me to get her up early so that she could shower and make her hair all curly and beautiful, as it will do if it dries naturally.

So, this should be interesting.  Little Rowan and her little boyfriend.  Too funny.

*****
I managed to make it to the gym this weekend.  Once.  I wanted to go both days, but yesterday slipped away from me.  Steve and I keep saying, “after this (insert whatever event/milestone/whatever here), we will be better!”  Partially that is true.  Part of me thinks, though, that we could make this more of a priority.  However….however, I just do not want to give up time with Katja and Rowan.  Well, Katja, really, as we would tend to go on nights when we do not have Rowan.  She is just a baby and needs me now; she will not need me (physically need, that is) as much later on in her life.  So, we just kind of….sit.  Inertia breeds inertia and all that.

I am not terribly fat, but I am also not incredibly proud of my body at this moment in time.  Well.  That is a lie.  I am very proud of my breastfeeding as the whole world knows.  But, my appearance…  a little less.  I can only do so much, though, and I just have to accept that.  I have been working on that “acceptance” piece for about, oh, six months.  I really didn’t care so much when my head was all screwy with anxiety during those first weeks/months.

I ran okay when I did run, but I could only do a mile before I had to walk.  Then I alternated between walking and running for .25 mile increments.  I did get up to 6.7 for a quarter mile, which is pretty good, and I ran 7.0 for a while, too.  That used to be easy for me, but, again, I have to accept that I am not in the same physical shape that I once was.

Acceptance may have to be a new year’s resolution.  You know, changing the things we can change and accepting those that we cannot.  My priorities have shifted, and that is okay.

*****
Steve and I pretty much love our iPhones.  We sit on the couch after the kids are asleep and play Words with Friends against each other.  It is terribly romantic.  Ha!  Especially the part where I get mad at him for using nonsense words!  LOVELY!

I also really still love the camera on the phone.  It is even easier to whip out for random pictures than my other camera is, therefore, I am more apt to use it.  I had gotten out of the habit of a picture a day, and it is nice to be able to do that again.  Plus, it is so incredibly easy to post things to Flickr and Facebook.  I cut out the middleman of the computer.  Amazing!  There are even some decent photo editing applications that can not only add filters and whatnot, but also clean up photos and crop them and all that.  I was talking about this with Steve this morning, and I bet that I hardly use my camera over Thanksgiving.  Why would I, when I can so easily use the phone?  I have even heard that the iPhone is the number one camera on Flickr now and that would not surprise me.

Speaking of….here are some recent snaps:

Lunch with Dan.

Sleeping baby.

Writing in her journal!

My girls!

More journal writing and weird faces.

Toys.

Learning to cruise, with the aid of her rolling toy thing. There is probably a name for that that I just do not remember.

Bye, Katja!

Lazy Sunday.

Katja. (Note: there was nothing in the sippy cup. She drinks from the tap at home!)

I have a feeling I will be posting way more pictures than I used to.  JUST LOVE THAT PHONE!  And the subject matters are pretty great, too.

Rowan, mostly

Last night, Rowan scored TWO goals!  TWO!  One on a penalty kick and one in regular play.

Alas, I had to miss her “two-thirds of a hat trick” (as she said), because I had a cranky baby to deal with.  Oy.

Also, it was rainy, kind of, so even if Katja had not been extraordinarily cryface, I would have still probably had to miss it.  Ro had her support section of her dad and step-mom, her aunt Bird and uncle Drew, though, so that was good.

I did manage to finish the last of the Hunger Games books while calming Katja down, so that was good.  I needed to find out how the books ended – something that I rarely feel anymore, even when I am reading a good book.  It’s been a long time since I’ve devoured (get my clever play on words there?) a book or series of books like that, so that was a nice fun week or so of reading.  Were they the best books I’ve ever read?  No, not by a long shot.  But, they were fun and fast and kept me turning the pages.  You really can’t ask for much more than that.

