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.

something fishy going on

and we call it owen. we got him a pool from target last week. the pool has a whale slide. owen wasn't too keen on the spout (to keep the slide slippery) but as long as his bottom was wet, he went down just fine. he'd go down the slide, say, "brr! fun!!!" and do it again. occasionally he gave me high five. when it was time to get out, i had to carry him, kicking and screaming into the house. we'll do it again tomorrow, so long as it's warm enough. he's going to have a blast at aunt sheena's on friday...

we went to the taste of tacoma today. owen went on four rides: an airplane that went in a skinny oval (think race track) and whipped around the u-turns, a fire truck that went up in the air and back down in a circle (counterclockwise), a canoe ride that went in a (lame) square, and a roller coaster. he loved every single ride. he also went on each ride all by himself. that was a first for us. he had the largest smile on his face that i think he possibly could have during the roller coaster. all i have to say is: we're in trouble. :-)

i was also able to be good in my eating today. i had a chicken and artichoke crepe (with fresh spinach leaves and a light sauce of some sort. it was really yummy. for dessert, i had lemonade sorbet (b&j's) in a waffle cone. now, i know that the waffle cone wasn't the smartest choice, but with as well as i've been doing today, it was ok.

now it's time for my yearly whine. it's HOT and our house gets so stuffy. there is no easy way to get air moving here. it takes two strategically placed fans (one in the front room and one in the doorway between the kitchen and the dining room. however, that would mean that one of the bedrooms doesn't have a fan in it to cool it down during the day. and we don't have screens on the windows so i don't feel safe leaving owen's open at night. plus, we can't leave them open during the day because the cat will jump out. we have a total of one window that can be left open. the front and back doors have screens on them (thank God) so we can get air in the house. there's just no straight line to allow for air circulation. purchasing an a/c would not be a wise use of money. we only have maybe 10 or a dozen days like this a year. we could get a window unit, but i'm not sure where it could go. the windows in the bedrooms open up and out. it's aggrivating, really.

first movie

we went to the drive-in last night with faye, tim, brendan, and peyton to see WALL-E. to me, the movie seemed like a kids' version of 2001 - not much dialog, and not very interesting to owen (he barely watched any of it). on the other hand, owen fell asleep on me shortly before the movie was over. it was wonderful. he hasn't done that in i don't know how long. i was happy to just let him be asleep on me. he is growing up way too fast. i was looking back at this blog yesterday and can't believe how much things have changed (him, me, our family, things in general) in under three years.

he had his usual energy. good thing we were in the back of the truck. that let him jump around and not be contained in a super-small place. we didn't stay for the second movie, prince caspian. i would have been happy to stay, but jeffy wanted to head home so we did. it was after midnight and he was driving. we can always buy prince caspian when it comes out. the next theater over had love guru and indiana jones. maybe we can find a sitter one night and go back to watch those. they looked much more interesting.

cranky-crabby

but with good reason. we went to northwest trek today, just the three of us. neither owen nor i had ever been. it was a really neat place. at one point, i was within arm's reach of a caribou on the tram tour. we saw loads of animals in natural habitats - caribou, bison, moose, several kinds of deer, mountain goats, big horn sheep, racoons, cougars, black and grizzly bears, foxes, and lots of other things. when we were at the cougar habitat, owen saw the cougar he said, "kitty-max sleeping." he napped on the way home, but that's not his usual nap length. it will be another early night to bed. he slept close to 11 hours last night.

he ate what?

we had our first time back at playgroup yesterday. lunch was crustless salmon quiche. owen inhaled it. granted, it was highly yummy, but i really didn't think owen would even try it. there was no hesitation on his part in eating it. he just started gobbling it up. ann, the hostess, was equally impressed. she's seen his eating (texture) issues in the past. we had lots of desserts yesterday, too. i brought women's bean project oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. another mom brought apple cake and a third brough brownies. only one mom brought anything healthy (veggie tray, which was devoured by the bunch of us).

the highlight for owen, aside from playing with the other boys, was seeing the deer. he thought it was a mule deer (don't be too impressed...it's in baby bear, baby bear what do you see) but was excited to see it, and even tried to chase it. then, the second time we went outside to play, he was looking for it again.

