"It hurts, Mommy!"

that's what owen told me yesterday, while pointing to his right ear. so, we're going to the doctor today. when i ask him if his left ear hurts, he tells me it doesn't. good news is that he can verbalize that now. the other good news is that this is the first ear infection we've had in over a year, and we made it through the winter without tubes. i'm quite relieved. hopefully this will respond to meds. we'll also have to make an appointment with the ent - he said he wanted us to come in if we had another infection. i hope we can do that next week when i'm on spring break. today will likely be spent on the couch, watching movies, etc. lilo and stitch is on right now, until it's time to go to the doctor.

oh, and there's finally movement on getting my car taken care of after the bus hit it at the beginning of february. their adjuster is coming out today to look at my car since they didn't like the total we got from the body shop here (there was a dent that was pre-existing, but it's right where my car got hit and the body shop we went to said they wouldn't guarantee their work unless they fixed it). i'll present them with our estimate anyway.

oh, dear...

but i mean that in a very good way.   j and i are in trouble, though...

tonight owen and i were doing his alphabet puzzle (upper and lower case letters that fit into slots).  as he was putting the letters in their places, i was asking him what each letter said.  for the most part, he could tell me.  this i knew was in his abilities.  the next thing i tried was giving him a letter sound and having him show me the letter, which quickly progressed to making short words based on phonetics.  he did amazingly well.  i just sat back and watched as he quickly found the correct letter.  there are a few he has trouble hearing the difference between, but for the most part, they are very close in sound (long 0 and r for one)  other words were spelled phonetically (cat/kat).  he really has this pretty solidly.  we did it for 5-10 minutes, at which point he grew tired of it and started playing with his blocks.  oh, and he knows how to spell/recognize two words so far.  owen and open.  

in 6 very short days, my baby will be 3 years old.  i marvel at all of the things he can do now that he couldn't do a year ago.  yesterday as we were going to j's sister's house to watch the football game (ugh...our team didn't even show up.) o saw an "open" sign.  he spelled it out for us.  i asked him what it spelled and he told us.  "uh-oh" i thought.  other skills that my almost-3 year old has include good verbal skills and the ability to tell us what he wants and be understood most of the time, he is sleeping in his big boy bed without rails, going potty all the time (save sleeping times), we can have a conversation with him, he likes playing games, and will talk on the phone with people.  he can count past 30 (and to 10 in spanish), recognizes all of his letters (upper case, lower case, and sign language), and generally blows me away with all of those unexpected things he does.  i can only imagine where he'll be in a year. 

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.

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.

a barking seal

guess what that means? croup. we went in yesterday after his cough changed from normal to seal-y. he's been home from school two days. i stayed home yesterday, jeffy stayed home today. owen is back to his normal self today, which is good. that means that both of us can go to work tomorrow. he has almost coughed himself hoarse, poor kid. it's been a rough couple of days, between the fever, 105 on sunday afternoon, 103 at 2:30 a.m. on monday - both times we gave him motrin and it responded very nicely, and him coughing, it's been hard on mom too. his breathing is still a bit labored, but it's ok. i'll be glad when we're through this.

i had a meeting after school tonight. i've been home maybe 30 minutes. not too long after i got in, owen took my hands, looked at me and said, "atee atee" and then dropped to his knees. he was asking to play ring around the rosie, which we did multiple times. must be somethign he's learned at daycare.

when we were at the pediatrician's office yesterday, she was asking me questions about how owen was doing. he started readign off the letters on the label on the examining table. she stopped and looked at me in surprise. she asked me if he was trying to read the letters. i told her he was reading the letters and that he knows most of his alphabet. then i told her that he can consistently get his shoes on the right feet. she was amazed. as we were walking out, we saw his old pediatrician. she was there with her two children doing some "official business". it was so nice to see her! we miss her, but we love the new doctor, too. she was also very amazed at his skills and agreed with me that we are in for a wild ride with this kid. when kids as smart as owen get bored, they get in trouble...

