fifteen, ten, and twenty-five

this is a diet post.  

as of this morning, i have lost 15 lbs, with 10 more to go before i reach where i was when i got pregnant with owen.  25 more lbs. to go before i am at my goal.  once i'm there, i will allow myself a 5 lb. window for some wiggle room.  i don't ever want to be above 140 and not be pregnant again.  i was so excited to step on the scale and see it at 160.  i honestly couldn't believe it.  granted last week was that week.  i'm hoping not to gain too much this comign week when i'm in denver/keystone, co for my sister's wedding.  

I'm calling it done!

potty training (at least during the day) and owen is done.  officially.  he has told me several times today that he had to go, once included pooping!  it's unreal that we're done.  and it's only taken us nine and a half months.  he's such a big boy!!!!  i really can't believe we're finished!  "follow the child" really works.  

jeff is working at the fair tonight.  last night this year for that.  owen has emptied an entire sheet of stickers from the Highlights for Children magazine thing we go onto jeff's side of the bed.  won't daddy be surprised?  ;-)

o and i are both sick.  my cold is getting started and i'll need medicine for this week, not to mention for on the airplane tuesday night.  in one week, marcus will be able to yell, "hey, wife!" at my sister.  i could really use someone to take care of me tonight instead of being the care-giver.  alas, i'll take care of myself after owen gets to bed.  

guh-aa-puh

that's what owen did this morning at his fridge phonics word whammer.  sounded out his first word, totally unprompted.  i was amazed.  that's two major things within about 12 hours.  

tonight was the first swimming lesson for the session.  jeffy took owen in today, and owen cried and clung the entire time.  hmmm...sounds like the the first lesson last session.  hopefully thursday will be better.  

i found out today that as of next week, i will no longer be traveling between my two current schools on tuesdays and thursdays.  i found out via an e-mail sent to the entire staff explaining the new classrooms and the trickle-down effect that would be creating at my second school.  i have no official word from the district on anything.  in fact, i was the one who informed my principal at my main school.  i e-mailed her to ask what she knew and her response was, and i quote, "HUH???????"  we'll see when i find out anything at all.  the principal at my second school advised me to stick around at my main school on tuesday if i don't hear anything from the district.  maybe i'm missing something, but i fail to see how switching things up like this after school has started is the best thing for the kids.  i get that smaller classrooms is good, by how can switching whole teachers' schedules (and in this case, there are two of us who are being affected.)  we'll be essentially a month behind with our new assignments, which is detrimental not only to us but to the kids as well.  i'll be starting all over again next week with a new group of kids.  getting expectations established, routines, etc.  at least my main assignment won't be changing, unless it goes from .8 to 1.0 (that would be 4 days a week to 5 days a week).  it's frustrating to say the least.  this is the worst possible week for the switch to be happening, too.  i'm out of town w-f of next week for my sister's wedding.  guess a sub will have to do the new stuff for day 2.

HE DID IT!!!!!!!!

And yes, I'm shouting!!!!!!!  Owen FINALLY pooped in the potty - and he initiated the whole process on his own!!!!!!!  I wonder how close to being totally trained during the day we are?  Time will certainly tell. 

swimming lessons - session 2

owen is in advanced kippers.  lessons are t/th 5-5:30.  guess i'll be taking a snack for him after daycare those days.  we'll come home hungry, that's for sure.  speaking of daycare, owen has been dry all day, save for one mini-accident.  i took him potty right before we left daycare today and it worked!  what a great kid!

growing up

the fair was great.  owen loves the rodeo.  and scones.  neither jeff nor i could finish a scone without out being mooched off of.  that's ok, though.  we didn't take any sort of restraint for owen.  we barely even used the straps in the wagon.  owen did a beautiful job of staying nearby and walking with us, holding hands or staying within a foot or two.  i am just in total awe.  he also told me once today that he had to go potty.   he got a sample of fudge for that success.  the lady who was sitting next to me at the rodeo today asked owen how old he is.  he put his finger to his lip, had a pensive look on his face, and then answered, "two." and held up two fingers.  she asked how close to three he is.  i'm amazed that he will be three in one month and five days.  how in the world did that happen?!  when did that happen?!

he's asleep now, fell asleep during lullabies at the end of story time tonight.  I think he fell asleep during the second verse of the second song.  all i know is that all of a sudden, his head turned to the left and that was that.  he woke up very slightly as i moved him more to the middle of his bed, but went right back to sleep.  what a good boy!  i'm not sure i've ever had him fall asleep during stories before.  granted, two days with maybe a total of 20 minutes of napping will make any little boy tired.  