**********

The song “Groovy Kind of Love” has been in my head since Sunday night.  It was featured in the second episode of this season of Community, which we watched as a way to purge our minds after watching the pilot episode of American Horror Story (OMG WTF! while I am not sure how the show will sustain itself, I can say that I was thoroughly entertained and scared during that hour of television an am excited about the show), and now that song is in my head and will not leave.  I suppose there are worse things than Phil Collins’ melodies bopping around in my head, but it is still a bit annoying.

Occasionally, though, I will get snippets of Jicks songs in my head, and that is a good thing!  It breaks through the Phil Collins haze.  This morning, I was singing a Jicks song to Katja, and it made her smile.  Girl has good taste.

We went to see them on Saturday night, as you may recall from my previous posting (I act as if these things that I say are oh so very interesting), and it was pretty great.  We met up with a friend beforehand to get the tickets, and we had a bonus showing of my old college friend Brian, who happened to be in town!  I had not seen him since around 2007, if I recall correctly.  My, how things have changed for both of us in that time!  So, Saturday night turned out to be pretty great.  Plus, Katja was very well behaved for my sister and was sleeping when we got home.  She did wake up right when we got home, actually, but as I was there to put her back to sleep with my super power of nursing, it turned out alright.  Yay for music and for nights out!

**********

Steve and I made chili and jalapeno corn bread on Sunday night.  It was pretty great.  As it was cooking and I was mixing together the cornbread, I was on the phone to my sister to find out about how she is feeling at 38 weeks pregnant and all that.  We were talking about our plans for the evening and I told her that we were having chili and she asked if Rowan was there.  I was like, “No!  She is too picky for that, so we have to make foods like this when she is not around.”  True story.  Sig did not believe me that Rowan was picky and I just started laughing – Rowan is VERY picky.  But, she is picky in similar ways to me, so I can’t say much about it, I suppose.

That said, the other night, I found out that Rowan has been wasting her string cheese at lunch.  She is NOT throwing it away, in her mind, because, instead, SHE IS THROWING IT ON THE FLOOR.  Oh, I got very mad about this.  We had a situation last spring where she was throwing away her bread and the principal came to tell me about it when I picked her up from school.  She got a talking to, not only because she needs food to grow, but because she was lying to me about this and was being very wasteful.  In order to get around the whole “someone is going to tell my mom” issue, she has been tossing her string cheese on the floor.  That’s like 30 cents every day down the drain.  After my initial anger was over, I asked why she was doing this, and she said that she did not like that she could not separate it into small enough strings.  WTF.  Picky?  I THINK SO!

I am trying not to create food issues for Rowan.  Girl is skinny and she has already made comments about not wanting to be fat to me at the tender age of 9.  I don’t want to create any body image or food issues with her, so I tread lightly in these areas.  I had to reiterate the fact that she is a growing girl and she needs to eat nutritious food in order to keep growing.  Plus, she does soccer three times a week and runs around on the playground – she needs her calories.  We came up with a new solution:  zone bars (for the calories and protein) and shredded cheese, in addition to her current lunch.

This whole nutrition thing has been sticking in my craw for a while, though.  I am convinced that she does not eat well at her dad’s and I don’t really know how to broach the subject.  I am not trying to say that we are oh so perfect at our house, but we do try to have a balanced meal every single night.  We cook real meals almost every night.  I make sure that she has nutritious snacks on hand.  I don’t know what she eats for snacks, if anything, at his house, but I know that her meals at his house are one of a few things:  Annie’s mac and cheese, Annie’s version of spaghetti-o’s, tofu hot dogs, fake chicken nuggets, or frozen cheese pizza.  Does that sound even remotely healthy to you?  I think he also has her eat carrots.  Maybe.  Even if the stuff is organic or vegetarian, it is still pretty much all processed food.  She needs REAL food and I also think that at her age/height/weight, that she needs to eat animal products there.  Meats and cheeses.

