Busy Day

We went to the Henry Doorly Zoo in Omaha today. It was lots of fun. It's about the coolest zoo I've ever been to...and we only saw part of it! Owen loved it. He got to see loads of animals. He made noises for just about everything, though most of it was barking like a dog (sometimes a higher-pitched yip, other times a low growly bark). He is also extremely good at making monkey noises (we have the full package!) He also hissed like a snake when Aunt Michele or Mommy prompted him to. There weren't any high chairs were we ate for lunch so we just plopped Owen into a regular chair. He stayed there and ate like such a big boy! After that, we went to the Desert Dome, which was featured on either the Travel Channel or Animal Planet within the last couple of years. There's an area of the Desert Dome called "Kingdoms of the Night". We hit that right after lunch. As hoped, Owen fell asleep in the dark. Then Aunt Michele suggested, once we were in the monkey house, to move him from the backpack to the stroller. He woke up - and stayed awake. He's napping now, which is good. Actually, we all napped once we got home. It felt really good. We're going to the baseball game tonight. That will be fun, also.

So, as promised, here's a picture of Owen with Aunt Michele. They were reading bedtime stories a couple of nights ago. Both were having a great time. My sister is such a good aunt. I just wish we lived closer so that we could all spend more time together. As it is, she lives half a country away. I'm insanely proud of her, though. She just completed her third year of medical school and will begin her rotations for fourth year on Monday. As it stands right now, she is looking at going into neonatology. She'll be wonderful at whatever she goes into. Owen adores her. Heck, who can blame him!?

We are so lucky to have such an easy-going kiddo. Owen has slept so beautifully this entire trip, hasn't freaked out at all of the strange (as in new and unfamiliar) places he's slept. He doesn't take any longer than usual to quiet down at night or at nap time, which is so nice. He also adapts quite quickly to the new surroundings we're putting him in. He makes traveling with a little one so easy, relatively speaking. He will say "hi" to just about anyone. Yesterday when we were at the Strategic Air and Space Museum, which is between Omaha and Lincoln, he smiled at a man who came around the corner and it must have been just what the man needed because he told us that seeing Owen at that moment "made his day". There is something very special in store in life for this little boy. I'm excited to see what that might be.

Tomorrow we drive to Denver and will be there until Friday when we fly back home. I can't believe we've been gone over a week already!

Omaha

We made it with no issues larger than a soaked-though diaper and coughing up mucous onto his second pair of pants on the day. He made it to Omaha in a t-shirt and his diaper. It's really hot here. Muggy, too.

My sister called us en route yesterday to tell us she managed to break her toe while she was cleaning up for us. She did a great job, too! It's very colorful. She's loving playing with her nephew. She's even introduced him to M&M's. The first one was kinda forced into his mouth, but once he got that initial taste, he was all over the rest of the M's he was offered. We'll go to the Omaha zoo on Friday, and maybe to a baseball game that night before we drive back to Denver on Saturday. Other than that, it's basically make the decisions as we get to them.

I'll get pix and post them later.

Vacation - at last!

We're in Denver now. It's nice to be in a different place. The plane ride was rather uneventful, which is good. Owen did beautifully and was really excited to see Gramma when we finally got here.

The weather here is H-O-T. Mom, Owen, and I did pictures at a garden yesterday. Owen did pretty well, until he got hot and tired. We had lots of water for him, but he was done. Today we went to the house of a couple of people I went to high school with. They have a little boy about 5 weeks older than Owen. It was very interesting to observe the differences between the two boys. Owen is bigger (but since when is that news?), more aggressive (not a good thing - he pushed Benjamin down a couple of times because he wanted the ball Benjamin was playing with. He got removed from the play time each time he pushed), and is more outgoing. Benjamin, on the other hand, has many more words than Owen and is even starting to use sentences. These things are not really for comparison, more just observations.

We met with my godmother last night for dinner. It was the first time she's met Owen. We went out for pizza, and Owen didn't touch his. We brought it home for him and he had it for lunch today. At least it got eaten. :-P

Tomorrow will be a first for all three of us. It will be the first time any of us have been to Nebraska. This will mark Owen's 8th state, Mom's 32nd, and Dad's 20th. My sister is so excited to see Owen. We're very excited to see her as well. She's been in Omaha for three years now and we've never managed to get out there to see her. She keeps saying she's going to teach Owen how to play in the steet. Yeah, right!

School's Out for Summer!

