tricky parents!

twice this week we've given owen a quesadilla with meat of some sort in it. on sunday it was a chicken quesadilla at target, tonight, there was diced ham in his quesadilla. he ate it all down, no complaints. not even with the spices on sunday. very cool! he must be going through a growth spurt because he seems to be eating everything in sight. he's also eaten lunch at school three days this week (and his lunch that i brought on monday has been sitting there in the fridge since monday. too bad! NOT!!!!! maybe he's finally willing to start eating normal foods. he even had some of jeffy's chicken at dinner the other night while we were celebrating my getting the school district scholarship for doing my National Boards next year. (see my other blog, http://shemustbecrazy.blogspot.com for all of those juicy details.)

yesterday was my spring program. it was more stressful than most due to circumstances beyond my control, including the teachers whose kids were involved throwing in an extra thing that took nearly 20 minutes to do. add that to a 35 minute program with children who are 3-6 years old and it's not a good thing. what hacks me is that parents were complaining about the length of the afternoon program (close to an hour...) and some didn't bring their kids back at night because of it, not realizing that the evening program wasn't going to have the added part and was going to be significantly shorter. then, one of the teachers didn't show up and put a note on her door for her kids to go to my room before the concert. i was getting another group ready to sing at the same time and that change in what i was expecting to have to do sent me nearly into tears in front of close to 40 kids, that was in lieu of a panic attack, which did start, but i was able to keep things under control due to a couple of wonderful parents who stepped in and kept track of the little ones while i dealt with the bigger kids in my choir. the program itself was amazing. the kids did beautifully, as always. and also as always, there are a few parents who need to be normalized to appropriate school concert etiquette. these one or two parents kept calling out, sometimes in the middle of songs, "you go, ______!" i ignored it, even when they were doing it while their kids weren't even singing. sheesh! i understand being proud of your kid and all, but know the limits, people! these kids have worked hard for this program and calling out like that is disruptive to everyone there.

eight more sleeps until we head out of town to visit family and friends in denver and omaha. seven more sleeps until i'm done with school for the year. good news is that closing down my room is much easier this year than it has been in the past. i have a couple of areas i still need to tackle and go through stuff, but that should be done by tuesday of next week, easily. my goal is to have it done by the end of this week so i can go have lunch with the upper el kids (4th and 5th graders) at one of their teacher's houses on monday.

we may be welcoming a new family member to the extended family tomorrow. jeffy's sister is being induced tomorrow. i'll stop by after my meeting to see how she's progressing and maybe even hold that precious little one. everyone but the baby's dad knows what the baby is. i don't think he reads this blog, but just in case, i'm not going to give anything away.

i sing, you sing...

owen sings! we had a sing-along in the car this morning. i started with abc's, then owen requested twinkle twinkle (up-up-up-up), then after twinkle, he requested old macdonald (e-i-e-i-ooooooo) he even will sing along sometimes, or at least sing his part.

another thing he has started doing in the last couple of days is sticking by me when we're out walking around. he's done that several times recently. it's a nice change from him running away from us all the time.

right now he is carrying around one of daddy's shoes...that's a size 13 if you're interested.

another change in owen's routine is sleeping with a teddy and blanket now. he started the teddy on monday night and added the blanket two nights ago. it was pretty cute! i should have taken a picture of him right after i laid him down last night. one arm wrapped around teddy, and the blanket clutched in the other arm. very cute. he made it through last night. too bad i can't say the same for two nights ago. i was up with him for two hours. that wasn't fun.

i'm in my final countdown at school. i have five more teaching days left: two more fridays, one more each of monday, tuesday, and thursday. wednesday of next week is field day so that doesn't count for me. next friday is my last teaching day of the year. we go through the 19th with kids and then just teachers for an inservice day (making up from all of hte weather we had in december and january) on the 20th. the only bad thing is that i have my least favorite class on thursdays and fridays. that makes three more sessions with them instead of one or two like the rest of my classes. today i showed my upper el classes (that's 4th and 5th graders) a program video from when they were in 1st and 2nd grade. it was a hoot!

next week i also have my program, which was originally supposed to be today. it's now on tuesday. my littles (PreK-Ks) and choir. my favorite concert of the year. just fun songs.

No! More!

that's what owen said to me tonight after two stories and my mention of it being time for him to go to bed. needless to say, it was a battle i didn't feel like fighting (he was lunging after a nightly favorite - kiss goodnight) so he won. i just marvel at his acquisition of language. i think this is the first time he has put two words together verbally (as opposed to signing) to express a want without repeating each word several times (moh moh moh bee bee bee - who wants to translate that? it's not too hard!)

we had our annual school block party tonight. my principal saw owen and was absolutely taken aback at how big and grown up he is. actually, most people who haven't seen him in several months (or longer) have that same reaction. i had that same reaction with a (not so) baby brother of one of my students who is two now (the brother, obviously, not the student). owen had cheetos with his pbj and nana tonight. big mess, but it was a special treat being the block party. he didn't eat the hot dog i got for him, but at least we didn't waste any money on it - the bbq was free. :-) we like that!

good helper

owen is down for the night. he got a bath tonight (it's been in the 80s-low 90s here the last couple of days...he's been a hot and sweaty boy from playing outside at school, etc.) and as i was getting his ear plugs ready, he presented me with one of his ears so i could get the plug in that ear, then he turned his head and presented me with the other ear so i could get the plug in that ear. it wasn't too long ago that it was a fight just to get them in. now, he actually helps me with the task! way cool, owen!

a funny thing tonight was on our way to bed, i picked him up (he would have rather stayed up playing) and as we were walking toward his room, he kept saying "no no no no no!" i told him, "yes. it's past time for bed."

time for mommy to see if she's smarter than a fifth grader (mine were very trying today. told my mom i needed a drink this afternoon. their teacher was gone as was their para. just a sub in the classroom. several owe me time on the wall tomorrow at recess.

dissed!

i went to pick up at daycare today and got totally dissed by him! they were coming outside to go play as i got there. i picked him up, (lifted him off the ground) and he wanted nothing to do with me! he wanted to go play. so i let him (i still needed to sign him out and talk with the director about plans for the summer) and went to get him after i did that. he was more willing to go with me at that point, but still wasn't 100% for it.

last night we were singing "twinkle, twinkle" and he started singing along. his words were "up-up-up-up!" he also opens and closes his hands while mommy sings. then, at the end of the song, he claps once or twice as if to say, "yay!" he'll sing along with the abc's a little bit too. :-) very cool for the music teacher mom!

i taught a violin lesson once we got home today (my student came home with us - she's a student at my school so it was convenient for all.) and mr. owen did a wonderful job of keeping himself occupied while i was teaching. he got fussy about five minutes before the lesson ended. he's growing up! yay! it's so fun to watch.

i'm going out of town this weekend and leaving my boys here. i fly out on saturday morning and come back on monday afternoon. i'm so excited to be going, not to be leaving my boys so much (though the break will me nice), but really excited about where and why i'm going.

sinuses

wow, reading over my last post, i sounded sorta defeatest, didn't i? part of that was the fact that i felt horrible. i had this horrendous pain and pressure in my left frontal sinus. medication wasn't working (otc stuff - sudafed and tylenol) so i went online and found a site that had an accupressure diagram. i figured that it couldn't hurt (and it wasn't going to cost me anything) so i tried it. almost immediately i had some relief (enough that i could eat dinner and enjoy it!). i did it a couple of more times before i went to bed and, not only did i sleep clear through the night (thanks in part to owen not waking up and fussing like he tends to do), but when i woke up this morning, 99% of the pressure was gone. that last 1% is still there, but mostly when i'm bending over. it's totally managable, though. i have a dr appt this afternoon that i'm still going to, just in case. but in the grand scheme of things, i feel amazing. i'm a true believer in accupressure as part of helping my body get better from things.

They Work!!!

so i'm just getting a class started today when my cell phone rings. my kids hear it and inform me, i hear it and ignore it and tell them i'll let it go to voicemail. once i get them going on their lesson (color by number activity while listening to "Carnival of the Animals"), i go look at my phone to see who called. it was daycare. i call them back and find out that his ear is oozing and they're afraid that he's ruptured an ear drum. i calmly inform them (maybe slightly excitedly, actually) that he has tubes and they're doing exactly what they are supposed to be doing. i told them i'd call the doctor to make sure we didn't need to take him in and then i'd call them back. as long as they aren't getting clogged and he doesn't get a fever or seem to be in pain with his ear, we don't need to go in. i'm so glad we went for the tubes. i couldn't have dealt with yet another thing with him.

i, on the other hand,think i have a sinus infection. it's incredibly painful. i've barely eaten all day today. just at breakfast. that was really tough, unless i took really small bites. wonder what i'll do for dinner tonight as far as eating.

owen is consistently going through the night, and when he wakes up, he may fuss, but he gets himself back to sleep with relative ease. how nice to be back to that! yay!

