Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,....and two Dogs?

Rowan was born in 2010, the year of the Tiger.  I was told by a friend that this is a very lucky thing, as the Tiger is a strong, independent and powerful animal.  If I wasn't feeling proud enough to have my little Tiger, I was told that our next baby {we affectionately call him "Trouble"} will be a Dragon.  This, my friend said, was very good.  He said that I was extremely lucky to have {or be having} two boys, a Tiger and a Dragon - the two most powerful animals.  He also said, that Dragons and Tigers get along.  NICE!

Now, the Chinese zodiac calendar is not necessarily part of our culture or personal beliefs.  I find this kind of information very fun and interesting, and I love to hear about it!  That said, I wouldn't, say, make any important decisions or judgements based on these beliefs, or put too much emphasis behind them.

But....it got our curiosity burning a little.  So we looked up compatibility amongst the animals of the Chinese calendar, and based on this website, it looks like Dragons and Tigers do, in fact, get along very well.  And so do Dogs {Rogér and I are both Dogs} and Tigers.  For the Dog parent/Tiger child, it said "Easy Parenting".  Wahoo!  So true, right? 

What a roll we're on!

Until we got to the Dog parent/Dragon child relationship.....

"Problems will arise" 

That's what it says.  Looks like "Trouble" has been aptly nicknamed!  Ha!

We'll have to try not to hold his personality against him....he is a Dragon after all. ;)

*shrug*

What fun our little Tiger and Dragon are going to be!  Lots of adventures ahead of us with these two!

image source: www.peoplequiz.com

Rowan turns 1

Now that the holiday and birthday craziness is over, I can finally get to my post on Rowan's first year!

A year ago, we brought our little guy home.

We can hardly call him "little" anymore, even though we do.  He's HUGE!  Partly because he's an eating machine!  He's moved on from his bananas only phase, and now he mows through almost anything you put in front of him....then asks for more.  Especially if its grapes or cake!

This year has been amazing.  It hasn't all been easy, although, we think we lucked out as far as Rowan's temperament so far.  He is pretty easy. 

But then, we kinda get a kick out of his tantrums anyway!  {maybe I'll eat those words later, but for now, I'll just admit it...his face gets so grumpy and cute!}

It really doesn't seem like it went that fast.  To me, anyway.  I know that's what everyone says and everyone expects me to say, but the time didn't fly any faster than any other year.  But now, he's doing so many new things and sprouting UP so fast, that I think the days and years are going to whip by.

Happy Birthday, Rowan!!

We love you and we're so proud of you :)

If You're Happy and You Know It..

Clap your hands!

I usually spend my work day humming some kind of tune that's stuck in my head.  Typically, it's something along the lines of a rock ballad (eg. Muse, Foo Fighters, and the like...with a Taylor Swift number thrown in the mix every now and again). 

But today, it's "If you're happy and you know it".

Guess this is the beginning of what I've seen happen to so many other parents.  Okay, well, maybe it started a while ago, when I acidentally left a NIN Rockabye Baby! lullaby CD in the car and listened to it on repeat for a week, but I'm not really going to count that. 

I don't mind listening to kid songs, or even having them stuck in my head all day {although I'm not sure how my coworkers feel about this}.  Actually, I'm glad that I can conjure up a song or two.  When we first brought Rowan home from the hospital, I was all o'sudden strapped to think of any songs from my early childhood past that would be appropriate for playtime or sleepytime.  I resorted to the only song I could think of, Sweet Baby James, by James Taylor.  And I'm sorry to say that that's still pretty much the only song that I "sing" when trying to rock Rowan to sleep.  But at least I've got a few others under my belt for other parts of the day.

A morning favorite is:
"It's ___day, it's ___day,
I like the shirt you've got on. 
In fact, I like it so much I'm gonna put it in a song. 
In a song, in a song. 
In a song, in a song. 
I like you and your shirt so much I'm gonna put it in a song"

A beauty, isn't it?

"Head, shoulders, knees, and toes"  {or hoofd, schouders, knieën en tenen} is another winner"

"The Hokey Pokey"  is our getting dressed theme song.