the first week

so glad it was a short one, at least with kids.  i've come home fully exhausted each day this week.  last night i was actually in bed (but not asleep) before owen.  i've seen all but one of my classes (i think...)  my annual favorite is last.  i've already had to call and have one student removed from my room.  this kinder decided that because i wasn't letting him yell (disruptively - not over-enthusiastic singing), roll around on the floor, and was actually trying to make him follow directions, that he would kick me in the leg as he was sitting next to me.  i was monitoring but not verbally acknowledging his undesirable (and attention-seeking) behaviors in the hopes that he would stop when he wasn't getting the kind of attention he wanted.  i called the office and told them that this student had kicked me and therefore needed to be removed.  our principal came up to get him.  that was another ordeal.  as he left, it was kicking and screaming.  

currently, the bug is standing on the arm of the couch, counting down from 3, then jumping onto the couch.  he certainly is all boy, isn't he?  today we're going to the puyallup fair and the rodeo.  jeff  went to the opening day and parade yesterday.  while i was at work.  the bum.  

first day

it was a good first day.  kids were singing beautifully!  they remembered a bunch from over the summer.  3:00 came (our dismissal time until this year) and it felt quite odd to be in the middle of class.  owen had a great day at day care.  stayed dry all day...until we got into the car, that is.  the lesson learned from that is to take him potty as soon as i pick him up.  

my mom had surgery today.  two weeks ago she was diagnosed with breast cancer.  her lumpectomy was this afternoon and was a success.  i spoke with her not too long ago and she sounded great. 

i'm about to crash here.  being awake for several hours in the middle of the night was not a good thing.  thank goodness jody across the hall had coffee (as usual, actually).

we won a battle of wills with owen tonight.  we made grilled cheese (velveeta) for dinner.  he refused to eat it.  demanding, "pbj!" the whole time.  we told him that he needed to eat the grilled cheese.  he refused until just a few minutes ago when he decided to eat it.  he's finishing the last bite as i type.  score one point for the parents.  

too early

it's 3:50 by my computer clock as i begin writing.  that's 3:50 a.m.  way too early to be awake. between the first day of school today and some stuff going on in my personal life (more details on that at a later date) it's an early morning.  not by choice, though.  i could very easily be asleep right now.  i'm wishing i were asleep right now.  

owen is growing up so fast.  in just one short year, he'll be getting ready to start at my school.  i've had people ask me already this year if owen is coming to my school this year.  i'm glad for his october b-day.  he's not ready for formal school just yet.  i'll bet that in a year he will be.  last night we played a board game for the first time.  it's based off of two of his favorite eric carle books.  it's a matching game, which he easily mastered.  remember playing "memory" as a child?  it's basically the same thing, but you have to pick the cards up and match them to spots on the game board.  we played three times.  the first time was just to show him how to play.  the second and third times were for real.   he legitimately won both of those times.  then i brought out the pink material (part of the montessori language materials, three letter phonetic words to match to pictures, mounted and laminated on pink paper) to start on.  i got a large set of that material from one of the teachers at school who is replacing it with newer pink material.  she asked me if i wanted it to bring home for owen.  of course i said yes.   i think i'm going to get the book from her and see exactly how i'm supposed to be teaching this work to him.  i have some ideas, but i want to make sure they're appropriate before i get too far in to it.  we're going to start with initial sounds, i think.  put out three pictures cards that start with different sounds (pin, dog, box) and have him figure out the first sound and then find the word card to match.  he showed some interest last night. i'll follow his lead, though.

ok.  i'm yawning again.  i think i'll climb back in bed and try to get a little bit more sleep.  the alarm goes off at 6...i need to be able to get up then.

resolution

my computer fixed itself.  i restarted it last night, just to see and i only had 18 song copies and 4 application icons added to the desktop.  this morning, nothing new was on there.  i wonder what caused the glitch.  

we're going to northwest trek today with faye and her kids.  it will be fun.  i woke up sad this morning because after today, summer vacation is over.  :-(  it went too fast.  the next two weeks will be spent getting ready in varying capacities for school to start again in september.  