I really want to talk about this, but I don’t want to sound accusatory.  She looks so skinny to me, though, and I just want her to be healthy and thriving!  She could just be that way as her dad is skinny, too, but even so, I still think she needs to have better options provided to her than what is currently on the menu.

So, that is the current issue that I am grappling with.  It has bothered me for some time, but has reared its head again with this whole stupid lunch thing.  What to do, what to do….?

soccer and things

Last night was a lovely night for soccer.  Rowan’s team lost 5-1, but that’s okay.  She had a good attitude, worked hard, and cheered on her team.  Those were the important points for the evening.

See, she had a game on Saturday that I could not attend due to a baby shower for one of Katja’s future besties.  Apparently, Rowan displayed a very BAD ATTITUDE and was stomping around, yelling at her teammates, crying and pouting when she got subbed out.  This is unacceptable.  As a former athlete myself, I do know how frustrating it can be to play, at times.  But, one should never ever take it out on teammates or coaches.  Oh, Rowan got a talking to about that one!  I may have even turned into my dad a little bit and yelled at her.  Maybe.  We even made her turn in a letter of apology to her coach.  That is just NOT okay.

Rowan tried to pin this one on Steve, that he was exaggerating, but my brother was there, too, and he said that Rowan was showing major attitude and that it was not okay.  If naughty Uncle Drew says it’s not good, then it is not good.

Anyhow, she showed marked improvement last night, so that was good.

We also got to take advantage of the beautiful light to take some fun photos of the baby!

(with aunt Bird)

I may not have the DSLR that I dream of just yet, but I am trying to do more with the camera that I have.  It’s a good camera; I just want BETTER.

Speaking of the money that would be required to buy such fancy things and the lack of money that we currently have (isn’t that what I was talking about?), we have made the difficult decision to switch daycares for Katja.  We had been talking about this since July, with the MN government shutdown, but hadn’t really been too active in looking for anything.  Then, last week, a friend posted on Facebook that her aunt is opening a daycare, and we checked it out and like it enough to join it.  I am so upset about this decision, though.  I am extremely attached to her current center, as it is where Rowan went and where I currently (kind of) serve on the Board of Directors.  But, can I really scoff at $100 a week?  That is what we’ll save by moving.  That is a lot of money.  A LOT.

A normal person would just make this decision and be fine with it.  I am not a normal person, though.

I thought that I had more to say and I probably did, at one point, but this will have to do for now.  Duty calls and all.

some updates

First, while the state is still shutdown (but, apparently, nearing a conclusion?), my daycare will no longer have to close.  Daycare assistance was deemed a critical function and was going to start being paid again.  Well, duh.  It is pretty critical for the 15,000 or so families who use it.  Anyhow, it was a relief (in some regards) to not have to worry about what to do if the center were not open next week….though, I did like the idea of a week home with baby.

This whole thing got us thinking, though, about exploring our options.  I love this daycare and have a strong emotional attachment to it, but we do pay a lot.  “Cadillac prices”, as Steve says.  In-home daycare options tend to run about $100 cheaper per week.  That is at least $5200 per year that we could save.  Holy shit.  We can afford what we are paying, but just barely.  I kept telling Steve that we’d be poor for a year and then it would get better (because it does).  But, if we could save money NOW, that would certainly be nice.  Now, I am not going to compromise the care of my child in order to save a buck, but we are going to see what is out there and test the waters, as it were.  It really would be nice to not feel quite so stretched financially and maybe we can even find someplace that we end up liking more and is a fit for our family now (as opposed to this place being a fit for my family of me and Rowan before).

So, that is something.

I have been so exhausted this week.  It truly has been a stressful week.  Rewinding, it kind of started with last weekend when we went to South Dakota to pick up Rowan.  Work has been crazy because of my co-worker who is out and me doing two jobs (though, we finally got that resolved and others in my office will be helping out with that).  Did I even talk about that in here?  I forget what I write.  I think that I have briefly mentioned that, so I won’t go into it.  Needless to say, I have been very stressed at work and because of this, I have been tired and sleepy.

