He can count and a social commentary

well, just a little bit. he counts to two, but he starts with one! not too long ago, he thought counting started at two, not one. tonight, he very clearly was counting, "one, two! one, two!" i'm constantly amazed with how smart he is and how much he learns every day. it would be interesting to go back and count how many times i've said that in this blog. anyone up for the challenge?

another amazing thing to me is that owen turns two in a week. when did that happen? can it really be that two years have passed since he was born? we have a huge party planned for saturday of next week. by "huge", i mean in attendance. jeffy's entire family (all 18 of us, my mom, owen's godparents and their two kids (four more), plus my friend faye and her family (five more). that makes 28 people in our home. our house will be busting at the seams, but it will be fine and fun. two of the attendees are just a few months old, one is just over a year, owen and another are two, then there's a 3 year old and a 4 year old before we get to the older kids (ages 7-11) and the adults.

owen got a hair cut the other night. it looks very nice if i do say so myself. i'm really getting the hang of it. three different attachments were used, all on purpose. i did it after his bath and it looks so much neater that it was. he was getting pretty shaggy by my standards for him. i don't like seeing his hair flopping over his ears. he looks much better with the shorter hair. after his haircut, he got a few m&ms. if you look closely in the pictures, you can see the left-overs of the m's on his face.

now for the social commentary. while i am disappointed that marion jones has used steroids, i am very impressed and find it quite refreshing that she is owning up to it and that she appears to be willing to take whatever consequences come her way. in today's socitetal norm of "i didn't do it and i'll never 'fess up." it's very important that our kids see that it is better to take responsibility and face the music than to continue lying and get away with illegal things. this is a quality i am trying to instill in owen and also in my kids at school. i always acknowledge when a student owns up to something, even if it means getting in trouble.

the weekend is here. i have a workshop tomorrow in fway then jeffy and i have tickets to a concert here in town. the highlight for me will be beethoven's 4th symphony. owen is spending time with grandma and papa and then is coming home for bedtime with grandma. sunday will be our usual family day.

conference week is upon us at school. i will be masquerading as a middle school teacher this week on monday, tuesday, and wednesday as the middle school teachers are in cincinnati for a training of their own and it's a cheap way to have classes covered. specialists don't usually teach on half-days anyway so i suppose we have the time available. i could, however, make good use of the time if i didn't have to teach middle school. oh, well. i'll hopefully have a good part of each afternoon (m-w) and tuesday night until about 6 or 6:30. the way things work here in my district is if we work a late night in october and another late night during conferences in december, we don't have to go in the friday of the december conference week. (that usually falls on the friday of the first full week of december.) of course, the year i had owen, that friday ended up being a snow day.

wednesday we will have our 6-month check on the ear tubes and then on friday of next week, we have our two-year check with the pediatrician. i'm sorta nervous about this winter if the ear tubes come out (on their own). we could be facing more ear infections. i'mnot looking forward to that if it happens. we are missing meeting the new pediatrician by two work days. she starts on the 16. owen's appt is on the 12th. we'll meet her later in the year, i'm sure.

potty training has sorta slowed down and that's just fine. he is, after all, just two. we have plenty of time for it. oh, and the baby gates are down in the house now. he tried climbing over the one at the kitchen door this weekend. he's done well with having free access to the kitchen.