magic number = 13

that's how many more days i'll have to get my sorry hind end out of bed before summer time officially arrives. we've voted as a staff to work the day after school lets out. i'll get paid (a good thing...) for being there, but it means putting my summer off one more day. oh, well. at least we didn't have to make up any days for poor weather this year. unlike last year...

owen, faye, peyton and i went to the zoo today. it was the opening day of the animal avenue in their kids zone area. very cool things. the lemurs were initially huddled together, but eventually started moving around. owen didn't see them when they were huddled, but once they started doing their own thing, he figured out what he was looking for. we got the chance to talk with some volunteers about the monkey business i saw on monday. turn out that the girl gibbon is temporarily unable to get pregnant due to medication she is taking. the boy doesn't know that, though... hey, it's nature. coco bean is getting to be quite big. she's only slightly smaller now than baby bean (her mama - boy, someone sure didn't think when they named her, did they?)

when we got home, there was a card in the mail for a member's only deal on the 12th at the zoo. i talked with jeff and we'll go. behind the scenes tours, feeding times, private time at the animal avenue. should be fun. (katie? faye? are you guys going?)

diet

i'm cruising on my diet. i've been really good about my eating and getting exercise. so far i've lost 5 pounds. tonight faye and i walked the waterfront - sans kids. that was four miles in about 90 minutes. having this success so early on is quite motivating. hopefully, things will keep going. though i'm not expecting the huge dumping of weight like what's happening now, i know that it will slow down at some point. i'm feeling better and have more energy, also. i'm totally loving it!

i learned tonight that the thing at arby's that i thought would have been higher in calories in comparison to other things on their menu is actually one of the best things in terms of calories. amazing.

Nighttime

owen has pulled a trick on us three times in the last four or so days. he has managed to strip to either very litte or nothing at all. and i mean NOTHING but what he was born with. sunday nap, he woke up after two hours (which is a decent nap for him) crying for me. i went in and found him completely naked from the waist down and the bed was soaked. he played around for a while on monday night, as is usual. when i walked in to tell him to go to bed, i noticed that he was totally naked. i couldn't help but laugh (bad mommy!) as i got him into his jammies and pull-up. yesterday morning, he wakes up with that same cry as sunday afternoon. i went in, got him, wiped him up a little bit (it was just wet), put him in a fresh pull-up and jammies (familar theme?) and brought him into bed iwth us. oh, this was at 4:30 a.m. same thing happened this a.m. at 6:00. i told him yesterday a.m. that he had three options for bedtime: 1 - stay dressed, 2 - wake up and tell us he has to go potty, or 3 - make it through the night. this morning, i added "and go in the potty" to option #3. we'll see what happens tonight...

Memorial Day

we were planning on heading to a family picnic near mt. rainier today, but jeff came down with a fever and has been in bed all day long. currently, both of my boys are napping. owen and i went to the zoo this morning and, what a big boy! - owen walked nearly the entier time. he had on his doggie backpack (aka harness and leash) and only asked to go into the ergo twice and was only in it for a total of 10-15 minutes. we have a smallish zoo, with approximately one mile of trails. it's an easy half-day or less trip. owen definately has favorites. today, it was the walruses, beluga whales, gibbons, and porcupines. we stayed longest in the "house" at the asian forest sanctuary and in the north shore underwater viewing area. it was a nice day for the zoo. not too hot, not too chilly. we took off our jackets about half-way through. oh, and there was "monkey business" going on with the gibbons. luckily, none of the kids knew what was going on...wonder if there will be baby gibbons running around later this year?

owen and i are meeting a friend to go walking at the waterfront later today, after dinner some time, which will make two sessions of exercise for me today. i'm on day two of my diet to finally lose my baby weight. my goal is to lose 35-40 lbs. by my sister's wedding on september 27. that's 18 weeks. i should be able to do it. i'm watching what i eat (literally - i'm keeping track of everything i put into my body on a weekly chart) and exercising as often as possible. i'd love to have to buy a whole new wardrobe in the fall because everything i have is too big...

back to normal

owen is back to his normal, two-year-old self. he woke up with a temp again this morning, but it was lower than what he came home with yesterday so that's good. again, it responded to medicine.

i was supposed to meet my friend faye to go walking at the waterfront this morning, but it was raining when we were supposed to meet. she had a rough night with her little one, but i still went to the mall to go walk. i only did one lap, 1-1/8 miles. next time, i'll go for two laps.