Sucess with a mascot!

This picture was taken yesterday at the Mariner's Game. Owen wasn't too sure (ok, he was flipping out) about the Mariner Moose to begin with, but once Mommy gave the moose a high five, Owen decided that it was ok for him to do it too. This all happened before this picture was taken. We had trouble getting Owen to look at the camera instead of the moose. He even gave a high five as we were leaving, too!

The game was fun, albeit wet. At least Safeco Field has a retractable roof. It was closed. We took the train again, and just like last week, Owen fell asleep. He tried so hard to stay awake in his seat, looking out the window. It didn't last. He slept for about 45 minutes on me. That was it for the day. Needless to say, he was really tired last night and made it through the night again.

He and I are home today, me with the starts of a cold, him with pink eye. I can call the pediatrician in about 20 minutes. We'll be ready to go as soon as they can get us in. I want to get in soon so he can start on his antibiotics and be ok for school tomorrow. (He needs to be on antibiotics for 24 hours before they'll let him in. I'm hoping to get him going by 10 and that that will be close enough for day care. If not, Jeffy will be staying home tomorrow.)

Owen is in his high chair right now watching Little Einsteins on TV.

Here's a thought to ponder. It came to me while we were on the train yesterday and we were being pushed from behind instead of being pulled: Does a train that goes backward go chugga-chugga-choo-choo or does it go ugguch-ugguch-ooch-ooch? Inquiring minds want to know.

what a silly boy!

owen's favorite thing to do these days is vocalize while moving his tongue around in his mouth. it makes the most wonderful sound, and it makes mommy laugh to boot!

we went to a family fun night at my school yesterday and we stopped by taco bell for dinner since it was quick and close to school. for starters, they only charged us $.35 for owen's dinner (yes, that decimal is in the correct place). he had a small quesadilla - we payed for a side of cheddar cheese and a side of flour tortilla. they didn't have any high chairs, but they did have a booster so owen sat in that, a first at a restaurant for our family. he did beautifully! the manager was extremely appologetic for the lack of a high chair. our service last night was amazing, especially for a fast food place.

here's a picture of owen, taken just now. he said, "cheese!" for the picture! that's a first for him! isn't he just too cute!?

we went to the tacoma rainiers game on thursday night with jeff's brother, sister-in-law, and two nephews. owen had his first encounter with a mascot. he was ok as long as the mascot (a reindeer) didn't try to touch him. the mascot tried to give owen a high five and owen flipped out. after that, though, he was looking at rhubarb (the reindeer - don't ask, i don't know...) with a very studius look on his face, as if he was trying to figure out what in the heck that thing was.

we go to another m's game tomorrow. wonder if the moose will happen by. i know i won't make owen touch the moose. we'll only get as close as owen is comfortable.

M's vs. NYY

just a note, owen is now 19 months old. where has the time gone? he's more of a little boy than a baby now. it's amazing.

i'm waiting on pictures from my friend katie so i'll post those when i get them, but we went to see the seattle mariners beat the yankees in an amazing game. the score was 2-1, and it was one of the funnest professional baseball games i've ever been to. we were sitting in the left field bleachers, which were a lot more comfy that i thought they would be. owen tried two new foods yesterday - garlic fries, and cracker jack. i was eating both and he just helped himself. he was pretty proud of himself, too. at one point, he said, "i did it!" with a mouth full of crackerjack.

katie and rob have a little boy named peter who is just a few weeks older than owen. it was a blast watching peter and owen playing together. katie hasn't seen owen for several months (since december, i think) and was commenting on how much his talking and vocabulary has changed since we had the tubes in.

another first for owen was riding the train to seattle and back for the game. we managed to get up top on the way up, but didn't quite make it back to the train quick enough to get up top for the ride back. owen fell asleep with less than 30 minutes to go on the way up. he slept through the night last night, which was good. fussed twice a little after 5:00 this morning, and then woke up around 6:30 and was playing in his crib. so fun to listen to while i'm getting up and ready.

he's down, for now. let's hope he makes it through the night again. we like it when owen sleeps through.

Starting a second blog

I have a new blog for a different arena in my life: http://shemustbecrazy.blogspot.com

Check it out!

"nana!"

ah, expanding vocabulary! that's one of owen's latest words. he'll go into the kitchen, point to the counter, and say, "Nana!" we don't call him monkey-boy for nothing! lol he's also turning into the little drummer boy. he is also starting to copy what we are saying. i swear he says, "two" when we are counting steps. he also says, "blue, green," and tries "yellow" when we are looking at colors and mommy says one. he is also mimicking things that we do. very cool! right on schedule, too.

we've been going on walks most evenings after dinner. it's very enjoyable. owen chatters up a storm telling us how it is in his world. he also monopolized the dinnertime conversation. what i love most about our walks is that owen often will take my hand (he initiates it!) and will hold my hand and look at me while he is talking. i really wish i understood owenese! i'd love to know what he is thinking and saying.

we're going to the mariners/yankees game on sunday with some friends and their little boy. peter is about 6 weeks older than owen. his mom and i met at mommy group at the hospital last summer.

this was teacher appreciation week at school. our parents are absolutely AMAZING! we as a staff have been completely spoiled this week, ending today with a dessert bar (four words: "who needs real food?") in the staff room, presents, and massages. however, none of these things even come close to a note i got today at the bottom of a permission slip for something later in the year. in the note, the girl's mother thanked me for all i do and mentioned that her daughter has really grown and she contributes a lot of that growth to music. this might sound conceited, but i agree with the mom. i've noticed the same thing and it's wonderful to know that i have helped her with this growth. this girl has pushed herself beyond her comfort level quite a few times in doing things in my class. she shocked all when she got up in front of the school and did a speaking part a couple of years ago. not only did she do it, she has a wonderful speaking voice. she's in my choir and learns the songs quicker than most of the other kids do, plus she sings her heart out (not always in tune, but that's not the point. my choir is non-auditioned. anyone can join, they don't have to be able to carry a tune.) and she comes in at recess every week for recorders. she is always telling me while she's working on a new song that she can't do it and it's too hard (usually accompanied by tears), and i work through it with her. she always feels so proud when she achieves the next level in recorders. i know that she struggles with confidence and frustrations, but when she wants something bad enough, she works till she gets it. my job, as i see it, is to give her the encouragement, support, and nudges she needs to push through and persevere. it is for her dedication and hard work that she will be named my "outstanding music student of the year" in june. i know that as a teacher i'm not supposed to have favorite students, but she is definitely one of my favorites. she is always quick with a hug and a smile for me.

a sharing family!

but not in the good way. all three of us are on antibiotics for strep. jeffy was diagnosed yesterday and the PA wanted to see me today since i've hada sore throat for about the last week. she's not sure if i have (or recently had) strep, but she's treating me as such since i have a very red throat and the voice of someone with strep (it's a quality to the voice, i /gue?SS"
)[']=[='['].) owen went to his doctor today just for a precaution and he is in the beginning stages so he as well is going onto meds.

pardon the wierd stuff up there, owen was helping mommy type.

the week at school was pretty good. apparently i got one kid suspended. he was refusing to follow very simple directions - please get in line, please sit up - and was actually firmly telling me, "No" with the "i don't have to listen to you" tone/attitude. he also wasn't about to talk with me about it until i had the referral in my hand, this after i gave him several chances to talk with me. finally i told him he could either talk with me or talk with the principal about it and counted to three. he stood absouletly silently. that was his answer as far as i was concerned. as i walked back across the room with the referral, he decided he wanted to talk with me, but i told him it was too late. he had already made his choice. i later heard him on the phone with home blaming me. in another class, which has been a thorn in my side for the majority of the year, has had what friends of mine might call a "coming to God." they've been horrid all over the school. lots of bickering and pestering and teasing and harrassing during class. we've all had enough so the riot act has been read to them, several times in fact, and things are slowly changing. yesterday afternoon several key players were gone and class was wonderful! today they were back and it was a lot better than it has been. i've started marking on a transparency sheet that i magnet to my white board both positive and negative behaviors. for example, i put a + every time a student does something that helps contribute to the class discussion or lesson (if they are verbally adding to class, they must be called on to earn the +). i am also marking negative behaviors which take away from class. they start the day with 10 points and need to keep an average of 8 to be able to do mallet madness when that starts next week. they can only lose points and if there are negative behavior marks, but they were still participating and mostly involved with class, they'll get a 9, but not a 10. it's helping me also discover what kind of contributers there are in class. i'm doing this with a couple of classes and there is one student in each class who i'm discovering doesn't like to contribute verbally, but if asked to perform a task, will gladly do it. it also ensures that i call on people equally and don't focus just on a handfull of kids.

that's all for now. we've had two wonderfully solid nights of sleep around here (well, at least as far as owen is concerned) so i'm hoping that trend continues tonight. it's nice to not have to get up and rock him back to sleep, which then means that i don't get to sleep for at least an hour or more after he is back down. that severely cuts into my sleep quota for the night. i was really crabby at jeffy the other night. he was snoring pretty loudly and constantly and i couldn't get to sleep. at 10:30 i lost it and stormed to the couch. as far as i was concerned, i was going to be facing a 12 hour day the next day on about 3 hours of sleep due to the assumption that owen was going to be getting up in the middle of the night. not a fun prospect. once i got to sleep (and was able to stay asleep thanks to owen), i was in a much better mood in the morning and even wrote jeffy an apology note for the night before.

ok. NOW that's all. i mean it this time. have a wonderful weekend!