Bursting with Pride

i'm amazed at owen.  tonight he actually floated for several minutes holding on to nothing but a pool noodle.  i was absolutely amazed.  he was totally relaxed for the entire swimming lesson.  no clinging at all.  i am amazed at how much more comfortable he is in the water after just two lessons.  i watched him, almost in tears of pride and joy as he was floating around.  jeff was there with the camera and got it on video.  i need to check with a couple of parents at swimming lessons to make sure it's ok that their child is in the shot (only for a very brief time) before posting it.  i'll try to post the one still picture jeff got of the two of us tomorrow.

completely unrelated:  my computer is driving me absolutely crazy.  i subscribed to a new magazine for school, which comes with songs for the kids to play on recorder.  part of the subscription that i got includes rights to download the entire magazine and songs.  i downloaded the songs without a problem.  they showed up on my computer in two zip files.  yesterday i tried to transfer them to itunes.  they wouldn't just click and drag from the zip files to itunes so i copied them to my desktop and then from there to itunes.  that worked beautifully.  they're in itunes and play.  i'm happy.  until my computer decided that it doesn't want to stop copying the songs to my desktop.  i seriously have 90 new icons on my computer each time i boot it up.  i'm about ready to add ventilation to our living room by throwing the computer through the window.  i've talked with my b-i-l in vt and he suggested deleting the files from my computer so that there was (in theory) nothing for the computer to copy from.  yeah, right.  that hasn't worked.  i've asked members of an e-mail list i'm on for suggestions and will read those in the morning.  any suggestions?

disappointed

i was so bummed tonight when we got to the Y for o's swimming lessons and saw the sign that said that the instructional pool was closed until further notice (likely tomorrow sometime.)  that meant that we didn't have swimming lessons tonight.  we'll go again on thursday.  hopefully nothing closes the pool then.  

tomorrow is our last day for play group this summer.  owen starts back at daycare on monday, i start back to work on monday and jeff starts his new job on monday (though he starts his training tomorrow.)  

faye and i went out tonight, just the mommies.  no one under 20 and/or a male was allowed.  we went to get ice cream.  it was super yummy and so nice to get out without the kids.  faye wore a shirt that said, "escaped mom...don't tell anyone you saw me!"  i so want a shirt like that!  it was so true tonight.  we considered going to see a movie after ice cream (she had gift cards for that) but i turn into a pumpkin at about 10 so going to a movie that started at 9:45 just wouldn't work.  even the hour out was nice.  

owen and i finished his 10 books for the summer reading program at the library.  we'll go on thursday to see the petting zoo and turn in books/get his books tallied and get the goodie bag.  friday we're going to nw trek with the kids.  that will be fun.  faye has a big enough car that we can all go in hers (all 5 or 6 of us, depending on where paige is when we go.  

it's working!!!!

i had my dress fitting today for my sister's wedding.  i took a small gamble when i bought a smaller dress than i tried on.  when i picked up my dress about a month ago, it was tight between the bottom of my rib cage to my knees.  i was afraid to move too much in it because i didn't want to rip the seams.  well, when i tried it on today at the store, not only was it looser everywhere but my thighs (and it was only slightly tight there), but we're not even going to hem it.  it fits perfectly!!!!!  what a change in my personal attitude from when i tried on dresses for the first time (and none of them fit properly, some because i was trying on dresses several sizes too large) and from today.  everything is looking great!  i know that if i keep up what i've been doing, the dress will fit beautifully at the wedding at the end of september.  oh, and not having to spend the money on alterations is a wonderful thing, too.  i'm really excited to see what results i have on the scale tomorrow.  i have been slightly discouraged by not losing as much weight as i've wanted, but putting this dress on helps me to see that things are toning up regardless of what the scale says.  i'll take toning over weight loss at this point. with toning, though, the weight loss will come.  :-)

fishy!

the difference between tuesday night and tonight is black and white.  owen was a different child in the pool tonight.  he was wanting to be dunked...went under something like 20 times (i honestly lost count!)  he wasn't clingy, and loved swimming lessons.  he clung to me for maybe 1 minute at the very beginning.  he was launching himself off of the wall at me from a sitting position (didn't want to jump today.)  he seemed so comfortable in the water.  loved having water poured over his head from a colander.  amazing.  i'm excited for tuesday to see how he does then.

swimming lessons

owen did great.  there were lots of games and singing.  the teachers (yes, plural) are great.  by then end, owen was kicking up a storm as we moved around the pool, he was even getting into the splashing games.  the one thing he did really well was climb out of the pool.  i set him holding on to the edge and let go.  he climbed right out.   he won't jump in to me yet.  he also didn't like doing the alligator slide (sliding into the pool on his tummy).  in time.  bubbles are blown above the water level...but he has the right idea.  we go back on thursday.  it will be good to have lessons twice a week.  

race cars!

1.  front side 

2.  peek-a-boo!