SLEEP!!!!!

he went to sleep by 9 last night. it's 7:51 by my computer's clock and he's still asleep. he was up a few times this morning - singing just before 5:00 a.m. poor babe must be exhausted. i'm going to get him up here in about 10 minutes. for the first time this week, we've all had a full night's sleep.

first full day

today was owen's first official full day in underwear. he did really well. he had one solid accident this morning, two wet accidents this evening and a wet and solid accident just now. however, the accident just now was immediately followed with him coming out of his room, waddling and with his pants wet, accompained by a very sad, "poopie!" we went into the bathroom where we took care of it. he's in his bedtime pull-ups now.

as for today, we were woken up by owen at 3:00 a.m. (day 4 on that one...). jeffy was up with him for, get this, 3 hours. i finally brought him into bed with us between 6 and 6:30, after he got a little bit sick in his bed. he slept for another 3 hours. we went to the zoo this afternoon with faye and her three kids. owen didn't get a nap today because of how much he slept this morning. he was dry the entire time we were at the zoo. now if i could just get him to stop doing two things when he's on the potty: pulling tp off of the roll just to put it in the toilet, and then flushing the toilet multiple times while he's sitting on it. it will come. it's just really frustrating right now.

time for bed for owen.

He did it!

when i dropped owen off at daycare today, they told me he needed more pull-ups. i told them that today was his last day and that they should just make him go potty, that he can do it. well, they did and he rose to the occasion! he had one accident all day long - at nap time. i can live with that. we came home and owen went potty and is now in underwear. that marks the end of living in pull-ups for owen gabriel. now he'll be in pull-ups only when he's sleeping. he doesn't quite have that down yet. like i said, i can live with that for now. it will come.


i'm done for the summer, finally. hopefully we'll go out for dinner tonight to celebrate. (jeffy just got home - we're going out tonight.) the only bad thing about today's work day was all of the sitting...i've aggrivated my back again. good thing i have good back meds!

UPDATE (7:30 P.M.): with two exceptions (nap and about an hour ago) he has been accident-free all day long! an hour or so ago, i caught him pooping...rushed him to the bathroom, but he was done. he was also quite upset about the accident. hopefully that will be not too far away. he even managed to stay dry all during dinner. i tried taking him thirty minutes before we left (nothing), right before we left (nothing), once we got to the restaurant (nothing) and as we were getting ready to leave (finally something!). he was dry so that was good. i was just a bit nervous as time got longer.

DONE!!!!

i am done with teaching for the school year! my last class left at 2:30. i spent the next 90 minutes doing certificates for tomorrow's awards ceremony.

we're getting our faucet fixed this week. it's been thunking for the last several weeks. i can't stand to turn the danged thing on. the thunking drives me nuts.

as for owen, he made some really good progress in potty training this weekend. he spent most of saturday in underwear, with only a couple of accidents. yesterday he was in underwear all afternoon, starting after his nap and going until bedtime. he managed to stay completely dry the whole time! that was 6+ hours. if only daycare could be as on top of it as i am...he went in pull-ups today. didn't go potty at day care at all. thursday is our day to start to finish potty training. he knows what to do on the potty. he just needs to learn that he needs to do it all the time. i don't think that will take too long.

Yay!

Owen just came up to me, said, "potty". I asked him if he had to go and he said yes and ran to the bathroom and went, first a little bit on his little potty, then more on the big potty. I am so proud of my little boy! he's in underwear for the evening, i think. i hope he has a repeat performance!

on another hand, we are having quite the storm right now. very strong winds and driving rain. i was supposed to go walking with faye tonight, but because of the storm and because of a thing at her daughter's school, we're not. that's ok, i did probably 60 minutes worth of cardio/core work today with my prek/k classes.

when i went to daycare to pick up mr. o today, one of the people working at the front desk told me that owen bit someone today. i responded with utter shock. that's not like my boy! then i was told that he was just kidding, that owen didn't bite anyone. boy, would there have been consequences when we got home if he had....

a new food item in o's diet is baby carrots. :-) he loves them now!!!!

winding down

the school year is 6.5 days from being over. add one to that for my work day the day after we kick the kids out. the end is in sight, hooray!!!!! that means that in just under 2 weeks, i'll have as much time with owen as i want. time for walking, going to play group, to the zoo, to the park. i love this time of year.

i'm on a diet. this last week i gained a lb, but i'm still down from my starting point. i didn't do the best job of exercising this past week, and my eating habits weren't the world's best. gotta turn that around.

we had some friends over last night for dinner and games. it was a lot of fun. owen and brendan had a great time playing. when it came time for the adults to play their game, we put cars on for the boys to watch. before we played, we made puppy chow. it's really yummy, highly addictive, and not really healthy. the boys got to help by shaking the baggies with the coated ceareal and powedered sugar. we'll make another batch for the ball game at the end of the month. all of us really liked it. it's right up there with rice krispie treats in terms of ease to make. very kid-friendly.

on thursday, my AP asked me if owen ever talks. apparently she's never heard him talk...