a brief brief

I TOO FAST!

So, what's the deal? A guy doesn't post to his blog for five or six months and suddenly his wife takes the pictures HE wanted to write witty comments on (skeleton sweats! oh, skeleton sweats!) and beats him to it!

I think I have an idea of what went down...

Mama: Okay R, while Dada is busy thinking about the waffles we APPEAR to be making, you go post!

R: Okay, I'll do it. No one wearing oversized lemon yellow diapers could look suspicious.

Mama: You're right!

Oh well...I can only plead conspiratorially orchestrated technical duncery in my own defense. I'm looking at the blogger interface now and I don't have any button icons visible. I only have an empty grid rudely demarcated by dotted vertical lines spread out irregularly. I'm also writing an essay about Ezra Pound, so my prose is suffering latinate vocabulary and nominalizations endemic to universityfication and crumbities.

Here's R charmingly misunderstanding the idea of the "bowl."

His potato masher is his "true Penelope" and bff. Today we were eating bits of spinach and shredded wheat, and R was studiously placing the squares between the serpentine sine-waves of the stainless steel potato masher, staring intently, and then popping them in his mouth, seemingly satisfied at the results of his inquiry.

first haircut/almost one

R & Auntie Quiche
A tiny, pre-mohawk skeleton (he woke up with this 'do--no stylin' necessary) wishing to read Five Little Monkies.
R con Tio y Tia
R & some (apparently) delicious grub.
R & his bff potato masher. Oh, and dada too.

Ro's in bed, Mercer's en classe, so I am taking the opportunity to update. Mercer actually tried to post the other night, but technology did not agree with him, so the night ended in frustration. We're embedded in another hopelessly long workweek--I worked late Monday, Mercer has class til 9:30 Tues and Wed and then stays late on campus to do research, and then tomorrow (Thurs) is another late night for me. The upshot of all this work is no time for play, so I am really looking forward to getting to spend some quality time with Ro this weekend. Maybe we'll go to the children's museum and capitalize on the last weekend he'll get it free (as a less than one-year-old--that's right: next Friday is the big day! I am in disbelief).

Last weekend we went to Blacksburg, VA. Merc presented a paper at a conference. Ro and I came along for the ride. And the motel cable. Hey, we have no TV, so I binge when possible. The change in routine really threw Ro for a loop. He didn't go to sleep til 10:30 and then spent much of the night wandering off his mattress and crying. Poor dude. Other than that, though, he has been a champion of a sleeper--overnight, at least. He's still not a big nap fan.

In other Rowan news: he's soaking up new words. He still has his little repertoire of recognizable words. He talks a lot, and very emphatically--I just can't always pick up what he's throwing down. We gave him his first haircut last weekend--Mercer was buzzing his own hair, and Ro seemed intrigued. He wiggled around, so we had to give up our dreams of a mohawk and settle for something a little more jaggedy.

wall street week in review

Okay, * wince, wince*. It's just me again, no Mercer, and worse, no pictures. On the upside, the weekend was prettier than it was forecast to be (at least for those of us residing in the Southeastern quadrant of this fair nation). Mercer had a blessedly shortlived bout with a very mild stomach bug yesterday (it did not have anything to do with love). So our day was pretty calm (at least inasmuch as a day with Ro can be called calm). Ro's latest thing is not napping, so evenings have been a little tough. I have gotten him to nap in the stroller for a few minutes at a time, but nothing too fruitful. Poor dude has been sleeping from around 7:30 til 6 every night, but at this point he's still supposed to be napping it up during the day, too!

Ah well, anyhow, we had a busy day today. Ro & I took an epic walk whilst Dada worked and then we all went to the GSO Children's Museum. Ro gaped at the big kids, alternately trying to tackle them and following them around. HE also met Clifford the Big Red Dog and wasn't quite sure what to make of him. In the end he just gave him a smile & a high-five and sauntered away.

Dangit, I put my plants out on the porch again prematurely--it's supposed to get below freezing tonight. Booo! I am trying to summon the energy to bring em in, but it may not happen.

guilted!