3.  back side 

4.  embroidered name

that's owen's new thing.  day care lost his blanket last year (grumble....) so i'm making him a new one, one that'll be better for the big boy owen is becoming.  we went to the fabric store yesterday so owen could pick out his own blanket fabric.  the first one i showed him was race cars.  he loved it.  we wandered the stacks a little more and i found other patterns i thought owen might like.  every time i suggested something else, he said, "no!" and clung onto the bolt of race car fabric tighter.  race cars it is.  i found a nice red with a very subtle marbling for the back.  i also got thread and blanket binding.  i just need more binding....guess we're heading back to the store.  i got everything set up last night, including embroidering  owen's name on the red so it doesn't get lost.  i'm hoping to get the sewing done today or tomorrow.  i don't imagine it will take too long. i'll need to set up the pins for quilting (simple squares).  i'm actually quite excited about this blanket.  i'm no expert seamstress, but this is easy enough.  and it's going to be a very cool blanket.  

swimming lessons start tonight.  they run for 4 weeks.  i hope owen doesn't freak out when we get into the water tonight...i'll try to post an update tomorrow.

we're watching little einsteins on playhouse disney right now.  owen just sand part of the theme song.  he cracks me up.

clarity

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

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

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

trip and counting

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

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

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

6

years ago today i married my husband!

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

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

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

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

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

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

Anniversary

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

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

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

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

a vent

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

Weight Loss

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

Day 3...

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

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

all day long

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

one down!

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

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

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

silly boy!

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

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

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

stomach bug

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

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

peer pressure

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

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

puzzles

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

Kryptonite

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

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

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

Mariner's Game

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



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

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

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

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

something fishy going on

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

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

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

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

first movie

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

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

cranky-crabby

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

he ate what?

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

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

SLEEP!!!!!

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

first full day

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

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

time for bed for owen.

He did it!

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


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

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

DONE!!!!

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

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

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

Yay!

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

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

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

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

winding down

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

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

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

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

magic number = 13

that's how many more days i'll have to get my sorry hind end out of bed before summer time officially arrives. we've voted as a staff to work the day after school lets out. i'll get paid (a good thing...) for being there, but it means putting my summer off one more day. oh, well. at least we didn't have to make up any days for poor weather this year. unlike last year...

owen, faye, peyton and i went to the zoo today. it was the opening day of the animal avenue in their kids zone area. very cool things. the lemurs were initially huddled together, but eventually started moving around. owen didn't see them when they were huddled, but once they started doing their own thing, he figured out what he was looking for. we got the chance to talk with some volunteers about the monkey business i saw on monday. turn out that the girl gibbon is temporarily unable to get pregnant due to medication she is taking. the boy doesn't know that, though... hey, it's nature. coco bean is getting to be quite big. she's only slightly smaller now than baby bean (her mama - boy, someone sure didn't think when they named her, did they?)

when we got home, there was a card in the mail for a member's only deal on the 12th at the zoo. i talked with jeff and we'll go. behind the scenes tours, feeding times, private time at the animal avenue. should be fun. (katie? faye? are you guys going?)

diet

i'm cruising on my diet. i've been really good about my eating and getting exercise. so far i've lost 5 pounds. tonight faye and i walked the waterfront - sans kids. that was four miles in about 90 minutes. having this success so early on is quite motivating. hopefully, things will keep going. though i'm not expecting the huge dumping of weight like what's happening now, i know that it will slow down at some point. i'm feeling better and have more energy, also. i'm totally loving it!

i learned tonight that the thing at arby's that i thought would have been higher in calories in comparison to other things on their menu is actually one of the best things in terms of calories. amazing.

Nighttime

owen has pulled a trick on us three times in the last four or so days. he has managed to strip to either very litte or nothing at all. and i mean NOTHING but what he was born with. sunday nap, he woke up after two hours (which is a decent nap for him) crying for me. i went in and found him completely naked from the waist down and the bed was soaked. he played around for a while on monday night, as is usual. when i walked in to tell him to go to bed, i noticed that he was totally naked. i couldn't help but laugh (bad mommy!) as i got him into his jammies and pull-up. yesterday morning, he wakes up with that same cry as sunday afternoon. i went in, got him, wiped him up a little bit (it was just wet), put him in a fresh pull-up and jammies (familar theme?) and brought him into bed iwth us. oh, this was at 4:30 a.m. same thing happened this a.m. at 6:00. i told him yesterday a.m. that he had three options for bedtime: 1 - stay dressed, 2 - wake up and tell us he has to go potty, or 3 - make it through the night. this morning, i added "and go in the potty" to option #3. we'll see what happens tonight...