Red Letter Day

in so many different ways!

first, the ways pertaining to our little boy. we are officially done with teething for several years with owen. he cut his 20th tooth today. :-) i'm so glad! i never thought he'd get all of those chompers. isn't this an amazing picture? how did i get so blessed to have this kid as my son?

he is also turning somersaults on his own. quite the fun thing to watch. i'll try to get it on video and post that one of these days. he bends himself in half, puts the top of his head on the floor and pushes himself over with his feet. all of this and he's just two!

as for some sorta-old news, we finished up the antibiotics for an ear infection this a.m. this is the first infection he's had since getting his tubes in in april. i knew there was trouble last monday when i got him up and there was dark-colored discharge on his pillow and in his ear. luckily we had an appointment that afternoon to get his flu shot and his chicken pox shot (how often does it work out like that, huh?) so i had the doctor look at his ear while we were in. great timing, if i do say so myself. he got really good at letting us do his eardrops. in fact, he even would remind us (tried to do that tonight but i told him that we're done!)

now for the other thing. we have some icky neighbors. as of tomorrow, they won't be our neighbors anymore. :-) yahoo!

one more to go

teeth, that is. owen now has 19 of his 20 teeth cut through. we're waiting on the bottom left 2-year molar. this bout of teething has been pretty easy, relatively speaking. i'm glad we're done for several years now, at least with him.

jeffy and i think we heard him open and then close his bedroom door last night when he was supposed to be sleeping. we know his door closed, and i'm pretty sure i closed it all the way behind me on my way out after i tucked him in. we may need to purchase some more safety paraphernalia (that's a funny spelling for that word, but it's right!) here in the next few days. we'll see how owen does with this new skill. if he stays in his room when he's supposed to be there, we'll leave the doors as-is. if he continually escapes, we'll put the doohickies there to keep him from turning the knobs.

this weekend, as usual, i was totally blown away by his new skills. this time, he has shown that he can correctly identify most of the numbers, either by picking them up and telling me what they are, by telling me what a number i point out or hold up from his puzzle, or by correctly grabbing the correct puzzle piece when i ask for a certain number. the only ones he doesn't yet say without prompting are zero, seven, and eight. when he counts to 10, he gets 1-6, then 9, 10. he's learning so much so fast. i love watching this process! it will be interesting with the next one when he or she comes to watch and see how he/she is different from the big brother.

thanksgiving is this week. i have one more day plus a half day of work. kids leave at noon on wednesday, we get to leave at 12:30. my dad gets in on wednesday afternoon and stays until sunday evening.

sounds and sentences

"Where the ball?"

this was owen's sentence tonight. i threw a ball with suction cups at the window. it bounced off and stuck to one of his books nearby. he didn't see where it went so he looked at me and with upturned hands aske the question.

"Bee buh". that was just a few minutes ago at the fridge. he held up the capital B from his fridge phonics set and said the name and sound, then put it in the slot for the letters. amazing! absolutely amazing.

i have a small update on the chicken pox. no, he doesn't have them...yet. turns out the infected child was there a day with just a few pox on his tummy and they were suspicious but not sure. he came back the next day (Thursday) and it was a definate yes. IF owen doesn't have the chicken pox by the 26th, he'll be getting the second shot of the vaccine along with his flu shot. so, we should be done with the chicken pox with him by the end of the month one way or the other. i'm taking bets on whether or not he's gonna get the chicken pox. anyone want to make a wager? i say he gets sick as he seems to get everything that goes around day care.

i have a soprano metallophone at school that had a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day today. in my last two classes of the day, it had bars (accidentally) kicked off, was jumped over, and used as a step. the two children who did the latter two things are off of the instruments for quite a while, possibly forever. i will make a laminated paper diagram for them to use with their fingers from now on. the girl who kicked the bars off was just shifting positions (from sitting to kneeling) and didn't mean to do it. she fixed it right away and did beautifully the rest of the time. ugh. saddly, the children who jumped over and stepped on (!) the instrument didn't surprise me at all. too bad for them, huh? no skin off my back, though.

Big skills!!!