I need to upload pix something fierce (story of my life . . . or at least of this blog), but just a post to let anyone who still checks this blog from time to time that we have not all perished of carbon monoxide poisoning. No, but seriously, I am scared of carbon monoxide poisoning. What's the deal? Isn't there some sort of alarm you can purchase? Note to self: check into carbon monoxide alarm so family does not perish of c.m. poisoning.

So I have been on the computer all day and am sitting in a very uncomfortable posture because I am too lazy to move my computer. But yeah, it's 7:45. Ro is, oddly, in bed. I saw him for a couple hours this afternoon and then had to go back to work. When I returned I faced a Very Tired Man. Not much napping going on these days--or not on a regular basis anyhow--but he's doing so well with sleeping through the night. We have been having a really fun time at the playground as of late--the slides and swings are both favorites, as is consuming chunks of mulch. Sigh.

Since we don't do anything fun ever during the weekdays, I'll do a weekend update (unfortunately not the SNL kind). We've had several since I last posted! Last-last weekend we were graced by a visit from Aunite Tokesha. It was so long ago it all seems like a happy blur but much fun was had. Kesha kindly came with me to volunteer at a work event for teen girls and their moms/grandmas/big sisters/female role models. At the beginning of the event, Tokesha did want a daughter. By the time the communication game (a version of the newleywed game) part rolled around, she had decided she'd pass on the whole having-a-girl thing. But yes, it was awesome seeing her!

Then LAST weekend Merc, Rowan and I travelled to Pilot Mountain (where Aunite Alyssa, Ro and I had ventured over the summer) for a little hike. On the way back we stopped in Winston-Salem (yeah, like the cigarettes) for some sushi with Tia y Tio. Ro, as always, was enchanted by them. He was also quite the social butterfly, demanding high-fives from everyone in the place (except, inexplicably, he refused a high five to a fellow patron who stopped by the table after witnessing the flurry of high five activity. Dissed!). Afterwards we went and ate frozen custard, which was a first for all the S-Bs. AMAZING!!! I got some huge concoction featuring cookies and brownies and dough and mmmmm. I blew Mercer's mind by telling him you can get Rice Krispie Treat custard with caramel popcorn on top (his two favorites). We're campaigning for Kernel Kustard to open shop in the GSO. If we suddenly get blimpy in our blog pix, y'all will know our prayers have been answered.

a veritable flood of pictures, in no particular order

Well, to begin, here's a picture of our hike from a couple weeks ago. I haven't been able to convince Merc to take a walk since. Well, that's not true. It has been too daggone cold for me to go anyplace other than a couple inches from the heating vents in my own home.

Here are a few pictures from T and Amy's visit. I miss them--it was so awesome having them around and now their visit seems terribly long ago. It was nice to upload the pictures and have a nice little reminder! Below, Ro walks to Uncle T.
Umm, yes, we consumed more donuts than a stoned cop. It was hard to hold Rowan back. Yup, like mama like son. Uncle T kind of taunted him, as evidenced below.
We spent lots of time sitting around chatting.
Mercer took this picture at 5:30am when both parties depicted had just woken up.
Audie got some love from T and Amy. The cats definitely miss them.
Below, pics from last weekend at the Bufter residence. Note how all the pictures are from weekends. No one wants to see pictures of, say, Tuesdays, when it's just us, sans exciting guests, looking harried.
Below, Maw shows GG her new camera (twas the gift of the holiday season, apparently).
Grandad follows Ro closely up the stairs:
Check out Baby Gromies in his designer duds, courtesy of the Original Gromies.
It snowed an inch or two on Tuesday, enough to close the county schools and delay work for me and Merc. Yay! It was Ro's first sight of snow and boy was he psyched. Then he learned that snow may taste delightful and make the world look sparkily, but it will freeze your digits. Babies hate mittens.