Memorial Day

we were planning on heading to a family picnic near mt. rainier today, but jeff came down with a fever and has been in bed all day long. currently, both of my boys are napping. owen and i went to the zoo this morning and, what a big boy! - owen walked nearly the entier time. he had on his doggie backpack (aka harness and leash) and only asked to go into the ergo twice and was only in it for a total of 10-15 minutes. we have a smallish zoo, with approximately one mile of trails. it's an easy half-day or less trip. owen definately has favorites. today, it was the walruses, beluga whales, gibbons, and porcupines. we stayed longest in the "house" at the asian forest sanctuary and in the north shore underwater viewing area. it was a nice day for the zoo. not too hot, not too chilly. we took off our jackets about half-way through. oh, and there was "monkey business" going on with the gibbons. luckily, none of the kids knew what was going on...wonder if there will be baby gibbons running around later this year?

owen and i are meeting a friend to go walking at the waterfront later today, after dinner some time, which will make two sessions of exercise for me today. i'm on day two of my diet to finally lose my baby weight. my goal is to lose 35-40 lbs. by my sister's wedding on september 27. that's 18 weeks. i should be able to do it. i'm watching what i eat (literally - i'm keeping track of everything i put into my body on a weekly chart) and exercising as often as possible. i'd love to have to buy a whole new wardrobe in the fall because everything i have is too big...

back to normal

owen is back to his normal, two-year-old self. he woke up with a temp again this morning, but it was lower than what he came home with yesterday so that's good. again, it responded to medicine.

i was supposed to meet my friend faye to go walking at the waterfront this morning, but it was raining when we were supposed to meet. she had a rough night with her little one, but i still went to the mall to go walk. i only did one lap, 1-1/8 miles. next time, i'll go for two laps.

time and timing

i finally have time to blog! yay! now that my boards are done, i have much more time to do things i enjoy. my needlecrafts are going to be more at the forefront of my life now. i'll also be able to spend time with owen guilt-free. not to mention time to keep people up to date on things in our lives. i'm also going to be exercising, eating better, and (finally!!!!!) losing my baby weight. i want to be an 8 or a 10 by my sister's wedding in september. i'm looking to lose between 35 and 40 lbs. i have a buddy who is going to be walking with me and working on losing weight together. we're meeting most saturday mornings while school is in and then most mornings once summer starts.

when i went to pick up owen at daycare today, he was immediately whiney. this is highly unusual. all he wanted to do was be held and snuggle. i felt right away that he was warm. we got home and i took his temp - yep. 102+. i gave him tylenol and now it's down to 100.0 . all he's done since we got home has been chill in one of three places: on the couch, with me, or with daddy. currently, he's doing the latter, though i'm thinking it's bedtime.

bathtime success

for the first time in his life, owen didn't cry one tear when i got his hair wet tonight. i talked him into wearing a "bath hat", which is really just one of those foamish visors they have. he tried to take it off but i told him to try it and see how it worked. he did great. i'm guessing he'll remind me next bath time for his bath hat. he spent his entire bath time playing with his floating xylophone. we're pulling out the "real" one tomorrow. :-)

being a prius

that's a jeff dunham reference, if you didn't know. (jefuh-fuh. done-ham! dot com!) on his second dvd, "spark of insanity", he makes fun of himself for driving a prius. he made a noise not dissimilar to that of buzzing lips, and then a very week, "eee-eee!" for the horn. owen picked up on that the last time we watched it and he just made those sounds. it cracks me up to listen to him doing that. the first time he ever did it, it had just happened on the dvd and he copied it. too funny. owen just did it again, totally unprompted.

on another note, i think his eyes finally match his daddy's. he now has mommy's hair and daddy's eyes (strawberry blonde with hazel if you're wondering.) is it normal for a child's eyes to keep changing colors when they're two?

sweet boy

owen fell asleep on my tonight. he had snuggled up against me as i was playing my nintendo ds and eventualy, i see his head to the slip down, then snap up thing. it was a little bit earlier than his usual bedtime, but only by about 30 minutes or so. that, plus he was up playing for a little bit at 4:00 this morning. it certainly made bedtime easy tonight. put him down in his pull-up and a t-shirt.

the terrible twos are definately in full swing. everything i ask him to do is answered with "no!" i actually called my mom last night and asked her to tell me that it was normal - i know it is, i just needed to hear it from another mom. it's aggrivating, but normal.

feeling smart

i'm pretty proud of myself for getting the lilypie ticker you now see on the right onto my blog on the very first try. i can't believe that owen is closer to three than he is to two now. where has the time gone?

he's doing a good job with sharing right now. he shared his cold with me. this is the worst possible week for me to get a cold that is knocking me down pretty well. i'd have stayed home today if it weren't such a hastle to do sub plans. it's just easier to go in sick than it is to stay home and worry about plans and if there will even be a sub. i'm taking my upper el kids to the symphony tomorrow. it's our yearly trip. three years ago, on this trip, my kids first learned that owen was on his way. i will always associate this field trip with announcing my pregnancy to my kids. happy memories. at any rate, i'm hoping this gets better by the weekend. i'm driving 120 miles north on friday so i can do my assessment center (written test) on saturday. after this, it's a waiting game until scores are released in november.

