Missing Beach Buds

Since we have been back from the beach which has been almost two weeks, Owen has mentioned Grandma every day. He will just bring her up and sometimes will ask “Grandma’s here?” or “Go see Grandma?”. One day when the dogs were barking excitedly, Owen got excited as well and ran to the window and asked “Grandma’s here?”. I felt so bad that I had to tell him she wasn’t.

Then yesterday we were playing and he stopped and asked me “Go see Grandma, Grandpa and Jenni?” Ah the poor little guy really misses his beach buds. I keep telling him we will see them all soon, but really a 2 year old doesn’t understand that concept.

It gets worse, at lunch today he was talking about his library trip this morning and reciting one of the books, when out of no where he told me “I miss Grandpa, I miss Grandma, I miss Jenni”. I feel horrible. But is was too cute to miss. So I grabbed the video camera in hopes he would recreate his statement, he of course did not but he did want to say something to you three. Luckily, with Omer gone again this weekend I plan to visit them all or have them up here so Owen will finally get to see his beach buds again.

I have to say he actually does like carrots, he even asked for them today, but I think he was done eating while I took the video. Start at 37 seconds and it is what I wanted to share…tried to find some video editing software but just gave up after 30 minutes.

Time Out

First, Owen generally does not need a lot of disciplining right now. Most of the time when I tell him not to do something he will stop. I am sure this will all end sometime. But when he chooses not to listen to me I put him in time out. This seems to work well, as I don’t have to hold him down and he will sit there until released. Most of the time I can threaten him with time out and he will stop, but then sometimes he chooses to go sit in time out on his own. He will stop what he was doing run over to the stairs and sit down. Then he sits there all cute and says “Mommy I’m sorry”. After I release him he gives me a hug. It’s very cute and not sure why my child likes to sit in time out sometimes.

Luke’s House

This morning we headed over to visit our friend’s Lauren, Luke and baby Max. Our other friends Beth and Christina came by to play as well. While Beth got to go have a pedicure (such pretty toes), Lauren and I watched after the kids. Really not much work to do as they are such great little ones. They all had a good time and it was nice to catch up with friends. I always forget to bring my camera when we visit and finally remembered today so I could share with everyone some pictures of Owen and friends.

I will say it concerns me a little that when Owen gets in his own little world driving a massive amount of cars and trucks around that he gets angry when one of them come over to drive with him. He would put his hand out and say no. I am not sure if he is just becoming very possessive of the toys he is playing with or if he is worried that one of them is going to walk off with a toy he is playing with. The latter situation happens often to Owen, so I lean toward he is fearful of losing his toy and trying to stand up for himself. But it’s not the best way to make friends.

As both Luke and Christina are a good 6 months older than Owen, I always love watching them interact and play with each other and just waiting for Owen to actually play with them instead of just around. All three kids did enjoy spinning round and round together on the mattress and falling down. That was really cute.

And I know Owen always has fun over there because when I told him we were going to Luke’s house this morning he waited at the door trying to open it and saying “Luke’s house” over and over again while I tried to get us ready very quickly. When we were leaving Luke’s house and in the car, Owen said “Bye Luke, Bye Christina, Bye Trucks.” Very cute!

Owen and His Cars

Christina Driving

Owen Driving Cars on Sofa, Christina Playing with Garage

Christina Riding Horse, Luke Playing with Tools

While Luke and Christina Played in One Room, Owen Played Cars on Sofa

Luke Giving Owen Boots (Owen put them on happily but didn’t want to walk in them.)

Christina and Owen Playing Together!!!! (they were pushing the buttons together)

Enjoying Boxed Milk

More Milk Drinking

Turning in Circles

The Simple Joys

They Fall Down

All Three Playing

Lauren and Baby Max, He Smiles

Sticking his Tongue Out

Luke Giving Christina a Hug (And sorry ladies but I took the flash off for the previous picture as to not bother Max so this didn’t come out very well….I will do better next time.)

