Good Reading

Maybe you've noticed the "Good Reading" section of my blog, maybe you haven't. For those of you who haven't seen these or visited any of the sites, here's a brief intro to some of the blogs I follow.

• Abigail (Mamatouille): Abigail and I went to elementary school together and reconnected via Facebook. She lives in Japan with her husband and two sons and writes about their lives and food. She actually has a couple of blogs. You can access them all from one page, though.
• Ali & Dan: Ali and I were roommates in college at UF (Go Gators!). She writes about her and her family's daily happenings and is a whiz at producing videos. Dan is her husband and a friend from UF, too.
• Erin in the Real World: I have no personal connection to Erin. I happened upon her site when she was a guest blogger for Queen of Quirky (see below). Erin is smart and hilarious. I especially loved her collection of blog entries chronicling her romance with Mr. Perfect. See: You Shook Me All Night Long.
• Queen of Quirky: As with Erin, I have no direct personal connection to the Queen of Quirky. Abigail was a guest blogger for her, which is how I stumbled on to her site. She writes about food, especially wine, and her daily adventures.
• Sam: Sam is not quite 3 years old so I have a pretty good feeling that his mom, Jamie, has been posting photos and writing journal entries for him. Jamie and I go waaaayyy back to middle school.
• Small Notebook: Ahhh... simplicity. I like to read this blog and fantasize about what my house would be like if I could just be more like Rachel. Seriously, she has great tips for eliminating some of the craziness from your life. I usually feel refreshed after reading.
• Voodoo Lily: I found Heather's blog by snooping around some of my friends' blog lists. I've mentioned her site before, but thought she deserved a second spotlight. Her posts have not been as frequent lately, but they are still informative and entertaining. I usually get really really hungry reading her posts. Her photos don't hurt either.

Let me know if there are any other good blogs I should explore. I'm always looking for good reading material for at-desk lunches.

Happy 18-month Birthday, Rowan!

Yesterday was Rowan's 18-month birthday! Here's a little update on some of his recent activities.

• New Vocab: hat, hot, cold, blueberry (blue-blue), blue, green (geen), red, purple, "Go Dog, Go!", cake, Elmo, Big Bird, truck, car, apple, Cheetos, diaper (kind of sounds like Pamper), boo-boo, pool, balloon (boon), Chica (from Sprout's Good Morning Show), bean, Papaw (Papoo), corn, and the childhood essentials: poop and booger
• New Skills: A couple of Rowan's classmates are starting to potty train and he's been showing a lot of interest. He's used the toilet at least once a day for the past two weeks. He tells us "Pee pee" and points to his diaper. So we ask him, "Do you want to use the potty?" If he says yes, we hurry to the bathroom and he goes. He even kept up his interest while he was sick with a cold last week. I'm very impressed with him, but we're not going to try to rush him in any way.
• Miscellaneous: Rowan can make the noises for quite a few animals and point to them in a book. The animals include: duck, donkey, horse, dog, kitty, owl, chick, hen, rooster, sheep, cow, and monkey. He can also point to other animals: butterfly, ladybug, zebra, elephant, giraffe, lion, bear, frog, pig, worm, and bird. He can pick out all of the "O"s on a page. He knows the letters "G" and "E" by sight. He can also pick out colors: blue, red, green, yellow, purple, and pink.

We are so proud of our little man!

Sooo... tired...

I can barely keep my eyes open. This is terrible! I still have an hour left here at work, then I have about a 30 minute drive home! Those red lights are going to be tough. Rowan has been getting terrible sleep lately because of his cold and that has affected mine and Jeremy's sleep, too. It's like we've taken a trip in a time machine to last summer when Rowan's sleep patterns were still wonky. Ugh...

It seems like every couple of weeks I am blogging about Rowan being sick. Why do toddlers seem to float from one illness to another? Oh yeah, I know. They put everything in the world in their mouths, they don't respect others' personal space, and their immune systems aren't as hearty as ours. Yep. I'd say any one of those factors would be a good bet. I'm dreading the fall and winter when colds and other infections abound. Bleh.