Nearly there

we are back from my sister's graduation. it was a great time and my prediction was pretty much spot-on. owen is now going potty on any toilet i set him on, regardless of where it is. he also is staying dry nearly all day long every day. i have taken his diaper bag into the bathroom with me, but haven't needed it at all today. yesterday, he made it from omaha to kearney, without a pit stop, and was perfectly dry when we stopped for lunch. we're trying underwear for the rest of today to see how it goes. only two more steps and we're done! he is a prime example of how important it is to follow the lead of the child in those important transitions/changes and not to let the books dictate when to do things. this is the second time inthe last year that he has done something at the "wrong" time according to the books. i actually think that not being in our normal environment and schedule helped with the success of the last week. the trick might now be keeping it up and not letting him backslide too much, if at all.

we made a very smart move on the airplane today. we checked the car seat. one less thing to carry around and he's big enough to sit in the seatbelt just fine. we were in row 1 on the plane (frontier has no first class section) and i loved the leg room. jeffy didn't even have to get up for me to get out.

A Prediction

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

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

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

overhaulin'

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

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

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

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

hard to read

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

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

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

hilarity

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

tall tower

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

timing

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

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

Counting Down

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

"Pee Potty?"

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

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

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

trying something

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

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

Spring Break

it's almost over, but it's been great. last weekend my mom was here. we had a good time. i tried on bridesmaid dresses for my sister's wedding in september. when i told jeff that i am going to be my sister's matron of honor, he said, "aren't you a little young to be a matron?" i had to explain that matron vs. maid had nothing to do with age and everything to do with marital status. so cute!

monday was spent getting my Box ready to go out the door for national boards. (check out my other blog here to read about that process.) tuesday was spent relaxing, wednesday held two appointments for me, thursday was another appointment and the zoo with friends. it was a gorgeous day. perfect zoo-going weather. on our way out of the zoo, my friend rob called to tell me that his wife, one of my best friends, had their baby that afternoon. carlie was five days late, but she is beautiful. see pictures at this link. peter, carlie's big brother, is good buddies with owen. he'll probably be coming over on wednesday mornings for a couple of hours this summer while mommy and baby sister go to mommy group at the hospital. owen and i went to see carlie and katie yesterday after his one-year check-up for his ear tubes - left one is no longer functioning, right one still is, but is well on its way out. both are still in, though the left one is really tipped, which is completely normal. we go back in in october for one more follow-up. things are looking good in that arena at this point. owen made his mommy so proud yesterday. one of the receptionists gave him a sticker as i was filling out a card to remind me to call in 6 months. immediately, and without prompting, he said, "thanks!" as he took the sticker from her. yay!!!!! i have a polite little boy! he was so good about using his manners yesterday.

once we got back from the hospital and seeing katie, rob, peter and carlie, our family went to seattle for the day. owen did beautifully, as usual. he fell asleep in the car on the way home, so we took the lo-o-o-ong way home. turned a 25 minute drive into close to 90 minutes. he got a good nap so it was worth it.

today we are having breakfast with a friend of mine from college. i haven't seen her since i was first pregnant with jacob. that makes it close to four years ago. wow. we'll get out the door in a little over an hour. o's still sleeping, which is fine. he had noodles with pasta sauce last night for dinner. first time for plain noodles with sauce at home. :-) slowly but surely we are getting past those food issues. at least we have a standard fare we can get him at restaurants.

yesterday, owen sang through the entire "monkey dance" song - and he did it perfectly! he is also very good at singing his abc's. i tried to get the monkey dance on video, but he was done and distracted by the time i got the video camera plugged in. oh, and his new favorite word is "ok". yesterday afternoon it was, "monkey? ok!" and he'd sing. ("monkey dance" is from the wiggles. gotta love those guys!)

a request

i had to get a new cell phone yesterday. that also means i had to get a new number. my old phone ceased working and the least expensive way to replace it was to add a third line to our plan for the next few months (till september), get a free phone, and then cancel one of the lines. i guess there's no way to cancel a newer line, we have to cancel the oldest line. that means my old cell phone number will be the one to go. repairing the phone would have cost $55 (plus taxes, I'm guessing). adding the third line is less than $10/month. sad, no?

anyway, if you read this and i haven't already called you to tell you my new number, would you either call or e-mail me. the old number still works, there's a message saying my new cell number. i need to get important numbers into my new phone. we can't transfer them at the store because my old phone won't turn on for us to do that. highly frustrating.

thanks!

