Today was Owen's first birthday!! It's crazy how fast this year went. All day I was thinking about the day he was born, and how much different my life is now than it was before he arrived. The only thing I would change about my life if I could, would be to have the grandparents closer!!!! :)
Someone asked me if the fact that he is a year made me happy or sad, and I told her it made me feel both. I keep thinking that I want him to stay the way he is right now, but then he keeps growing and learning and I keep changing my mind, that he keeps getting better with age!
Tree hunting
It's been awhile since I have posted, and we have been very busy since then. We went to my brother and sister-in-laws on Thanksgiving and had awesome food. I love Thanksgiving food! Then my birthday was the Saturday after Thanksgiving, and we went to Ryan's mom's to celebrate our niece's birthday (the same day as mine!) and we went to a tree farm to get some Christmas trees for Ryan's mom and uncles. It was a lot of fun, and Owen cracked me up. It was one of the first times that Owen wore his winter coat, and he could barely move his arms in it, which made it hard for him to walk. A couple of times he fell down and instead of trying to get back up, he gave up and just laid on the ground. He wasn't upset about it ever, just laid there, all calm.
Great-Grandma's birthday
The next weekend was my grandma's 80th birthday party. Owen got to meet a lot of new people at the party and was dressed to impress ;) We are very lucky to have generous friends and family members that give us hand-me-downs for Owen, and we always get some really cute stuff. I really liked his party outfit -- very handsome! My grandma was nice enough to share a few of her balloons with Owen, so he was very occupied at the party, and we took a few home that he played with for days. He LOVED them!
Last weekend we decided to go back to Elkader, just for the heck of it, but we had to leave pretty early on Saturday because a blizzard was coming. We made it back ok, but it's been very white around here since then. Luckily, the weather is looking good for this weekend, because we are celebrating the Big 01 for Owen in Dubuque with the grandparents, some aunts, uncles and cousins. It's too bad that his birthday is so close to Christmas, because we want to keep his birthday seperate from all the Christmas stuff, but it's hard for some of my family to get back this way two weekend in a row. So we will have to do some more birthday celebrating at Christmas, too. Oh well, I'm sure Owen won't mind!
Yay! My camera is finally fixed, and we are both so happy!
I took a million pictures of him when I got home tonight, but they are all pretty much the same because all he wanted to do was play with the laptop. I have a little tech-y on my hands!
Here he's doing double time with my cell phone and the laptop!
He really does love anything electronic. He's constantly playing with my phone, the remote, the laptop, the stereo, the DVD player or anything else with buttons. He's been banned from playing with the camera and the video camera, though! :) A few weeks ago, he started putting the phone up to his ear, which I thought was pretty cool, but a couple of nights ago, he put it up to his ear and said, "Ahroh!" THAT WAS REALLY COOL! I don't think it was a fluke, either, he's a smarty-pants!
I can't believe he is already 11 months! He's not my little baby anymore! :( I am excited for him to be off formula and to be in a front-facing car seat, though! One more month!
He's still as active as ever, and has moved up to running around instead of just walking. What a crazy little monkey!
Owen was a skunk for his first Halloween. He looked so cute in his costume, but really wasn't a big fan of being in it. Even so, I did catch a short video of him in a good mood.
We didn't go to any houses because he stopped cooperating shortly after the video ended :( There's always next year!
Other new things with Owen:
He started waving Bye bye! The first time I saw him do it was when I told him to wave bye bye to the water when it was draining from the tub. I don't want him to be scared of the noise!
He click-clacks his tongue.
He LOVES to dance, but it's always for very short bursts.
He says Hi, or at least I think he is. It sounds a lot like "Hi" and it is usually when he first sees someone. I'm not really sure if he knows what he's saying or not.
He's still constantly on the go, but he has been getting more interested in reading books lately, which I think is AWESOME! He likes to point to the pictures and when the story is over, he will take the book from me and open and close it and turn to random pages. It's adorable.
My birthday isn't for another month, but Ryan and my parents knew I couldn't wait that long for my birthday present...a new video camera!! Yay! I couldn't wait that long because our camera is still in the shop, and Halloween is this Sunday, so I needed something! Some friends of ours gave us a costume for Owen to wear that their daughter wore when she was a baby, so Owen is going to be a skunk :) I tried the outfit on him and it is so cute! I'm not sure that we will do very much, if anything at all, for Halloween, but at least I can get some video of him in the costume. We might walk around to a couple of places in our neighborhood. I'm not going to give out candy this year because our dogs are ANNOYING when it comes to strangers being anywhere near the house, otherwise I would have said that Owen would have been the cutest little helper. :)
Well, since I got a new video camera, I just had to get some video to put on here. It isn't the most interesting video I've taken, but it does show Owen "going crazy" (although it isn't when I told him to - it's just while he's playing with a toy), the fact that he LEARNED TO STAND UP BY HIMSELF and then he was pretty tuckered out.
I was surprised that he fell asleep while drinking his bottle. He hasn't done that in a looooong time.