Holiday Retrospective

It's true, we do have a new camera on the SB ranch, but for tonight, we still only have old pictures. So even though we went up to visit Maw-maw and Grandaddy B this past weekend and took a ton of pics and had a great time, there is, as of yet, no way for us to prove it. Instead, I'm posting some older holiday roundup type photos...blahblahblah...

Here's Ro with wheelyBee, plucking out his souless black eye (or is that an antennae?) Either way, he has moved past excitement over the box that wheelyBee came in, and is now excited about wB himself.

R is getting so big that his toys are all taking on new roles. He doesn't need his red walker (Crazy-Driver) toy to take those 20 or so steps from one oasis of parental leg to the next, and we have now lost hope that he will spend any significant time in the otherwise lovely Jumparoo or Safari Swing from here on out. This man makes an enemy of anything with a strap or restraint of any kind.

Here's a scene from our last visit to the 'ville. L is getting Ro in on the garden party at an early age. The book is the beautifully illustrated and pleasantly rhymey Ten Little Fingers and Ten Little Toes by Mem Fox and Helen Oxenbury. Ro is starting to really like other kids. We went to a neighborhood playgroup when T and Amy were in town--R tackled kids with hugs! Much more placid kids! Kids halfway to twice his age!

Anyway, he hugged them.

A pretty new development over break was putting things in containers and taking them out. R has since coupled this passion with an abiding interest in adult-sized glasses of water. If we're not careful, he just plunges his arm in up to the elbow.

Failure to allow the man to plunge his arm in your water ma result in some old fashioned hollering.

Additionally, he climbs stairs. Up at Granddad and Mawmaw's he was up to this same trick, and the dog just didn't know what to do...

Here's a shot representative of the Christmas melee we got ourselves into in GA. I think there's something oil-paintey about it.

Next time, some new pictures, (we promise...)

we likes to party.

So much has gone down in the last week-ish! It would be so much easier if I could get up the motivation to post more frequently, but that never seems to happen. Plus, my folks gave the S-B household a new camera for Christmas (thanks, guys!) but I have not yet downloaded the software and am too tired to do so right now. So this is going to be one of them boring will-post-pix-later posts. Yawn! (Typing that actually made me yawn).

I don't remember anything that went down between the time the awesome foursome departed and last Saturday. But last Saturday Mercer, Ro and I set out on a walk that was supposed to be a couple miles, but somehow I visualized the trail we had been on ending in a different spot and . . . long story short we ended up taking quite a hike. Mercer got very grumpy and I got a little loopy and Ro was a trooper. Our flagging spirits were revived by the sight of a new noodle & sushi spot on the way back. Yum!

Then Sunday stuff got even iller and sicker, and I mean that in, like, the best possible, Beastie Boys sense of the word(s). T and Amy came down from Farmville, where they had arrived the previous day. I'll admit to having an unquenchable curiosity about the oft-spoken-of but never-seen Amy. Well, now, having met her I can't say enough good things about her. She made a big impression on everyone in the household. Even the usually recalcitrant Lemmy was sitting on her lap within an hour of her entering the house. And of course Ro loved being passed back and forth between her and Uncle T. They left today and the house feels empty. It also feels more put-together than before, because between T & Amy, the shower drain got unclogged, my busted car got jumped, the dangerous carpeting on the stairs got nailed down, the floor got mopped . . . I could go on and on. But we'll miss them bunches! After all the fun guests we've been having as of late, he's going to be so bored with just Mercer & me. Luckily, we're headed to Maryland this weekend, so he'll get to bask in the presence of more family! We can't wait to see everybody.

In Ro news, the ability to walk has come on super-fast. He's regularly walking across rooms now and it's hard to remember that he took his first steps just a few weeks ago. He's also getting so communicative, which is so exciting! He's signing and learning new sounds and showing comprehension. Every day he seems more aware of how to make his needs known. Yesterday, we were playing one of his favorite games, where he points to something and says "this" and you have to fill in the name of the object. He pointed at different things on the table--doughnut, paper towel, and then at a carton of milk. When I said "milk," got this really perplexed look on his face, like "no it's not," and turned to me and tried to nurse! Ha!