Owen's First Drawing!!

Owen has only frantically scribbled, on paper, the chalkboard, painting, coloring books. Manic scribbling. He's never shown any effort in controlled writing or drawing, except for the occasional "O" for Owen. So imagine my shock when he pulled this out!!! I was so freakin' excited! You know who it is? Cash! (Minus the 'fro, of course.)

Ah, so proud!

If it's a zoo, where are the animals?

We love the Oakland Zoo. We have a membership and go often. This last visit, we hardly even saw the animals. Owen ran around the fields, play areas and rode the rides. We didn't mind...it's still a fun day!

Yum! Icee!
Nathan also loves the zoo!

Next time....animals!

The Busy Zoo

The Busy Zoo has been a staple toy around here for years and obviously everyone loves it.

I dressed them the same to try to see if you could tell who's who. But while they have a very similar look.....they still look very different to me!

Both are around 7 months!

Nate's 7 month appointment

Nate had his 7 month appointment today and it went great. His heart, lungs, eyes, ears, etc. were all declared perfect by Doctor Lopez. Who was also quite impressed with Nathan's mobility! He asked when Owen walked and I said "around 10 months, I think Nathan will be about the same." To which he replied, "Um no, it'll be way sooner than that!" Time will tell.

He weighed in at 19lbs 5 oz - 60th percentile and is 27 and 1/4 inches long - also around the 60th percentile.

A growing, healthy boy. Perfect.

Parenthood

Have you seen that show? Parenthood? I love it. It's based in the Bay Area, Berkley, I think. It's about four adult siblings and their respective families. I like that it is super realistic.

What I hate about it, is it makes me sad. It makes me miss my family so much. I want my brothers and sisters and their families to live within a mile of me. I want to watch their kids grow up, so, so, so badly. I want to go to their soccer games, baseball games, dance recitals, and school plays. Hell, I want just be invited to their birthday parties. I want them to show up unannounced and look through my fridge without asking. I want to call them on a Saturday morning and say "Hey you want to come over for a BBQ this afternoon?" I want to send Robin a text "Need anything from Costco?" I want to buy Abbi's Girls Scout cookies and not need them mailed to me. I want to watch Cash, Owen, Avry, Tiffany and Hollis all run through a sprinkler together on some random hot afternoon! I just want them all to be a part of my daily life!

And it breaks my heart that it'll never happen. I hate that we're a "holiday family" family. On both sides really (mine and Matt's). We only see each other's family on holidays or scheduled events. Everything has to be planned and organized and someone has to travel a significant distance. Makes me sad. Sad for Owen and Nathan. Sad for me.

Anyway, that's what the show Parenthood is about and I love and I hate it, ever so much!

Seven Months

Yikes! Well the months are flying by and I can't to believe it! Nathan is growing and learning so quickly!

• He crawls fast and furious.
• He can pull himself up to standing on anything.
• He can bend down pick up a toy and stand back up.
• He 'talks' non-stop.
• Still no sign of teeth.
• His favorite toys right now are the Buzy Zoo and the Ball Popper Table.
• He's waking up once a night and then again around 5am and then up for the day between 6-7am. He doesn't go down on his own and I haven't done any 'real' sleep training. Maybe I should.
• He's napping better. He usually takes a good 90 minute to two hour nap in the morning and then two shorter naps later.
• You can't even whisper 'Owen' without Nathan stopping whatever he's doing and looking frantically for him. Same goes for 'Jackdog'.
• He's not loving baby food. He likes puffs, cheerios, crackers, bits of real food, but he is not a fan of the purees. I need to try harder.
• He HATES diaper changes or getting dressed. You have to literally hold him down to change his diaper and wrestle him into his clothes while he screams the entire time. It's exhausting and annoying.
• He's totally independent. He will play on his own for a long while. He has yet to show any signs of stranger or separation anxiety.

Overall, another month has come and gone and we couldn't imagine a day without him.

Hometown Days 2010

Last year, it was nearly 100 degrees and I was pregnant. This year it was 60 degrees and Nathan is already 7 months. Big changes I tell ya. What's also fun, is we actually FEEL part of the hometown! We ran into friends (Lindsay, Elin and Annabelle) and watched the parade with them and we saw LOTS of friends actually IN the parade and waved and yelled frantically to them as if they were celebrities. I was proud that we went to Hometown Days and for the first time thought "wow, this is OUR hometown"!! Big changes.

