Owen update from Sara

I just talked to Sara after Owen's dr appts this morning, and EVERYTHING IS JUST FINE!!! She'll update her blog more fully when they stop for the night (they're on their way to Ohio), but she wanted to let everybody that had been praying for them know the good news. They ran 2 different tests, both of which Owen passed with flying colors - his kidneys are working just the way they are supposed to work. He's perfectly healthy! She said they'll go back in 3 weeks for a follow-up test, but the specialist was not worried at all.
PRAISE GOD!!!

Swimming Fun

Happy Animals Play Center from Walmart: 20 dollars



Tarps for under and over Happy Animals Play Center: 9 dollars



Swim Diapers: 6 dollars



Something besides TV that will hold this toddler's interest for at least 30 minutes at a time: PRICELESS

Taterisms

Translation dictionary:

Polly = potty

Nunik = music

My = I (i.e. No Mom, MY do it!)

Tubba Thomas = his "real name" (or as he once told Nana when asked what his real name is, "Tubba Thomas Time-out")

Bunny bonnet = rabbit

Manatanoes = mashed potatoes

and the dog is still Geeko rather than Nico, and Randy is and will always be Daddoo.


Some hilariousness from his mouth recently:

Saturday we made chocolate chip cookies. He was so excited - we pulled the chair up to the counter so he could reach, and he clapped his little hands together and exclaimed, "Let's DO this!"

Yesterday we were coloring with markers and found a dried out one. I told him he could throw it away, and he agreed, "Yeah, this one broken pretty much."

His favorite exclamation: "Holy cow!" Sounds way funnier from his mouth. Sometimes he follows up with "Oh my gosh!"

He got in trouble the other day. As I was fussing at him, he put his hands on his little hips and said. "Excuse me?"

Sometimes after eating, he'll say, "Ok! Now my tummy feel better!"

He teases us with the "high five" then pulling away before you high-five him to go "down low." Must always be repeated at least 3 times.

When you explain something to him, sometimes he'll respond, "OOOoohhh! I see!" Like he totally gets it now!

He lists things in this silly little sing-song voice that is hard to describe in type, but his voice goes up at the end of each item on his list, like, "I eatin' supper, and turkey, and manatanoes, and bean beans (green beans)..." or after the PBR, he talked for days about, " I go rolleo (anything horse or bull related at the coliseum or Spur is rodeo to him), and I see bulls, and see horsies, and see Shiney (Cheyenne Duncan, the love of his life), and see Daddoo..."

The child talks more than any boy I've ever met (of course, I spend most of my days with teenage boys, so they're not a fair comparison). He definitely doesn't have his daddy's quiet demeanor. Randy jokes that he got all my best traits - curly hair, allergies, big mouth...

Oh, I could go on and on. This boy cracks me up daily. He's been living up to the "terrible twos" stereotype quite a bit lately, but he manages to melt away any frustration with one goofy comment or sweet face. And I still just think he's the coolest thing ever. I am so incredibly blessed to be this child's mama.

Never Mind

I hate when I over-plan my day. I decide that I am somehow going to do the 352 things on my list in 4 short hours, even though there is no possible way it's gonna happen. And I know this about myself, and yet, I keep planning too much when I have some time to get things done. And then, I sabotage my own plan by adding even more things to the list~ For example:
Get home from taking Tater to MDO...
"Hey, I love this song! I'll sit in the car and listen real quick."
"Hmm, while I'm listening, I can go ahead and get all the trash out of the door pockets..."
"Well, since I'm cleaing out the trash, I can get all the other stuff out of the truck too..."
"Gee, since I've got everything else cleaned out, I might as well vacuum too - it really needs it..."

... and before I know it, I've lost an hour. An hour of the four hours I should have used to get the house clean. But I've decided that my friends will love me even if I have a dirty and/or messy house, so I wasn't too stressed over it. Plus we ended up postponing our play-date anyway, so never mind.

Ancient Chinese Proverb

for the girls coming to play tomorrow:

The true measure of friendship is how messy a friend's house is when you come over.

Lovin' every minute of it

Any tiny shred of regret I had over not being able to teach summer school is gone. I have had the best week with my little boy! Even though we haven't done anything monumental, we have done the park thing a few times, gone to the library, watched movies, had fun grocery shopping... and today we made play-dough. For one whole incredible hour he was fully occupied and engaged in the stirring and squishing, followed by the rolling and cutting and balling and more squishing. Too much fun!!
Then while we were eating lunch, it started to rain... a not-so-common occurrence around here lately. I couldn't drag him away from the kitchen window ("Watch that rain, Mom!"), so I pulled his little table over to the window so he could see. I just love watching the wonder in his little face...

Ah yeah... these days are the best.

PLAY-DOUGH UPDATE: Added Tuesday 6-25...
(I love that play-dough is the biggest thing I have to update about!)

