Rowan: 3 yrs. 8 mo.

Rowan finished up her swim lessons last week, and today she started her 2nd year of Pre-school.  Since we had signed up the kids for Kids Village, and could not get our money back, they worked it out with us for the kids to attend for the month of August.  So Rowan is going to Kids Village MWF with Miss Korbi, and will go to her new school, Avondale, T and TH with Mrs. Ashdown.  It will be a crazy 2 weeks for sure!!  She loves to wear dresses now, and insisted on wearing one to her first day of school.  One of the cute words she made up over the summer is 'Pumper'.  I got them a suitcase to use for sleepovers at Grandma's house, and she decided it should be called 'Pumper' because the handle goes up and down.  We thought it was so cute we decided to keep calling it that.  Another word she says is Ibuprofie, for Ibuprofin.  There have been some other words too, but I will have to add them later since I can't remember them all.  So back to her swimming...for her age she did pretty well.  She is pretty stubborn and wants to go at her pace, and do her own thing, so it was a bit of a slow process.  She did learn to go under the water, and do some of the breathing, so that in itself is a great improvement.  She used to hate to get her face wet, but now she is really comfortable with it.  She got to go to a bunch of splash pads over the summer, and really was great with getting splashed on.  When I was let go at work, Rowan tended to get up pretty early in the morning, and she would sit on the top of the stairs and yell 'I want to get dressed now'.  It was pretty frustrating because she would often wake up Liam, who liked to sleep in.  After several weeks, we finally convinced her to come down the stairs quietly, and hang out with us in our room.  Another great improvement that happened in the last week, is she has decided to try some new foods!  In one week she tried 'Szechuan Tempeh', 'Eggplant Parmesan', 'Southern Stir Fry Pasta', 'Sloppy Joes' and Corn on the Cob....she decided that she loved all the new foods...Who knows how long this will last, but we were very surprised and happy about her willingness to try new things!  She has made a new friend this summer, named Meika, who is a little girl of one of my past co-workers.  They don't have many friends around here the same age, so we decided to get them together for play dates.  It has been fun, and hope to continue it over the school year too.  Anyway, I look forward to picking her up from her first day, and hearing all about it.