"Eca Moda" {sp?} is a nice little distraction, and "Baby Beluga" gets a line or two in on the way home from school.

Since my mom was a preschool teacher, you'd think I'd have more than that in my bag of tricks, but apparently I didn't retain that information.  I think it's safe to say we're getting there, though...slowly.

What songs do you remember singing to your babies, or having sung to you? 

A Half Birthday

Yesterday, (June 22nd), Rowan turned 6 months old!  Can you believe it?  He looks a lot older though because he's so fricking tall, and a little beefcake too.  

Although we talk about giving Rowan a fun half birthday celebration {since his real birthday is so close to Christmas}, we didn't celebrate this 6 month milestone with anything particularly special.  To be honest, we were pretty pooped yesterday.

But.....the day before, was a pretty awesome day for the Bear Cub.

He had his first swim!

omg, he's like a LITTLE FISH. 

Just like his daddy :)

My Favorite Part About Being a Mommy...Right Now

Okay, so I bitched about breastfeeding, and now I'm going to share the part about taking care of little Rowan that I enjoy the most.

This might sound kind of weird, but I absolutely LOVE burping him!  I get the biggest kick out of it.  He's always so alert during burping.  He sits up, lifts his little head as high as he can, and wrinkles his forehead.  It's so cute!  And then, his burps are so fun to hear, and I'm so proud of him and myself when we get one!  Ya know, he doesn't really do that much right now, so this is really exciting for us.

The best, best part though, is when he lifts his head, and his so-soft-there's-no-good-comparison cheek brushes against my cheek!  Oh my gosh, it's the BEST!

-Sarah

This Is My Poopy Face..

"Whoa! What just happened in my pants?"

Rowan doesn't really complain when he has a poopy dipe.  A wet one will bring on a string of wails, but not a poopy one.  His only tell is this cute little pucker-face.  It kind of looks like he's trying to give you a kiss, but it undoubtedly means that he's let loose into his diaper.  This is the only event massive enough to warrant the wide eyes and kissie lips. 

-Sarah

Daddy & Me

Rogér is great at diaper duty, but that's not the only quality time he and Rowan get. 

He's taking advantage of his paternity leave, and catching up on some lost z's, by sleeping in a little in the mornings with the bean sprout, (I may be slightly jealous of the sleep he's getting!)

He color coordinates their outfits,

And they play with Domino.

Oh, and how could I forget, the time spent playing Dad's favorite new video game, Golden Eye.  Yup, starting him early.  No picture of that one, sorry.

Pure Daddy Love! 

Love it!

We've Hit Two Weeks!

Oh my gosh! I forgot to tell you all that Rowan lost is cord!  It was actually this last Sunday that I was changing his stinky diaper and realized that his umbilical cord had fallen off, and was nowhere to be found.  I dug around in his clothes to find it.  Then, I promptly threw it away, before Rogér had the chance to fanagle a way to save it.  YUCK. (Sorry if that's your thing, but I'm not into it.)

I wasn't nearly as grossed out by the whole umbilical cord thing after Rowan was born as I was before so.  It really creeped me out when I realized , via one of the Kaiser newborn classes, that it stuck around for a couple weeks and you had to work around it. eeeeeeeeeeeew.  I guess when you've got a little bundle of cuteness in your hands, you can overlook those sorts of things.

Since the cord fell off, we got to give Rowan his first bath!  Yay!  He screemed bloody murder through the whole thing, and then peed all over himself as soon as we were done!

Rowan's First Bath

I think we've been lucky so far because Little Ro sleeps for at least a solid three hour stretch each night, with a few little naps in between.  And, he doesn't fuss during the day hardly at all.  In fact, it's kinda hard to tell when he's got a dirty dipe 'cause he doesn't make a big deal about it.  We just have to check every now and then.

Some days he's more awake than others.  And of course, we take tons of photos of him either way, but it's really fun to look at his little grey eyes and wonder what color they'll turn out to be.