Rewinding even MORE, Rowan was in SD for a few weeks and we got her this past weekend.  Holy crap, though, the drive was a nightmare with Katja who just wants to MOVE and does  not want to be in a car seat at all.  We stopped four times, I think, on the way back to my home town (one of them was at this crazy diner place that was something straight out of the Twilight Zone) and stopped three times on the way back here.  She wasn’t hungry or anything, but just did not want to be in the car.  I don’t blame her.  I was in tears on the way back because I was SO tired due to a lack of sleep the night before and not wanting to be in the car, either.  FUN TIMES!  So, that started the week off really great…and then, the work stuff!  And the daycare drama!  UGH!  Soooooo exhausting.

I am SO flipping happy that today is Friday and I should get to rest a little bit this weekend.  Plus, I get to see Harry Potter tomorrow!  woooo!  I am taking Rowan (and my sister, who invited herself along) to see it.  It should be really fun.  We spent over nine months reading the series together and now we finally get to go see the final film in the theater.  I am sure I will cry.  I usually don’t cry at the movies (because, usually, I think they are rubbish compared to the books), but this is the LAST ONE.  Wow.

In completely unrelated news, I need to get back into running.  I have been going to the gym and doing the elliptical and walking, but I am still just not happy with how I look post-baby.  I gained about 50 pounds during the pregnancy and I seriously do not think that I have lost ANY of it and, in fact, may have GAINED weight.  I believe that I am one of the unlucky women who do not lose weight while nursing full-time.  Gross.  I don’t care all that much if I am heavier than my ideal weight, as long as my body is doing what it is doing for Katja and as long as I am taking care of myself.  But, I am not really being that good about taking care of myself.  I snack on unhealthy things.  I don’t exercise as much as I would like.  I just….  I get tired and it is hard to make time for me.  So, I have resolved that running is what I need to do.  I love running, but just have not done it for so so long.  I tried to run last week and kind of succeeded, albeit it at a much slower pace than I would like and with plenty of walking breaks, but I have not been back to the gym since then because of our trip to SD and a long and crazy week.  My resolution is to run three times next week.  I plan on going to the gym on Sunday, Thursday, and Saturday.  I am choosing those days as they are days when Rowan will be with her dad, and I don’t have to feel bad about dragging her to the Y when she had already spent all day there for her summer program.  If I can do this and start running regularly, even if I stay the same size, I will feel better about myself.  We will see how that goes.

I do worry a little bit about how this will affect my milk supply, but I am trying to tell myself that that is silly.  Women do this all the time.  I need to not be so neurotic about how much I pump or how it feels when Katja is nursing.  OMG, though, telling myself not to be neurotic is like, I don’t know, telling the world not to turn.  Pfft.

And, to segue, in a way that only makes sense to me, Katja’s little sleep patterns are still….well, not what I would like.  For a few weeks, we had some success with starting her in her bassinet and bringing her into bed later on in the night.  This is what I want.  However, after the whirlwind trip to SD and this week with a very tired mama, we have fallen back into the whole baby falling asleep next to me thing.  I am safe about it, so that is not the problem.  The problem is that I need a little space now and again.  So, I guess that is another thing to work on.

Katja will be six months here pretty soon, and we are then going to start her on solids.  I am reading the Baby Led Weaning book and we plan on going that way.  I did not do this with Rowan, so it should be interesting.  I think we can make it work, though.  We need to get her a seat of some sort and then I guess we will get to experiment with foods with her.  Steve keeps saying that this will take the pressure (that I put on myself) off of me for nursing, but I keep reminding him that that is not the case.  They do say, after all, “under one, just for fun!”  She will still get most of her nutrition from breastmilk and then will gradually learn how to eat.  We shall see how this goes…

I am kind of looking forward to the summer being over.  Isn’t that sad?  It’s just that everything gets so out of whack with Rowan doing this and that (she has another trip coming up next weekend) and not having the routine and stability of school.  I am looking forward to getting back into our routine, I guess.  There is also this feeling of having to DO things to take advantage of the summer, and a lot of the time, I just want to be at home with my family.