If any of you have extra sleep dust from the Sandman, waft some over to our house, won't you?

Work and family

I was in Portland, Oregon last week for work. I left Monday morning and returned Thursday evening. This was the longest time I have been away from Rowan and I was really missing him by Tuesday evening. The trip would have been better if he and Jeremy were with me but I would not have wanted to endure a 5 hour flight with a toddler in tow. Yowza!

Portland was okay. Of the Pacific Northwest cities I've been to, I still prefer San Francisco and Seattle. I did visit two fun places in my off time. The first was Powell's City of Books. I could have spent hours at Powell's, but limited myself to just one. I picked up some literary treats for Rowan, including The Mouse and the Motorcycle by Beverly Cleary, Portland denizen. If I had had more time I would have visited Klickitat Street (home to Ramona Quimby and related characters) and the Beverly Cleary Sculpture Garden in Grant Park.

The second most interesting place I visited was Voodoo Doughnut. We stopped by after dinner one night. The options were a tad overwhelming so I left my treat selection to the pierced blond behind the counter, my only requirement that the doughnut be bacon-free. (Yes, I wrote bacon-free. They have a maple glazed doughnut topped with bacon. One of the guys in line ahead of me ordered one and snarfed it down with much zeal.) She selected a peanut butter Oreo, a Butter Fingering, and a Miami Vice (aqua blue icing with hot pink sprinkles). I don't think I could have chosen anything better. Check out their menu. It was funny just to hear people place their orders.

Speaking of interesting menu items, Jeremy got a taste of single parenthood and didn't really care for it. He said that they got into a routine by Tuesday night, but I imagine it was exhausting. To my surprise, the house wasn't totally wrecked when I got back. Way to go, Miller men! Yay!

I took off work last Friday to have a togetherness day with Rowan. We went to feed the ducks and geese at Lake Avondale and then had a nice lunch at Panera. Rowan ate his grilled cheese sandwich like a big boy and charmed the other patrons in our area. An older grandmother stopped by the table to tell Rowan he was such a well-behaved young man. As a parent, you always appreciate hearing those kinds of compliments.

The rest of the weekend was pretty much the usual. My parents were in town on a whirlwind search for property. They didn't have any luck this time, but will continue the search via Internet. What did we do before the World Wide Web?

Odds and ends

Two posts in one day?! It's true. I've had some random thoughts floating "in my brain inside my head", as our 8-year-old neighbor girl would say, and decided to share them with you.

Why is Brooke Shields hawking so many health and beauty aids? It's a little weird to me and apparently to Jezebel, too. It's good to know I'm not alone.

Speaking of weird... Check out this latest report from CDC. And you thought we only dealt with infectious diseases.

I've been watching more cartoons and children's programming lately and have to admit that there are a couple of shows I really like. One is "The Mr. Men Show" on Cartoon Network. My favorite character is Mr. Rude, mostly beacuse his showmates yell out "Mr. Rude" when he makes rude noises. If you watch the video (there's a link from Mr. Rude's page), you can hear it, too. I also like "Yo Gabba Gabba" on Nick, Jr. It's oddly retro-modern and drops some funky beats. Here's a look at 'Party in My Tummy'. The breakfast version is my favorite because it features all of the characters, but I couldn't find it for you. And, in case you were wondering, yes, I still like The Powerpuff Girls. My all-time favorite episodes are Bubblevicious (the one where Bubbles is "hard core") and Birthday Bash (the one where Him gives the girls the most insidious gift of all).

One of my hobbies has been embroidery and I've been thinking to get back into it. I found a neat site called Sublime Stitching, which really rekindled my interest in the sewing arts. Reasons embroidery rocks: You can be creative; it's cheap entertainment; and you can make something useful from it. For my welcome back project, I ordered the pre-printed eco tote. I'll give you an update on how it comes along.

If you're looking for an interesting site to peruse (besides this one), look no further than Awful Library Books. Two really fun librarians from Michigan started the blog to poke fun at and encourage the updating of out-of-touch holdings in public libraries. How cool are they? Check it out (pun intended).