First Twenty Four Hours with Gary

After much build up and excitement we arrived back at the farm yesterday from the OKC Thanksgiving celebrations. We immediately had to see if Gary had arrived while we were gone. After doing a general scan of the house Zane checked in the house we had made for Gary. Lo and behold he was snuggled in his little elf bed waiting on us. Zane wasn't sure what to make of it and initially was slightly scared, oddly enough. While we were unloading the car Gary flew over and perched himself by the front door to see what was happening. Zane was completely freaked out at this point and needed to wait for Daddy to talk to Gary.

 Gary sat there watching the cats for quite some time.

Zane did get up the courage, once daddy arrived, to introduce himself, and introduce Gary to Ro Ro. "Gary, this Ro Ro, he a baby." "Ro Ro, don't touch him, he will loose his mind." 

The rest of our afternoon/evening went something like this, "Why Gary here?" "How he get here?" "What Gary eat?" "Why he in Oklahoma?" "How he get to the North Pole?" "What Gary sleep in?" "Where does Gary sleep?" "Do he get cold to night time?" " Is Gary my friend?" "Does Gary like cookies?" "Why Gary not like he house?" "He not like he house?" "Is he tired?" "Why he not go outside?" "Is he going to come back to Oklahoma tomorrow?" Rinse and repeat, and on and on and on, way past one hundred questions. I was beginning to regret the whole thing as he seemed slightly freaked out and the questions were out of control.

But this morning Zane woke up and quickly found Gary trying to ride mom's little carousel in the living room. He loved it, but there were more questions about why he was riding horses, how did he get back from the North Pole, why he can't talk, why we can't play with him, why he not sleep, ect ect. So Grandma read the book again with Rowan and Zane, refreshing all the rules, then they played Santa and elf until Grandma headed over to Great Grandpa's house for the day.

We started Christmas decorating today, with lots still to do when Grandma returns. But we did get the tree up, lit, and a few decorations put on it. Tomorrow we're going to get some of our decorations out of storage so it feels a bit more like my home to us. We also need to find Zane's stocking (aka his big sock) that he has been asking for ever since Rowan's arrived. We put the red bows on the front porch and Gary did a little bit of flying around while we were outside. Currently he is playing on the Christmas tree, climbing around. Zane frequently stops what he is doing and says "I need to check on Gary" and runs to go see him. Hopefully it's a fun addition for him, but not sure it isn't stressing him out currently.

This is a great picture of Rowan in front of his first Christmas tree, with only one sock on, per his usual.

Zane was very good at putting ornaments on this year, needing very little help, but some redirection as he thought all ornaments should go on that branch at the bottom.

 Here is Gary, in the middle of the tree, hanging out, where we found him after came in from our morning chores.

 Then he moved up to the top for a better view while we enjoyed less windy conditions today with a little morning fire with hot choco.

Elf on the Shelf Prep

I've been torn about the elf on the shelf for awhile now because I have seen so many kids get so stressed out about their elves watching their every move that it didn't seem fun anymore. Parents telling them they weren't going to get Christmas presents because they had done something bad, the elf had seen it, and was telling Santa. This seems cruel to me so I wasn't sure if I was going to do it with our boys or not. However, Zane has an amazingly vivid imagination, loves to pretend all sorts of things, and would completely adore the idea of a magical elf that flies to the North Pole to talk to Santa, then comes back and does funny things in our house. Also, he had seen it on TV or possibly on Amazon while we were looking at Christmas ideas and desperately wanted a little elf, so my hands were tied at that point. 

We have been talking about his elf for awhile now, about how he won't come until after Thanksgiving (which Zane has been referring to as Chrisgiving this week, adorable), and the general idea of the elf. We discussed names for him and Zane requested Gary, which is hysterical, and it has stuck. For the past couple weeks he has asked about when Gary was coming, what Gary was going to do, where he would stay, ect. So this weekend, while Zach was here, we decided we should write Gary a letter. We need to tell him that we had moved to Oklahoma, and we were currently staying at Grandma's house. You don't want your elf getting lost, after all. Here are Zach and Zane working on the letter. Zach just wrote down, verbatim, what Zane was saying, which is just a string of random thoughts, per usual. Then we had to draw a picture of Gary (obviously), add stickers, and set it out for the "Elf Mail" service to pick up over night. 

 This is the final draft of our letter. Here is the translation if you can't read it. 

"To Gary: You coming to Christmas, right now? You're my best friend. Shake your booty. We live in Oklahoma! I want you. We at Gramma house. P.S. You can sleep on the couch. P.P.S. Do you like Coyotes?"

