a monkey-boy by any other name

is still a monkey-boy. owen is really starting to mimic what he hears. he now will say "all right" when he give a high-five. mama taught him that. :-)

we went to our friend peter's birthday party today. owen loved the cake. he ate a small piece of each kind. he was a huge mess afterwards. makes up for not touching his cake at all at his own birthday last year.

he and i were up for about 2 hours in the middle of the night last night. i'm not sure why he woke up, but i'm thinking we're going to have to just let him get re-used to getting himself back to sleep when this happens. it may mean dealing with crying in the middle of the night. the good news is that after he woke up around 9 last night, he played for a few minutes and then went right back to sleep. i wonder if things will be easier once he's acutally in a bed, with sheets, and not on the floor. i guess time will tell on that.

owen starts back at day care tomorrow. he'll be in the toddler room from the get-go instead of starting back in waddlers and then moving up to toddlers in october. i'm going in to get my room going since we have open house on thursday night. i'll have all day tomorrow and thursday afternoon to get things ready. should be easy. i've done this enough years now it's all down to a science. my to-do list is on the board, and things are already getting crossed off. :-) it's nice to feel productive.

giving up

counting new words, that is. too many to keep track of each day. this morning, i was in the kitchen and he asked for an apple. usually, he wants a banana in the morning, but this morning, it was an apple. he got the half left over from dinner last night.

nap time is still going well with the mattress on the floor. bedtime is another story. last night he was up until 11:00. i do like him being able to play in his room between when he gets up, but the playing constantly at night is getting a bit old. advice on getting him down at night is readily accepted.....

UPDATE: it's 8:45 p.m. and owen went down before 8:00. he's quiet, like he's asleep. after i read his stories (in his bed, tonight, not in the rocking chair like we've done previously), i tucked him in, turned on his cd, turned off his lamp and closed the door. he played relatively quietly for no more than 10 minutes and it's been quiet ever since. he did wake up from his nap at 3:00 this afternoon so he was probably pretty tired. i'm hoping we can manage the same thing tomorrow night. (9:00 p.m. - ugh. i just heard something that sounded like a double thud and then playing from his room. i'm leaving it alone for right now. we'll see what happens...)

jeff's sister and our niece came over for dinner tonight. jeff's working at the fairgrounds for a concert and our brother-in-law was also working so i invited samara and isabella over. dinner was nice. it was good to have company. isabella played on the activity mat while the rest of us ate dinner. owen refused to eat just ketchup on his nuggets. he acutally dipped one, put it in his mouth, took a few chews, then spit it back out. i put some bbq sauce in with the ketchup and we had success. silly boy! samara and i have decided to do this again when both of our guys are working at night again.

a note on the potty training: owen is sitting on the potty several times a day now. he has yet to do anything in the potty, but at least he's sitting. actually using it will come in time.

My big boy!

You will notice that my big boy is not sleeping in his crib. Last night, he decided that he didn't want to do that any more. I put him down at 8ish like usual and by 9:45, he was crying and screaming. I went into his room and he handed me his jammie bottoms, teddy bear and blanket, then reached up for me. I took him out, and started rocking him. He started playing around a little bit so I tried putting him back in his crib. He didn't like that one bit. Next, we went into the living room where I turned on the TV to try to get him to sleep that way. That didn't work so I went into his room with a pillow case to put on the pillow in there and took the mattress out of the crib and put it on the floor. I then brought him into his room and he laid down right on the mattress. He played for a few minutes, but basically went right to sleep. He woke up sometime after 7:00 this morning and was playing happily while I came too. I was a little worried about him going down for his nap in terms of playing, but he again played for only a couple of minutes and went to sleep, as you can see. I guess he's ready for the big boy bed, huh? I don't know if we're going to get the mattress, box spring, and sheet set this weekend or if it will wait a little bit. At the bare minimum, the crib is being taken apart this weekend so we can have the space usable again. We already have the bed itself, it's the one jeffy's brother slept on and jeffy had the same style bed as a little boy. Pretty cool, if you ask me. We're considering painting the bed. I'm guessing that won't happen, though. At least not any time soon.