And it's about danged time, too! Today was the final day teachers had to be there. My room is completely clean, shelves covered up with butcher paper to help minimize the amount of dust that will undoubtedly settle over the summer. Many of my colleagues asked me if my room was moving for next year. I told them, not to my knowledge. They couldn't believe how clean and orderly it was. Made me feel really good! I'm not the tidiest person around....

Today a group of us, the three specialists (music, library, PE), plus teachers from each age level at my school, got a good start on the master schedule for next year. It is looking like I'll have middle school kids twice a week from 8-8:45. I'm really excited about this! (Something I NEVER would have dreamed of five years ago.) I think I'm finally to the point in my career that I'll be more than just an effective middle school teacher. This year I've gotten to spend some time with the middle schoolers and get to know them, not only on a personal level, but I'm also getting to know the beast. I've learned that their senses of humor are pretty well formed, and they can be loads of fun. The other thing that will help is that I've basically raised these kids from babies. Next year's 6th graders were in 1st grade when I started at my current school. That means the 8th graders were in 3rd when I started there. I've known quite a few of them for the entire time I've been at my school. It's been fun to watch them grow and turn into young adults.

Since music will be an elective, the kids I get will want to be there and hopefully that will help stem some of the potential for behavior issues. I have a pretty good idea of what I want to do next year, with major points I want to touch on. I think I should talk with the middle school teachers over the summer and see what the appropriate form and level for questions and assignments should be. I want to know that I'm not setting the bar too high for them.

I want to do a reverse music history/music appreciation class with the middlers. We will start in present day and talk about the music that is out there currently. Then we will go back and see what led into popular music being what it is. Eventually we'll get to the Beatles, then musical theater, vaudville, and jazz before heading into the classical music periods and study composers like Brahms, Wagner, Beethoven, Bach, and Vivaldi. We'll look at why their work was significant and also how their works are indicitive of the style of their time period. This year will definately be one with lots of tweaking and possibly changing canoes mid-stream if things aren't working

We leave for our vacation tomorrow. Two glorious weeks in Denver and Omaha. It will be Owen's first plane trip. Thank goodness for the tubes - they'll help with the pressurization of the cabin bit not affecting his ears and being painful. He and I are pretty well packed and ready to go. Jeff still needs to pack, but he's finishing up some stuff outside while there is still daylight. I put a small load in the washer tonight so everything will be ready to go for tomorrow. We head to Denver tomorrow, then to Omaha on Sunday to spend that week with my sister. We've never been to Omaha so it will be quite the adventure for all of us. We drive back to Denver on the 30th and then are back home on the 6th. We have plans to see friends of mine from high school, several teachers, some from h.s., some from m.s., plus other people in Denver. After the school year I've had, the break is definately needed. When we get back, Jeffy will start as a full-time real (instead of temp) employee at the job he's been at since July of last year.

now he's a parrot!

owen has started trying to copy things that we say. yesterday it was "isabella", who is his newest cousin - born on thursday night, weighing 7 lbs., 8 oz. she's beautiful! i got to hold her for a while yesterday - and even burp her!!!! owen says, "ee-ahh-lalalalala" close enough. his second new word in as many days is "ma-muh" (the 'a' here sounds as in 'apple'), it means "gramma". again, close enough!

when we were at the hospital yesterday, he got in eeahlala's face to say "hi", several times. he also got jealous of hte attention she was getting from me and tried to push his way in. sweet boy! he had more fun running around the room, though. isabella is the first girl in our family in seven years. think she's going to be spoiled?

we had a school night at the rainier's game last night for my school and we went. we left in the 8th inning - it went 12! yikes! owen had a great time playing with a few people around us. when we got home, the dog that was visiting next door was barking at us. owen started barking back. too funny!

oh, great news on the food front: owen ate school lunch every day this week! the lunch i took on monday sat in the fridge at school all week long! i'm not even taking his lunchbox next week. don't think i need to. :-) way to go, little man!

tricky parents!

twice this week we've given owen a quesadilla with meat of some sort in it. on sunday it was a chicken quesadilla at target, tonight, there was diced ham in his quesadilla. he ate it all down, no complaints. not even with the spices on sunday. very cool! he must be going through a growth spurt because he seems to be eating everything in sight. he's also eaten lunch at school three days this week (and his lunch that i brought on monday has been sitting there in the fridge since monday. too bad! NOT!!!!! maybe he's finally willing to start eating normal foods. he even had some of jeffy's chicken at dinner the other night while we were celebrating my getting the school district scholarship for doing my National Boards next year. (see my other blog, http://shemustbecrazy.blogspot.com for all of those juicy details.)