If anybody's in search of a quick, easy, no-cook play-dough recipe, here's what we made:

PUFF DOUGH

3 c flour
1 c salt
1 c water
3 Tbsp cooking oil

Just mix it all together and then add food coloring if you want. I split it in half and made 2 colors. Super easy and I like the texture. Keeps awhile too.

Here are a couple of pictures. He decided that blue was his and purple was mine, and not five minutes later took over my purple. Little stinker...

I need to lay off the caffeine...

I can't seem to make myself get tired tonight. Perhaps it's the coke at lunch and 2 glasses of tea I had today. Perhaps it's the 3 chocolate cookies I had after dinner. Perhaps both. But I can't sleep and I can't turn off my brain, so here's a little randomness.

• My son has a new fascination with tattoos. He found some rub-ons and just had to have one. He picked the smiley face wearing headphones. I had to play along and put a butterfly on my foot too.
  

Randy is now worried that he will grow up and be covered in them. A tattooed bull-rider. That should be interesting.

• I went to a pretty cool workshop today about Web 2.0 stuff. I got some really good ideas that I will be able to use easily if I move to writing... will need some creativity to fit it into reading. I really have to integrate more technology though, no matter what I'm teaching. Randy went today too, so that was kinda cool to hang out with him. In the 3 years we've both been in education, there have only been a handful of times we've "worked" together.


• I have a new self-tanner that I really love. It's the Coppertone Endless Summer. It actually doesn't turn me orange.


• Tater was having issues with what blanket to use each night. It has been a toss up between Feet Covers (baby feet blanket from the hospital) and Tiny Covers (thin receiving blanket from Old Navy). Tiny Covers has been the favorite, but it's too short for this growing boy. So I took 2 other of the same type of blanket, cut them both in half, and stitched them back up in blocks. Sounded great in theory, but in reality, it's the worst sewing job I've ever done. Inexperienced me sewing thin, stretchy knit was not a pretty sight. The blanket may be ugly and Suessically long, but it serves it's purpose - for this summer anyway. Hopefully by next summer we can handle an actual sheet.

• This Sunday, Randy and I will have been married for 6 years. Funny, it feels longer than that... :)


• Tater and I are going to the park tomorrow morning. If anybody is actually up and reading this before 8:30 or so, feel free to come join us!


• We decided tonight while watching the news and seeing the forecast that we are moving to Montana. We'll FedEx a snowball.


• My project for next week: cleaning out Sam's room. When she's not here, it becomes the catch-all room (read: place to stash all my crap), and it really needs an overhaul. Plus if I plan to do any scrapbooking this summer, I must unbury my supplies.


• I got a flat tire Monday - evidently ran over a really sharp rock. Since I didn't go anywhere yesterday, it went unnoticed until Randy got home. As Tater watched him putting on the spare, he said, "OOooo, truck broken. Daddoo fix it." Then he looked at me with his brow wrinkled up, pointed his little finger at me and said, "You drive too fast."


• I want to have a play date at my house next week, maybe Wed or Thurs (need cleaning time - I'll be out of town this weekend). Anybody interested? I'd love to see how many kids we can pack in this house.

OK, that's all I got. Here are a few more pics of the boy for your viewing pleasure.

Stupid Nature

There is a bird. It resides in a sweet little nest just outside my window, where it likes to sing its sweet little song...
at FIVE O'CLOCK in the morning!!!!!

And it's not really sweet. It's freakin' annoying. It's piercing four-note so-called "song" reverberates through the entire house.

This bird became my mortal enemy about the next to last week of school. Many grumblings were aimed at this winged creature; but one day, all of a sudden, as if in answer to my prayers, it disappeared. Ah, relief. Sleep.

But no. Evidently, it just went on vacation to it's little birdie time-share in Florida, because it's back. Came back late last week, but somehow it seemed quieter. Or maybe my summer sleep frame of mind let me tune it out better, I don't know. But this morning, there was no tuning out to be done. I think the dang thing had a megaphone or something. It woke up me, the dog, and, unfortunately the son.

At 5 AM.

I naively attempted to get Tater back to sleep. After rocking, shushing, back rubbing, a disatrous trip in the dark to the kitchen for water that involved shinbones connecting with toddler chairs, and more back rubbing, I gave up.

So did Randy. At 5:30, he came out to let the dog outside. I smiled at him sweetly and gave him a warm morning welcome:

"That bird must die."

His plan, not mine

So I'm not teaching summer school, like I thought I would be. We got there on Friday, and the principal started out with, I really hate doing this, but..." and proceeded to tell us that due to low enrollment, 5 of us were without a job. Guess who was one of the "lucky" ones.

Now don't get me wrong, I was not totally heartbroken. The only reason I was doing it? The money. So I started wondering what God was trying to tell me. I had thought he wanted me to be responsible - do my part to bring in a little extra money to get rid of the bills that I'm always griping and stressing and worrying about... Oh.

Yeah, I love it when he smacks me on the head (like on the V-8 commercial) and says, "Duh!"