a sentence?

i think we had our first four-word sentence tonight. owen was putting his bucket hat on his head and i asked him what was on his head. he pointed to it and said, "this is a hat". he is getting to be such a big boy! i'm amazed to tears, and so incredibly proud of him. last night we were reading "brown bear, brown bear, what do you see?" and when we got to the white dog page, i said, "white" and owen said "white dog". i know he was mimicking the word white, but he still said it!

we went to a car wash today - a local company was doing free car washes to help celebrate their 50th anniversary so we went. it was one of those where you get on a conveyer belt. that made it so i could watch owen the whole time. when the soap started hitting the windshield, his eyes got as big as saucers. i'm not sure he knew exactly what to think of it. at one point, it looked like he was about to cry from fear. (he didn't though!) now my car is nice and shiny clean. it needed it, too. desperately.

update on the zoo thing

i had a message from the p.r. director at the zoo today telling me that we will be getting the top zoo membership as part of our prize package. she also gave me the phone number of the lady in charge of the zoo society. i called her and left a message just to confirm what the first message said. she called me back and we might be getting our card fairly soon and it will be good until february of 2009, one year from when our current membership runs out (i think). i'm excited about it! we can take three guests every time we go to the zoo.

two new words today: hat and another one that i can't remember... that makes three or four new words in the last couple of days. begin vocabulary explosion now! it's so cool to witness.

a reason why and a lesson learned

we now know why my mom won the naming contest at the zoo. today i got a phone call from her cousin beverly trying to get a hold of my mom to let her know that my great-aunt passed away last night. beverly was trying to find my mom's phone number but couldn't since she only uses her cell. beverly lives just one city over and saw the article in the paper last week. since that article had my last name in it, she was able to find me and my phone number and therefore get a hold of my mom. it's amazing how things work out. if mom hadn't won, beverly would never have been able to find me to get my mom's phone number and we wouldn't have known about my great-aunt's passing. we're going to get together with beverly in october when mom's here for owen's birthday.

now for the lesson: NEVER try to use a cookie sheet to make jello jigglers. use a cake pan instead. i ended up with (red -what other color would it be!) jello all over the kitchen. literally. it was all over the counter and the floor, in drawers and cabinets, as well as on the doors to the drawers and cabinets. once i got the mess cleaned up, (and formula 409 works beautifully for getting red off of countertops and floors) i tried again, this time using a cake pan. i still managed a small spill, but it was very small, just one little sploosh as the liquid was moving while i was putting it in the fridge. owen loves jigglers, and i'm having a hard time getting him to understand that he needs to wait until play group today to have more.

owen's doctor

i just found out where she is going: children's hospital in seattle. wonderful hospital, excellent reputation. it's a great move for her. we'll be sad to lose her, but at the same time, we're really happy for her. too bad seattle isn't closer...

ballgame kudos

we went to the mariners game today and it was great fun, as usual. we also took the train up and back, as usual this summer. the m's beat the chi sox 11-5 and swept the series. :-) the train coming back was slightly delayed. here is where the kudos come in. it was standing room only and one passenger in our car collapsed before we left the station. he had a heart attack. luckily, there was a first aid kit, an automatic defibrilator, and sounder (the train) personnel right there. the man had flatlined, but was brought back. the sounder people, seattle fire department, and a couple of passengers did a wonderful job. the man is very lucky to be alive. it was really scary to witness, and i'm glad he came through this part.

moh wa-wa bee!

ok, so the last word wasn't said, it was signed and only after i asked for it. but, that's not the point. the point is that owen walked up to me this morning with his sippy cup asking for more water. i said, "more water please?" and he then signed "please" while asking for more water. then he signed a prompted "thank you" as he was walking away (back to me). what a big boy! i love that he is actually becoming easy to understand. you don't always necessarily have to understand owenese to get what he's saying. language acquisition is an amazing thing. i've never had the chance to see it day in and day out and been able to just marvel at what is being said.