yesterday was my spring program. it was more stressful than most due to circumstances beyond my control, including the teachers whose kids were involved throwing in an extra thing that took nearly 20 minutes to do. add that to a 35 minute program with children who are 3-6 years old and it's not a good thing. what hacks me is that parents were complaining about the length of the afternoon program (close to an hour...) and some didn't bring their kids back at night because of it, not realizing that the evening program wasn't going to have the added part and was going to be significantly shorter. then, one of the teachers didn't show up and put a note on her door for her kids to go to my room before the concert. i was getting another group ready to sing at the same time and that change in what i was expecting to have to do sent me nearly into tears in front of close to 40 kids, that was in lieu of a panic attack, which did start, but i was able to keep things under control due to a couple of wonderful parents who stepped in and kept track of the little ones while i dealt with the bigger kids in my choir. the program itself was amazing. the kids did beautifully, as always. and also as always, there are a few parents who need to be normalized to appropriate school concert etiquette. these one or two parents kept calling out, sometimes in the middle of songs, "you go, ______!" i ignored it, even when they were doing it while their kids weren't even singing. sheesh! i understand being proud of your kid and all, but know the limits, people! these kids have worked hard for this program and calling out like that is disruptive to everyone there.

eight more sleeps until we head out of town to visit family and friends in denver and omaha. seven more sleeps until i'm done with school for the year. good news is that closing down my room is much easier this year than it has been in the past. i have a couple of areas i still need to tackle and go through stuff, but that should be done by tuesday of next week, easily. my goal is to have it done by the end of this week so i can go have lunch with the upper el kids (4th and 5th graders) at one of their teacher's houses on monday.

we may be welcoming a new family member to the extended family tomorrow. jeffy's sister is being induced tomorrow. i'll stop by after my meeting to see how she's progressing and maybe even hold that precious little one. everyone but the baby's dad knows what the baby is. i don't think he reads this blog, but just in case, i'm not going to give anything away.

i sing, you sing...

owen sings! we had a sing-along in the car this morning. i started with abc's, then owen requested twinkle twinkle (up-up-up-up), then after twinkle, he requested old macdonald (e-i-e-i-ooooooo) he even will sing along sometimes, or at least sing his part.

another thing he has started doing in the last couple of days is sticking by me when we're out walking around. he's done that several times recently. it's a nice change from him running away from us all the time.

right now he is carrying around one of daddy's shoes...that's a size 13 if you're interested.

another change in owen's routine is sleeping with a teddy and blanket now. he started the teddy on monday night and added the blanket two nights ago. it was pretty cute! i should have taken a picture of him right after i laid him down last night. one arm wrapped around teddy, and the blanket clutched in the other arm. very cute. he made it through last night. too bad i can't say the same for two nights ago. i was up with him for two hours. that wasn't fun.

i'm in my final countdown at school. i have five more teaching days left: two more fridays, one more each of monday, tuesday, and thursday. wednesday of next week is field day so that doesn't count for me. next friday is my last teaching day of the year. we go through the 19th with kids and then just teachers for an inservice day (making up from all of hte weather we had in december and january) on the 20th. the only bad thing is that i have my least favorite class on thursdays and fridays. that makes three more sessions with them instead of one or two like the rest of my classes. today i showed my upper el classes (that's 4th and 5th graders) a program video from when they were in 1st and 2nd grade. it was a hoot!

next week i also have my program, which was originally supposed to be today. it's now on tuesday. my littles (PreK-Ks) and choir. my favorite concert of the year. just fun songs.

No! More!

that's what owen said to me tonight after two stories and my mention of it being time for him to go to bed. needless to say, it was a battle i didn't feel like fighting (he was lunging after a nightly favorite - kiss goodnight) so he won. i just marvel at his acquisition of language. i think this is the first time he has put two words together verbally (as opposed to signing) to express a want without repeating each word several times (moh moh moh bee bee bee - who wants to translate that? it's not too hard!)

we had our annual school block party tonight. my principal saw owen and was absolutely taken aback at how big and grown up he is. actually, most people who haven't seen him in several months (or longer) have that same reaction. i had that same reaction with a (not so) baby brother of one of my students who is two now (the brother, obviously, not the student). owen had cheetos with his pbj and nana tonight. big mess, but it was a special treat being the block party. he didn't eat the hot dog i got for him, but at least we didn't waste any money on it - the bbq was free. :-) we like that!