So, there you go.  UPDATES!

Rowan!

My other baby done turned NINE on me this month (on the 19th).  While little Katja plugs along in her early month development, somehow, years have passed since I had a little baby Rowan and I now have a sassy nine year old.

Oh, hey baby Rowan!!  Fancy little nine month old in Iceland.  (Very international.)

Happy birthday!!!………eight years ago.

Little Rowan, in 2004.

Rowan won’t let me take that many pictures of her now, sadly.  At least I still have cute ones from when she was a little daby baby.

And from when she was a little girl.

She is SO grown up now.  It’s crazy how fast nine years (NINE YEARS!!!!!!!) have passed.

Right now, little miss Rowan is on a vacation with my parents and my sister Bird.  She has been with them since Monday morning and they went to the Wisconsin Dells and are now meandering in southern Minnesota and northern Iowa, visiting small towns and Amish colonies.  I’ll see her again tomorrow, when they make a pit stop in Minneapolis, and then she is off for another week in South Dakota.  Lucky little girl.  I want a week vacation where people take care of me and feed me as many doughnuts and chicken fingers as I can put away and where everything is paid for.  Sounds pretty nice!

(Aside, this is actually kind of funny to me, because when Rowan goes to South Dakota and stays with my parents, I like to think of it is her experiencing a bit of my childhood…. however, WE never got to go on any family vacations and we did not get to eat unlimited doughnuts and chicken fingers.  Nor did we get to stay up until however late we wanted and basically get to do whatever we wanted.  We did, however, get to fall asleep on couches, if that is what we wanted to do.)

I really am a lucky mama.  Rowan is a smart, spirited, beautiful girl.  We have our issues with each other, for sure, and I definitely annoy her a lot of the time.  But, we also have a bond that I will never have with anyone else.  She and I have spent so much time together, just the two of us, and have weathered so much.  She was my raison d’être for so long (and now shares that with Katja!).  She lights up my life in so many ways.

As usual, I am not finding a good way to END this post.  She is wonderful.  I love her.  The end.

random updates

Last night, Rowan had her very first basketball practice ever.  As she is always with her dad on Tuesday nights, he took her and she called me afterward and left me the most adorable voice mail ever about how great practice was.  I did call her back right away and talked to her, and it sounds like she is going to have a good time and enjoy it.  I’d like to be able to show her some moves, as I did used to love basketball back in the day and was pretty good at it, as well, but this whole baby thing prevents me from doing so.  Ah well.

Her first game is on Saturday morning.  I’m a little irked that they just had their first practice this week, when it was supposed to start in December (but, weather and then winter break kind of prevented that), but it’ll be fine.  I’m sure that their game will be fun anyhow.  And, even though I am on my partial bed rest, I have to go to her first game ever!  It will be nice, too, because my mom and almost all of my siblings (except for Sigourney) will be here for the shower that afternoon and will be able to go to cheer her on as well.  Actually, that could be a teeny bit overwhelming for Rowan to have all these athletic superstars watching her and cheering for her….but, I think it will be okay.  Hopefully.

It has been really good for her to have these activities to look forward to.  She loved soccer in the fall, and now has basketball to keep her occupied in the winter.  I may not get to go to every game, unfortunately (what with the baby), but she’ll have aunts and uncles and Steve and her dad who can all transport her as needed.  Also, as I am home now and will be for the next few months or so, I took her out of her before and after school program, and have signed her up for a few Community Education courses that they offer at her school after the school day is over.  She wants to do an arts and crafts class and a kids knit class.  We’ll find out this week if the enrollment went through and she’ll start that next week if it did.  I like that she likes to be busy.  I have never been the kind of parent who brings her from activity to activity, as I didn’t want to push her into anything and she never expressed an interest in doing sports or any other classes up until this year.  I figured that if I could be so awesome (that is a joke) at sports without starting an organized sport until 3rd grade, then she would be just fine, as well.  Anyhow, I appreciate that she is interested in doing various things and I do hope to encourage that.