A blend!!!!

during dinner tonight, owen made his first blend in a real word! i asked him if he wanted more quesadilla and he said, "plea!" yay little man!

we are a wreck at our house. i was sick in bed on sunday with a slight fever, a sore throat, and a headache. yesterday i had a killer headache all day long and came home and crashed on the couch (sore through still going) after work. i still have my sore throat (it's been around since about friday, but has been changing daily. i think it's getting better so i'm not too worried. i'm still swollen in the neck, but not nearly to the extent as i was yesterday so that's good. jeff stayed home today sick again. sore throat, temp - as high as 103 this afternoon, but it's going down - and general lethargy. glad i'm feeling better so that i can take care of owen. oh, and i missed my sister-in-law's baby shower on sunday when i was laid up in bed.

at school we are smack in the middle of WASL testing. that's our state's standardized test for those of you not in washington. it is two weeks in april (but stretching into may this year, i think because of all of those crazy weather days we had off earlier in the year. the kids are getting tired of it and are getting really restless. they only test in the mornings and only four days a week, but still. it's a long time to test. i've been teaching some classes as normal, others with two classes of first and second graders (since our classes are multi-age...), and some on a changed schedule. i may be crazy but i might be seeing my worst class last thing on friday. i hope they finish testing by 11:15 on friday so i can see them then instead of later in the day.



I had to post this picture, taken about two weeks ago. no, he's not resting, he's sleeping. hands behind his head, looking like he's just chilling. too funny!

Clean Bill

We had both of our check-ups since my last post. The surgeon said that everything looks great with his ear drums and they are healing up nicely. the pediatrician said his eardrum look better than she can ever remember seeing them. sounds like we made the right decision.

owen has a favorite word: "hi!" he says it probably 50+ times a day (or maybe that is just in the morning...) hi to the kitty, to mommy, to daddy, to people at day care, to... two cute things with this in the past week are in the mornings when we are getting out the door, he'll go onto the porch and wait for me while i lock up. he'll open the screen door, poke his head in and say "hi" several times. on thursday, jeffy was sitting at the desk and owen comes over carrying his toy phone by the receiver, but holding the receiver out, and was saying "hi. hi. hi. hi." all the way to daddy. it's so much fun to listen to him grow and change.

a bonus since our 18 month check on monday, he's been getting himself back to sleep in the middle of the night. yay! oh, and his stats from monday: 25 lbs, 8 oz, and 34" tall. two more inches and we're a full-on three feet tall! that's tall enough to climb out of the crib, in theory. i'm not sure he knows that's a possibility just yet. let's see what we can do about keeping it that way, shall we?

it's a beautiful day here, but we're stuck as my car is getting work done (mainly an oil change, but also a follow-up on the tranny...) no stroller, can't find my key to the shed to get the wagon out, no car seat so even if someone came to pick us up, we couldn't go anywhere. oh, and jeffy's out doing yard work at the tree lot and at his parent's house. loads of fun here. the good news is that i have a baby shower to go to tomorrow for one of my sisters-in-law. she's due in june! yay! more babies!

bedtime stories

last night, as we were doing bedtime stories, mr. "i can do it myself" decided that that attitude extended to reading as well. he would not let me do the reading. he insisted on doing it. at first i was resistant, but then realized it was a great opportunity for him to read to me, even if i couldn't understand him. he was (and is) able to orient the books correctly, and even help tell the story in some places, either through signing or actions. one thing he knows, is that wind blows and he'll blow when the wind blows in one of the two books we read every night.

as for his language, he's saying "please" more than he's signing it these days. it sounds more like, "bee", but in owenese, that's "please". he also had some grilled cheese for dinner tonight. :-) good boy! he's still up at 4ish in the morning, but what can we do? (seriously, folks! what CAN we do?!?!)

sleepless in tacoma with the terrible twos

i hate teething! poor owen is still miserable at night. he'll wake up and whine at least once in the middle of the night. some of it is hunger, some is the discomfort of those nasty molars trying to cut through. a little food usually works pretty well and he'll usually sleep for the rest of the night.

last night, while i was reading a favorite book he copied me and said, "pigeon". It came out more like "pih", but that's close enough. Yesterday, also, he asked specifically for peaches. he got pears because that's what we had open in the fridge. no real complaints, so that's good. i just wish he'd go back to eating something. now he's not even eating grilled cheese or hamburgers or quesadillas. it's pretty much pbj for lunch and dinner. good thing he still likes his fruit.

we have two doctor's appointments in the next week. on wednesday of this week, we go back to the doctor who did his tubes for our two-week follow-up. on monday of next week, we have our 18-month check-up with the pediatrician. our favorite nurse there is pregnant and i can't wait to see how she's growing. i'll let you all know how things go.

tantrums are becoming the way of life around here. the terrible twos have really set in. mommy's phrase when a CFD D C CXN (<--Owen's work) tantrum is under way is, "it's a sad, sad world." i make sure he doesn't hurt himself, and let him throw the tantrum.

MORE words!

This little guy's vocabulary is growing by leaps and bounds, it seems daily. He is now saying "fishy", "daddy" (very clearly, actually), "hi, kitty!", and "peaches". "Peaches" is new as of tonight. He is also doing an equally consistent job of saying or signing "please". A couple of days ago, he started mimicing animal sounds. He can mimic a roar and ee-ee-ee (monkey). What an amazing kid. All this in the last week, since ear tubes. Another thing I'm noticing is that he is starting to copy (or at least try to copy) what we are saying more frequently than he was a week ago.

Any suggestions on how to convince a very stubborn toddler that 3:50 a.m. is a bad time to wake up? And more specifically, that 3:50 a.m. is a bad time to wake up Mommy and Daddy? We've had three nights of this mess. It's wearing on at least the two older members of the household. Not fun.

As a side note, Owen turns 18 months old tomorrow. How does Mommy get to help celebrate? I get to go to a meeting for National Boards. Lucky me.

Even MORE words!

Since last evening, Owen has said a new word and a new phrase. The new word is "hi" and the new phrase is "big boy". Both were imitated, but he's never done that before! He said, "hi" twice last night and "big boy" was this morning when I woke him up and asked if he was a big boy. He replied, "big boy!" Yay for tubes! I'm so glad we did this!

Today we're going to the zoo. Wonder what new sounds he'll hear and respond to. Last evening, when we got dinner at our favorite Vietnamese place at Freighthouse Square near the Tacoma Dome, Owen heard a UPS truck start up and he stopped walking, turned, and listened and watched. What a neat thing for him!

Good as new!

Owen came through the surgery this a.m. with flying colors! He is back to normal, and happy as a clam! You really can't tell by looking at him or watching him that he had surgery this morning. He saw me as they were rolling him out, after he came out of the anesthesia, and he wanted nothing to do with the gurney and only wanted Mama. That was fine with me! We went and got breakfast at my old university and Owen ate a ton, as usual. Looks like the zoo is a for-sure thing tomorrow!

Last night we had dinner with some family friends who used to live in Denver. We got home kind of late for Mr. O, so I was only going to read him one story. He didn't want any story last night. He just wanted to go to bed. Took the book from my hand and motioned toward the bookshelf with it (that's where it goes when we're done reading it). I put him in his crib and all was good. He's started doing this a couple of nights ago, except that first time we got up around 2:30, had some peaches, then I took him back to bed with me because that had helped him get to sleep quicker than trying to rock him or just putting him in his crib did. Well, he squirmed his way out of our bed, onto the floor, and walked right over to his bedroom door and waited for me. I put him in his crib, he cried for maybe a minute and then was quiet. After a little bit, I heard him talking to himself, but they were happy and content sounds so I didn't worry about it. I think we might be crossing that hump for the sleep thing. Keep your fingers crossed!