The Best Christmas Present

 Our perfect baby boy, Rowan Matthijs Balyon, arrived on December 22, 2010, at 5:58pm.  He was 7 lbs, 9 oz and 21 inches long, and pretty much the most cutest thing on the planet!

Rogér is the proudest Papa, and has become a super poopy diaper changer, and the baby burrito (swaddle) master.

Sarah is an incredibly beautiful Mommy who;s husband thinks she is the greatest and did an amazing job cooking up the little dude.


We are so excited and have a lot to learn.  Luckily, for the past week, Rowan's Grandma Bev has been here to help.  But starting tomorrow, we're on our own!

Since things are going to be even busier around here, we might struggle to keep the blog updated at first.  But we hope to be able to document and share our dive into parenthood, little Rowan's adventures, and the rest of the circus act.

Still Waiting for Baby B...

Two days left until his due date, but it feels like he's late already!

A couple nights ago, we got fooled by some contractions that seemed pretty regular and kinda painful.  I'm not really sure if they were real contractions after all because I ended up falling back asleep and waking up sans baby.  Made fore an interesting morning though, because we got up at 4am, packed some bags, and gave the Demon Dog a much needed bath!

Haven't felt any contractions since then. 

I guess we should be enjoying our free days and nights without the little guy.  It's just that we're (me especially) ready for this whole pregnancy/delvery shindig to be over and on to the next thing already!  I think. Plus, if he really was about 7.5 lbs two weeks ago, I really don't want him to cook much longer.

-Sarah 

Upcycled! - Baby Diaper Changing Station

We weren't sad to see our old cabinets go, but I felt bad scrapping all that wood, so I was trying to think of ways use them. In reality, the cabinets were so hard to get out that most of them got broken apart (and used as firewood), but we did manage to salvage this one section.

After staring at it sitting on our back patio for a few days, I came up with and idea!  A baby changing station!  I liked the idea that there were drawers, and it has a handy pull out cutting...ur...diaper-holding board!  Of course, it needed a little make over.

    

Materials:  Home Depot paint mistakes 1 pint lt blue - $1,  Martha Stewart sample paints - $1 each, Paint brushes $1 each, Painter's tape - $3, Not shown: Wood putty - $2, Ceramic drawer knobs - $2 each, leftover white paint from our walls - $0

  I sanded down all the surfaces, removed the pull handles and filled them in with wood putty. I painted the base light blue and the drawers white.  Then I taped off two drawer faces to paint light brown squares, and taped vertically on the three other drawers to get the lines. The hardest part was waiting for different coats to dry.

For the top surface, I took two cabinet doors, sanded them down, nailed them on, and painted them white. I drilled holes for the new knobs in the center of each door and put on the knobs.

I couldn't be happier with the results! The whole project cost less than $30 and took me, alone, about a week to complete (keep in mind, I have a growing belly and I need a nap about every two seconds).

Add Baby Shower planning to our list of To Do's

With all the stuff we've been doing on the house, we've kinda lagged on the whole baby shower thing.  (I know you don't typically throw your own baby shower, and we're not.  My mom is technically hosting.  But since we like to do things our way, we have a BIG say in the matter, plus, my mom lives far away from us so it's easier for us to do some of the planning). So anyway....

We decided a while ago that we wanted to do a couples shower, because Rogér is a part of this whole shindig too!  And I don't really do well when the spotlight is all on me either. We also decided to have it at our house.  Why?!  Oh my gosh! Why?!  Well, we wanted all our friends/fam to see our place and see the baby's room and we thought it'd be fun. And it will be, except for the whole part about us not having a kitchen yet and the fact that most of our belongings are piled in a big mess in the enclosed patio (or Trophy Room, as Rogér has decided to entitle it).

With the shower only a few weeks away, we're still trying to come up with a good food option (that doesn't require us to have a kitchen of course), some fun co-ed activities and prizes, favors, and some sort of strategy for the whole day.  I'm sure it will all pull together though.  At least today I got a start on the favors.  See them at my other blog, HERE.

Just another crazy week  :)