He is ALWAYS on the go. Walking all over, making messes everywhere, bothering the dogs, trying to get into the cupboards even though they are tethered shut. The only time he sits still is when he's eating (and that's probably only because he's strapped in!) and sleeping. The other day, Ryan was complaining that he won't just sit and snuggle with him and just hang out like he used to. I agree! I want to snuggle with him! I do get to, a little bit, when I nurse him, which I'm down to two times a day on that. I was pumping or nursing when I came home for lunch, but most of the time he wasn't ready for milk when I was home and I got tired of pumping, so now I don't even make enough milk except for those two times a day - usually around 7 am and 5:30 pm. So he's up to two formula bottles a day now too, plus all the table food he eats.
He cracks me up. Right now he is chasing Ace, the chihuahua, around the kitchen and living room. Ace really doesn't care to have much to do with Owen, and right now all Ace wants is to eat and drink, but his food is up on the table because apparently dog food tastes good to babies, too. And playing in the water bowl is tons of fun. So Ace is hungry and thirsty and being chased by a crazy 10 month old baby, who thinks it's hilarious.
He also cracks me up when he takes a bath. He doesn't use the little baby bath anymore, and he just has a blast in the tub with all that space and water to splash in. He also has dunked his face right in the water a few times, and then freaks out and grabs for me and hugs me. It's funny. Then, he grabs for the plug in the drain, and when our tub drains, it makes a very loud sucking/slurping noise and it scares him. No, it terrifies him. He starts screaming and crying and it is sad and hilarious all at once. Maybe it's mean, but I kind of like the way he hugs me really tight when he's scared. :) I don't drain the tub when he's in it anymore, though, because I don't want him to have some weird, irrational fear of tubs or something. Tonight, I drained it when he was out of the tub on my lap, and told him to wave bye-bye to the water, to try to make it seem like an OK thing. He didn't freak out, but he watched very intently. And even when he was still in the tub, every once in a while he would stop playing and stare at the plug in the drain, like he was keeping an eye on it.
Well, hopefully next time I post I'll have some Halloween video and hopefully some pictures, too!
When I was about six months pregnant, Ryan and I decided to get a new camera so we could take lots and lots of pictures and video of our cute little baby. And we did take lots and lots of pictures and video, until that cute little baby turned destructive! He loves to play with electronics - cell phones, remotes, cameras, DVD players, etc - and we should know better than to let him. Owen dropped Ryan's cell phone on the concrete on the 4th of July and broke the screen, and now he broke our camera :( BUT, it is in the shop and is hopefully going to get fixed for free.
I WISH MY CAMERA WASN'T BROKEN! Here are some new things going on with Owen:
-He's a walking pro. He is everywhere all the time and can practically run. He still can't stand up on his own without something to hold onto to pull himself up, but it's not too far away.
-He LOVES to feed himself, which is awesome! It's definitely messier, but it's actually really nice not to have to feed him all the time anymore. There are some things that we still have to feed him, of course, but he loves feeding himself AND the dogs.
-He's getting his two top teeth. He's a really good teether (so far!). No fevers or fussiness. He's just his normal, happy self.
-He is smart. If I say, "Owen, go crazy!", he will sway back and forth and wobble his head. This started the other day when I twirled him around by his arms and then we I put him down, we were both dizzy. I said, "Mommy's crazy!" and wobbled my whole body, so he mimicked me to get me to swing him around again, and now I just have to tell him to go crazy and he will. It's awesome, because it shows that he's learning language!!!!!
-Today I almost left work to go home to hang with my boys because Ryan texted me and said he was playing the radio and Owen was dancing with him. HOW CUTE! And another example of why I NEED MY CAMERA! I got a little preview of this when I came home for lunch, and Owen's dancing looks a lot like his "crazy sway". But I really wanted to blow off work when I read that text!
Owen went to Omaha last weekend with my parents because my little niece got baptized. My mom took some pictures that are pretty cute, but I don't have any of them saved on my computer. I promise that there will be LOTS of pictures next time (if not my own then I will steal some of my mom's) and I'll try not to go so long before I post! I just hate to post without pictures, but I thought I better get this new stuff down before I forget!
I finally got some video! Two, in fact. The first one I actually got about a week ago, and it's of him walking while holding my hand. I was home alone, so I had to put the camera on a stool, and at the very end he lets go of my hand and takes a couple steps alone, but it's hard to see because he's so close to the camera.
What a cutie :) He loves to walk with us like that because we can go and go and go, and we do it quite often. But more and more he is walking all by himself. In this next video, we stood him up and encouraged him to walk to me, but there are lots of times where he will be standing up and start walking on his own. Ryan told me last night that he thinks Owen is starting to realize that it's easier to carry things by walking rather than crawling, which I think might be the case, because he loves to carry things now while he's walking.
What a big boy!
When he falls down, though, he can't get back up into a standing position without pulling up on something - he can't just stand up from a sitting position on his own. If he could, I think he would be walking a lot more, but he has to crawl to the couch or something in order to get back up, and I think he just gets distracted by toys and stuff. I'm pretty impressed with his skills, though!