Elf Mail came and got the letter and today it brought back the Elf on the Shelf book for Zane to read and prepare for his arrival. After reading the book we realized that Gary was going to need a place to stay in case he showed up while we were in Oklahoma City for Thanksgiving celebrations. I know the logic on this is very flawed, since the rest of the time he can magically fly in and out of our house, back and forth to the North Pole at night, so why couldn't he get in our house when we were gone? Doesn't matter, building a little house for him was an hour worth of entertainment, so it was amazing. His house consisted of a bed complete with little blankets and a tiny stuffed animal, little books, a big screen TV, made from a box that held Christmas ribbon that happened to have a see through square in it, thimbles for hot choco (as Zane calls it) that was being poured from a Christmas ornament tea pot, spools to sit on, a thimble that looks like a keg and one that looks like a statue of Santa, snacks in tiny ziplocks, Santa art on the walls, a cellphone, and one random tiny robot ornament. Zane ate this up and had the time of his life putting it together and decorating the outside. Of course we had to write him a note, telling him where we were and what was what. Here is the set up and the letter. 

 Don't worry there is a roof that folds over the top to keep him out of the elements.

 His bed is an air bed, made from the blow up packing from an Amazon box. The tiny sheep was what mom bought when Zane was a baby and it sat in her kitchen window, reminding her of baby Zane, and sending prayers up for our sweet boy every time she saw it.

Snacks include one potato chip, some craisins, and some Reeses Puffs cereal.

The letter reads:
"To Gary: I miss you. We're coming back tomorrow! Jingle Boy is here if you need company. Help yourself to the hot choco and the keg in the corner. We left a cell if you need anything, call Santa or JB. Love, Zane

P.S. We left you some snacks, see you soon!"

Of course Gary is Jingle Boy's cousin, obviously, which led to us having to get Jingle and Jangle dressed up for Thanksgiving and find their Christmas outfits as well. I'm beyond excited that JB has returned and will be here for Christmas again. Rowan had a blast digging through Jingle Boy's extensive wardrobe and trying to eat all his hats. Zane of course loved Jingle Boy and all that is his pretend, very interesting, life. Jingle and Jangle (who are brother's in case you didn't know) in their Indian costumes, went with Zane and mom to the park this afternoon, which I'm sure was tons of fun. We have reinforced the fact that you can't touch Gary quite a bit, otherwise he would be loved to death/go missing the first day. But he can play with Jingle and Jangle all he wants. Jangle actually had arm reattachment surgery just this afternoon and is doing well.

 Rocking the miniature cowboy hat

Rowan eating JB's St. Patrick's day hat.

I can't wait for Zane to meet his new friend. I am not going crazy with the "you better be good or your elf will tell Santa and you won't get any presents." That's mean and will take the fun out of it for him. This way Zane gets to have a little friend and a direct line to Santa all month. He will love finding him and making up stories about what he did at night. Christmas is so much more fun with little children!

Ten On Tuesday

1. In case you were wondering how the weather has been here, this is Zane, ready to go outside for his allotted 10 minutes of outside time a day. He still has chores to do of course, cats to let out, to feed, chickens to feed, eggs to gather, mail to take out and pick up, all the normal farm stuff. Then there are the occasional moments of insanity by his father or Uncle Able when they take him to run on hay bales and down to his "house in the woods" while it is twenty six degrees outside. They claim they are trying to "tire him out," pneumonia will do that for sure. So far we just have a constantly running nose and are going pretty stir crazy.

 Yes those are shark mittens and yes his boots are on the wrong feet.

To get all this garb on takes quite awhile.

2. So what have we been doing frozen inside. Well the answer is not a lot. Daddy was home for the weekend which helped because rough play could be added to our arsenal. We also added bird watching, complete with little binoculars and Grandma's bird book. We saw two Cardinals fighting Sunday which was great. Music time, pretending to be Santa, pretending to be every thing imaginable, books, snacks, movies, and then it's maybe nap time. Yes, we are going a little crazy! 

3. Rowan, meanwhile, has been working on his walking skills. They are improving by leaps and bounds thanks to his little alligator walker. Zane didn't get this from Aunt Anna until he already knew how to walk, which was equally adorable, but Rowan is using it like a little old man walker, learning how to take tiny, slow steps. It is beyond cute, made cuter yesterday by his striped overalls. There was a point when he was half crouched down, "tinkering" with it as Dad would say. Soo cute. He also stands up besides me, when I'm sitting on the floor, and works on letting go. He can successfully stand up by himself for a little bit, but inevitably gets too excited and falls down. It is an extreme ab and back work out that inspired me to do some "ab work" of my own Sunday evening. (In quotes because I don't actually have abs, per say).

