New toy

If this doesn't make you smile, then I don't even know what to tell you. Who knew a bouncy ball could be so thrilling?

Weekend Fun

What a lovely long weekend we had! My parents came up on Thursday night to visit and help babysit Rowan while Jeremy and I had an evening out on the town. More on that in a bit.

I took off work on Friday to hang out with my parents and to redeem the spa gift certificate I had gotten for Christmas. Man oh man. A 60-minute massage is a great way to spend a vacation day on! I also got a pedicure. Needless to say, I was quite spoiled by the time I got back home.

Jeremy and I had tickets to see the jazz trumpeter, Chris Botti, play with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra as a thank you gift for contributing to Georgia Public Broadcasting. As a surprise, Jeremy booked us a room at the Georgian Terrace so we could stay out as late as we wanted, drink alcohol, and sleep in the next morning as late as we desired. It was a nice evening, but I was feeling a bit out of practice with the whole "painting the town red" thing. By 10:30 I was yawning in my seat at Symphony Hall. I think we made it to midnight before drifting off into unconsciousness. We were up and ready to leave by 8:30 the next morning. We both admitted to missing our little man.

Rowan and the grandparents had a good time together. Rowan got to boss around two adults and they got to have the full Rowan experience. He was acting a little unruly on Monday. I think he missed his adoring fan club. Who wouldn't? :-)

I guess we have a routine week coming up. I sure am glad it's a short one.

Strawberry Yum Yum

I recently reconnected with an elemetary school friend that I had not been in touch with since graduating from 5th grade. (Thank you, Facebook!) I've been catching up on her life by reading her blog and must admit that I am totally hooked. I can't stop reading about her adventures in life and food. While snooping around her blog, I found a list of food-realted blogs that she follows. One blogger in particular, VoodooLily, completely captivated me. Her musings on strawberries, and produce in general, made me laugh out loud.

Here's an excerpt:

I can't seem to get enough strawberries these days. I cruised through 4 lbs of them in about a week, just eating them raw (stemmed and halved, with my fingers), and then had to pick up another flat of them over the weekend. It's insidious. I never was a real big fruit eater until recently. I guess I always felt like fruit was a little too on-the-nose. "Oh, you're so sweet and delicious, fruit." It's like, we get it. I usually opted instead for vegetables, which are under-appreciated and therefore have way more street cred.

Speaking of strawberries, my pal Lisa is picking up a gallon of fresh-picked berries for me today from the farm out in Loganville. I could easily eat them all on my own, but it would be much more loving of me to share them with my guys. I can't decide if I want to make a small batch of freezer jam or not. I guess it depends on how many berries are left after my initial pig-out and if I have time. Rest assured, there will be no scurvy in our household any time soon.

Happy news for a change

I'm tired of writing about our woes and you're probably tired of reading about them. I thought I'd take a few minutes to share some of the happy stuff going on with the Wilson~Miller Fam for a change.

First of all, I posted a few new photos from the past couple of weeks. Rowan looks more like a little boy and less like my tiny baby with each passing week. What fun we have maturing together! I can sit for hours watching him take in the world around him. Mundane things like pouring water out of a cup turn into interesting experiments in the physics of water.

Rowan's skill set expands almost daily.

• Mobility: He is so good at walking now. Sometimes he will rub his hands together or clap whilst walking just to add another level of difficulty to the task. His interest in climbing (the couch, the baby gate, toys, etc.) remains quite keen. His ability to safely get down is another matter, but we're working on it. So far, no major wipeouts. He still loves to boogie, too.
• Communication: He is also a terrific imitator of sounds. On a walk earlier in the week he copied a car alarm and a barking dog. Very funny! His vocabulary is great, too. He's added Anya (one of his teachers), Aria, and truck (I think) to his vocab list. He can also hum a little bit of "This Old Man". He likes making zorbert (pfbfttt) noises - either only with his mouth, or using his arm or the arm of the couch for assistance. Not too shabby for a not-quite-15-month-old.
• Other Skills: Rowan's learning to throw a ball. We started with rolling it, but he doesn't seem to like that as much as hurling it into the air. He can stack blocks, Legos, Cheerios, etc. He gets to about 3 and then knocks them down (sometimes accidentally, sometimes on purpose). By far he prefers dismantling our Lego creations to assembling them. Two weeks ago he learned to make a sound with his recorder and even got a few notes out of the harmonica! That was really fun to watch.

I still really like my new job. The work is interesting (but not too taxing) and the people are fun, yet professional. The new roof for our house should be finished today. Woohoo! That has been a long process and I will be glad to have it out of the way. Then we can move on to other house projects (repairing the wall where we had the leak, fixing up the yard, etc.) There is always something to be done with a house, I tell ya!

My parents will be up here next week for a visit. It will be nice to have them here just for fun, not because someone is ill and we need help with child care.

I think that's about it. I hope to have more good things to report soon.

...and the sickness continues

Poor Rowan. Just when we thought he was getting better, I get a call from day care telling me that he has a fever. This was last Wednesday. So, I pick him up and make an afternoon appointment with the pediatrician. She tells us that he probably has some kind of viral infection (since he's been taking antibiotics for a supposed sinus infection she diagnosed him with the previous week) of unknown origin. She advised us to keep him comfortable and to call if his symptoms worsen. At this point, he was fine except for the fever.

I stayed home with Rowan on Thursday since he still had a fever. It went as high as 103 and some change. Friday, I stayed with him that morning and Jeremy took the afternoon shift. His fever was lower, like 101-ish, and imperceptible by late afternoon. Hooray! He was better... or so we thought.

Friday night at bathtime I noticed patches of faint red bumps on his legs and trunk. Since he has sensitive skin, we didn't think too much of it. We rubbed lotion over his skin and put him to bed with no problems. Saturday morning Rowan had dark red polka dots all over his sweet little body. Talk about alarming!

We scarfed down some breakfast and headed to the children's ER again. They diagnosed him as having roseola, a viral infection that is very common during early childhood. Once the fever goes away and the rash appears, all is good. Yay!

He is not contagious but looks afright. We're keeping him home from day care for the next couple of days. Hopefully the rash will have faded away by then. My mom is back in town to help out. Thanks, Mom! This allows Jeremy and me to save some of our sick leave and vacation time. Lord knows we are probably going to need it again to stay home with Rowan. Let's keep our fingers crossed that it is later, rather than sooner.

Oy-vey... I am so over this sick business. My plan is to post something more cheerful next time along with some new photos. Stay tuned!