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.

A Prediction

We are currently in Omaha for my sister's graduation from med school. knowing how owen does things that are supposed to be done under certain conditions (like the transition to his big boy bed for example), i predict that this is the week that he is going to decided once and for all to potty train. yesterday, he went at my mom's, at a rest stop, and at aunt michele's. this morning, he woke up bone dry and went right away. i think the key is to not have someone hovering over him. i've learned to set him on a public potty, and leave the stall, but stay right outside of the door. i set him on the potty yesterday morning (at my mom's) and left the bathroom - he went right away. same thing this morning.

owen is such a wonderful traveler. he has had two really long days in a row and has faired beautifully. all i have to say is thank goodness for portable dvd players. we even have done this trip without a stroller. we figure, if we need one at the zoo later this week, we'll rent one there. of course, i've learned to be really careful when crossing a wet crosswalk in my crocs. i have a lovely bruise on my right knee from a fall i took on monday - with owen on my back. we are both fine, and i'm really glad noone hit us as we were at the airport on the shuttle drop-off.

i wonder how my kids are doing at school...

overhaulin'

that was the theme in my room this week. the AP at my school approached me mid-week about the clutter and offered to help me get organized. i said, "sure!" and she came in on thursday morning after choir. we started getting shelves unloaded (not all, just some) and organized as we cleaned. that's my cleaning/organizing method of choice - make a bigger, central mess and organize as that huge pile gets cleaned up. then, the principal came in to help also. she started a list on my board of things to get that will help with the organization and make it look more like a montessori music classroom. i like that idea! i'm very grateful for the help i got this week. i really wouldn't have had the first idea where to start. i'll post pictures when it's all done.

owen is very much a two-year old. he's currently whining because daddy left to go mow the lawn at the tree lot. in a couple of hours, o and i will be meeting some friends at the waterfront to go walk. faye and i are being eachother's buddy for losing our baby weight. yes, i am still carrying mine. i'm not happy about it, either.

pt is still going. no major success right now. he's really in charge of this. one of the funny thigns from this past week was at bed time earlier in the week. i told him, "owen, go potty!" he looked at me and said, "no!" . I said, "excuse me?" to which he replied, "time out?" i agreed that that was a good idea so to time out we went. he sat nicely, for the most part, in the chair. when the timer went off, i let him know that he was in time out for backtalking mommy.

right now, the whining has stopped and o has on his captain's hat (wiggles) and has a drumstick and is pretending to be captain feathersword. it's really cute to see him pretending. what a big boy!!!

hard to read

anyone else have the issue where your 2-year-old doesn't know hwat they want? owen wants his sunglasses right now but when i hand them to him, he pushed them away. when i take them away (like i think he wants), he starts crying and reachign for them. it's really frustrating.

part of our problem might be the fact that our household lost 4 hours of sleep on thursday night. owen woke up around 12:30 and didn't get back to sleep until close to 4:30. i think he's still recovering, though the 11 hours of sleep he got last night certainly couldn't have done any harm.

i found a cool site thanks to some teachers at my school. i even found family there! it's a site from ellis island. if you have family who came over and went through ellis island you can see their entrance information, the manifest and a picture of the ship they came on. it was very neat to see my great-grandparents on there. however, there are some mis-transcriptions so it's not 100% accurate. for example, my grandmother's maiden name started with a D. they had her father listed as starting with a B, but the rest of the family was correct.

hilarity

owen just tried to get himself dressed after a potty attempt. pull-up went on upside down and with both of his legs through one leg hole, so it was basically just around his waist with the bottom being open to the elements. then came the pajama bottoms. they were inside out and both legs again went into the same leg of his pants. it was hilarious to watch him. i was laughing so hard. so much for not encouraging him... i couldn't help myself.

tall tower

o just brought some wooden blocks out of his room. they aren't the cubes with the letters, either. they're long rectangular blocks and he is stacking them on end. he's doing a great job, they are stacked almost perfectly. he also brought out some cylindrical blocks and was trying to put them on the tower, sideways. they did's stay too well... he was very proud of himself for building the tower.

timing

i think that's about it. he needs to figure out when exactly he needs to get into the bathroom and onto the potty. tonight he went into the bathroom and was getting ready to sit down, but his pull-up was already good and wet. i'm guessing it happened right as he was getting in there. i'm so ready for him to be done with the p-t.

oh, and i learned that pull-ups are waterproof from the outside. owen was playing with the new one in the sink and it is still good. just needs to dry on the outside.

Counting Down

let the countdown begin. there are 45 days left of school. i only have 39. but who's counting, right?

"Pee Potty?"

he has said this twice in the last 10 minutes. both times, he's gone right into the bathroom with his pants down around his ankles. no success yet, but i think it's going to happen soon. i do think he's pretty much gotten the idea of what needs to happen when he feels the urge. now, if he could only act on it.

last night was a kid-less night for mommy and daddy. we had tickets to go see cabaret up in seattle. we had dinner in downtown seattle prior to the show. while we were waiting outside for our table, a huge police motorcade came down the street. and by huge, i mean an entire block was nothing but police motorcycles. then, a smaller motorcade with secret service men looking out the windows for people shooting with something other than a camera or cell phone. at the back was a van with some tibeten monks in it (from what i could tell through the darkened windows), including the Dalai Lama, who is in town this weekend for the Seeds of Compassion tour. i got a picture of the front of the motorcade. very cool. somethign to sort of cross off of my bucket list.

as i was typing the last bit, owen said, "pee potty" again, but this time with a sad voice. he had gone in his underwear. i comforted him and told him it was ok and praised him for knowing when he had to go and telling me when he had to go. then i told him he just needs to sit long enough to go and we'll be all potty trained and be a real big boy!

trying something

so owen is generally able to stay dry at daycare, with the exception of nap time. i'm putting him in real underwear at home in the evenings and taking him potty at least once an hour. today is the first day doing this. we'll see how it works. i think we're really close to be being potty trained. if we can get through most of the weekend with him in underwear and dry/clean, i may try sending him to daycare next week in underwear and ask them just to put him in pull-ups at nap time.

7:00 p.m. so far, o has done beautifully. ten minutes ago, i told him to go potty. he went into the bathroom, did the whole bit, minus actually going potty, and came back out. he is capable of getting his pants/underwear (or pull-ups) up and down, manipulating the potty, etc. on his own. that's one more big step toward being fully potty trained.