4. Zane does "homework" in the morning, usually his dry erase activity books that Grammi got him awhile ago. I'm trying to work with him on paying attention to something for more than thirty seconds at a time. The goal is at least three minutes, which sounds crazy, but is sometimes a struggle. We are doing stamping, painting, drawing, writing letters to random people, and anything else that involves him being calm and paying attention to one thing for awhile. Who knew this would be such a struggle, but he is a bit of crazy person. This is mom and him this morning doing some water color painting.

5. Thanksgiving plans are well under way. This year celebrations will be at my sisters for the first time and I'm so excited to be part of everything. I was tasted with being in charge of children's crafts so today Zane and I tried out the pine cone turkeys, after knocking pine cones out of the tree. Aunt Abbey also told us the party was BYOP (bring your own placement) so we made own of those this evening as well. My advice for Thanksgiving crafts, a bag of colored feathers, turns out they are tons of fun! Very crafty, exhausting, day here today.

6. Also today, in the spirit of the Thanksgiving, we put up the Teepee, from farm camp, in the living room. We read Native American books, took out our Indian blanket, and told stories about Thanksgiving. Every random toy is more fun to play with in a teepee so it was good for lots of entertainment.

7. Have I mentioned that I have lost my glasses since arriving in the Sooner State. I know they got down here, I have worn them since we got here, but somehow they have gotten lost. I'm thinking little hands might have hidden them, but who knows. Random side note, but I miss them. Time to make an eye appointment with our new insurance we'll finally have on December! Hooray!!!

8. Sunday, while Zach and Zane were on an adventure, Rowan found the piano and was delighted to be able to play it by himself, sans Zane trying to pry his hands off. It was the cutest thing and a perfect set up for me to get some great pictures of his two tooth smile. This is the piano that was at my Grandmother's house when I was growing up and all the Dotter Grandkids spent many hours play on and under it. It's so neat that it now lives at my kids Grandmother's house.

9. This Saturday is Zach's company Christmas party at the horse track in OKC. That should be interesting, meeting all the new co-workers. It sounds like it should be pretty nice though. I never go an invite to any Christmas parties at his old job, so I'll take it as a step up, though kind of nervous.

10. That's it from here, heading down to OKC Thursday for holiday fun! Hope everyone has a safe and happy Thanksgiving with their loved ones!!!

What's In a Name????

Almost exactly a year ago we officially named our second baby boy, Rowan Danny. I recently stumbled upon the blog post where we announced the name and our reasoning behind our choice. Oh how foolish were we. Here is the sentence that stuck out to me, and made me laugh out loud, when I reread the post. This is what I had to say about why we choose Rowan, besides me having heard it in Ireland. "It seems like a calm name to me, which was our main goal for the name of this child." Boy did we get that wrong. 

I remember literally Googling names that meant peaceful and calm, Solomon being the only one we could even begin to stomach. While mulling over whether or not to give him my father's name, besides the obvious feelings that it was the right thing to do, the hopes of passing on my father's calm, peaceful personality to my son was what really pushed it over the top. I mean it worked with Zane. I named him after my dare devil, have no fear, brother, and look how he turned out. Rowan is a tree for Christ's sake, how much more calm can you get. I look at his personality now and think, "every adjective that I had hoped to describe his personality, he is the exact opposite." 

So let's recap Rowan's personality at this moment. Rowan Danny (my personal translation being: super calm, peaceful tree), is all over the place. This little boy has wasted zero time in his life relaxing and being calm. I remember trying to pretend that he was peaceful in utero, as if to will him to be peaceful and calm when he was born. To be clear he was not calm in utero, at all. He kicked and squirmed like crazy in there, but I tried to ignore it at the time. He rolled over at two months, was army crawling by five months old, and has never looked back. At nine months he into everything and crawls all over the house, getting into draws, opening doors, pulling things out, making an ungodly amount of noise for such a little person, and will be walking before we know it. He cruises around everything, usually while hitting whatever he is holding onto, and screaming, most of the time at the top of his little lungs. He has a constant stream of babble going, which is helpful when trying to find him. I loose him very quickly, and often find him in not so great places (i.e. standing up by the bathtub). He is working hard to keep up with his brother, quickly crawling along behind him, following wherever Zane is going. 

He is in no way, shape or form, cuddly and peaceful like my father. He will cuddle only when intensely pressured by being fed, while fully wrapped in his blanket, being sung to, and rocked. So really the cuddling only happens when he is asleep. He does want to be held from time to time, but mainly to jump and climb on you, with the occasional face hit, eye scratch out, or hand in your mouth. He has places to be and will do anything necessary to stay awake, including hitting himself in the head, climb over the back the couch, and trying to pull my hair out. 

