clarity

i have noticed in the last few days that about 90% of owen's speech is clear.  i wasn't sure if it was me being used to his speech or if it has really been getting clearer.  i asked my friend faye to listen today and see what she thought.  it's not me.  since her daughter's first birthday party on the 18th, his speech has cleared up significantly.  i really love this.  and to think that i was starting to wonder if his speech level was within normal limits for his age a month ago.  (i was comparing him to some of his buddies who are already 3.  i know you're not supposed to compare your kid to others, but it's hard not to...)

we went to lunch at aunt cissy's restaurant (she's the manager, not the owner) today.  grandma and cousin kaitlyn were there, as were aunt samara and uncle aaron.  the fact that all of us were there at the same time was total coincidence.  mare and aaron planned to meet each other, but not the rest of us.  grandma and katie came together (cissy is katie's mom).  we were there on our own, initially, as well.  owen ate nearly all of his lunch.  it's so nice to not really have to worry about that much any more.  i've almost forgotten the issues we had with him earlier in his life. 

daddy's working with his dad at his brother's place again.  i'm not expecting to see him until saturday.  :-(  we miss him when he's gone.  at least he has next week totally off (papa's in reno for hot august nights next week.)  we'll have all next week to enjoy family time before jeffy starts his new job with training on the 13th and the job itself on the 18th.

trip and counting

the trip was good. uneventful. no real adventures in driving with jeff-n-steph, short of getting slightly disoriented going to my great-aunt's last night. owen was so good these last few days. i was somewhat worried about how things would go at my great-aunt's, but he was good as gold. i told him that he couldn't touch any of her stuff unless she said it was ok (most of it's breakable). he remembered until this morning when he picked up the small wooden kitty that was on the window ledge in the kitchen. he ate most of the food she served. :-) (we told him the goulash was lasagna...it worked!) i am so proud of him, he is so well-behaved. just an amazing little boy.

then today as we were getting ready to head out of town, he started counting and i listened in amazement as he went past 24 (his high from sunday) and 26 (his high from yesterday) and made it all the way to 20-10. now to convince him that 20-10 is really 30. however, he definately has the concept of how counting works. i cracked up so hard when he said, "twenty-nine, twenty-ten". he's done it every time since then because i laughed so hard. once he figures that each 10 is something different, he'll be counting to 100 and beyond in no time!

owen's latest new phrase is: "Cool!" said with two thumbs up. he did it at the carousel in helena, while daddy was power washing the truck, and on command. it's quite cute. his speech is becoming more and more clear these days. i'm loving it.

6

years ago today i married my husband!

and an undisclosed number of years ago my mother was born. (happy birthday, mom!) as a birthday "present", we called this morning and owen said, "hi gamma! happy to you!" until today, he has always called her mah-muh. this was his first time calling his gramma "gamma".

we're in helena this weekend for a family reunion on jeff's side. his mother and grandmother are her eas well (along with his dad and step-grandfather). owen is loving seeing grandma, papa, great-grandma (he can even say it and recognizes her!) and porky (great-grandma's husband) every day. the reunion is over after lunch today. we're going to be spending the afternoon with my aunt and cousin who live here. we also might try to go to the carousel that's right by our hotel.

we went to the rodeo last night. owen, of course, loved the whole thing. they had the craziest thing: teams of 4-5 people trying to do the following:

1. catch a cow which was released from the bucking shoots (the cows had on halters and ropes to make them easier to catch and hold...)
2. milk her (quantity didn't matter, just one successful squeeze worked) into a cup
3. take the milk to the judge.

it was incredible to watch. lots of fun, too.

off to the carousel and then to the reunion site again for lunch.

Anniversary

Sunday is our 6th anniversary. I told Jeff that I wanted tickets to go see Phantom when it's in Seattle later this year. We got 'em. :-) He's never seen it, and is going somewhat grudgingly. I've seen it twice and love it. At least I know there won't be any surprises like there were in Cabaret. It will be a great night. We're going on October 4. :-) Hopefully we'll do dinner beforehand as well. Gotta find a sitter for the bug, too.

I got my contacts checked (for the second time) today. They changed the solution I was using last week and it's better, but my eyes still aren't equal with my lenses in. I go back next Friday to get things checked and get a new Rx for my right eye.

Owen continues to do well. He has two new phrases: "Feet off the table!" (used at random times) and "Oh, man!" (used appropriately.) The things that come out of my babe's mouth really make me laugh sometimes. Along with "Watch Tigger Pooh!" when i turned off the TV this a.m. He got over it.

