one more to go

teeth, that is. owen now has 19 of his 20 teeth cut through. we're waiting on the bottom left 2-year molar. this bout of teething has been pretty easy, relatively speaking. i'm glad we're done for several years now, at least with him.

jeffy and i think we heard him open and then close his bedroom door last night when he was supposed to be sleeping. we know his door closed, and i'm pretty sure i closed it all the way behind me on my way out after i tucked him in. we may need to purchase some more safety paraphernalia (that's a funny spelling for that word, but it's right!) here in the next few days. we'll see how owen does with this new skill. if he stays in his room when he's supposed to be there, we'll leave the doors as-is. if he continually escapes, we'll put the doohickies there to keep him from turning the knobs.

this weekend, as usual, i was totally blown away by his new skills. this time, he has shown that he can correctly identify most of the numbers, either by picking them up and telling me what they are, by telling me what a number i point out or hold up from his puzzle, or by correctly grabbing the correct puzzle piece when i ask for a certain number. the only ones he doesn't yet say without prompting are zero, seven, and eight. when he counts to 10, he gets 1-6, then 9, 10. he's learning so much so fast. i love watching this process! it will be interesting with the next one when he or she comes to watch and see how he/she is different from the big brother.

thanksgiving is this week. i have one more day plus a half day of work. kids leave at noon on wednesday, we get to leave at 12:30. my dad gets in on wednesday afternoon and stays until sunday evening.

sounds and sentences

"Where the ball?"

this was owen's sentence tonight. i threw a ball with suction cups at the window. it bounced off and stuck to one of his books nearby. he didn't see where it went so he looked at me and with upturned hands aske the question.

"Bee buh". that was just a few minutes ago at the fridge. he held up the capital B from his fridge phonics set and said the name and sound, then put it in the slot for the letters. amazing! absolutely amazing.

i have a small update on the chicken pox. no, he doesn't have them...yet. turns out the infected child was there a day with just a few pox on his tummy and they were suspicious but not sure. he came back the next day (Thursday) and it was a definate yes. IF owen doesn't have the chicken pox by the 26th, he'll be getting the second shot of the vaccine along with his flu shot. so, we should be done with the chicken pox with him by the end of the month one way or the other. i'm taking bets on whether or not he's gonna get the chicken pox. anyone want to make a wager? i say he gets sick as he seems to get everything that goes around day care.

i have a soprano metallophone at school that had a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day today. in my last two classes of the day, it had bars (accidentally) kicked off, was jumped over, and used as a step. the two children who did the latter two things are off of the instruments for quite a while, possibly forever. i will make a laminated paper diagram for them to use with their fingers from now on. the girl who kicked the bars off was just shifting positions (from sitting to kneeling) and didn't mean to do it. she fixed it right away and did beautifully the rest of the time. ugh. saddly, the children who jumped over and stepped on (!) the instrument didn't surprise me at all. too bad for them, huh? no skin off my back, though.

Big skills!!!

Owen now helps get himself dressed. I'm absolutely amazed at the consistency of the second skill I'll mention. The first thing he can do is get his socks on. Usually, though, there is at least one sock with the grabby bits on top instead of on bottom (he won't slip if he's walking on the tops of his feet - lol!!!) the second, and to me most amazing, skill is putting on his crocs. 9 times out of 10, they're on the correct feet. he did that yesterday morning and jeffy thought i had put his shoes and socks on. nope. little man did it himself. today he got on his socks (both upside down) and one of his crocs - left one on the left foot. incredible. i wonder if this will transfer over to other types of shoes. time will tell. the way i'm looking at it is that once or twice would be accidental, consistent occurence is intentional. one more think owen likes to do now is feed the cat. he'll come into the kitchen and sign and say "more" and i'll open up the cupboard so he can get the food out for max. he's gotten really good at understanding "all done" and putting the scoop back in the bag and closing the door. he's turning into a great helper!

at church yesterday, owen was eating cheerios and at one point acted like he was done by "closing" the ziploc bag. jeffy tried to take it from him (he was done, right?) and owen looked right at him and said, "no-no daddy!" then i tried to take it and he told me, "no-no mimi!" i had to cover my mouth to stiffle the laughter. very cute. the other new thing is, "night-night mimi" (or whoever he is saying goodnight to). so cool!