time and timing

i finally have time to blog! yay! now that my boards are done, i have much more time to do things i enjoy. my needlecrafts are going to be more at the forefront of my life now. i'll also be able to spend time with owen guilt-free. not to mention time to keep people up to date on things in our lives. i'm also going to be exercising, eating better, and (finally!!!!!) losing my baby weight. i want to be an 8 or a 10 by my sister's wedding in september. i'm looking to lose between 35 and 40 lbs. i have a buddy who is going to be walking with me and working on losing weight together. we're meeting most saturday mornings while school is in and then most mornings once summer starts.

when i went to pick up owen at daycare today, he was immediately whiney. this is highly unusual. all he wanted to do was be held and snuggle. i felt right away that he was warm. we got home and i took his temp - yep. 102+. i gave him tylenol and now it's down to 100.0 . all he's done since we got home has been chill in one of three places: on the couch, with me, or with daddy. currently, he's doing the latter, though i'm thinking it's bedtime.

bathtime success

for the first time in his life, owen didn't cry one tear when i got his hair wet tonight. i talked him into wearing a "bath hat", which is really just one of those foamish visors they have. he tried to take it off but i told him to try it and see how it worked. he did great. i'm guessing he'll remind me next bath time for his bath hat. he spent his entire bath time playing with his floating xylophone. we're pulling out the "real" one tomorrow. :-)

being a prius

that's a jeff dunham reference, if you didn't know. (jefuh-fuh. done-ham! dot com!) on his second dvd, "spark of insanity", he makes fun of himself for driving a prius. he made a noise not dissimilar to that of buzzing lips, and then a very week, "eee-eee!" for the horn. owen picked up on that the last time we watched it and he just made those sounds. it cracks me up to listen to him doing that. the first time he ever did it, it had just happened on the dvd and he copied it. too funny. owen just did it again, totally unprompted.

on another note, i think his eyes finally match his daddy's. he now has mommy's hair and daddy's eyes (strawberry blonde with hazel if you're wondering.) is it normal for a child's eyes to keep changing colors when they're two?

sweet boy

owen fell asleep on my tonight. he had snuggled up against me as i was playing my nintendo ds and eventualy, i see his head to the slip down, then snap up thing. it was a little bit earlier than his usual bedtime, but only by about 30 minutes or so. that, plus he was up playing for a little bit at 4:00 this morning. it certainly made bedtime easy tonight. put him down in his pull-up and a t-shirt.

the terrible twos are definately in full swing. everything i ask him to do is answered with "no!" i actually called my mom last night and asked her to tell me that it was normal - i know it is, i just needed to hear it from another mom. it's aggrivating, but normal.

feeling smart

i'm pretty proud of myself for getting the lilypie ticker you now see on the right onto my blog on the very first try. i can't believe that owen is closer to three than he is to two now. where has the time gone?

he's doing a good job with sharing right now. he shared his cold with me. this is the worst possible week for me to get a cold that is knocking me down pretty well. i'd have stayed home today if it weren't such a hastle to do sub plans. it's just easier to go in sick than it is to stay home and worry about plans and if there will even be a sub. i'm taking my upper el kids to the symphony tomorrow. it's our yearly trip. three years ago, on this trip, my kids first learned that owen was on his way. i will always associate this field trip with announcing my pregnancy to my kids. happy memories. at any rate, i'm hoping this gets better by the weekend. i'm driving 120 miles north on friday so i can do my assessment center (written test) on saturday. after this, it's a waiting game until scores are released in november.

Nearly there

we are back from my sister's graduation. it was a great time and my prediction was pretty much spot-on. owen is now going potty on any toilet i set him on, regardless of where it is. he also is staying dry nearly all day long every day. i have taken his diaper bag into the bathroom with me, but haven't needed it at all today. yesterday, he made it from omaha to kearney, without a pit stop, and was perfectly dry when we stopped for lunch. we're trying underwear for the rest of today to see how it goes. only two more steps and we're done! he is a prime example of how important it is to follow the lead of the child in those important transitions/changes and not to let the books dictate when to do things. this is the second time inthe last year that he has done something at the "wrong" time according to the books. i actually think that not being in our normal environment and schedule helped with the success of the last week. the trick might now be keeping it up and not letting him backslide too much, if at all.

we made a very smart move on the airplane today. we checked the car seat. one less thing to carry around and he's big enough to sit in the seatbelt just fine. we were in row 1 on the plane (frontier has no first class section) and i loved the leg room. jeffy didn't even have to get up for me to get out.