Before the show started

(above) Wake up Jeff! (purple)

Sam is in yellow.

(left)
Owen is in the red shirt with white sleeves. The wiggles shown are Murray (red) and Anthony (blue).

Pop Go the Wiggles - Live!

tonight was the night. we went to the wiggles concert. owen loved it! he was transfixed half the time and dancing the other half. we ended up being just six rows from the stage (thank you, uncle scott!) the only thing missing was our friends, katie, rob and peter. peter won't miss out completely, though ;-) pictures are downloading to my computer as i type. i'll get them posted in a minute.

those guys have such fun in their work. anthony (the blue wiggle) must be near 40 and he is really about 6 at heart. he and captain feathersword play off of eachother so much. it's hilarious to watch.

the other funny thing to watch was all of the parents have fun right along with their kids. the wiggles make sure to put things into their programs specifically for the parents. tonight it was a bit from the song "my sharona" and they also made some beatles references. i don't know if enjoying the wiggles is a guilty pleasure or not. i don't even care!

i thought ahead before we left and put the latest wiggles dvd in the diaper bag and a sharpie in my pocket. the plan was to see if i could get one of the wiggles to sign the cover at the end of the concert. mission accomplished. murray (red wiggle, owen's favorite, i think) did. it says, "hi owen! murray w." how very cool.

Terrible Twos

they are officially here. it's tantrum city in our house. at least it's age appropriate. i know that owen is frustrated and that makes him angry. "no" is also his most frequent word. he loves to say it, but hates to hear it. i still can't lift him per my doctor's orders from my back injury a couple of weeks ago. makes this time very difficult. last night was interesting, though. he wanted to play with his fridge dj (leapfrog) during story time. i wouldn't let him and took it away. he pitched a good fit. screaming, tears, the whole nine yards. i responded by going to the rocking chair in his room and starting to read books aloud. he eventually stopped having his fit and came over, climbed in my lap, and listened while i read. then we went to his bed, where he told me to sit down by signing "sit" and pointing to his pillow. we read one more story and then i tucked him in.

he's at daycare while i'm at home working on my boards (last release day). tonight the three of us are going to see the wiggles. i wonder how long it's going to take owen to realize who we're seeing once we get there and he sees the stage.

PBR picture

PBR is Pro Bull Riders. we go every year. it was owen's first time going. here's the bug at the pbr last night. he had such a good time. i asked him when we were leaving if he had fun and he said, "Fun!" He was turning heads everywhere we went, too. Everyone thought he was so cute. He certainly knows how and when to turn on the charm, doesn't he? and yes, that's is his own hat.

it was a late night for all of us. the bull riding didn't start until 8:00, but mr. o did so well. he didn't get scared when there were flames and fireworks and loud bangs. once, he turned his head away because the flames shooting from the prop bulls' nostrils was really bright, but he was never scared. :-)

great progress!

Well, I think we've crossed that final hurdle in potty training. Owen is now going potty consistently at day care. Yesterday, he was dry all day except for at nap time. That I can deal with. He even woke up dry this a.m. pretty impressive for not quite 2-1/2. i'm so ready to be done with diapers and pull-ups during the day. we'll take night time as it comes. i'm not so worried about that. it's a whole different set of skills.

my 4th and 5th graders at school are presentign their musicals this week. they've been working on writing musicals based on original folk or fairy tales. i invited the superintendent and the school board last-minuted (friday morning). our sup is coming on monday morning, and the school board is going to try to come as well. they are interviewing for a new sup (the current one is interim and is on the short list). it will be great exposure for my music program, and for the program at my school.

we have tickets to PBR tonight (pro bull riders). owen loves watching bull riding. i think it's the fact that it's fast-paced. next friday night is wiggles. i'm so excited about that!

bad week for mommy

let me just say that having owen is such a blessing. he takes my mind off of the icky week i've had. and oh, what a week it was...

