Rock on

Last weekend Rowan and her BFF rocked out at their first concert together.  Sadly, their coolness quotient was significantly lowered by the fact that their moms drove them there and stayed the whole time.

Embarrassing.

You can stand under my umbrella

For a couple of months, I have been begging for an umbrella.  But living in The Windy City, my mom's not a believer in the institution.  So luckily when we happened upon a single Hello Kitty umbrella in a boutique shoe store a couple weeks ago, Dad was present to override reason.

Despite his overruling, the fact remains that 1 umbrella + 2 two kids is an unsolvable equation.  But a short spurt of sisterly togetherness helped us enjoy our find for at least a couple minutes.

Feel my pain

Rowan learned this weekend that sometimes empathy is the best medicine when Dad's ability to share in her pain suddenly cured her of the ill effects of walking into the coffee table.

No biggie

For the first nine months or so, Rowan was an easy-going kid.  A go-with-the-flow kind of gal.  'Round about the time that crawling and the subsequent steps of independence came into the picture, she began to be a bit more demanding in regards to where she was, who she was with and what she was or wasn't doing (depending on whether she did or didn't want to be doing it).

And although my mom constantly feels like she won the offspring lottery with both us, she admits from time to time that she didn't realize what an EASY kid I really was until the one who responds to ultimatums with non-action and a smug grin came along.

And so it has been my mom's expectation that the arrival of a baby in this house will not go unnoticed on Rowan's part.  She's prepared herself for a little friction with a side of regression.  She was not, however, prepared for it to start four months before BG3 (Baby G. III) even moves in.

And maybe it IS BG3 and maybe it isn't, but for whatever reason, Rowan has decided quite firmly in the last week or so that she does not care to get any bigger than she is right now.  This week (in the second of two similar exchanges) when Mom asked her if she wanted to take ice skating lessons next year when she's a big kid, she promptly responded, "No."

When my mom asked her why, she replied, "Because I wanna stay wittle."

Which I suppose will make her third birthday next month kind of a bummer in her book.  Hopefully nothing a little cake can't fix.

Falling back into the blog

My silence on the blog can only be attributed to the fact that my favorite season is currently in full swing.

The arrival of shorter days and Halloween lawn decor signaled the long-anticipated return of the Flashlight Walks, a tradition started last year with my dad.  After dark, we take to the sidewalks with our flashlights to enjoy the lights and giant inflatables.  This year, Rowan was old enough to come along, too.  And the fact that the first flashlight walk of the year coincided with the purchase of Black-Tie Strawberry Shortcake attire made for a tremendous photo opp.

And on Monday, we enjoyed the ultimate flashlight walk: Trick or Treating!  Rowan decided before we left the house that the walking portion of this tradition was not for her, and so she opted to sit in her stroller the entire time and send me door-to-door as her agent.  I dutifully collected candy and deposited it into her bucket at each house. 

It's kind of a pointless exercise, given that moments after we arrive home my parents dump our loot in the trash as soon as our heads are turned and replace it with leftover candy from our own house.  Cause apparently inspecting Halloween candy is a taxing process they'd rather not undertake.  Pretty sure this is the last year I'm gonna allow them to get away with it.

And although I've never openly acknowledged their trickery, I think Rowan caught wind of the protocol and therefore covertly opened and consumed a chocolate kiss before she even got her shoes off.

My mom marveled at her selection of perhaps the most easily tampered-with confection in the history of Halloween candy.

For the record, it's four days later and she's a-ok.