tonight i took out some flash cards and was seeing which words he knew. i'd show him a card, ask him, "owen, what's that?" his reply, "that max!" or "that ball". absolutely amazing. he's picked this weekend to start creating two-word sentences. he's right on schedule for that skill. :-)

new words: max (the cat), how ya doin'? (how do?), hot dog, hi there!, that

ride 'em cowboy!

owen is having a blast on his rocking horse right now. he got it from santa at christmas time and the ears have buttons in them that make the horse clip-clop and whinney, and makes the head and tail move. he knows how to work the ears. every time the sounds stop, he looks at me and says, "did it!" he's also discovered that if he pushes one ear while sounds are going, it will stop the sounds. i didn't even know that would happen. sort of an on-off toggle, i guess. if only i had thought to put him in his cowboy hat....

i had a really long night. i woke up sometime in the 1:00 hour and didn't get back to sleep until sometime in the 5:00 hour. owen woke up at his usual 6:30. when i got him out of bed, he was asking me for something because he said something, pointing, then signed and said, "please?" i didn't understand him, unfortunately. he's playing on his own right now, which is good.

i'm trying to decide whether or not to go into school for a little bit today. it'll be really hot in my room (not warm - HOT) as i get the morning sun beating in off of the blacktop and i have a full bank of windows from the top of my counters to the ceiling and from wall to wall. i also have three skylights. it makes it really nice in the spring and early fall as i don't have to turn on my overhead lights. the biggest trick on the warm days is to open both the top and bottom windows (three of each for a total of six) as soon as i walk in, and then turn on my fans. that generally does a pretty good job of keeping things cool, along with drawing the blinds down to physically block out the sun.

pictures with coco

so here's the story of getting the pictures yesterday.

we finally get down to the exhibit at close to 3:00. owen is starting to get tired but coco is right up against the glass. wendy, who works in marketing at the zoo, takes the first picture of us with coco against the glass.

after this picture was taken, the two keepers from that area of the zoo came and took my camera and went into the enclosure. the man had my camera, the lady had a shovel. anoa are quite aggressive, as we got to see because as soon as the next picture was taken, baby bean (the mama) got up and charged the two keepers. that's what the shovel was for, to head off any ramming by mama.

after this near-ramming, the male keeper went up on a rock bridge that is over the enclosure, while the lady came out on our side of the enclosure with a bamboo branch to entice baby bean to come near the glass. where baby bean went, coco bean was sure to follow. we got a few more pictures of them, some with us, some without.

in the above picture, if you look really closely, you can see that coco bean is starting to sprout her horns.

in these two, she's peeking out from behind her mama.

roller coaster day

what an interesting day this has been in terms of news. first the official announcement about coco, then i get a call from a friend to tell me that our pediatrician is moving in mid-september (WAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!) and then i get a phone call from my s-i-l in ny saying she got a job in seattle and they'll be moving out here next month. oh, and i've been battling a migrane all afternoon, but owen helped by taking a very long nap today so mama could rest on the couch.

jeffy still doesn't know about the zoo thing. i'm going to make him read about it in the paper tomorrow. if it's not there, i'll show him the press release i've printed up from the zoo's website.

her name is coco

the press release is out so now i can share the news. our local zoo has a new lowland anoa (from asia, a species of water buffalo) who was born in early July. she is very cute. we managed to coincidentally be at the zoo the first day she was on exhibit. the zoo did a "name the baby" contest, asking people to write in and suggest names. i did that, using the name that the zoo keepers all liked and were lobbying for, and had my mom, who lives in denver, do the same thing. yesterday, they assigned a number to everyone who suggested either coco or cocoa and then had someone pick a number to determine the winner. they picked my mom's number! she called me and told me that i should be getting something from the zoo because she won. i was totally amazed. the prizes for winning are a family membership, lunch for four at the zoo cafe, and a prize pack from the gift shop.

go to http://www.pdza.org/ to see coco and read the press release. we're going to the zoo with friends on monday so i'll be sure to get pictures (if possible) with me and owen up next to the glass with coco. i'll post those when i get them.