Think about the following phrase in terms of how funny it would have sounded even 5 years ago: I went to school today to get the cord to hook up my iPod to the DVD player so that Owen can watch his podcasts while we're driving this weekend. Technology is amazing, isn't it?

a vent

This has nothing to do with Owen or his growth. I'm tired of how jeff has allowed himself to be taken advantage of by his father when it comes to chores and odd jobs. Whenever something comes up, it seems that it always falls on Jeff to do. I don't know if he feels duty-bound to say "yes" or what. This time it's taking care of someone else's mess at the tree lot. Last year, there was a bunch of brush cut down by a guy who knows my f-i-l. It just got left there. Now, the city has basically given the owner (not my f-i-l) until close of business tomorrow (he received notice two weeks ago) to get everythign cleaned up. Once again, it's fallen upon Jeff to take care of figuring out how to do that. Then, when he comes up with a solution, it is shot down by his dad who, unknown to us, came up with another solution. Jeff was anticipating just being able to stop by the lot to pick up his chain saw this afternoon around lunch time. It's now 10 of 7 p.m. and he just got home. Good news is that the work is done now. No one else in the family gets dragged into this stuff - ever. Can you understand why I'm frustrated?

Weight Loss

I'm down 5 lbs. Exercise works! 35 to go till I reach my goal weight.

Day 3...

...and he kept his underwear dry all day long! We did, however have two solids to clean up but they were at times that I was anticipating so I know he's controlling that aspect. This is the first day he's been in underwear that he has made it all day without a wet accident. it's so freeing to not have to worry about pull-ups for most of the day. pottying is so much easier than diapering!!!! way to go, o!

i've made it to the gym three times this week to exercise, plus once with owen to go swimming. i'm hoping to make it at least that much next week. today was fun - it was our whole extended family there, save my b-i-l who is in china for the next month to help get things up and running for the olympics. today i did 30 minutes on the bike, which equaled 5.25 miles, including my cool down which i started once i reached the 5 mile mark. we'll see tomorrow what my weight is.

all day long

that's what owen did yesterday. managed to go all day long in one pair of underwear. then he had one accident at 7:00 p.m., which is close enough to bedtime for me. he also had a pull-up on at nap time. good thing too. today is day 2 in underwear. wish us luck!

one down!

i am comfortable now in saying that he's pee trained! if it weren't for that other part, we'd be done. he even went all night (10 hours!!!!!!!) and woke up bone dry. he's still holding the poop in...gotta start pumping in the juice. i know he has to poop right now, but i'm guessing he's a bit constipated.

right now i have a tired boy resting against me. bedtime will be soon. lasst night i ended up jiggling him asleep. (that jiggle-bounce-shake thing) i'll try the same thing tonight, but i'm not sure i'll need it too much.

pull-up count: 3 (1 overnight, 2 daytime).

silly boy!

first of all, owen has stayed dry most of the day AND has gone potty close to half a dozen times. twice, i've asked him if he had to go potty, he either said or shook his head "no" and then ran right into the bathroom to go potty. of course, he waited until nap time to poop...he knows exactly what he's doing. anyway, he was dry all morning. one pull-up from when he got up until nap time.

we went swimming at the Y today. it was owen's first real experience in the water. he did ok. luckily, they have life jackets there for the kids to use. i was real glad that owen had one. and no, they don't just have a few jackets. they have a TON. now, it's 7:00 p.m. and my darling little boy hasn't had a nap today. he refused to take one so we went swimming instead. got us out of the house. how nice it is to be able to just decide "let's go swimming" and then be able to go.

as for my stomach bug, i'm feeling better. have been eating regular food today, just in smaller quantities. though, the pizza tonight was super yummy. as were the garlic twists.

stomach bug

me, not owen. it hit after dinner on sunday and was with me all day yesterday. i'm feeling better today. good thing, because jeff is going out of town for most of the day and tonight. he's going to work on his brother's cabin with his dad. i'm considering having owen sleep in our bed tonight.

i went to the gym yesterday and did the yoga class. it was supposed to go for an hour, but as i found out, it goes 15 min longer than advertised. it was a good class. i did have to sit down a couple of times because i was getting light headed. i made it through the hour but left for two reasons, one is i ended up getting sick in the trash can in the hall, and owen needed to be picked up from the child care. i might try again tomorrow, or we might go swim later this week. owen now has ear plugs to keep in the gym bag as well as water wings. they also have life jackets at the Y.

