HP:HBP

gotta love the internet. i just learned when the next harry potter movie is coming out. november 21 of this year. fabulous!!!!! i find it very hard to believe, however, that voldemort will not be in this one as an adult. there are two younger versions listed in the cast, one is played by ralph fiennes' nephew, hero. i guess we know what jeffy and i will be doing that night, huh?

i am getting jeffy to the theater (not the movie theater, a proper theater) in april. we're going to go see cabaret. we got gift certs from my mother for christmas a couple of years ago and so now we're using them (they're good for three years). i'm getting jeffy to go by telling him that there will be scantily-women on the stage. my m-i-l and s-i-l have season tickets to this theater so we're going the same night that they are. the plan is to meet for dinner up there and then go see the show. we're in the balcony, they're on the floor, but that's o.k.

i have some really exciting news to share, but i'll have to wait until i get the ok to share it from the person it's about. i'm over the moon with excitement!!!!!!

o's latest funny thing is closing doors or leaving the room and saying, "bye mommy! love you!" he did that quite a bit on saturday when was on the couch. the front door was open (screen closed and locked) and he'd act like he was walking out the door, closing it behind him and everything! he even tries it when i'm trying to get us out the door in the morning. it's a great little game, except when we're running late like we were this morning.

he's also starting to sing along with songs on his fridge dj (leap frog). it's great fun to listen to. he'll get bits here and there. he's having a blast. i've discovered that he'll fixate on one particular song for a little bit and then move on to another. pretty typical for kids his age, actually. this afternoon, he echoed the ABC song and matched nearly every pitch. he's got a good ear for such a little guy. of course, being a musician, i notice these things. ;-)

this morning was really funny. owen managed to take care of all of the little pottying bits (short of taking off his diaper and turning on the faucet to rince out the potty bucket) all by himself. that included getting his pull-up on and almost pulled up. he also asked me for fishes this a.m. while i was getting my lunch and breakfast ready. i told him no, but he found a bowl, got out the goldfish, and helped himself to a couple of handfulls. then he put the box (big, milk carton type) back in the cabinet and sat down in the middle of the kitchen floor to enjoy his work. what an amazing kid. blows my mind!

another step

owen took a big step in potty training today. as he was sititng on the potty this a.m. (and had been for longer than usual), i asked o if he was done. "nope!" was his reply. when he finally stood up a couple of minutes later (after putting on his own pull-up with minimal help in guiding the first foot into the correct hole) i noticed that not only had he peed in the potty...but he had pooped too!!!!! guess he wasn't lying about not being finished! yay owen!!!! now, if only he would start going at day care....

as for me, i'm feeling much better now. i went to work yesterday and did just fine. still a bit sleepy in the evening, and not a full appetite yet, but doing sooooo much better. actually feeling human!!!!

sick mama

i am finally feeling like myself again for the first time in about four days. this weekend i got home on friday and immediately got into my jammies. i stayed in my jammies and on the couch until this morning when i got up to (try) to go to work with the exception of about 4 hours on saturday. igot up this a.m. to see if work would be an option and quickly decided that it wouldn't be. i had a minor fever (just over 100) and was really woozy. i took owen to day care (thank god for that!) then went into school to do sub plans for the sub i didn't think i'd get (and didn't get). it's been a third day in a row on the couch.

i jsut picked owen up from day care and he's now watching elmo's world on dvd. gotta love sesame street! this dvd even has some older clips on it. very cool!!!!

flashback

to when my sister was owen's age. she is about 2-1/2 years younger than me. my parents were converting the nurwsery into her big girl room so she stayed in my room in her crib for a night or two. that was a long and frustrating night for everyone but michele. it was fun for her. she spent a good deal of time doing one of two things: turning the light on and off in rapid succession, and throwing her beloved "raggy" out of the crib then crying "raggy! raggy! raggy!" so that i would have to get up and get the doll for her. that game got old really quickly.

well, tonight (and past nights, actually), owen has requested his teddy after i tuck him in, then immediately throws teddy out of bed and fusses for him again. it was just tonight that i made the connection. the funny thing is that owen has the ability to get out of bed and get the teddy on his own. another change is that unlike when i was 4 or 5, i won't play the game but once. now teddy just stays on the floor or on the far side of his bed. lesson learned, huh?

a step forward

i think we may have figured out how to get owen to go potty someplace other than home. turn him around on the potty. we are three for three with that method in the last three days. all we have to do is take off one shoe, then slip that leg through his pant leg and out of the pull-up, then put him on the potty facing the back and he goes as easily as he does on his own potty at home. i'm definately going to tell day care about that tomorrow. i hope this works!!!! now all we'll have to do is to get him to realize that he needs to stay dry and only go pee in the potty. oh, and that buggery pooping thing, too...