Coming soon...

to a blog near you. Some really cool news, which is also slightly humorous when you think about it! Be checking back in the next day or so. It has to be official before I can spill the beans. :-)

cheese!

we went to playgroup today and owen tried a little bit of cheese. he tasted it, then gave it back to me. the big thing, though, is that he tried it. something he's never done before. admittedly, cheese has a bit of a strange taste on its own. eventually, he'll decide he likes it not in or on anything. gotta love the babybel mini wheels!

the big deal at playgroup this morning was the brand new baby that was there. hayden was born early last week. all of us mommies were making huge efforts at showing our little ones the baby. i am one of two moms in the group who is not currently pregnant or who does not already have two children. we're not even going there for another year, but i still want owen to start getting a frame of reference for when i do get pregnant. the silliest thing owen did was call hayden "isabella". guess he thinks that any little baby is called "isabella". funny how his little mind works. he may get really confused when his next cousin comes in december.

the little bugger was up at 3:50 this a.m. jumping and chattering in his crib. that lasted about an hour, and then jeffy's alarm went off at 5 and again at 6 (i hate it when he does that!) so i really didn't start to get back to sleep until after 6. then owen was up shortly after 7. i let him play in his crib until after 8 because i just couldn't bring myself to haul my sorry you-know-what out of my nice comfy bed. exhaustion is a bad thing when you have a child as active as mine is. at least it's daddy's night to put him down. i may hand over the reins as soon as daddy comes in the door tonight, which might just be at bedtime the way things have been going with his work schedule the last couple of weeks (113 hours over the previous two weeks, 12 hours in yesterday.) i'd be napping along with owen right now, but i have a violin lesson coming in about 30 minutes so what's the point? maybe i'll just lay down on the couch and rest until my lesson comes.

not a fluke!!!!!

we had lunch with my m-i-l today. owen had chicken strips! of course, they had to have ketchup and had to be eaten with a fork, but we can live with those stipulations! lol. we can now take owen to just about any restaurant and order off of the menu for him. at thips point, the only kind of food we might not be able to order for him would be asian. we'll test that later on. we have a favorite local vietnamese place.

we came home and i asked him to go into his room for his nap. he went right there, and straight to his crib. what a good boy! he'll nap for about three hours.

my toe is now a very pretty purple, but i'm moving much better today. it's wrapped (taped to the next toe over), which i think is actually helping me move fairly normally. :-)

i said something to owen the other day that i never dreamed i'd say: "owen, no pillow fights with the kitty." jeff just laughed. i've had several pillow fights with owen. guess he thought the kitty was a perfect sparing partner. it really was a funny thing to say to owen.

YEEOUCH!!!!!

that's about what i said this morning when i split my toes on my left foot between the pinky and ring toes. pinky's broken, i suspect. it hurts like heck when i move it. thank goodness for the crutches i have from when i sprained my ankle three years ago.

jeffy didn't get home until 10 last night. before he left today, he said he'd hopefully be getting home earlier than that tonight. it won't take much. he knows that i need some help. i called him to ask him to bring me home tape so i can tape my toes together. i really hope he gets home in time for dinner tonight. owen didn't see his daddy at all yesterday. that makes it from monday night until jeffy got owen up this a.m. that he didn't see his daddy.

lunch today was with a friend and her 3 year old son and 2 week old daughter. we went to red robin and i looked at the kids menu and suddenly realized that we went from one or two options to five options for owen to eat. it's so freeing! he had the corn dogs and fries and actually ate most of his corn dogs! yay! i'm almost hesitant to say anything, but i think we may be over that hill!

new word today - shoe, as he handed my mine :-)