Rowen is changing so rapidly. He is really becoming such a little boy. We are just madly in love with him and of course think he is so smart! We know he is smart but we also know that he is very typical for a two year old, and we love that!
Saying the funniest and sweetest things...
- Says, "Love you too" when we say "I love you", and sometimes before we can say "I love you" when we put him to bed at night he has already said, "love you too". He will walk up to me at random times during the day and hug my leg and say, "Love you too mommy". This of course melts my heart.
- If I am laughing or smiling at him, Ro will say, "Mommy is happy!" and grin at me with those brown sparkly eyes.
- "I want to go there!"- Ro says this a lot. If we start to talk about someone or something, he immediately wants to go see that person or see that place. For example, sometimes we mention that we will be going to see Mickey and Minnie's house (in November for TJ and Erin's wedding). Rowen will say, "I want to go there!" over and over. So, we don't talk about it very often :).
- "Mommy is my friend!" or "Daddy is my friend!" or "Grammy/Papa/Grandpa/Nana is my friend!"
- When we ask, "What is your name?", Ro will sometimes reply with, "ROWEN VOLK!"
- Sings "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" in the most darling voice. He adds in "pickle in the sky!" to be funny! He laughs and laughs at the funny he made and of course so do we :).
- Also loves to sing BINGO, Happy Birthday, and Old McDonald all by himself.
- Rowen will summarize his day for us when we ask "Did you have a fun day?". It is so sweet. He will say something like, "I played with Grandpa, we played cars. And I had lunch with Nana, some french fries. And I go outside and run. And I read some books. And I...." on and on and on!
Swinging and reading books... one of Ro's favorite pass times :)
Letters: Sometimes he will spell his name for me when I ask, he yells "R, O, W, E, N!". Rowen notices letters everywhere- the grocery store, in books, on boxes, on signs and billboards, you name it. We have taught him that certain letters go with the names of special people in his life so he will usually say, "Grammy's letter" when he sees a G, or "Cooper's letter" for C instead of saying the letter name but if I ask him to tell me the letter name he usually will- if he is in the right mood :). He seems to be interested in certain letters for a few days/weeks then seems to forget a few. His favorite letters right now are G, P, N, C, R, O, W, E, T, M, D, and B. All of these letters are meaningful to him because they are the beginning letter of someone's name and/or they are in his name.
Vocabulary:
I don't know what Rowen doesn't say now. If he doesn't know a word for something he always asks, "What's that" or "What's this". Once we tell him he doesn't forget. We are still amazed daily by the vocabulary he uses and how he is using past tense and just overall correct grammatical usage. We don't realize how much little ones really do listen to us talk and how much they learn from just that!
Rowen is definitely using complete sentences now. As his Nana said, "He is talking in paragraphs now!", and it is true. Sometimes he will just talk and talk and talk and talk about things that make perfect sense. We can follow his thought process and are seeing him make connections between all sorts of things, places, people, experiences, etc.
Having a great time swimming with daddy.
Counting: We love to hear Rowen count! It is so darling... "one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve (sometimes he says two instead), teen, teen, teen, teen, teen (for who knows how long), twenty!". Rowen loves to count the school buses on the way to drop mommy off at work each day and he counts the houses in our neighborhood on the way home. When we get to the end of a block he will say, "Oooooh" and put his hands over his eyes, then start over again at one. I guess he thinks he can't keep counting on the next block. This just makes me smile- I don't want him to stop doing this so I haven't really worked on getting him to continue counting on the next block.
Shapes: Rowen loves to point out shapes to us. He is pretty good with circle, triangle, square, star, heart, and oval. The other day we were playing a game with shapes and he said, "Rowen likes circles!". I just had to laugh :).
Behavior: All I can say is... CHALLENGING and as sweet a pie all wrapped up in one darling boy. Rowen has his goods days and his not so good days but mostly he has the hardest time when he is tired- around nap time and dinner time. Also, when we have to change something quickly- like if we are running late and I have to rush us both a bit he gets overwhelmed and often ends up throwing a fit :). We are just rolling with the punches and doing our best to be consistent, give him choices so he has some power, and not let him control every situation in our house. So much easier said than done!
Other News:
Rowen started attending Cheney Cooperative Preschool on Monday and Wednesday mornings from 10-12. He loves the interaction with other kids and mommy loves that she or Nana or Papa are with him to help him learn and make new friends.
First day of preschool. Rowen is saying, "cheese!".