Checking in

We do that tomorrow morning at 7:00. No food after midnight, clear liquids only after midnight (so juice, water, etc.) and NOTHING after 5:00 a.m. Not even a sip of water. Hopefully we will be out by 8:00 or 8:30.

Had lunch with my aunt and uncle today. Owen had melon and fries. He's definately in one of those phases where he doesn't want to eat much. He'll self-regulate so I'm not too worried. It's aggrivating, more than anything - make or order food for him and then he doesn't touch it.)

Uh-oh!

That's our latest word. He's been walking around all morning saying, "Uh-oh! Uh-oh!" It's making me laugh.

Owen went close to 12 hours of sleep last night. He woke up briefly at 2:30, but got himself back to sleep, just as I was getting ready to get him (I had taken the covers off of myself and was rolling over to get out of bed when he quieted down.) Sleep is a wonderful thing. Hopefully tonight will be as good or better, especially since he has surgery tomorrow morning and can't eat after midnight.

That's the latest update from our home! I'll post again tomorrow after the surgery and let you all know how things go.

And yet more vocabulary

We went to Portland today (Owen, my dad - who is in town from Denver for the week - and I) to have lunch with my aunt and uncle. While we were there, Owen made yet another sign. This one is "fishy", for the goldfish crackers. He was signing up a storm. Aunt Martha and Uncle Bob really enjoyed spending time with us and watching Owen play. On the way home, Owen was screaming bloody murder as we were changing elevations. I wouldn't be surprised if he has another ear infection come surgery on Thursday. Anyone willing to bet against me?

Last night he was up at something near 2:30 so I got up, gave him some peaches and brought him back to our bed to get him back to sleep. He wanted nothing to do with being in our bed. He wanted to be in his own crib. So, I put him there (he climed out of our bed, and went and stood by his door...), he cried once or twice, then quieted down. I could hear him chattering away for a little while, but as long as the sounds coming from his room were happy sounds, I didn't care. He fussed again about an hour later, but quickly went back to sleep so it was all good. I woke him up a little after 7:00 this morning. He's been down now for about 45 minutes. He's been really whiney lately. Wonder how much of it is his ears.

Tomorrow we find out what time to be at the hospital on Thursday. I was told something around 6:30 or 7:00 was likely. That way he can get there, get in and out before he gets too hungry. We'll make breakfast the first or second thing we do when we get home.

Addendum #3

The "firsts" continue. Tonight we went to dinner at a Mexican restaurant and ordered Owen a quesadilla, which he normally devours. The quesadilla came with an orange wedge and fries (with ketchup). Owen didn't touch the quesadilla, but ate the fries and orange wedge. Now the orange wedge didn't surprize me at all, he loves fruit. He's always turned up his nose at fries, including yesterday at lunch on our way home from Spokane. Tonight, that's all he ate. He dipped them in ketchup and sometimes ate the fry with the ketchup on it, and other times he licked the ketchup off of the fry and re-dipped. I sat there and watched him, flabergasted. He continually keeps me guessing. Oy!

addendum 2

add yet another sign to his repertoire: "all done" (arms spread out wide) sheesh! i'm having trouble keeping up with all of this vocabulary! lol! not that i'm complaining, mind you. :-)

addendum

add to his signs: "eat" and "water" eat was done just now for the first time. water was done this weekend (i knew there was one more thing that i had for gotten!)

we've had an explosion!

but only in the communication venue. this weekend we were in spokane for my great-aunt's 80th birthday and we were staying with some friends. at dinner on saturday evening, no wait. let's back up to earlier in the day. we went to riverfront park and took owen on the carousel. he fussed and cried until it started moving. then he was having the the time of his life. this picture is from after the ride was over. after that, we went to the not-so-little red wagon (see for yourself!) we're just on top of the thing. there is a slide going down and owen went down that on his own as i was in khaki pants for the party and didn't want to get them dirty. while the two of us were up there, i told owen to say, "hi daddy!" and he did! "hi" was new word number one on the weekend.

after the park, we went to the party and had a wonderful time. i saw my second cousins, and it had been quite a while since i've seen most of them. i think the last time i saw all but one of them, it was at our great-grandmother's funeral in 1993. we've all changed quite a bit since then. here's our group picture, with my great-aunt, their grandmother. that's conor, kelly, kjersten, aunt fran, zach, jay, and me. we really enjoyed talking and they had a blast watching owen play.

anyway, back to the vocabulary explosion, at dinner on saturday night, we were sitting around the table and owen was asking for "more, please".i had no idea he could sign, "please", but there he was, signing please! we gave him some teddy grahams (a favorite snack) and he continued to ask for "more, please!" i asked him if he wanted more bears (i signed those two words) and he, being the smart little bugger he is, signed "more bears please" but instead of using the true sign for "bear", owen did the action from the wiggles song, "rock-a-bye your bear", which is a cradled rocking motion. i was blown away. he took (1) what he saw me do for "bear", and (2) what he already knew had "bear" as a part of it and put them together for his own sign. then, as if he hadn't flabergasted mommy enough, he proceded to sign please bear several times, each time getting another teddy graham or two. do you think he understands that he is communicating? do you think he gets this thing? i sure do. oh, and he also said "bear" right after he signed it the first time. so, if you were counting, that's two new signs and two new spoken words all in one day. geeze, kid! keep it up!

another thing he learned to do this weekend is go down stairs on his bum. the funniest part of the whole thing is that when he was coming down the top flight of stairs, he'd do it on his bum. going down the next flight, he would turn over to his tummy and go down that way. too cute!

i'm on spring break, and owen is napping now. we had a late night last night (at jeffy's sister's house playing poker) and didn't get home until around or after 10. owen was up at 6:30 this morning, which is much better than the 4:30 stuff he's been pulling lately. maybe after he gets his tubes, he'll sleep even longer at night! here's hoping!

And just because he doesn't have ENOUGH going on...

mr. o has started the ever joyous act of teething again. this time it's his two-year molars. they aren't anywhere near in, but he's pretty miserable at night. last night he was up at 1:00 or so, but back down by about 1:30 after jeffy put some stuff on his gums. however, he was up again at about 5:30. at least that is better than 3:00 like it's been for the past week. people have told me that once he gets his tubes (8 more nights to get through, but who's counting!?) he'll likely stop that bit, too. i've forgotten what consecutive nights of solid sleep feel like. i wonder how i managed when we were getting up three time a night to nurse. oh, yeah. i was on maternity leave that whole time and could nap. nap? what's that? gonna have to look that one up soon. HA!

i've been e-mailing a friend whose two oldest children have been through the tubes thing. she basically told me flat out, do the tubes. she's been a great help this last week. our mothers were college roommates so erin and i have known eachother for quite a while.

a new trick - and a gross warning!

my sister told me to watch for this around mr. o's 18-month birthday...today, while waiting for the tub to be filled, owen took off his diaper. granted, it was all he was wearing so getting at it wasn't that hard, but he undid one of the fasteners and then slid the diaper down and stepped out of it. i took the opportunity to sit him on his training potty, hoping he might pee in the potty. he didn't. however, during his bath, he pooped. gladly, we were nearing the end so i quickly scooped out the floaters and dumped them in the big potty. after i got him out and dried off, i put his diaper back on, and he took it back off. what a smart boy... :-S needless to say, i quickly got him into a onesie and jammies.

this afternoon we went to the birthday party for our friend brendan, who is three. brendan's mom went to m.s. and h.s. with jeffy and she and i have become wonderful friends over the last few years, much to jeffy's chagrin, i must say. anyway, brendan has a blow-up jump-around and owen got in it (with my help) and loved being bounced up and down while the bigger kids were jumping. i'll post a picture if one that faye (brendan's mom) took comes out.

after the birthday party, we stopped by my in-law's house so that Grandma could see owen before she heads to upstate ny on tuesday. we walked in and she said, "hi, owen! what happened to you?" i fessed. i find what i did to his hair pretty funny, mostly because it's only a temporary thing. hair grows back. :-) i won't make that mistake again. the funny thing is that jeffy won't let me near his head with the clippers. i wonder why that is... ;-)

Oops!

i tried to cut owen's hair today. i used one of the black things that was just a little too short....see for yourselves! the lesson learned is: use more than a 1 for owen's hair! at least it's only hair and it will grow back. we'll try again later on, with a longer setting! lol

on the schedule

we went to the surgeon yesterday and after owen's ears being poked and proded (including having a hearing test) we were given two options by the doctor. (1) continue to treat the EIs with antibiotics every time one happens or (2) do tubes. betcha know which option i went for. owen is getting tubes on april 5. they'll call us on the 4th to let us know what time we need to be there. it will likely be around 6:30 or 7:00 in the morning, which is perfect, since he can't eat anything after midnight that day until the surgery is over.

one more week until spring break. it can't come fast enough! i'm ready for a week of not having to worry about teaching. i love my job, don't get me wrong, but the breaks are nice to have. after that, we're in the home stretch. most of april, all of may (with the memorial day holiday in there) and then about three weeks in june. kids get on on june 19, i'm done on the 20th. wonder what we'll be doing that day. it's a make-up waiver day that we lost due to having so many danged bad weather days to make up this year. at least we're not going until july like some districts!

owen and i are stuck in the house today. my car is getting worked on and jeffy will be out and about applying for a different job than the one he currently has. it's rainy and i don't want to be stuck inside my house! grrr..... at least tomorrow we go to a birthday party for a friend's son who is turning 3.

someone's getting fussy. better go pay attention to him...