today was a family field trip to cabela's. there is a new one open about 30 minutes south of here so we went. owen loved the animals, particularly the fish. he kept telling me, "look! fishies!" it was a riot and enjoyed emensely by the people around us in the aquarium. he also liked looking at the stuffed animals (and by stuffed, i'm not talking plush...) on display. we found several animals from one of his favorite books (baby bear, baby bear, what do you see?). he also liked trumpeting at the elephant and roaring at the lion and the bears. and my favorite part of cabela's was the chili - it's beanless!!!!! that means i can eat it!!!!! if i had known that, i would have had chili on my buffalo brat at lunch in addition to the shredded cheese. highly yummy!

i saw the funniest things at cabela's, mostly being the girly camo in the kid's section (ruffles on the hems, dresses, bows at various places). i also loved the camo onesies. my thought on that was that any poop or whatever that gets on the clothing won't show up! lol.

An understanding

it's a four-day weekend (yip, yippee yippito...) and owen has really shown me some great understanding. this morning, he was working at his pegboard when i tossed the last piece to him. he then grabbed a couple of pieces and threw them (hard) at me. i told him, "no!" he did it again. then i told him if he did it a third time, he'd go into time-out. he picked up the pieces and put them away. i rewarded him with a big hug and a thank-you for minding so well. then while he was eating lunch, he started eating his apple sauce with his hands, spoon just laying there. i told him that if he didn't use his spoon, i'd take the applesauce away. he got that too and immediately began using his spoon. what a smart boy! oh, and when i went in to get him this morning, he looked at me, said, "hey, mommy! potty?" know i don't know if that means he knows we go potty first thing in the a.m. or that he had to go potty or that he had just gone potty. or all three. (he had just gone potty and his diaper leaked...sheets are currently in the drier.)

still not going potty at day care. it's rather frustrating. any advice from a post-potty training parent on what to do? i'm thinking reverse psychology right now. he won't go anywhere but home, unless he has his own potty to go on.

colors are mastered. he'll constantly tell me what color things are. m's especially. :-) and he just counted down (quickly) from 10-1. i'm ablsolutely amazed at this kid.

tag

so my friend kelly, who i know from an e-mail forum i'm on, has tagged me. here are the rules to this game of tag:

Link to the person that tagged you.
Post the rules on your blog. Share six non-important things/habits/quirks about yourself.
Tag six random people at the end of your post by linking to their blogs.
Let each random person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their website.

Check out Kelly's blog here. Now I'm supposed to post six non-important things/habits/quirks about myself so here goes!

1. I have to eat my M&Ms in rainbow order, with brown before red.
2. I love learning languages. To date I have studied, either formally or informally, Spanish, French, German, and American Sign Language. I also love watching my own child's language acquisition.
3. Teaching middle schooler is my biggest challenge this year.
4. I'm learning to make the knitted slippers that my grandmother used to make.
5. I play my great-grandfather's violin.
6. I've been to 32 states, two continents, and seven foreign countries. I hope to travel to all 50 states with my family over the years and return to Europe.

So now it's my turn to tag people! Let's see here. I'll tag...
Katie
Michele
Erin
Suzanne
(I'm supposed to tag six people, but I don't visit that many blogs so I'm stopping at four.)

Let the game of tag continue!

such a big boy!

o is sitting at the table right now eating his lunch (pbj and apples, with milk in a regular cup so far) and he is sitting there not in his booster. he's able to reach things just fine. i can't believe how big he's getting and how fast! (he just said, "eatin' apples!")

munchkin boy did somethign this morning he doesn't usually do - took a mid-morning nap. he was so stinkin' tired that he didn't know what he wanted and he was picking things up just so he could throw them across the room. i very calmly picked him up, told him he need some time to cool down in his room, put him on his bed and told him he could do what he wanted in his room (play, read, nap, etc.) and then i walked out, shutting the door behind me. he cried pretty hard (and boy, was it a tired cry...) for about 10 minutes, but then as i was getting ready to jump into the shower, it got quiet and i knew he was asleep. i let him nap for about an hour or an hour and a half. i'm not sure if he'll nap this afternoon, we'll play that one by ear. i was able to take the opportunity to get some previewing done of materials i finally received this week from the district (it's only the beginning of second semester!) for my middle school class. yes, you read that right, i was teaching middle school - my least-comfortable age - with no materials. i'm more than slightly frustrated that the request i put in last september or october took until january to be ordered.

potty training continues. no success yet at day care, but he did go potty at jeff's sister's house last sunday during the superbowl. we brought our own potty with us. it worked.