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!