Much better!

Here at the Pellow home, we are all feeling so much better. Rowan seems to be giving up on the random, extremely long temper tantrums at bedtime (knock on wood), Tate is back to being the healthy, happy boy we're used to and I got out by myself for a few hours at book club. Though Lance is out of town, we've had three playdates and the kids have been sufficiently busy. Today we make the trek to Grandma Jackie's for a little family time and the great children's museum here.

Rowan continues her obsession with books and would probably sit and be read to all day if anyone had the time and patience for that. If only she enjoyed novels, I think I could curl up with her in bed and read aloud to her all day. When I was nursing Tate the other day, Rowan brought a book up to me, pointed to the word "cat" and said the phonetic sounds for cat "kah, a, t...kah, a, t...CAT!! Mommy, that word says cat!" Was it a fluke? Maybe, but then later in the day, she found another book that I'm relatively certain I haven't read to her since we lived in Charlotte. The title of the book is "Pets". She looked at it and said "pah-eh-t-s. pah-eh-t-s. PETS!" She's been sounding out words randomly for months, but has never blended the sounds into words. I'm thinking if I could teach her to read, she could quite possibly keep herself entertained for hours!!

Tate is now moving very quickly and falling quite a bit less. He gets excited about everything and makes the cutest squeal when he's happy. He loves to play with balls (that can be read two ways as that's where his hand immediately shoots as soon as the diaper comes off) and is very into the "I'm going to drop this over and over to see how many times you'll pick it up" game. He is also eschewing all baby food and much other food in general. My only sure-things are Kashi cereal bars and vanilla yogurt. Any ideas?

Not such happy news is that Grandma Mary does have cancer. She goes in for surgery tomorrow, which will likely be followed by radiation, chemotherapy or both. Chest scans look good, so all signs say that it's contained to the uterus and cervix. Monica is there now and I am guessing one or all of us will be there next week to help out post-op.

In the meantime, I will be taking lots of baths and doing lots of reading as a high of 7 just doesn't beckon me to the outdoors.