ANOTHER snow day

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

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

ah, well. off to get cat food.

Today is June 22 - No, Really it is!

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

snow days

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

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

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

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

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

not again!

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

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

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

Santa!

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

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

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

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

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

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

Have a very blessed Christmas, everyone!

sleep, glorious sleep!

'nuf said

figuring things out

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

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

that's all for now!

what a week!

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

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

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

bilateral otitis media...again

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

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

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

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

poor little guy

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

a year and a week!

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

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

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

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

Back To School

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

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

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

Hopefully this week will be more normal.

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

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

Eek!

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

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

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

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

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

Five

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

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

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

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

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

With our new friend Ethan in Salt Lake

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

130

posts, that is.

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

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

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

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

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

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