No question now

Owen has his fifth ear infection since October. The antibiotics we were on for number 4 since October (#5 over all) didn't work worth a darn. We're now going on a different line of antibiotics. We've been up since 4 a.m. Not fun at all. This pretty much seals the deal on whether or not we're doing ear tubes. Our poor little guy! I'll be glad when this is over with, or at least minimized by tubes.

another step forward

i called the surgeon's office today and we are going in on friday at 8 for our consultation. keep your fingers crossed that we can get in for the procedure during spring break!

i got some mommy time this afternoon. jeffy picked up the little one at daycare so mommy could relax a little. i spent my time by going to my favorite discount store (concentric circles) and dropping a load. jeffy's birthday is coming up, and i got some spring pants, plus one of those racks with the bins on it for owen's toys. most everything was on sale.

A step in the right direction

I talked with the pediatrician this evening about Owen's ears and we made the decision to go for tubes. She put in a referral to a surgeon while we were talking and I'll call his office tomorrow to schedule the surgery. From what I've been told by several mothers of children who have had tubes, it'll be a good decision. I'll update you after we have the surgery date set.

Number 5 - Tubes anyone?

Last Sunday, Owen's eardrum ruptured. This is getting to be old hat for us. That isn't good. I called the doctor (thank goodness for weekend office hours!) and we are now on our fifth (or is it sixth?) round of medication for an ear infection. I'm guessing that when we go in for our follow-up next week, we'll be talking seriously about ear tubes. I hope we can get it done during spring break, which is the first week of April.

Owen is at daycare today. I am home. Two days ago, I noticed the my voice was disappearing. Not good when your job requires you to speak and SING all day long. Also, even worse when you have a program coming up. That was yesterday. I woke up completely hoarse. No voice at all. I showed a video to one of my classes (little ones who can't read what I would put on the board...) and taught by writing on the board with the rest of my classes. That part actually went pretty well. I made the decision early yesterday to take a sick day today, since I didn't know what was going to happen with my voice.

The afternoon program went really well. I had made up two signs that said, "Singing Posture" and "Concert Attitude". The kids read them and followed what they said. :-) After I picked up Little Man from day care, my voice all of a sudden returned. I had it for the evening program, which was good because my principal was also sick yesterday and wasn't able to make the program. The kids were so excited to hear me talking. They were really cute! They sang beautifully. It was an awesome program. One of my best, I think. (and if I do say so myself...) ;-) One more program to go this year, plus recorders at the block party at the beginning of June. That's always a fun thing to do. The kids get a chance to really show off what they've done during the year.

Monkey Boy

Yes, he's in the sink. He climbed up on the stool and then his training toilet. He is very proud of himself. I came around the corner and saw his two little legs sticking out over the front. All I could do was laugh and yell for Jeffy to come quick. He did, with his camera phone (gotta love those!)

Oops (an explanation) and success!

So for those of you who may be wondering why the last post stopped mid-word, it was because Owen started pushing keys on the computer keyboard and Blogger froze. The last sentence of my previous post should read, "...this time for the rest of the night."

Lots has happened in the three weeks since my last post. My mom came out a couple of weeks ago and we had a great time. We went to the zoo where Owen had a blast watching the animals play, particularly the walruses (who were coming right up to the glass), the sharks and fish, the otters, and the monkeys. Some of the kids there were scared by E.T., the big male walrus at the zoo, coming up to the glass and swimming with his belly to it. Sometimes E.T. went from bottom to top, other times he went from side to side. Owen didn't care. He just loved it. Had a huge grin on his face whenever any of the walruses came by him. When Owen saw the puffins, he immediatly said, "Duck!" It took me a while to figure out why he knew that word and why the puffins were a good place to stick the label (hey, he's 16 months old. That's pretty good in my book!) Finally, several days later, we were reading a favorite book (Moo Baa La, La, La by Sandra Boynton) and on one of the pages is a duck. Duh! As we were getting ready to go home, we went on the brand new antique carousel (does anyone else catch the oxymoron here?) I guess we waited a little bit too long to take Owen on it because, well see for yourselves! Yes, that's Mr. Owen asleep on the carousel. He tried so hard to stay awake but, alas, it was hopeless. Next time we go, we'll take him on it earlier!







Now for the success mentioned in the title of today's post. I have finally figured out why O stopped putting himself to sleep at night. He was over tired and we were putting him down too late. On Wednesday night, I tried putting him down at 7:30 and let him cry himself to sleep. It took 40 minutes, but he did it. He woke up once around midnight and I tried to put him down before he was asleep enough. I was up for another hour or so (got back to bed around 2:00 a.m.). Thursday night, it took him a little longer to go to sleep, but he finally fell asleep around 9:00 (starting from 7:50 or so) and went clear through the night. That means that we (Jeffy and I) also got to sleep clear through the night. Last night, it took him about a half hour to get to sleep, and tonight, only about 5 minutes. Granted, he hadn't slept since this morning and was likely extremely exhausted. Poor little guy. To top it all off, he had a temp of 100.9 right before I put him down. I gave him Tylenol and will be checking on him through the night. This probably doesn't have anything to do with the fact that we stopped nursing this week, does it? (Honestly, I forgot to nurse him on Thursday morning. Didn't realize it until nearly 10:00 that morning. He hasn't seemed to miss it or want it, and neither have I. Guess it was time, huh?)

Today we hung out with our friends Katie and Peter. We went to lunch where Owen and Peter had a blast. They were so well-behaved. No loud noises, until they started banging on the table with their hands and laughing. And they both ate pretty well. Owen is now able to take bites off of sandwiches and fruit. It didn't work so well when the canteloupe was still on the rind...Mommy had to cut the fruit off for him, but she didn't have to cut it up! Yay! After lunch we went to the play area at the mall. My little monkey boy discovered how to climb UP the slide. Oy vay! We really need to get him a slide or something. He loves to climb. (He also loves bananas, which is why I call him my little monkey boy. He'd eat bananas at every meal if I'd let him!) We then went to my favorite "discount" store (concentric red rings) where we bough two of the Little Einsteins DVDs. Owen loves this show. So do I. They take exerpts of real classical music, and pieces of real artwork and work them into the show. Owen only has to see Rocket and he starts to pat his legs (that's how they get Rocket to power up to fly) and then he'll raise his arms in the air for "blast off!" Too funny. He loves any kind of music. He's becoming a great little dancer. Check out http://www.disney.com to see more about Little Einsteins.

So in addition to "duck", Owen can now bark like a dog, nod his head for "yes", and has said peek-a-boo and mine. Ah, yes. Let the toddler years officially begin! It's time for what I call, "The mes, the mys and the nos" as those seem to be the three favorite words of just about any toddler. Oh, and he can now accurately point out four of the five senses - all but touch. Taste is really funny, he sticks out his tongue.