tuesday was a meeting for my national boards. as i'm walking out the door, i slip and fall on an UNMARKED wet floor (as in recently mopped). i managed to twist my left ankle, bruise both knees really good (so good my md requested x-rays of both just to make sure that everything is ok), jammed my right wrist on the floor and the shock from that went through my arm and into my back which is now covered in sprains. i also managed to shatter my water bottle (plastic nalgene-type) which just added more water to the floor, which the custodian just pushed around with the mop to make the floor even more wet. yes, i got the paperwork going the next morning. yes, i went to my doctor on friday afternoon. and yes, the district will be paying for my related medical care for a while. i have two prescriptions for meds, one for massage therapy once a week for four weeks, and directions not to lift, push, or pull anything over 15 lbs. for the next two weeks. yeah. uh huh...

then, once i finally managed to get headed out the door, i realized i didn't have my keys. i knew i had them when i got there because, well, i GOT there. we scoured the place, including going through trash cans, but had no luck. i had to call jeffy, who came to get me. luckily we have an extra set of car keys at home and i had an extra house key in a bag at school.

that was tuesday. i had a program on wednesday afternoon and thursday evening. that went extremely well. it was very well-received. the biggest disappointment was that i was missing almost my entire back row of kids and two kids who were missing had recorder parts to play.

friday was a waiver day and i took a half-day to go to the doctor. the nice thing about that was the fact that i didn't have to do sub plans. all i had to do was put in my absence. jeffy had a doctor's appt 45 minutes after mine. x-rays were ordered for him to check for a bone spur on his heel. we went to the x-ray place together. do we know how to have fun on a friday afternoon or what?

but wait! it gets better (or worse, depending on your pov)! my car has been being persnickety for about the last year. used to be the go-gear wouldn't catch initially when i stopped at a light or stop sign. if i pushed the gas pedal in a little more, i'd have a screeching jump start and things would be ok until i stopped again. i started using just drive instead of overdrive. that fixed for a while, but thursday or friday it started doing that after i turned the car on. i could push the gas pedal clear to the floor and keep it there and nothing would happen. it was scary and frustrating. we took it to a repair shop that is right up the street and they said it was likely the transmission. (also that the transmissions in the car i have were notoriously bad so that was a relief...it wasn't me!) we had the option of rebuilding the transmission or not doing anything and getting a new car. unfortunately, the latter isn't finacially possible right now. we're rebuilding the transmission, which will take until wednesday or thursday. so now, i'm driving a chevy tahoe. it's really big, but i'm getting used to it.

now, i want you to think (or read) back to what my restrictions are for my back. do you see a slight potential issue here with a certain short person getting into a very tall car? i think i'm going to try to teach him to climb up on the runner boards and then into the truck. that'll help my back quite a bit.

tonight at the rental car place, owen was impressing quite a few people. a gentleman in front of us heard owen counting (as he was bouncing and watching himself in the mirrored window) and asked me if he was counting. i said he was and that he can count to 20 and backwards from 10. the gentleman replied that owen in a very intellegent little boy, especially for not quite 2-1/2. then, owen was playing a little while we were getting the car rental taken care of. he'd go to a chair, climb up in it, sit for a second, tell me that the chair was black (chair! black!) then he'd come back to me and start all over again. THEN, he noticed a little girl, probably 6 or 7 years old, and started flirting with her. she was flirting back. this caused one of the employees to laugh. i think it may have made her day. she took such delight in watching owen and the little girl. i'm so glad that owen knows how to behave when we're out in public. never once did i have to go chasing after him today. it was rather nice, actually. i guess he was finding enough to entertain himself so he wasn't getting bored and playing his own games. he also made us proud at dinner tonight, too. i love that he's getting better at staying near us when we're out and about. that shows that he is growing up, which is what he should be doing.

this morning was so funny with owen. it was about 6:30, he had been up since 5:30 (ugh!) and i was still in bed. he comes in to try to wake me up. one of the things i hear is, "time (to get) up!" then he gets right in my face and says, "wake up!" i didn't open my eyes until he kissed me on the lips. the little bugger knows the best way to wake up mommy! granted, i use that technique on him as well. what a sweet little boy we have. like i said at the start of this post, what a blessing he is in our lives.

a-b-c-d

that's what we heard coming from his room at about 6:30 this morning. how fun for him to wake up singing. now he's singing and dancing along with "annie oo" on his leap frog fridge dj. he loves that thing! it's what he woke up with yesterday morning. he loves singing along with that song. he'll dance while he's singing. it's great fun to watch.

the news

i got the ok from my little sis last night. her boyfriend proposed yesterday. she accepted. i'm so excited for both of them. marcus is a wonderful man. it's such an honor to have him as a part of our family now. happy tears are falling. her ring is absolutely GORGEOUS. as matron of honor, i'll have to take care of the bacelorette party, so i've started thinking some. dunno what we'll do yet, or even when it'll be. they don't have a date just yet.