this morning we had grands cinnamon rolls for breakfast. once owen finished his, he immediately asked for "more!" he got a banana instead. no complaints from said short person. if you'll look at the picture, you'll see the green turtle cup. it is not a sippy cup. this is the first meal at home that owen has not used a sippy cup for his drink. on his first attempt today, he didn't realize that a lot of liquid would come out and he spilled a little bit. after that, he took good careful sips. there was a little bit of drippage, but nothing major and he never once turned the cup upside down so i'm not even worrying about it. it's all a part of the learning process.

after breakfast was a much needed bath. after the bath was a much needed haircut. call me old-fashioned, but i really prefer his hair shorter rather than longer. i just think it looks neater when it's shorter. that, plus it's easier to trim it shorter than longer. i really hate hair flopping over his ears and into his eyes (or even close to his eyes). i finally today wrote down which settings i'm using for his hair cut. that way i don't have to guess. here are the before and after shots. he didn't stay too still for the after shot. the decision i've made for after haircuts is that owen gets as many m&m's as he is years old. so that means that he gets two m&m's after each haircut this year. some may call it bribery. i say, "whatever". ;-)

the workshop this weekend was a blast. i had a great time visiting with my friends and their two kids on saturday morning. i also ended up buying my own dulcimer. actually, it's a kit. the body is made of cardboard, which i will need to paint before i can get the whole thing put together. if i find i'm using my cardboard dulcimer a lot, which i think might be a possibility, i will at some point go and get a real wooden one. however, i would spend ten times what i spent this weekend for a wooden one so this really is the way to go to see if i'll really use it. if not, we're out $35 and owen has his first real instrument. i think i'll let him play it a little bit regardless. i have to decide what color i'm going to paint my dulcimer's body and make sure we have the appropriate kind of glue. i also need to get the strings, tuning mechanisms, and a few other things that were supposed to come in the kit but didn't. luckily the gal i bought it from lives just a few blocks from my school. that means about 10 minutes from our house. should be easy to get the stuff. i sent her an e-mail yesterday letting her know i was missing some stuff. at least i can get started on the painting. :-)

this morning jeffy was so funny! at a little after 6:00 a.m., he all of a sudden rips the covers off of me. i ask him what he's doing. he says, "you forgot to set your alarm." i reminded him that i don't have to go to work today. it was then that he remembered that it's veteran's day and apologized. very sweet and very funny.

i think we'll stay in most of today as it's looking to be a very blustery day.

waiting

to find out which 50% owen is in. we had a note sent home from day care today saying he has been exposed to the chicken pox. he got the first shot of the vaccine a year ago. i talked with a nurse and she told me what to look for and said that he has a 50/50 chance of getting it and wished us luck. the way i'm looking at it,he either gets chicken pox and we're done with it or he doesn't get it and we finish off the vaccine (2nd dose of the vaccine) and we're probably done with it. i think i'd rather he not get it and get the second dose of the vaccine - that will mean no missed work - but we'll have to wait and see. i really hope he can hold out until thanksgiving week. it's a short week of school (2.5 days) so it could be a managable thing. keeping my fingers crossed...

owen's speech is really improving lately. he's becoming more understandable more often. apple went from "at" to "appo". "pizza" is very clear. "dinosaur" is "di-doe". he's also counting to six and knows at least three letter sounds - b, d, m.

school is continuing to go well, we had our veteran's day assembly today and my choir sang. they had two weeks to learn their two songs (all but memorized!) and also to learn the poem "In Flanders Fields". they did such a wonderful job. i am so honored to be their teacher and directress.

i was supposed to have a release day yesterday for my national board process. "supposed to" being the operative words. turns out it was one day too early for finance to finalize approval for all of our release days. i'll still get the day, just on another date. more on this on my national boards blog.

tomorrow i drive to shoreline for a 7 p.m.-10 p.m. workshop, which continues on saturday all day. i'm not going to make the drive home on friday night. instead, i'll be staying with some friends in everett for that night. it will be a much better drive than coming all the way back home and then back up there again.

i am so ready for christmas break. i need the down time from work. i also need time to recoup from the cumulative hours of sleep i'm losing by a certain someone being up way too early and starting to play in his room. i get to stay in bed, but i'm still awake and losing sleep. the other day, he didn't nap at all at daycare. instead he was awake and trying to wake up his friends then quickly jumping back to his mat. what a little imp!

i received word on monday from the backpack people. owen and i will be in the 2008 calendar! immediate family will be getting calendars for christmas, among other things. we get 12 free. :-) i've asked about purchasing more. they're thinking about selling them and will let me know when they decide. i'll let you know as well. :-) i'm so excited! i'm a calendar girl! owen's a calendar boy!