He is little and wiry, and absolutely hysterical. He gives kisses on command, can wave hi, claps at everything, and is a delight. I adore his own unique personality even though it nothing like I had imagined. I still hold out hope that it will turn around. Zane was barely army crawling at nine months, but look at him now, a full on crazy person. Maybe Rowan will grow into a calm, loving, cuddly, peaceful little boy soon enough. I doubt it. After all he has his big brother to keep up with.  So to answer my question of what's in a name, that is a resounding, NOTHING!

Rowan's Nine Month Update

Not only does Rowan turn nine months old today, but today also marks eight years since Zach and I got engaged, on November 21st, 2005. Just a little fun fact for you there. On to adorable little Rowan. He is nine months old and doing so many big boy things. He is much more coordinated with his standing up and cruising. He has also transitioned into using your standard hands and knees crawl instead of his army crawl of the past few months. He has a couple different variations of this crawl, the power crawl; which is very fast and with a purpose, never bending his elbows. Then there is the sad boy crawl; slow and methodical,  head down, crying hard/saying Mama, while coming in for a cuddle, usually after something devastating has happened to him. Lastly, there is the bear crawl, highlighted in yesterday's post, and used mainly while outside, or when he is climbing over things. He has started to try to stand from sitting, but has yet to be successful. It usually ends in him lunging forward, onto Zane, or into a crawl. He gets up on his knees to play with or reach things, and can stand unassisted for very short periods of time, so you know what's coming next. I'm scared!

Ro trying to stand up during his photo shoot.

Going for brother's sippy cup. 

He always moves with purpose, trying to knock things over on tables, reach for his brother's toys, and has started getting into a little bit of trouble. Usually for trying to climb into the dishwasher or for throwing his food on the floor from his high chair. "Ro No" has quite the ring to it and can be heard around here all day. He finds every piece of dirt, leaf, or food on the floor and all goes directly into his little mouth. He moves fast and is still very little so I loose him quite often. At mom's house when I've lost him he is usually in the little play kitchen, which keeps him entertained for quite some time, but I have also lost him at Abbey's when he was standing next to the high chair "chatting" with Everett.

Though he is still a little boy I have noticed him chunking up a little bit this month. I don't know how much he weighs, but he has gotten a bit of gut on him and his cheeks seem chubbier, but I maintain that his bottom is the same size it was when he was born. This has led to a clothing dilemma which I think I've solved by an increased number of overalls and one piece jumpers in his wardrobe in order to keep his pants on. He is eating all sorts of things, preferably feeding himself whatever we are eating I feel like he is eating more, but that could all be in my mind. His current favorite foods are mandarin oranges, peaches, apple sauce, spaghetti, and pancakes, all easily fed to himself and frequently in our food rotation.

At nine month's old Rowan's favorite things to do include, playing in the little kitchen, bath time in the big tub with brother, chasing his brother, trying to play with his brother (sometimes more successfully than others), his standing play table, and his numerous riding toys (the little red car, Aunt Abbey's red wagon rider, and spot the dog). Zane and him are working on being better friends, sometimes it goes well, but usually it ends violently with Rowan in tears and Zane in time out. They are so close to being able to be friends. Not yet....soon.

Currently Rowan is sick, with a pathetic little cough, runny nose, and generally miserable, getting up at night, and staying up for two hours the past two nights. We have scheduled his nine month appointment for the first week in December when we will have actual health insurance again, so hopefully he can avoid an ear infection that long. This month there were lots of first and lasts, first teeth, first road trip (which he hated), last night in STL, leaving his first home, his first night in a hotel, first Halloween, and so many other changes. I think all the change has been rough on him, with no two days being alike. Overall he has been quite the trooper and adapts pretty well to whatever we are doing, right up to the point of sleeping in random places, which he doesn't seem to be a fan of. I think he has enjoyed playing outside at the farm, with the cats, on the hay bales, and in random leaf piles around the yard. There has been lots of cousin time as well, which overall I think he is oblivious too, but watching him with his cousins has been entertaining to the rest of us.

Next week will be his first Thanksgiving followed by his first Christmas, so his ten month is shaping up to be full of memories!

Here are his nine months pictures!

This is how I will remember Rowan at this moment, cruising along a couch and then the picture below his him crawling over me, with something in his mouth, both happen all day long currently.

Rowan and his sheep, who he sleeps with, and can be finding cuddling, most mornings.