reader poll: your favourite childhood toys and books

Hey dedicated readers!

I would like you to leave comments describing your favourite toys and/or books when you were growing up. Include stories about them if you can; I would love to hear them. Here are a couple of mine to get you thinking:

My Little Pony: Oh my. I was a fiend for these cute little plastic ponies from the age of seven until I outgrew them around puberty. All of my closest friends had them and we used to bring them everywhere. We made crazy houses for them out of random pieces of wood, shells, junk, and beach finds. We made up elaborate stories for them (barbie was usually the bad guy!), we made them clothes out of scraps, and traded them. I still get a really strong pull when I see them at garage sales and in fact bought one for Rowan last summer before she was born. It's Firefly, a pink baby pegasus with blue hair and a lightning bolt on her bum, for anybody who knows their Ponies.

Roald Dahl: As an older kid I loved Roald Dahl and read every book of his I could get my hands on. I still have all of mine and I read them so much that the covers are falling off. I think I may have got my first one from my Aunt Janice - The BFG and The Witches were definitely favourites. They have to be illustrated by Quentin Blake to have the full effect, though!

Heather recently gave me an anthology of Dahl's adult writings, which are really deliciously dark and twisted. Much like his kids' books.

I can't remember very many books I specifically liked as a younger child, probably because I loved to read absolutely *everything*.

Oh, I just remembered an important one. The Rats of NIMH. As fantastic as this book is, it has sad connections for me because the library at my elementary school in NB bought the picture book version as a sort of tribute-memorium after my brother Aaron died. I think it might have had an inscription in it, but I can't remember. I wonder what it would have said.

a little health scare

On Sunday, Rowan did something that freaked Nigel and I out. She had just finished feeding and I sat her up to burp her. She made this funny choking noise - which isn't that strange, because she sometimes inhales a bit of spit up or drool - and then started crying. But her crying wasn't normal, it was kind of hitchy and it seemed like something was wrong.

Then Rowan started doing this thing where she would do a gurgly gasping/choking thing every ten or so breaths and it seemed like her breathing would stop for a second. At this point, Nigel and I were getting really concerned, so Nigel called the hospital. The nurse doesn't seem to be that worried, but then, she couldn't see or hear Rowan.

What was strange is that Rowan had stopped crying and didn't seem upset about these breathing interruptions. In fact, she was falling asleep but kept startling herself awake with these hitching gasps. Her colour was fine and she wasn't wheezing... but we were afraid to let her fall asleep while she was doing this weird breathing thing.

After a few minutes of this, we grabbed her diaper bag and started to drive to the Almonte hospital. By this point, she didn't seem to be having as many episodes, but we were still freaked out. We made it to the end of our dirt road and then turned around because Rowan didn't seem to be having any breathing issues anymore and was awake, looking around with her big bright eyes.

We figure she must have inhaled a bit of spit or milk. Or maybe she was congested and couldn't breathe through her nose like usual and so was having to breathe through her mouth. I dunno. It was definitely freaky. She seemed completely fine by the time we got her back out of the car, though.

I'm glad we didn't actually have to go to the hospital, though, because I was afraid that Rowan might catch a nasty cold or flu there. Or worse.

Few more development notes:
Rowan has really taken to sucking her thumb. Or thumb and forefinger, depends on how coordinated she is feeling. Sometimes she accidentally crams her extra fingers up her nose or *almost* pokes herself in the eye. Goof.

Rowan is a thumb-sucker

Rowan loves her rocking chair and the dangling toys. She likes to play this game where she kicks one of our hands to make her chair rock. When the chair gets rocking, the toys swing in a really exciting way! Clearly she doesn't know to be afraid that they might hit her in the face yet.

Rocking chair fun with daddy.

And playtime with mommy.

Rowan likes her bath time, even if she is getting too long for her tub.

eight week update

Just in the last week or so, Rowan has become a lot more communicative - a lot more body language, more variation in her vocalisations, and, most exciting of all, smiling! Her whole face just lights up when she's in a good mood and she definitely is smiling. It's amazing to see.

It's a bit tricky to photograph the smiling because Rowan moves around a lot when she's happy. Lots of fist shaking and wriggling makes non-flash photos harder. Here are some cute Rowan photos I took today.

Wriggly monkey!

A happy grin

Kind of goofy

My, what big eyes you have!

Baby vocalisations
Rowan is making a much wider range of sounds and it is clearer (to me at least) what she is trying to communicate. When she is happy, her sounds are very cheery and cute, cooing and squeaking.

When she has a lot of gas or is having a big poop, she makes loud grunting noises, makes funny faces and turns red in the face (kind of hilarious actually, and helpful when we're in town because then we know it is time to find somewhere decent to change her - like Chapters or Bridgehead).

When she wants to be fed, but isn't really all that hungry, she does this little plaintive cry (a short wah sound) that you can tell is just half-hearted.

Let's play Bop the octopus!
Rowan is definitely getting more coordinated about batting her dangling play mat toys and gripping the handle of her musical bugs mobile. The orange squeaky monkey still seems to be the reigning king of her menagerie; she loves it when it pops out from behind other toys and hangs out on top of her play mat structure.