School continues to go well for me. My 4th and 5th graders just finished up a unit on musicals, with the end project being writing their own musicals. They had to take a folk tale or fairy tale of their choice and adapt it to a musical. They had to have at least one song, and could use an existing melody, but had to write original words to the melody and their song had to help tell the story. They got into groups of 3-5 kids. A few groups really understood it and nailed the assignment. Some other groups sort of got it and did ok. Other groups didn't get it at all. They were graded on four things; adaptation of the story (they could alter it, but the main skeleton of the story had to be recognizable - think Pretty Woman and Cinderella), song (did it help tell the story), preparation (which included use of class time, cooperation within the group, and general practicing for the performance), and finally the performance itself. Extra points could be earned for using an instrument, writing an original melody, and/or having a second song. They really liked the assignment and some have even started writing their own play on their own time. Guess I've created a bunch of monsters here, huh? The process was a lot of fun to watch. Basically I just sat back and helped out when kids needed me to. Gotta watch the video and do grades for them tomorrow.

oy, not again! this makes number 4...

well, folks, i'm now two for four when it comes to catching ear infections before an eardrum ruptures. and two for two in the last two months. yes, you guessed it. our darling mr. o has yet another ear infection. only this time it's only in one ear. he's been pretty snotty (in the literal sense, not in the figurative) the last few days so i'm not really surprised at today's diagnosis. especially after we (all three of us) were up from 11 p.m. until 1 a.m. last night. owen spent the first 90 minutes or so screaming bloody murder. nothing helped. he was very obviously in pain. finally, about 12:45 he fell asleep (sort of) and i tried putting him down. he woke up so i rocked him for a little longer and he fell asleep again, this time for the re

growing more every day

owen is changing so quickly. he can now climb both up and down the stairs in front of our home. it's nice, but can also be a bit problematic when i want to go in and he wants to go down the stairs to play chase. granted, i'm glad he can get himself up and down the stairs unassisted...

he had his 15 month check about two weeks ago and is a healthy baby boy. the pediatrician was very impressed with his language skills. she said that words he's used even just once count. that puts us at something like 15 words in his vocabulary, though he still only uses two or three words on a regular basis.

He just said "cup!" just right now! amazing! he also, within the last couple of days, has started rocking himself on his rocking horse. it's not one like i had growing up that had the springs so it could go up and down as well as front to back. his is actually on rockers, like a chair. it's pretty fancy. he loves it.

tomorrow will be a girl's afternoon. my mother-in-law and both of jeffy's sisters and i are going to go see "because i said so" and we are doing it without any of the boys. owen will be staying home with daddy. it will be nice to get out with the girls. then we will go watch the game (i don't really care who wins, but if i have to choose, go indi.)

ANOTHER snow day

ugh. we haven't been to school in a week. i'm doubtful for tomorrow at least starting on time, if we have school at all. it's getting pretty frustrating to say the very least. at least owen's being a good sport about all of this. he was supposed to have his 15 month check-up today, but they called to cancel and his appointment is now on monday morning, which means i'll have to take part of the day off from work. who knows if i'll even get a sub for half a day.

as for days to make up, our count is at either 5 or 6, depending on whether or not our district takes advantage of the new rule in effect here in washington allowing districts to not make up days missed when the governor has declared a disaster or state of emergency, like she did during our windstorm in december.

ah, well. off to get cat food.

Today is June 22 - No, Really it is!

Yes, I know it is actually January 12 (and Owen is 15 months and has as many teeth - the top left eye tooth came through last night) but we are home for yet another snow day. This brings our grand total to 5 bad weather days on the year, although we may only have to make up 4 of them because one was during an official "state of emergency" and somehow there is a rule that those days don't have to be made up. So I guess today could be only June 21, not June 22, but we will have to see. The reason I'm calling today as 6/22 is because that is now the last day of school thanks to being off today. Owen and I went out and played in the snow a little bit today. He fell asleep pretty soon after we got inside and hasnt' had lunch yet. We'll take care of that once he wakes up in an hour or so.

snow days

yesterday was just rediculous. they called a snow day for, get this, 1" of snow. it was all melted by yesterday afternoon, just in time for another front to come through. this front dumped about 4" on us, which in tacoma is a reasonable amount to cancel school for. this, however means that instead of getting out on june 15 as was scheduled, we are now getting out on june 21 at the very earliest. we lost a day in december for snow, then another day later in december for wind and power outages, then yesterday and today for snow. i honestly think that we could have had a late start (2 hour delay for kids with staff getting to school as close to normal time as is safely possible) and been fine. i guess our new superintendent (from cali) felt that there were dangerous road conditions yesterday morning and so he cancelled school. we got our phone call from him (via a mass calling system, which is actually quite nice) yesterday morning at 6:00.

we went out for dinner and to shop a little bit last night. on our way home, we were coming north on the interstate (for a whole three exits, including the ones we got on and off at), and drove right into the front. it was pretty interesting, actually. we got on at 72nd, by the time we got ot 56th we could see the front ahead of us, by 48th (just an overpass, no exit there) we were getting pelted with little bits of ice, and by the time we got off at 38th, the ground was completely white and people were skidding and sliding around if they were going too fast. when we turned onto the next major street by our home, the people in front of us didn't even have their foot on the gas pedal. that was a bit silly, in my opinion. 15-20 mph was safe, 3 mph was overkill. we got home and within about 45 minutes, my car was covered in about 1" of snow. i figured at that point that we likely weren't having school today, and we got the call at 9:00 p.m. telling us that school today was cancelled. since tacoma doesn't have extra days built into the school year to deal with snow days, we have to make up any days missed for inclimate weather at the end. we've already added nearly an entire week. wonder how many more days we'll have to make up. i wonder if we'll still be in school in july... even though we could have slept in today, someone didn't realize that and was up an hour earlier than usual. said person is now down for a nap and will have lunch mid-afternoon when he wakes up.

owen has new foods on his menu: scrambled eggs, hamburgers (with and without cheese), and quesadillas. it certainly makes going out much easier when we can order off of the menu for him. he has also learned to drink from a straw which, again, makes things easier.

owen also has several new words within the last couple of weeks: yeah, book, read, and door. add those to mama, dada, mommy, kitty cat, more, and please and our little man has a healthy vocabulary. :-) granted he doesn't use many of these words yet on a regular basis, and has only said book, read, and door once each, but they are still words in his vocabulary!

i can't believe that our little man turns 15 months old tomorrow! the time has really flown. he's chattering up a storm these days. i wouldn't be surprized if he opens up with several new words in the next few weeks. his favorite thing to do these days is climb on the coffee table and on the couch. i've ended up moving a small cabinet back closer to the side window in our living room (it was pushed up so the front edge was even with the front of the couch) so that owen won't go behind it.

not again!

ugh. mr. o was up at 4:40 this morning (yes, that's right, twenty minutes till five in the MORNING!!!!!) i could tell by the way he was coughing that something wasn't right. i called the pediatricion as soon as they were open and got an appointment for basically first thing this morning. we are now down to just a single ear infection (so new and stronger meds) and we will be having the "to tube or not to tube" conversation at his 15 month check up next month. in addition to the ear infection, he also has croup. that will likely mean a long couple of nights these next few nights until things start clearing up. at least since croup is a viral thing, there isn't really any medication we need to give him. just home remedies like sitting in the bathroom with the shower running for 20 minutes to let the steam help loosen things up, running the humidifier in his room, if the shower thing doesn't seem to work, we can go stand outside for 15-20 minutes, we can give him warm apple juice as well. should be fun... i'm fully prepared to spend the night with him in the living room either on the couch or in the chair tonight. one end of his mattress is elevated so that will help a little bit with the congestion he has going now too.

getting his meds was interesting this evening. jeffy stopped by the drive-through pharmacy but they didn't have the Rx in stock and since the Rx was faxed in, they wouldn't give him a written copy of it so he could take it to another pharmacy. i called the on-call doctor and he phoned it into the grocery store pharmacy that is right up the street. luckily they had it and we've taken our first dose. we even used the dosing spoon instead of the syringe. :-) what a good boy!

one of the holiday traditions i grew up with is having a picnic dinner in front of the tree on christmas eve. our traditional dinner for christmas eve is homemade hamburgers, potato salad, and milkshakes. tonight jeffy stopped by our favorite burger place and got burgers for dinner since we will be spending dinner on sunday at his parents house and not doing my traditional thing. he is so sweet! we'll still do my family's traditional christmas morning breakfast - picnic-style by the tree. coffee cake, scrambled eggs, bacon, and liquids of some sort. owen will be in his little portable high chair while we eat over a table cloth on the floor. it's a good compromise.

Santa!

We went to see Santa today. We got there at about noon, and there was quite the line. Santa goes to feed his reindeer from 1:00-1:45. At about 12:30, one of Santa's helpers came to make sure that Santa didn't work past 1:00. They closed the line right in front of us, but said that if the people in front of us in line made it through and it wasn't 1:00 yet, we'd get in to see him. We did. Owen did great. He didn't fuss, or even look at Santa funny. We bought the smallest package (enough pix for us and the grandparents) and were able to also take our own pictures, which I did. It's posted here.

As for Owen's latest tricks and milestones, he has 14 teeth (all four of his 1-year molars, plus his two right eye teeth.) We also are just about through with our latest round of antibiotics (another double ear infection). I have figured out what to look for in him for ear infections, as I caught this one before either ear drum burst!!! Yay Mom! Owen can also climb onto things (like the sofa, which is great, or the coffee table, which is not so great.

Owen is really signing now. He has one sign, "more". He can also say the following words: mommy, dada, more, please, and cat.