In other news, Steve has started to nest.  I swear.  He doesn’t think that that is the case, but I don’t know what else one would call massive cleaning and purging of all our old stuff.  Rowan’s room was purged of all kinds of garbage – seriously, she had old balloons and boxes and bags just piled up in her closet - on Sunday and is in great shape for the first time in months, or even years.  Steve cleaned out his closet and got rid of at least four garbage bags of clothes.  He wants to organize everything and I have been teasing him about it, because I thought that was what I was supposed to do towards the end of the pregnancy.  My closet, which is somewhat disastrous, I will admit, is off limits right now, because I don’t think it is fair to have to clean it out until I know what size I am after I have the baby.  Also, I don’t want to do it right now.  I have started calling Steve “Nestor”.  I am very funny.  (Not really.)  Our house looks really good, though, so that is the bonus of this crazy behavior!

Oh.  I had an appointment on Monday as part of my new routine of one appointment/two ultrasounds per week.  My blood pressure was a little higher than it had been, but was still fine.  The midwife that I saw was one of my two favorites, and it sounds like, for now, as long as I continue to stay stable, which I have been, and come in for my appointments and ultrasounds that I can just keep on keeping on and don’t have to worry so much about induction or anything like that.  She did recommend that I start sitting on my balance ball to help move the baby  into a better position, as it is head down but facing my left side instead of my back, and also recommended that I do yoga on a regular basis (I have done it sporadically these past few weeks, but never quite know what is okay and what is not okay in terms of this dumb bed rest thing).  I’m glad that I am nearing the end of this, though I still don’t want the baby to come until he/she is ready to come.  I can handle a few more weeks of bed rest, if need be.  Working from home is not so bad, and while it is boring and isolating, I realize that it is a temporary state.

This is kind of long and pointless.  Things are going pretty well, for the most part, right now.  Hopefully we can just continue that way for a few more weeks.

American Girl

Somehow, I have gotten caught up in the American Girl doll frenzy for Rowan.  Steve and I went to the Mall of America at the beginning of the month to pick up a Felicity doll for her from Santa, as they’re retiring the doll this year and she really really wants that particular doll.  I also bought her a dress to go with it, but was convinced that she did not want the beautiful gala gown, but instead, a tea party dress or something like that.  So, I did not buy the gala gown even though that was my particular favorite outfit for Felicity.

Well, fast forward to two days ago, when Rowan wrote her letter to Santa and asked for a Felicity doll with the gala gown.  D’oh!  I got the wrong one!  I went online that day and saw that it was still available, so figured that maybe I could have my sister run to the MOA to pick it up for her.  She said that she would do that when my mom and other sisters came in and did their shopping at the mall.   Okay, disaster averted, right?

WRONG!

Bird just called me and I asked her if they would be going to the MOA today and if they could look for the dress.  She said that they were not going there, and she thought that maybe I should just order it online since they weren’t going to get there today.  I looked online, and it was now sold out there!  I thought maybe I’d call the MOA store to see if they have it and would break my stupid bed rest in order to get this stupid gown for Rowan’s doll.   Apparently, you cannot just call one store, you have to call the headquarters.  Weird.  So, I called and I found out that the only store that this is still available in is the Los Angeles store, and I can call back at about 11:30 or so (CST) in order to see if they can get into the inventory there in order to order a gown from their store.

I am actually going to do this.  I cannot believe it.  I won’t have the dress in time for Christmas, but now that I know that it is so hard to get this stupid dress, I HAVE TO GET IT FOR ROWAN.