Shark Week

It is Shark Week on Discovery Channel and Owen must have gotten the message somehow because yesterday he dumped all his sharks out and took them to the black sofa to swim around. Then this evening he took them all back out to played on the green sofa. He hasn’t played with his sharks in awhile.

Shark Swimming

Shark Bites

Downstairs Day

First, another good day. I can use a lot more like this.

For some reason Owen wanted to play downstairs pretty much the whole day. We spent a little bit of time outside in the morning and after dinner, but in between it was pretty much “downstairs, downstairs”. We had a lot of fun playing with some different toys and playing with other items downstairs, he likes to be in the living room.

Yes, Owen drives cars on a “road” downstairs too.

Then he drove them on the town. “Big Plane Dangling”

“Big Plane on Roof”

And yes he drives them on the sofa.

Flying his Plane, he was going around and around.

Then it was off to the living room to say hi to the fish. In the morning when the light is not on Owen will go over there and say “fishies are sleeping”.

“Hi Fishies” (and sorry the picture is crooked I guess I need to have a V8.)

Dragging “Mommy’s Blankie”

Snuggle

Owen also loves to “play” chess. Omer started this with him when Owen showed some interest in the board. He knows all the pieces, something that I don’t even know. It likes to pick the pieces up, explore them and tell you what they are. Omer will sometimes have him tell him a piece and he will move it on the board.

Ready to Play

Making a Move

Utter Concentration

Telling me What Piece

“I’m Pooping”

The past three days Owen has informed that he is pooping. This is a step towards potty training!!! However after he tells me ‘I’m pooping”, I ask him if he’d like to poop on the potty and he says no or doesn’t move and continues his business. Maybe I need to start being more proactive and when he tells me quickly pick it up and place him on the potty….but I don’t want to push either, he’s still on the young side of the average age. Oh the decisions! But this is just one more thing on the list that proves my baby isn’t quite a baby anymore.

Chloe Update

Chloe went to the oncologist today for her 6 month check-up and the diagnosis was she looks great. I can’t tell you what a huge smile I have on my face and a little tear of joy.

Still waiting on blood work, but overall health looks wonderful and she doesn’t wince when you touch the spine where the cancer is. They are pretty sure it is a plasma cell tumor and that it is being maintained. We did talk about other treatment options as the chemo drug we are using can have effects to her blood cell count. But in her opinion she would maintain what we are doing until Chloe seems uncomfortable again.

In her day to day life she seems like a normal 10 year old dog to me. She still sun bathes out in the grass, she still runs after squirrels in the yard, she still plays and rolls around with Chester, she still very much looks forward to a walk every day and really gets happy when we go on the hike, and she still of course loves getting chest rubs.

Big hugs for Chloe Bear!!!

A Better Day

Sunday was a much better day, actual had lots of fun moments. He awoke still a little earlier than he’s ready for but a much better time. But even with a little earlier wake time, he was pleasant for most the day. We played together, he played by himself and we shared some giggles and hugs. However, he still need nabbed a quick nap in the car in the morning.

We played in the sandbox for quite awhile and Owen has gotten pretty good at making sand molds- I have no clue what to call these. They are animal molds you fill up and then turn over to create an animal. He started to want to make them the day after we got back from the beach. He will tell you which animal to fill, I fill it up, and then he turns it over on the edge of the sand box. If it doesn’t come out very well, he’ll say “try again”. He usually fills the whole edge of the sand box up with little animals; his favorite today was walrus and sea turtle.

I quickly went inside to get the camera for some pictures but once I returned he had moved on, and was filling his truck with sand.

Here are some of the animals molds.

Looking for Bugs

Later on it was Owen’s time to play cars.

I Have a Newborn!?!?

For almost two weeks now Owen has been sleeping horribly and I really feel like I have a newborn again, without the perks. With a toddler you can’t just pop him on the boob and then return him to bed with a happy full belly for more sleep, you can’t just plop him in a swing to get a little break, you don’t get the luxury of 3-4 naps a day, you also have to actually play and be interactive with a toddler. So when I think well at least I am sleeping better than when he was a newborn, my day is much harder so I am not getting any down time and dealing with an overtired grumpy toddler.