Eating isn't going so well in terms of variety of foods he will actually eat, but at least he'll try them. One of his funny little quircks is that if he sees fruit on his plate and something else as well, he won't touch the other thing until he's eaten the fruit. I guess I can't really complain about that, can I?

Christmas is four days away. Owen still hasn't figured out the presents under the tree. I think that's a good thing. :-) Christmas morning will be lots of fun this year. He's making a killing from just us, not to mention from grandparents, aunts and uncles.

Oh, we survived the windstorm last week with no loss of power. We were very lucky. I had a program at school last Thursday (the 14th) which we decided to postpone until January due to the storm. Good thing we did that as the school lost power.

Have a very blessed Christmas, everyone!

sleep, glorious sleep!

'nuf said

figuring things out

and by that, i mean all three of us are learning. jeffy and i are learning that owen likes to be in control of his world, which can (and has of late) mean that he won't eat what is put in front of him at meal time (but we have that figured out - put it there, and act like it doesn't matter if he eats it or not. usually he will eat it eventually. just not always immediately) he will also spit out foods he doesn't want to eat, which is better than the gagging until he pukes method he used earlier. last week, owen and i went to lunch with some friends who have a little boy who is about 6 weeks older than owen and i didn't take any baby food with me. i ordered for owen off the menu and he ate part of his lunch. :-)

in addition to being in control of what he eats (or not), owen is also learning new ways to communicate. he can now shake his head "no" and last night he took my hands, put them under his armpits (which means "pick me up", he's been doing this for a few weeks at least) and then patted my lap, as if to say, "i want to sit on your lap, mama." very cool. the last few nights he has not slept the entire night. sunday night he was up until 12:30 a.m. on MONDAY morning, and last night, he went down at 9, then was up at about 2:30 this morning and stayed that way until 5:00 or 5:30. jeffy and i made a pretty good team in coping with it. it's nice to have a partner in this. in the past, i've been the one getting up with him regardless, mostly because jeffy tends to sleep pretty soundly and doesn't hear owen so guess who ends up getting up with him...mom... i wonder how much sleep we'll all get tonight. i'm betting on 5-6 hours. i really don't function well on that multiple nights in a row. one isolated night and i'm ok. two or more , i need a nap after lunch. or a Coke. can you main-line caffeine?

that's all for now!

what a week!

and it's only tuesday... owen was pretty lethargic on sunday, and i ended up taking him in to the emergency room at about 11:00 sunday night with a 102-degree fever. we were home by 1:00 monday morning with instructions to alternate tylenol and motrin every 3 hours (so he was getting each on a 6-hour cycle). i woke jeffy up when we got back and he and i had a complete conversation, he asked and answered questions. come his alarm at 4:00 (had to be in to work by 6:00), he had no recollection of the conversation. it was pretty funny, actually. good thing i woke up and had also left a note for him on the counter reminding him to give owen motrin. we follow up with the pediatrician on friday afternoon, which is fine since there is no school on friday in honor of veteran's day. i won't have to take yet another day off.

yesterday we both stayed home (i ended up getting a 24-hour stomach bug) and were both horizontal for the majority of the day. owen slept most of the day, something he hasn't done since he was brand new, but since i wasn't feeling too hot, it worked out well. he slept through the night, and has been pretty good today. we both stayed home again and now he's back to his usual happy, silly self. :-)

the reason for the temp and the lethargy, come to find out, is two brand new teeth! he cut his first molar (upper left) on sunday and i discovered the second (upper right) today. i can tell that he is feeling much better. i've missed my little boy. we're both going back to school tomorrow. it will be good for both of us, i think. thank goodness for e-mail, because that's how i've had to get my sub plans into school the last two days. that plus i didn't really want to go out in the deluge we had yesterday. it was crazy wet. the wind was blowing the rain up onto our porch, which normally stays dry.

bilateral otitis media...again

well, isn't this fun!? i think i've figured out what all of the fussing has been about. last sunday morning, owen was screaming practially inconsolably and tugging at his right ear. i called my sister, i called the doctor's office, and decided after talking with both of them that i'd wait it out. he got better around 11, and we went to the playgroup halloween party like we had planned. he was back to his normal, happy self. then monday morning comes around. i go to nurse him and notice that his right ear is pretty goopy. i knew immediately what had happened. i called in sick (got a sub 45 minutes before i was supposed to start - surprize!), then he and i went in so i could do sub plans. we went to the doctor, got our diagnosis and prescriptions (one for an antibiotic, one for a diaper cream incase the antibiotic gave him a rash, luckily we still had the drops left over from last time so i'm just using those - no need to get another supply, though i did take what we had in with us just to be sure they were what we needed to have), and came home. he was cleared to return ot daycare on tuesday and we have been good to go since then. he's even learned not to fuss or fight us with the ear drops, which is nice. he'll just lay there and let us put them in his ear. no more wrapping him up like a burrito, which is what we had to do at the beginning of the week. we do the drops until monday morning, and the antibiotic until it's gone, which will be thursday morning, i believe.

the exciting discovery (by me) this week is that owen now has three words: mama, dada, and dih-da, which is owen's version of "kitty cat" he'll go after max, with both arms out saying, "dih-da, dih-da!" max just runs the other way. it's pretty funny. owen is at least getting more gentle with the cat.

night time is getting pretty amusing. owen has a favorite book that we have to read every night. he won't sit still for any other book until we read this one book. its' "don't let the pigeon stay up late" by mo willems. follow this link: http://www.mowillems.com to find out more. we have all of the pigeon books and i can't wait to get his other books. eventually, i'd love to have the whole collection. apparently, the pigeon works his way into all of mo willems' books. when owen gets older, we can make a game out of finding the pigeon.

halloween was pretty fun this year, too. owen was a cow. we went over to j's parent's house for a little bit, where we saw j's sister, brother-in-law, and our niece and brand new nephew. o was in his costume, of course. we'll go trick-or-treating next year, i think.

poor little guy

owen is not feeling too good right now. he's getting those first molars and that's not a fun thing at all. today we got home from daycare (where he ate nothing but fruit or veggie puffs) and he spent close to 2 hours snuggled up on my chest while i played games on the computer. he did eat dinner (rice cereal and a small thing of squash) and i think he finished most of his bottle tonight (which he only gets on rare occasions and soon won't get at all because we'll be out of formula). hopefully he'll get a full night's sleep tonight, but the airbed is fully inflated in his room in case he has trouble sleeping tonight. i can just go climb into bed in there and he can sleep with me. right now he's snuggled up with daddy.

a year and a week!

I can't believe my little man is a year old already! He is walking all over the place, chattering up a storm, learning to eat table foods (though this poses a little bit of a challenge...), loves reading (will gladly sit and listen to a story over and over again, or is happy to have a book in his lap, where he is pointing at the pictures and chattering away as he looks at the pictures), and is becoming quite the mama's boy. not that I'm complaining about that right now.

Owen has also moved from the infant house at day care to the waddler house. He loves it! He apparently is eating just about anything they give him to eat there. Wish he would do that here...

So on his first birthday last week, we had three parties scheduled, but only two actually happened. The one on Friday was with friends from playgroup (from the mommy group at the hospital) and it was fun. One of the little boys in the group has the same birthday as Owen so we co-hostessed the party. Saturday was a very busy day. We had pictures at The Picture People at 10:20, then a party with family at 12:30 (I think all told, there were 18 people here, and for those of you who have been to our home, you know that was a very tight fit). After the party, J and I went back to the picture place and got his pictures while O stayed at home with Gramma to nap, though the nap didn't happen. During this time, we also found out that the friends party that evening wasn't going to happen as people called to cancel for various reasons. Looking back on it, it was actually better that way. We were all exhausted. I'll try to post pictures here in the next week from his party.

Hope all is well with all of you! Go TIGERS!!!!!!

Back To School

What a first week back. First of all, I'm back at the school where I've been for the last four years.

Last week started out pretty good. Friday, however, was a different story. I get to school and find that the street in front of the building has been taped off with police crime scene tape. At the other end of the block, there is a body under a bright yellow tarp. Apparently, this young man (24 years old) had been shot multiple times sometime late Thursday night or early Friday morning. He was not from our neighborhood and the police, at least as of Friday, have very little to go on. It's pretty sad and scary. School went on as planned, because it was determined early in the investigation (which began shortly after 6:00 Friday morning) that we were in no danger and that the only connection to our school was geography and chance. Kids were ushered into the building immediately upon arrival and a parent meeting was called at 9:00 for those interested, with the police in attendence to give accurate facts. News crews were camped out all day long across the street and classrooms along that side of the building (mine is not) had to keep their blinds closed all day and the rooms closest to the scene also had to keep their windows closed and paper was put over those windows to keep kids from peeking through the blinds.