Who am I?  I DON’T EVEN KNOW ANYMORE!

I am scared to post this in case there are others out there doing the exact same thing.  Biding their time and waiting for 9:30 PST in order to flood the American Girl store inventory line in order to get this one particular dress.  Sad, but true.

It is quite lovely though, yeah?

 

(FYI, I held off on actually posting this until I had called the American Girl doll headquarters and got my order in JUST IN CASE someone started googling for this  dress, stumbled upon this,  and beat me to the punch.  Again, I DO NOT EVEN KNOW WHO I AM RIGHT NOW!)

Rowan

And now, for a slight change in pace.  It is a little annoying (to me) to keep whining about all my woes with this pregnancy and the baby.  I am sure that we will both be fine.  So, instead, I will talk about Rowan and what a little funny love she is.

The picture above is from Monday night.  Steve and I had gone Christmas shopping on Sunday and I wrapped everything up, because I knew that Rowan would be delighted when she saw all the presents under  the tree.  On Monday, when we got home from work and school, she  saw the presents and was SO happy.  I realize that  Christmas is not  about the presents, and I try to make sure that Rowan realizes that, too, but  she was pretty stoked to see her pile of presents under the tree.  She kept exclaiming, “This is going to be the BEST Christmas EVER!”  Which, maybe it will be.  Who knows?  She spent about  thirty minutes reorganizing all of the presents and asking me what I got for everyone in Steve’s family, as those presents were all wrapped, too.  She also went through and made guesses at what each present was.  One of them (that big one in the back of the photo), she got spot  on.  She said something like, “I think that THIS is an Our Generation Horse, because if I know one thing, it is what Our Generation Horse packages are like!”  It was pretty cute, and I am glad that she is excited about her presents this  year  and I  do think that while Steve and I (mostly through my fault, though he helped with the cost of things) went a little overboard, it will be a good one.  ”The baby” got all of us presents, too, and Rowan was tickled pink at that and wanted to know all of those presents, too.   Obviously,  I was not going to tell her, as that would spoil some of the fun of Christmas.

On Saturday, when we were picking up candy for our gingerbread house making, my sister bought Rowan a Lady Gaga CD, as Rowan really wanted both that and a Beyonce CD for Christmas.  We now have to rock out to Gaga every time we are in the car, which is actually pretty okay in my book.  Tuesday morning, when I was driving Rowan to school, she asked if she could start a CD collection, to which I responded “YES, of course you can!” and then she asked me if I thought her taste in music was weird or cool.  Of course, I told her that it was cool (she is my daughter, after all).  I asked her what she thought of it, and she responded, “It’s kind of weird, don’t you think?  I mean, I only have two CDs and what do Lady Gaga and the Everly Brothers have to do with each other?!”  I cracked up.  Her inflection and seriousness about this was just so darn cute.

We still do our reading of Harry Potter every night.  We are almost done with book 4 now and have just started “The Third Task”.  Rowan and I take turns reading aloud, and she has gotten so much better at this over the course of the few months that we have been doing this.  She used to speak super softly (I have NO idea where she gets that from…..says the girl with the softest voice ever)(seriously.  I realize most of you have not heard me speak, but my voice is incredibly quiet), and I would  have to ask her to “turn up the volume” on a regular basis, but she has gotten more confident as she keeps going.  Now, I can just lie there when she is reading and listen to her, without having to correct her for reading too quickly and skipping things or having  to interrupt her to speak up.  It’s really nice.  I have said it before and I will say it again, but that 30-60 minutes (depending on the  night) is one of my favorite parts of the day.

I could probably ramble on and on, like about how she spent over an hour researching Anne Frank on Monday night, or how she will sit and do the same nerdy things that I do to make dinner time conversation (such as, ask the question “what was the weirdest thing that happened to you today?” to get the ball rolling and touch base on our every day lives).  She really is such a funny and good kid.  I thank my lucky stars every day that I have her in my  life.  This little baby who is demanding so much attention lately is lucky to have a big sister like her.

last night.