Owen now helps get himself dressed. I'm absolutely amazed at the consistency of the second skill I'll mention. The first thing he can do is get his socks on. Usually, though, there is at least one sock with the grabby bits on top instead of on bottom (he won't slip if he's walking on the tops of his feet - lol!!!) the second, and to me most amazing, skill is putting on his crocs. 9 times out of 10, they're on the correct feet. he did that yesterday morning and jeffy thought i had put his shoes and socks on. nope. little man did it himself. today he got on his socks (both upside down) and one of his crocs - left one on the left foot. incredible. i wonder if this will transfer over to other types of shoes. time will tell. the way i'm looking at it is that once or twice would be accidental, consistent occurence is intentional. one more think owen likes to do now is feed the cat. he'll come into the kitchen and sign and say "more" and i'll open up the cupboard so he can get the food out for max. he's gotten really good at understanding "all done" and putting the scoop back in the bag and closing the door. he's turning into a great helper!

at church yesterday, owen was eating cheerios and at one point acted like he was done by "closing" the ziploc bag. jeffy tried to take it from him (he was done, right?) and owen looked right at him and said, "no-no daddy!" then i tried to take it and he told me, "no-no mimi!" i had to cover my mouth to stiffle the laughter. very cute. the other new thing is, "night-night mimi" (or whoever he is saying goodnight to). so cool!

this morning we had grands cinnamon rolls for breakfast. once owen finished his, he immediately asked for "more!" he got a banana instead. no complaints from said short person. if you'll look at the picture, you'll see the green turtle cup. it is not a sippy cup. this is the first meal at home that owen has not used a sippy cup for his drink. on his first attempt today, he didn't realize that a lot of liquid would come out and he spilled a little bit. after that, he took good careful sips. there was a little bit of drippage, but nothing major and he never once turned the cup upside down so i'm not even worrying about it. it's all a part of the learning process.

after breakfast was a much needed bath. after the bath was a much needed haircut. call me old-fashioned, but i really prefer his hair shorter rather than longer. i just think it looks neater when it's shorter. that, plus it's easier to trim it shorter than longer. i really hate hair flopping over his ears and into his eyes (or even close to his eyes). i finally today wrote down which settings i'm using for his hair cut. that way i don't have to guess. here are the before and after shots. he didn't stay too still for the after shot. the decision i've made for after haircuts is that owen gets as many m&m's as he is years old. so that means that he gets two m&m's after each haircut this year. some may call it bribery. i say, "whatever". ;-)

the workshop this weekend was a blast. i had a great time visiting with my friends and their two kids on saturday morning. i also ended up buying my own dulcimer. actually, it's a kit. the body is made of cardboard, which i will need to paint before i can get the whole thing put together. if i find i'm using my cardboard dulcimer a lot, which i think might be a possibility, i will at some point go and get a real wooden one. however, i would spend ten times what i spent this weekend for a wooden one so this really is the way to go to see if i'll really use it. if not, we're out $35 and owen has his first real instrument. i think i'll let him play it a little bit regardless. i have to decide what color i'm going to paint my dulcimer's body and make sure we have the appropriate kind of glue. i also need to get the strings, tuning mechanisms, and a few other things that were supposed to come in the kit but didn't. luckily the gal i bought it from lives just a few blocks from my school. that means about 10 minutes from our house. should be easy to get the stuff. i sent her an e-mail yesterday letting her know i was missing some stuff. at least i can get started on the painting. :-)

this morning jeffy was so funny! at a little after 6:00 a.m., he all of a sudden rips the covers off of me. i ask him what he's doing. he says, "you forgot to set your alarm." i reminded him that i don't have to go to work today. it was then that he remembered that it's veteran's day and apologized. very sweet and very funny.

i think we'll stay in most of today as it's looking to be a very blustery day.