And what hometown it is!

With enormous inflatable slides, well ladder really. Owen refused to go down the slide, so he just climbed up and down the ladder part. Much the chagrin of the other kids.

A petty zoo:

Pony rides!

And bounce houses!

Plus a visit with Lou Seal!

Fun, Fun!

Brother Fun!

Nathan is 100% mobile. He cruises around the whole house with ease and speed. His favorite destination is always Owen.

T-ball!

We signed Owen up for a t-ball class. It's only a class, so we don't have games or uniforms or anything. Owen's friend Tyler is also in the class. Tyler is VERY sports oriented. He is always in 'ready' position, knows how to run the bases (and when to stop), catch using his glove and throw using his bare hand. Owen....not so much.

We all know Owen is active and has an extraordinary amount of energy, but harnessing that energy into something productive, is a whole other story. Obviously, I wasn't sure how this t-ball thing was going to go.

First it must be said that these two guys running this class for twenty 3-5 year olds are the bravest men I've ever met. They are patient and funny and observant and totally there for the kids. They're wonderful.

It's a good thing, because Owen had to be redirected several hundred times. He likes to drag his feet in the dirt to make "smoke". Apparently not a skill they need in baseball. He likes to run the bases....around and around and around the bases. Stopping is stupid. When a kid hits the ball the "fielders" are all supposed to go get the ball. The bigger kids usually got there first, but that didn't stop Owen from wrestling for it until he had to be pulled off by one of the coaches. Every. Single. Time.

When the class wrapping up, Owen was crying that he never got the ball. While he was crying, the rest of the group did a "hands in the middle huddle". Owen missed this and then REALLY started to cry. So the coaches did a huddle with just Owen. Then he didn't want the coaches to leave. More tears. The coaches got in their car. More tears. Owen sat there and screamed "baseball, baseball, baseball" until I said I was leaving. We left and he was fine.

So I guess likes it. I'm not sure. We'll see!


Here he is getting ready to "field" the ball:
Not in "ready" position:

Getting a little direction from the coach:

Look closely, you can see Owen squeezing his way onto the base:
A little video of Owen batting (and then going after the ball):

And on base:

What did I do today?

Clean up more poop!

Dear Owen,
Stop crapping in your pants!
Love, Mom

What I did today....

Clean up poop. Owen is insisting on pooping in his pants. Twice yesterday and once so far today. WHY? How do I end this potty training madness? HOW?

Hawaii

Matt and I just returned from Hawaii! Our first vacation without the kids. It was to celebrate our ten year wedding anniversary (which is actually June 10). It was SO very relaxing. We slept a lot. Each day, we literally slept until we couldn't sleep anymore. We read three books each. We went out to eat at anytime and anywhere we wanted. We drank, at anytime and anywhere we wanted and WAY too much! We hung out on the beach, but not as much as you'd expect. It was bliss.

Nathan and Owen had a great time with Grandma. They played and played and played. It was amazing to not worry or rush. We could only relax. So we did.
We only have a few pictures to show for it. 1)because we didn't take that many and 2)our camera is acting weird and is randomly deleting pictures or saying the files are corrupt.

We'll start with my favorite:
Then the only one of me we have:
and a Hawaiian sunset. That's all we got!

Potty Training Update

I like to look back at posts a year ago....just for comparison of how our life has changed and May of 2009 had a potty training attempt! Unsuccessful, obviously. Owen is now pretty much completely day potty trained. He wears underwear and has very few accidents. If does have an accident, it's at the gym. I just don't think they can react fast enough for him (since there are up to 60 kids in there at a time).

The whole #2 situation is another story. He HATES it. And he'll tell you so. He tries to hold it as long as humanly possible and then SCREAMS the whole time he's going. On several occasions, he'll sit on the toilet, just to get up after not going and poop his pants less than 60 seconds later. It's mighty frustrating.

I'm not even trying for naps or nighttime yet. Anytime he's gone diaperless while sleeping he wakes up soaked and pissed and frankly, it's not worth the tantrum to me.

But he's getting there. He'll get there.

Holy Crap!

So Matt was super proud of himself this weekend, because he was "teaching" Nathan how to stand up. Well, it worked. He learned.

Matt went in to get Nathan this morning and found this:

Look's like he's mighty proud of himself as well!! And it wasn't a fluke, he did it every single time we put him the crib today.

Good grief! The mattress needs to be dropped ASAP!