~Lub You~

Growing up, I was rather obsessed with milestones, particularly in the academic world. I can remember being in the sixth grade and taking a reading level test, and being pleased as pie with myself that this test told me I was reading at an 11th grade level.  

In college, milestones were measured in days. Everyday the freshmen would shout out different annual milestones, "There are now 121 days to go until the class of 2008 graduates", and I knew for four years how many days away that milestone  was.  

But now that I have had a child, I have grown to despise milestones.  From the moment a baby is born, there are constant milestones that they should be reaching-eating, sleeping, etc.  As they grow, they become a little more spread out, but as parents we are constantly reminded of what they should be 'achieving'.  Each time I take Rowen to the doctor the first thing I am handed is a sheet of what milestones he should be achieving at a certain age.  Most times I move through the list pretty quickly, mentally checking most of the blocks for Rowen.

One block I haven't been able to check yet is speech.  At his one year appointment, the sheet told me he should be saying 5-10 words by now.  Excuse me?  We think Rowen is pretty smart, as all parents do about their child, but 5-10 words, that hadn't happened. At this point the panic began to set in.  What were we doing wrong? 

What we do know is that Rowen wants to communicate with us.  While our preference as parents would be him using sign, at school they point to what they want, and in this case we are going to have to defer to what he does at school simply because they don't use sign there.  And it works, to an extent. There have been many moments of frustration on both our part and Rowen's when he can't tell us exactly what he wants.  But we are making progress.

And while he can't say 10 words yet, he can say somethings.  He may not call Rudy and I mom and dad, but he calls his best friends, Jack and Lola, by name.  Rowen loves them, and I love that they come when he calls them.  He also says thank you, for almost every thing, which makes me believe we are raising a well mannered little gentleman.

But my favorite thing he says, which I'm sure he doesn't know the meaning of just yet, speaks volumes to me.  Each night as we tuck him into bed, Rudy and I both take a moment to kiss him goodnight.  After I kiss him I say goodnight Rowen, I love you. And in his small little bedtime voice he looks up at me and says lub you and smiles.  

Lub you, two little words from my sweet little boy.  I may worry that he hasn't reached the talking milestone, and isn't reciting the Constitution's Preamble just yet, but those two little words reassure me that we will get there.  In our own sweet time. And right now a few names, some good manners, and a little lub is enough of a milestone for me. 

~Mexican Harry Potter~

He may not go to Hogwarts, or be able to cast spells.  Or ride on a broom.  But he is going to have a pretty cute little scar on his forehead.  

Yesterday at around 830 in the morning I got a phone call saying we needed to pick up Rowen.  Apparently Rowen fought a toddler chair and lost.  Or is just a klutz like his mother and tripped and hit his head perfectly on a chair, creating a nice big and deep gash on his forehead.  When I arrived he was safely being cuddled by his favorite teacher, with all the teachers worried about their Row Row.  Have I mentioned my child is like the Ferris Bueller of his daycare? Hopefully they like his brother just as much or he may develop a complex seeing how much love his older brother is showered with.  

Shortly thereafter we arrived at Urgent Care to get this battle wound checked out.  Part of me thought that if it had happened on his leg I might of just taped it together and let him enjoy the glory of a scar as only little boys can.  But then I thought about a few flaws in this line of thinking:

 1. He will never remember acquiring this scar so I would have to tell him the story.

 2.  While it looks big now, it probably will be an itty bitty scar by the time he is old enough to enjoy the scar glory.

3. It isn't a cool story, like 'I got this scar sliding into third base' but rather ' I got this scar when I tripped over my own feet when I was a year old'.  

After waiting for what seemed like forever, and trying to keep Rowen's head from bleeding, the doctor arrived and decided he needed four stitches to close his wound.  With the assistance of a nursing student, he and I diligently held Rowen down while the doctor worked her magic.  He screamed his head off, and in an attempt to make eye contact with him, I inadvertently caught a glimpse of the doctor sticking her little hook into my sweet little boy's forehead.  At that point I quickly sat down and looked at the table of pap smear parts that was left in our room (tmi?) for the duration of the procedure.  

Little Rowen was a champ and aside from taking his bandaid off every five minutes he doesn't seem to mind having the stitches.  One week and his head should be back to normal.  While this was my first emergency room trip with one of my boys, I know this will not be my last.  Just one of the joys of being a boy mom.  

~You Are My Sunshine~

Tonight something different happened in our house (which I hope doesn't happen too often).  Rowen simply didn't want to go sleep...he cried in his crib, chatted in his crib, came out of his crib, back in, etc... and nothing seemed to work.  Finally I gave in and sat down and rocked him to sleep, something I haven't really done since those nights some many weeks ago when we were still having middle of the night feedings.  I shudder to think about those again, but I sure did love rocking him again.  

Since my singing voice tends to make dogs howl, I usually use a playlist to mask my singing when rocking Rowen, tonight was no different.  One of the songs on the playlist is You Are My Sunshine, one of the few songs I will sing to Rowen sometimes when we are playing.  I LOVE this song,  and I have two very distinct memories of it from my childhood, one a man singing it on a train to the Grand Canyon when I was around  3-4ish, and two singing it with my grandparents, it was one of our songs we sang in the car when I went to visit them.

The song came on tonight, and I simply lost it.  Bawled like a baby.  I love that there are so many little things like this song that are so simple that I am passing on to Rowen in bits and pieces.  Obviously there are years to come of passing on, but for right now I'm happy to just pass on a sweet song.  

I sure do love this sweet little boy....