He can count and a social commentary

well, just a little bit. he counts to two, but he starts with one! not too long ago, he thought counting started at two, not one. tonight, he very clearly was counting, "one, two! one, two!" i'm constantly amazed with how smart he is and how much he learns every day. it would be interesting to go back and count how many times i've said that in this blog. anyone up for the challenge?

another amazing thing to me is that owen turns two in a week. when did that happen? can it really be that two years have passed since he was born? we have a huge party planned for saturday of next week. by "huge", i mean in attendance. jeffy's entire family (all 18 of us, my mom, owen's godparents and their two kids (four more), plus my friend faye and her family (five more). that makes 28 people in our home. our house will be busting at the seams, but it will be fine and fun. two of the attendees are just a few months old, one is just over a year, owen and another are two, then there's a 3 year old and a 4 year old before we get to the older kids (ages 7-11) and the adults.

owen got a hair cut the other night. it looks very nice if i do say so myself. i'm really getting the hang of it. three different attachments were used, all on purpose. i did it after his bath and it looks so much neater that it was. he was getting pretty shaggy by my standards for him. i don't like seeing his hair flopping over his ears. he looks much better with the shorter hair. after his haircut, he got a few m&ms. if you look closely in the pictures, you can see the left-overs of the m's on his face.

now for the social commentary. while i am disappointed that marion jones has used steroids, i am very impressed and find it quite refreshing that she is owning up to it and that she appears to be willing to take whatever consequences come her way. in today's socitetal norm of "i didn't do it and i'll never 'fess up." it's very important that our kids see that it is better to take responsibility and face the music than to continue lying and get away with illegal things. this is a quality i am trying to instill in owen and also in my kids at school. i always acknowledge when a student owns up to something, even if it means getting in trouble.

the weekend is here. i have a workshop tomorrow in fway then jeffy and i have tickets to a concert here in town. the highlight for me will be beethoven's 4th symphony. owen is spending time with grandma and papa and then is coming home for bedtime with grandma. sunday will be our usual family day.

conference week is upon us at school. i will be masquerading as a middle school teacher this week on monday, tuesday, and wednesday as the middle school teachers are in cincinnati for a training of their own and it's a cheap way to have classes covered. specialists don't usually teach on half-days anyway so i suppose we have the time available. i could, however, make good use of the time if i didn't have to teach middle school. oh, well. i'll hopefully have a good part of each afternoon (m-w) and tuesday night until about 6 or 6:30. the way things work here in my district is if we work a late night in october and another late night during conferences in december, we don't have to go in the friday of the december conference week. (that usually falls on the friday of the first full week of december.) of course, the year i had owen, that friday ended up being a snow day.

wednesday we will have our 6-month check on the ear tubes and then on friday of next week, we have our two-year check with the pediatrician. i'm sorta nervous about this winter if the ear tubes come out (on their own). we could be facing more ear infections. i'mnot looking forward to that if it happens. we are missing meeting the new pediatrician by two work days. she starts on the 16. owen's appt is on the 12th. we'll meet her later in the year, i'm sure.

potty training has sorta slowed down and that's just fine. he is, after all, just two. we have plenty of time for it. oh, and the baby gates are down in the house now. he tried climbing over the one at the kitchen door this weekend. he's done well with having free access to the kitchen.

more stuff on friday

choir practice was fun. before i went, we went to borders and i got a couple of new cd's. one came out on tuesday (brian setzer orchestra) and the other came out a week and a half ago (songs of america - produced by janet reno.) owen and i had lots of fun dancing to the brian setzer orchestra cd tonight when i got home from choir practice.

as we were heading out the door, we noticed the family who lives down the street out with their little boy who is 15 months old so we went over to chat. while we were there, owen started navigating their stairs - WITHOUT holding on to anything! he was so steady doing it. i was totally amazed, almost to tears. he was so proud of himself, probably playing off of my reaction to him doing that. he's growing up so fast!

another new word for him lately is "row". he says it as he climbs up into my lap, takes a finger from each hand into his hands and waits for me to start singing "row row row your boat." then tonight he also said, "clap". i initially didn't understand what he was saying so i asked him to say it again and help me understand what he was saying so he started clapping, then he did "la la la la la". i immediately knew he was requesting "rock-a-bye your bear." language acquisition is awe inspiring.