So... I am no longer worried about finances. I asked Him to take the worry and the pressure, and true to His word, He did. With my pay-off-everything crazy haze lifted, I see we're doing just fine. We're getting the hang of this strict budget thing (although I would die for just one Old Navy shopping spree). My poor nagged-to-death husband just sold his beloved bass boat and we paid off a card. I have let go of this weird desperate need to get the entire world paid off next month and have decided life is too short. There are definitely more important things. Like spending 19 more days with my son instead of a bunch of teenagers who'd rather watch War and Peace than to listen to me teach. We will continue to be diligent, and the bills will be gone when they are gone. It's time to enjoy my summer.

Ugh

Summer colds are the worst. I have had a cold since Saturday. Yep, my entire week off before leaping into summer school, I have been sick. Which means I have gotten very little on my list of to-do's checked off (poo), I have NOT gotten to see Baby Owen yet (double poo), and I am out of time. Tomorrow is in-service day at Lee. Ugh.
I did, however, manage to get 4 loads of laundry done this morning. And got in some snuggles with my boy, which is worth any day off. But for now, I sit here with a pounding head and over-flowing shnoz.
Ugh.

I promise my next post will not be so whiny. I need to put up pictures of the man-cub, which is always a happy occasion.

We don't need no stinkin' ma's...

My ever-growing child has finally left the last trappings of babyhood behind him - he no longer needs a pacifier (aka "ma") to go to sleep. For posterity's sake (read: bore warning), here is the saga of the "ma":


I was always "that person" who said ridiculous things like, "When I have kids, I will never..." insert any of those controversial topics here - use lots of drugs to ease childbirth (ha! That took an hour to change), use a walker, use a pacifier... But when Tater was three weeks old and I basically had a tiny leech (adorable leech though he was) attached to me 24/7 because he always needed to suck, I caved in and gave him a pacifier. It ended up being a wonderful thing - he was such a sucker. Always needed something in his mouth, and it wasn't always convenient for it to be me. Some babies just need to suck more - mine was one of them.

As he got bigger, the pacifier became known as a "ma" - not sure why, but I have a couple of theories, mostly pertaining to the fact that he started calling it that around the time he was weaned. And at around a year, the ma became off-limits except for at nap and bedtimes. There's no way he would have been sleeping through the night without it - but his decision to finally sleep through the night at 13 months is a different post entirely. At his 18-month appointment, I made the mistake of asking his doctor about it - when he should get rid of it. His answer? Now.

Poo. I knew Tater wasn't ready to give it up, and I wasn't ready for the sleepless nights I was anticipating without it. So we waited. A friend at school told me that her daughters gave it up when they turned 2, because "now they were big girls, and pacifiers were for babies." She said both girls totally bought into that, and were fine with giving them up, using that mentality. I was skeptical, but you know what? IT WORKS!!!

Last Thursday and Friday, I started talking up the fact that Tater was becoming such a big boy, and that soon he would have to go to sleep without the ma, because big boys don't need them. It was amazing to watch him sort of roll the idea around in his head... he really seriously considered it! He'd ask questions at random times like "Caleb need a ma?" and "I a big boy now?" But it still came as a bit of a shock when he didn't argue too much Saturday night when he didn't get one (of course, I'm sure that getting to fall asleep in Mama and Daddy's bed softened the blow a little). And he slept all night, even if I did go in the next morning to find him at the foot end of the bed with his animals and blankets spread all over the place and a puzzled look on his face. "Where my ma go?" He was pretty proud of himself when I told him he'd slept all night without it. The next day, same thing - very little complaint. In fact it wasn't until Tuesday nap that we had an issue (see previous post), and part of that may have been over-tiredness.

I am so proud of my little man. He is just so big. I almost miss seeing that pacifier in his sweet little mouth... he just isn't my baby anymore!

Naptime Fun

As I sit here typing, my darling son is doing everything in his power to avoid going to sleep for his nap. He's already switched out blankets twice, managed to make his water cup leak so I had to come in an remove it, cried for 10 minutes, and now it is booger time. Yes, booger time.

His words. Evidently he has resorted to picking his nose, because this is what I heard after 20 seconds or so of silence.
"Mama! It's a booger! BOOGER!!! There's a booger on my finger! Mama! Booger time!"
"Mama, get the booger off my finger! (more tears) Booger, booger, booger, booger!"

And it continues, but you get the point. And now we're back to the screaming and crying. This is the first naptime he's slept in his own bed without a pacifier (see the "Ma" post), and it is not going well. But I will not go in there. I will be strong. Even if I cry too.

Update: I did go in there. I was not strong. After 30 more minutes, he had worked himself into such a tearful frenzy that I couldn't stand it. I had to go hold my boy. I rocked him to sleep in 5 minutes, something I had not done in quite some time. I just watched his little face, shuddering with left-over sobs every now and then, in awe that this beautiful child is mine. Dangit - even in his sleep, the kid already knows how to make Mom forget she was ever mad at him.