Last night, while I was making dinner, Rowan slipped in the shower.  We were downstairs, Steve in the dining room, looking at a board game and me in the kitchen, well, making dinner.  There was a loud bang, but I didn’t think much of it.  Sometimes, Rowan is noisy and I didn’t have much cause for alarm.  She came downstairs about 5-10 minutes later, dressed in her pajamas, and told me that she fell and hit the back of her head and that it hurt really bad.

Maybe it was because I had just talked to my mom about Rage of Angels by Sidney Sheldon earlier that day, or maybe it is because I am pregnant and more paranoid than normal, or maybe it is because I am just a crazy worrywart…whatever the case, I freaked out.  Whenever Rowan bumps her head, which doesn’t happen all the time, but does happen from time to time — what kid doesn’t bump their head now and then? — I always check her eyes.  I look to make sure her pupils are dilating, I feel for bumps, and I make sure that she can track my finger back and forth.  These are the things that my mom used to do to us and I feel that they are good benchmarks to make sure that nothing is wrong.  Well, I did that with Rowan and her pupils, while big at first, did end up dilating normally, her head felt okay, but, her eyes weren’t tracking my finger quite right.  Her right eye seemed to catch a little bit, when she was going back and forth.  I started to get worried.  I tried again, and it still looked to me like it was jumping.  I had Steve try, and he thought it looked normal, but I was convinced that he could not see the twitchy/jumpy tracking that I could see (and, I know that I really did see this).

I started to cry, and then Rowan started to cry and I had her all freaked out.  She ran upstairs and started bawling and I, in perhaps what was an overreaction, laid down on the floor and started sobbing.  I couldn’t bear the thought of something happening to her.  I called my mom and she agreed that I should take Rowan in to see if she had a concussion.  OR WORSE.  I couldn’t help but think of Natasha Richardson, or any other random person with head injuries.  I tell you, head injuries are one of my big fears for kids.  This felt like OMG MY WORSE FEAR COULD COME TRUE.

So, I  got Rowan dressed in jeans, had her grab a stuffed animal and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (we are reading the HP books together, which is really fun), and told Steve that I was going to take Rowan to the hospital.  He was visibly upset?  frustrated? with me, but said that there was no way that I was in condition to drive myself, so came with us to the ER in downtown.  We got there, and I kept tearing up, thinking the worse, but had calmed down from my craziness when we were at home.

Luckily, the pediatric unit is considerably less busy than the regular ER unit, so we got in in a timely manner, and saw a doctor almost right away.  They performed all kinds of tests on Rowan – reflex, strength, et cetera; no CT scans or anything like that – looked into her eyes, had her track a finger up down and all around, and then looked into her eyes with the lights off.  They asked if she was dizzy, seeing double, sick to her stomach, feverish, and any of that.  She was not.  She was just fine.  And, thankfully, once they got a look at everything, they deemed that she WAS just fine.  Not a concussion, and certainly not anything worse than that.  They told me that the threshold for something to be “wrong” is usually four hours after the injury, and told me to keep an eye on her and peek in on her when she was sleeping to make sure that she was okay.  They also told me that they would rather a parent bring a kid in with nothing wrong with them, then sit at home when there is something wrong, but I felt a bit foolish and felt bad that I caused Rowan such grief and worry.  Not to mention the fact that I made Steve feel pretty bad, in that I did not trust him to be rational in the face of catastrophe (albeit, a catastrophe that I pretty much created).  I don’t regret taking her, at all, because her eyes did seem weird to me and I know that if something HAD been wrong, I could never live with myself if I hadn’t acted, but I realize that I did get a little theatrical in my worrying.

This morning, I woke up and went into Rowan’s room to snuggle with her and make sure she was okay.  She was definitely the same Rowan as always, and I was so thankful for that….I was even thankful for her lolly-gagging ways that make me late to work every single morning.