I usually don’t like to use this blog as a place to inform everyone of the negative portions of our day but I need to vent and need to remember this so I can tell Owen what he used to do and what a wonderful mom I was for dealing with it….but honestly what other choice do I have.

He has begun to wake up earlier and earlier, this morning was 5:30 am, but the hard part is he is not ready to be actually awake. So why is he waking?!?! So after trying to get him to sleep again and make it to an hour he would be okay waking up at, he’s just miserable and so am I. I hate using the TV but have resorted to it out of desperation. So usually around 8:30 or 9:00 am he is telling me he is tired and becomes very fussy. What am I supposed to do? Allow him to take a morning nap? Once again out of desperation of saving the rest of the day we go for a ride and he normally sleeps in the car. Well the past two days that has ruined his afternoon nap and made for a very rough afternoon. I don’t get to take a break or nap while driving around in the morning.

It was the same thing this morning, and he begged me to go upstairs at 12:30 for a nap so we went and it is 1:30 and he is still not napping, playing in there but I fear he is not going to sleep which means early bedtime again, which this morning meant early and grumpy morning wake time. I could learn to live with this early waking time if he was ready to actually get up and was happy until his nap, but did I mention, he’s not.

See what I mean that I have a newborn again. I keep telling myself that it is a phase and he will return to the good sleeper he has aways been, but then I think what if my good sleeper is out the door and this is what I am going to have to handle for the next couple years. Agh!!!! That scares me, I have gotten very used to the sleep I get and right now my body is shutting down already from sleep deprivation and it hasn’t been too terribly long. My brain is just not working on all cylinders and neither is my body. Instead of being with my happy child and having fun all day, I am now dealing with a tired, grumpy, fussy child while being tired and grumpy myself. I guess these are the lows of parenting. As I try to do I always try to remind myself that it can always be worse and try to remember the good days but with mornings starting earlier and earlier and sleep during the day getting rougher and rougher it is proving to be VERY hard to think of the positive.

Okay that’s it, not going to complain anymore, just needed to share the misery of my very long, thankless days right now. And to top it off I have to pull this weekend and next by myself, single parenting sucks and have to acknowledge and respect what actual single mothers go through – I am totally impressed.

To end on a good point I will leave you with a cute moment by Owen: He received a huge set of play-doh for his birthday so we have been playing a lot (probably 3 hours yesterday), but we have some little containers that have dried up to the point of no return. When he opened that one I told him Mommy couldn’t roll that one anymore that it was yucky and trash. Well after I stepped away to start dinner, I see Owen carry the yucky play-doh over to the trash, open the door, dump it and close the door. Then he looked at me and declared “play-doh in trash now”. (Yes the stop on the trash door has worn down so he can pull it open now, thank goodness he does not abuse this.) I was proud that he listened to me and followed through.

2 Year Appointment

This morning we headed to the doctor’s for Owen’s 2 year well-baby check up. Surprisingly Owen loves to go to the doctors and talks about it while we are on the way. Once we are there, he loves to talk the doctor until the actually exam begins where he likes to stay with me and not opening his mouth for a look.

The doc said everything looks great and he looks very healthy. Within minutes she commented what a great talker Owen is and that she could check that off the list. I was a little surprised that I did not get asked a lot of questions about his development. I am not even closed to being worried about most of his development as he is already speaking in sentences and has a wonderful attention span, but I was just surprised that nothing was asked, I am sure there are milestones that he is lagging on that I might miss. This concerns me a little and will now have to look at a list online to make sure he is developing correctly. I know you all can laugh now, a little anal on my part.

I had guessed that Owen has gone through a small growth spurt recently because he now can reach the door knob on the door outside and pull it open, something he could not reach 2 weeks ago.

Here are his stats: 35 inches tall (50-75%), 27 pounds 2 ounces (25-50%), and head circumference 19.75 inches (75-90%).