One of the things that annoys me about what happened Friday is that some parents are viewing the tragedy as an extension of our school, despite the fact that the victim was not even remotely connected withour school and that the crime happened in the middle of the night. Grrr...

Hopefully this week will be more normal.

Owen turns 11 months old tomorrow. I can't believe it! THis is happening too fast for me. I realized the other week that I no longer have an infant, he's progressing onto the toddler stage. I miss my teeny tiny baby boy, but I love my big boy! We went to the Puyallup fair yesterday - Owen's first - and he got to ride the carousel and pet a goat and a sheep in the petting farm. He loved both. He wasn't too sure at first on the carousel, but once it got going, he held on and smiled through the whole ride! Yippee!!!

I'll tell you all something. This little boy of ours has an unbelieveable amount of energy. I get exhausted just watching him go. We're gonna have to get him into sports that require lots of running (soccer, football, basketball, etc.)

Eek!

It's been nearly a month since my last post. Lots has happened in the last month. Owen has reached the following milestones:

standing unassisted (did it a few times one day, hasn't really done it since)
walking unassisted (ditto, took two steps last sunday, hasn't done it since)
clapping when he hears (a) applause or (b) someone saying "yay!"
understands "no" (but doesn't always obey)
is being gentler with the cat, but he still has a way to go.

As for me, I'm looking at changing schools and put in for two music jobs here in town at different schools in my district. the job postings closed on wednesday and i got a call on thursday from one of the principals asking me to come in for an interview. i did that yesterday and feel really good about how it all went. even if i don't get the job, i am satisfied that i did the very best i possibly could have during my interview. i was a little nervous, but not too, and it was a pretty relaxed environment. i even laughed a couple of times with the principal and teacher who were interviewing me. one of the questions that i used humor to answer was "how would you teach a 90 minute reading block?" since i've never done that, i said, "with training." then went on to tell them that i've never been at a school where i've been asked to teach a reading group but also that i am willing to do it. i came out of the interview totally jazzed. hopefully i'll hear by the end of this coming week. i also need to find a daycare for owen this week. yikes!

tonight i get my anniversary present. jeffy and i are going to the pbr (pro bull riders) at the puyallup (pew-AL-up) fair grounds, about 20 minutes from here. I'm really excited. I love watching bull riding! next month we get to go to the rodeo - it'll be owen's first!

it's after 11:00 a.m. i guess i should get showered and dressed, huh?

Five

We now have five teeth. The latest tooth (one of the top central incisors) cut through on Monday. This morning, Owen realized that he can push his lower jaw in and out and click his bottom teeth and top tooth. Really cute!

We have a cold. It's mostly his nose, which is really runny and can be quite nasty at times. I've ended up having to wrap him up in a blanket to tie his arms down and use the nasal aspirator. The good thing is that with his arms tied down (or wrapped up as it is), I only have to fight with his head, and he's learning that he should just let me do it because then it's over quickly AND he can breathe easier. He is still his normal happy self, which is good. It would be emotionally draining on me if he were crabby and lethargic, too. Plus Jeffy started a new job this week so it's just me from the time we get up until about 5:30 every day.

Yesterday, Owen spent a good part of the day chasing the cat. Max is getting the idea that when he sees Owen coming, it's time to go elsewhere. He really likes curling up in the rocking chair in the living room, but Owen can reach him when he's in the chair so I watched Owen chase Max around in circles, from the chair around the coffee table, onto the couch, and back into the chair where the whole thing would start again. I was almost getting dizzy! I think it will be easier and better when Owen learns to pet instead of grab and pull...Ugh.

Swimming with my mom. Once he got used to the temperature of the water, he was fine!

Waiting for the fireworks to start in Denver on July 3. We're sitting between the left field foul line and the warning track at Coors Field. Owen is sitting between Jeffy and my dad. The game was our father's day present to my dad.

With our new friend Ethan in Salt Lake

With our new friend Benjamin (on the right) in Denver.

130

posts, that is.

we are back from denver. after the first day, there was no real excitement on our trip. we did manage to stay busy, though. between a picnic in the park in miles city, mt with family, including one of my cousins who drove in that day from red lodge just to see us, the zoo, museum of nature and science, swimming, going to a rockies game (see the picture below), getting together with friends from high school and their little boy who is about 5 weeks older than owen, and the drive back to tacoma, we stayed pretty busy. pictures will be coming soon.

the day of the game, we drive to the park-and-ride and take the light rail into downtown to meet said friends for dinner. as soon as we get on the train, it starts pouring - for the first time in a long time there - and by the time we get downtown, it is really coming down. we still have several blocks to walk to get to the restaurant for dinner and by the time we get there, owen is soaked, my jeans are drenched nearly to my knees, and it's to the point where we can't get much wetter. we dried off by the time dinner was over, and the rain had stopped. after the seventh inning stretch, we left our seats to meet my friends so they could take us behind the scoreboard. after the game, we got to go onto the field to watch the fireworks. owen was ok for some of them, but not for others. he really didn't like the big barrages. he clung to me and whimpered while they were happening (too loud for him i think) but would look at the less-intensive explosions and seemed to enjoy that.

probably the coolest thing that happened during the trip was owen's development. he figured out how to really crawl, plus he can now pull up onto everything. yesterdray he actually climbed up onto the coffee table using my leg as a step. he was pretty proud of himself. (and i was proud of him too...) i quickly got him down before he took a header off of the table.

i can't believe that my little man will be 9 months old tomorrow. incredible. parents always say that their kids grow up too fast. now i know just how fast 'too fast' is. what happened to my little newborn? i look at pictures and those days seem so long ago, but they were only 9 months ago. it's really crazy. october 12 will be here before we know it. he'll be walking and talking (or maybe it's running and talking). my m-i-l won't even recognize him when she gets back next monday. she's been gone for a month in upstate ny helping my s-i-l recover from surgery.

we have errands to run today so i should get going. i need to eat before we go (and owen is asleep right now so it's the perfect time.)

at the rockies game on july 3. jeffy is holding owen out of one of the slots in the manual scoreboard (it's way cool!) and my dad is taking the picture.

Vacation

We are in Denver right now. We head home tomorrow (Wednesday). O is a real trooper. We learned quickly (like on the first day) that I need to be in back with him. Joy. This at least makes it easier to keep going and not have to stop every hour or so to either feed or change him (or both).

Road trip with us are always, um, interesting, shall I say? On day one, we were about 1/2 way across the top part of Idaho when we blew a tire. And I mean that sucker blew. Tire shreds were being strewn about on I-90. We made it to the side of the road where Jeffy changed the tire and we made it into Kellogg, got a hotel room and four new tires. Nothing else exciting has happened on the road since.

We spent time with Jeffy's grandmother in Missoula and my grandfather in Miles City (both places in MT) and both loved meeting their great-grandson. We've been with my dad the last week and we've been really busy. O's been to the zoo (he loved the fish!), made friends with Benjamin (the son of a couple of friends of mine from high school. Benjamin is about 5 weeks older than Owen.), been to the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, and to a Rockies game where he got to go behind the manual scoreboard (and out one of the holes for a picture after the game, too! Be looking for that a little later on...) and onto the field for fireworks. He kinda liked the fireworks, though he clung to me when they were going off a bunch at a time. He was ok when it was just one or two going off at a time but the big barrages were too much for him.

Today we took Owen swimming for the first time in the pool at my mom's apartment complex. Once he got used to the water temp and figured out that he was going to be ok, he had a blast. He splashed quite a bit, turning his head and stopping when the splashing got his face. It was really funny. He also started frog-kicking a bit and was having a blast.

Before we went to Mom's apartment, we went to the Body Worlds 2 exhibit at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. It was fascinating. Real human bodies that had been injected with plastic so they would not rot were the entire exhibit. There were some really cool things to look at and learn. One of the most interesting parts was the fetal growth area. I was able to see how small both Owen and Jacob were when we had our first ultrasounds with each of them, there was also a fetus in a uterus at 3 mos. gestation - right about when I lost Jacob. It was a very interesting exhibit. Probably the coolest part was the exploded body - hung from wires and everything was being shown. If it comes to a city near you and you haven't seen it - go. It's totally worth the money (I think our tickets were something like $10.) I wanted to see it in Chicago when we were there last summer, but we didn't get the chance.

O slept through most of the exhibit today, which was just fine by me. That's why I brought the sling into the museum. Easier to carry him in that than just on the hip.

He's really getting up and crawling now - more the regular stuff than commando crawling now. He's also starting to pull up and say, "Mama". He prefers to be up on his feet than down on the floor. He's even let go a couple of times without realizing that he can't balance himself yet.

Bedtime for Little Man.