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Rob's Diary Entries Diary Navigation: Choose A Diary Entry -------------------- Latest Entry: 11/15/00 -------------------- 11/7/00 11/1/00 10/25/00 10/10/00 10/4/00 9/25/00 9/19/00 9/13/00 9/6/00 8/29/00 8/23/00 8/16/00 8/8/00 8/7/00 8/1/00 7/26/00 7/19/00 7/12/00 7/5/00 6/26/00 6/15/00 6/8/00 5/25/00 5/22/00 -------------------- Rob's Introduction

June 15, 2000

Spring's storms have come rolling across Chicago this week. Rowan doesn't mind how wet it is, though. I've known she likes the rain ever since we got caught in a thunderstorm on the way home from day care last month. We were crawling along the sidewalk on our bike, with no rain coats, getting doused. I didn't hear any noise from Rowan, but when I snuck a look behind me, she was grinning with her face turned up to the sky.

If she can handle that, there's no way she'll let a little rain keep her from playing outside, especially now that she has her yellow slicker and hat. She gets excited when we put on our rain coats, and she loves her matching hat. The only problem is that the hat fits me better than it fits her. I don't know why a child's coat came with an adult-size hat. It's a bit of a mystery, but I'm too lazy to send it back, so a safety-pin has temporarily re-sized the hat to fit Rowan while making it possible for Papa or Mama to borrow her stylin' lid on occasion.

I'll have to look through my recent pictures, maybe I have a shot of Rowan in her rain-gear. No picture can match my memory of us together in our rain-coats as we bend down to sniff dripping flowers while rush-hour cars hiss by on the wet pavement, and afternoon thunder sounds like distant trains.

Today, during a break in the weather, we went outside in our shorts and tee-shirts, and Rowan insisted on bringing Baby with her. Baby is a hand-sewn doll, with a painted face, that Rowan's Gigi (Jenny's grandmother) made her for Christmas. Rowan was mostly very good about carrying Baby, but still, every few minutes I had to rescue the poor doll from the damp sidewalk. I was holding Baby while Rowan inspected the flowers in a pot on our front stoop when Rowan pulled me close and took baby. She bent down and gently sniffed the flowers, and then she grabbed my shoulder and pulled me down to sniff the flowers. When she was satisfied with my sniffing, she moved me aside and put Baby's face to the flowers. Then Rowan sniffed again, and then had me sniff, and then Baby, and so we took turns sniffing the little red blossoms. (OK, I didn't plant them, and I don't know what they are.) Then Baby dropped to the ground again because Rowan saw a dog up the street.

There are two syllables in Rowan's version of dog. I'm not sure if it's "good dog" or "the dog" or "bad dog" or "duh-dog" or maybe, "pretty dog?" I just can't tell, but it definitely refers to dogs. When we got to the corner, the dog was gone, so we just started walking down the next street, looking at trees and flowers and rattling chain link fences.

Rowan turned into a small walkway between two buildings, following no rule other than her own curiosity, and I let her wander in a little way. When I saw a dog on the other side of the gate at the end of the walk, I thought we would be exiting quickly, but Rowan barely flinched when the "duh-dohg" started barking. She just kept pointing and repeating her declaration until I picked her up and explained, "Sweetie, it's rude to stand there and torment the dog like that." And we left. But when I put her down again, she immediately reversed direction and made a casual but direct move for the walkway with the gate at the end, and the "good dog" or "pretty dog" behind it. Again I explained. And we left. This time I carried her all the way back to our front stoop.

Now I don't want to give the impression that Rowan is fearless outside. The greatest terror in the outside world is the street sweeper. When that big blue monster comes by, so squat and wide and loud, with its whirring brushes kicking up dust and spray and its stinky exhaust blowing over the curb, Rowan just clings to me and buries her face as deeply as she can in the crook of my neck. It really tugs at me to see her so scared, and to feel her trembling body. Once a dog barked at us just after the sweeper had passed, and Rowan nearly leapt out of my arms before she realized she was much safer there.

Rowan has been going through a period of fear actually. She has been frightened of the vacuum cleaner since she first saw it turned on, but lately the coffee grinder has been scaring her much more as well. When Jenny made a cake, the electric mixer terrified Rowan, and of course I have written already about the mouse puppet. On the other hand, she is steadily getting more comfortable with the mouse puppet, and she now enjoys the edge of fear she gets in her fun when we play with it. Hmmm, I hope we're not raising a thrill-seeker.