It has been almost 5 months since our last post, and mommy sincerely apologizes for the lack of updates.  A job, family, and life in New York are my excuses, and not good ones at that.  But what a few months it’s been!  Let’s start with the highlight of last September — our trip to Atlanta to visit Rowan’s maternal grandparents!

It was Rowan’s second time flying, and he handled it quite well.  We didn’t want to take any chances and got him his own seat although he is still technically a lap baby.  Flying in both directions he sprawled himself out, took long naps, stared out the window, and stayed generally calm.  Rowan isn’t a very cuddly baby, so I used this opportunity to coax him into sleeping on my lap for the first in a very long time.  I just stared at his peaceful, contented face, noticing for the first time the tiny bumps on his nose, the mustache that never went away, the beautiful texture of his cheek.  Very few moments in life can surpass this one.

Once at his Archie and Seeya’s house, he found lots of places to explore and tried out his newly discovered walking skills, which were still in alpha testing.

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He also gave us a concert on their piano.

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But the part that got him most excited was the family of deer nibbling at the forest in his grandparent’s backyard.  We would talk about that for weeks.

Mommy too learned a lot on this trip.  Without your crib, you had to adjust to sleeping on blankets with pillows for walls.  Daddy and I would sit in the dark with you waiting for you to fall asleep.  As at home, you wound down very quickly and seemed to settle into sleep, but every night there you spent a good half hour rolling around, flipping from back to tummy, and generally looking for that sweet spot where sleep would take over.  And I realized that you go through this every night, even in your crib, and you never bothered us with the trials you would go through trying to fall asleep.  You could always comfort yourself that last distance to sleep.  I hope it’s because you felt safe and loved enough during the day that it carried into night, but I think it’s just in your nature to be considerate.

Now let’s fast-forward to today, and oh my goodness, how you’ve grown!  Something clicked in that brain of yours about a month ago, and your language skills have taken off.  At 20 months you can use the following in the proper context: cow, car, cat, bowl, spoon, bib, seat, eat, apple, orange, beans, airplane, bus, ball, book, not hot, clean, truck, pig, choo choo, boat, eye (not eye is closed eyes), banana, cheese, mama, dada, nana, bapa (grandpa), sun, moon (although commas are also called moon), sit, up, down, shoes, sock, hole, night night, bye bye, hello, all gone, moo, neigh, quack, woof, meow (we’re raising an onomatopoeia).

That’s over 40 words, and there are also all the words whose meaning you know but can’t pronounce.  And ideas too:

put your bowl in the sink, where is [fill in the blank], please give me [blank], it’s upside down, the [blank] is on the front of the book, it’s under you, you’re sitting on it, it’s behind you, push, pull, I tooted, put [blank] in the [blank].

And numerous other things I can’t recall at 10:30pm.  Oh, and you’re getting the concept of numbers, but we’re still working on order: one, eight, none.  It’s very cute when you count with me.  I think “three” crept into your lexicon today as we were going up the steps at the daycare.

You’ve also decided on some favorite things in life.  Your favorite song is “wheels on the bus”, your favorite book is Go Dog Go (although lately you’ve been picking “Room on the Broom” several times a day despite having been too scared by it to read it all the way the first time we tried), favorite shoes are the brown ones, and favorite game is “truck.”

Oh, and Mommy realized how much you’re learning at the new daycare when one day she had some music playing in the living room and turned around to find you standing up, one arm over your head pointing down, turning in circles — pirouette!

I also appreciate that you let me get my work done when I’m at home.  I can leave you alone in the living room while I do the dishes, and turn around to find that you’ve quietly brought your toy into the kitchen and were playing at my feet.  And the time I left you playing with a rather large and heavy electronic toy.  I turned around to see you stumbling in with the oversized toy in your arms, plop down, and continue to play.

You’re also doing some very cute things, like the time we were reading on the sofa about a monkey, and you got up to bring Pinky the monkey from your toy rack.  After reading some more, you put Pinky next to you on the sofa, told him to sit, and proceeded to get in his lap so he could read to you.  Or this past weekend, when you (the non-cuddler) looked at me sitting on the floor, got up, and gave me a big long hug.  I love you too sweetness.

And you’re having to deal with some very complicated emotions.  I think the only things you’ve ever broken are some crayons, two books, and a toy.  These are rare events, and the latter two were both fixed using tape.  Today at 5pm we were playing on the floor when you noticed that the streetlight outside our building had gone out.  You spent a minute pointing between it and the one that was working, and I explained that it was off or maybe broken.  After repeating that two or three times, you got a very concerned look on your face and thumb went right into mouth.  After thinking it over, you got up and went to the closet door that you can’t open.  I realized right away what you wanted and said “I’m sorry sweetie, but the tape won’t fix it.”  And you went into inconsolable crying and spent a good 15 minutes in my lap holding onto my hair, trying to convince yourself that it was okay that the light, which has been around since you were born, was no longer there.  Luckily, it was working a few hours later!

And I think that’s where I’ll stop writing and let the images take over.