peer pressure

we gave into familial peer pressure today. after conversations with jeff's family at dinner last night (4th of july), we decided to check out the ymca. jeff's been a member at bally's for 15 years and has been reluctant to give up that membership due to his longevity. however, the y has so many opportunities for our family, including free sports things for owen, free swimming lessons, free yoga and pilates for me. i guess by free, it means included in our membership, but it's still nice. our memberships are active as of this coming monday. i'll be glad to have someplace to go swim, or walk, or whatever when it's not nice outdoor weather or when there will be too may people in my favorite places. i also want to know if i'm doing my yoga and pilates things right. swimming lessons will start the first week of august. i'm excited to have owen finally learn to swim. i remember doing swim lessons when i was little, both at celebrity sports center (what a sad day when they tore that down!) and at creek. actually, i guess the only thing i remember about lessons at celebrity was trying to dangle my toes/feet in the water like the 'big' kids and i fell in. i immediately turned around and grabbed onto the edge - just as i had been taught. the other fun thing will be saturday mornings when the whole family (all 19 of us) will be going to the y. the younger kids will go to the child care area (cousins!) while the rest of us will go and do thigns on the equipment. we'll need to get some earplugs for owen to keep in his swimming bag. oh, and we'll have to get him a swimming bag...i'll need a new workout bag (jeff has ripped my older one with his shotput and discus) and a swim cap. i have my goggles (love those swedish goggles!) there's apparently a program that uses swimteam workouts, but w/o being on the swim team. i may eventually join the team. i loved swimming when i was younger. burned out (in terms of competitive swimming) during my senior year of high school, after peaking the summer between my junior and senior years (58 seconds off of my 400 time over the summer, 9 seconds off of my 100 fly time in one meet - i was the only one in the pool and felt like i was going way too slow so i kept pushing myself to go faster. guess it worked!) i'm ready to get back into it now.

yesterday during dinner, owen told grandma and aunt sheena that he had to go potty. he did, he was dry, and he went. good boy! now if he could only decide to do that all the time... this after being dry most of the day. :-)

puzzles

o figured out, in his usual manner, how to do a puzzle he got from gramma at christmas. it's a 9 piece, jigsaw puzzle, with no border tray. just a regular jigsaw puzzle like big people do. he managed to get, through trial and error, the 8 pieces we could immediately find. he was so proud of himself, as was i. i love watching him work things out the way he does.

Kryptonite

me: no sleep (though the thunder was cool last night. what do you multiply the seconds between the lightening and thunder by to find out how far away it is? i am annoyed, as always, with the squirrels in the attic...don't get me started.)

owen: songs. he will actually calm down when music of any sort comes on. sometimes he'll dance, but it's calm (or at least appropriate) dancing. when he's done, he sits down. they say music calms the savage beast. i guess that applies to active toddlers, too. gotta love playhouse disney in the mornings.

oh, owen got to ride on an old (1960s) international tractor yesterday afternoon. we went to playgroup at ann and simon's and after everyone else had left, ann's neighbor brought over his tractor so that simon could go for a ride. simon's 3rd birthday was on sunday so this was a birthday surprise. the neighbor offered owen a ride as well. owen loved it! ann got pictures, depending on their form, i'll try to get one posted sometime.

Mariner's Game

we went to what will likely be our only baseball game of the season last night. it was the end-of-year activity for my choir (and their families) from school. i think everyone had a great time. it was a great family activity. i know a few things i'll change for next year, but i'll also be more on the ball next year and get started in april. here's one picture of owen playing with bridie f., the daughter of one of our paras and older sister of one of my choir members. the two of them had a blast. she did a great job entertaining owen. :-)



the weather today is cooler than its supposed to be. it's overcast, which keeps the cool of the night in (at least in the summer. in the winter it keeps the warm of the day in and makes it not so cold.) at least we had gorgeous weather yesterday for the game. i took a bunch of pictures to make a poster or something for recruiting next year. i have all summer to do that but i should get it done sooner rather than later.

i got the funniest e-mail from a friend yesterday. the subject was "Brendan (her 4-year-old) couldn't find the pen to his aqua doodle"

The body of the e-mail said this: "so he peed on it!" i read that and just started laughing uncontrollably. knowing this little boy (he's one of o's best friends) makes this no surprise at all. oy. good thing faye saw the humor in it too. she said she was laughing too when it happened.

i've come to a decision in terms of o's potty training. he knows what to do. he just has to decide that going potty ON the potty is what he wants to do. once he makes that decision, he'll be trained in no time. he is showing his control over the issue and is being a very head-strong little boy. that's not necessarily a bad thing. he'll occasionally run into the bathroom after dropping trou and go. did it this morning, actually. in his own time, i guess.