We also just started using sign language with Owen. I'm not sure how well it will work, because it seems like his always busy doing something and doesn't really take the time to look at me :) We're going to have a go at it though. We are just starting with basic signs that he would need like milk, water, cereal, mom, dad, eat, more, and dog. I majored in Spanish, and I really like the thought of learning new languages, and I'm starting to think learning sign language would be really fun! It would be really awesome to teach Owen Spanish, and I would be able to teach him some, but as a baby learning language, he needs a native speaker to speak to him for him to actually learn it. Or I would have to speak it ALL the time to him, and even though I can teach Spanish, that's to kids who are learning it at a later stage in life and I haven't used more than just basic Spanish in a LONG time - I'm rusty. Anyway, we will see how this goes. I think Ryan likes the idea of Owen learning signs, but doesn't really want to put in the work! :)
...and this time I'm really upset that I don't have any video. At 9 months and 4 days old, Owen walked about four feet yesterday ON HIS OWN! He is CRAZY! He has been practicing with his walk toy a lot, and has taken a couple of steps on his own, but last night was awesome. Ryan and I were sitting on the floor about four feet from each other and we would stand him up and encourage him to walk to us. He was having so much fun, too, laughing and smiling the whole walk over to me. I can never catch him on video though : (
We are also practicing walking by holding onto one of his hands and walking with him. It's funny because he looks like a toddler who is holding his mom or dad's hand to cross the street, not a baby who is strong enough to walk! He loves that, too, he just has so much fun doing new things. Even pinkeye and an ear infection doesn't get in the way of fun!
That's right, my poor baby has pinkeye and an ear infection, just days after getting over diarrhea, which he got not long after getting a cold in which his runny nose never left (maybe he has allergies? Or maybe he's just a snotty nosed little kid!). The diarrhea never really got him down, but we took him to the doctor on Friday anyway, just to be safe. He wasn't dehydrated, so we just had to let it run it's course. On Thursday night, though, he had pooped right before bath time, so after he got out, I decided to let him play a little without a diaper so he wouldn't get a rash. Since he had just pooped not 15 minutes before, I thought he'd be ok for a while. I was so wrong. He was playing in the carpeted living room and pooped - diarrhea poop. So I picked him up and took him to the kitchen to clean up his leg, foot and butt and put the diaper on him. Luckily it took me a few seconds to get a wipe out of the pack, because he pooped again in the kitchen. Poor baby! He really didn't seem bothered by it at all, though, so that's good. The pinkeye and ear infection, on the other hand, are a different story. He's very cranky and his eyes looked so miserable. They were puffy, red, and gunky on Sunday and most of Monday, but we went back to the doctor and got some amoxicillin and eye drops. He absolutely loves the amoxicillin and cries when his dose is gone. The eye drops are a completely different story. It took Ryan and I, not only to hold him down, but to pry open his eyes. It was really difficult because he was crying so his face was wet and he can really hold them shut! He needs those 3 times a day, too, so Ryan's going to have to wait until I go home for lunch to give him any for today. The antibiotics will clear up his ear infection and the pinkeye, but the drops make him non-contagious (if that's a word). But, like I said, last night he was having a great time walking around. I think he gets a second wind after eating food, taking a bath and then having some milk. I think he could have played all night, it was crazy how good he looked and must have felt! Yay for amoxicillin!
I stole some pictures from Ryan's mom's Facebook, so here are some pictures from Jungle Bungle that I didn't have for last post.
Ball pit - NOT a fan!
Playing with Daddy. See his shirt? It's Iowa and says Owen Burke on the back and 44 was Ryan's high school football number. A friend had it made for us, as well as a Vikings one! This was the Iowa/Iowa State game day.
Owen and his cousin Bri.
Playing at Jungle Bungle
I am going to try my hardest to get a video of Owen walking. I should have known he'd be doing physical things at early ages. Ryan jumped on a bike at age two with no training wheels and took off!
Today is Owen's first Grandparent's Day, and it just so happened that he got to see one of his grandmas and a set of great-grandparents. We went down to Muscatine for Ryan's cousin Hayden's birthday party this weekend, so we got to see a LOT of family! There are six kids on that side of the family that are 5 and under, so Owen had a lot of playmates. The birthday party was held at Jungle Bungle, which is a lot like Chucky Cheese, so the kids had a great time. I think even Owen had fun crawling around. There were a few things he could crawl into and a little piano that he liked to bang on. Ryan went into the ball pit with him, but he hated it. It almost seemed like he thought it was a pool and he clung to Ryan like a koala bear. I forgot my camera, gosh dang it, but (Owen's) Grandma Angie had hers, so I'll have to get some from her. So on Owen's first Grandparent's Day, he got to see Grandma Angie, Great-Grandma Nancy and Great-Grandpa Ron. He also got to see Grandpa Dan on Saturday.
It's kind of funny because Owen has two Grandpa Dans. But my dad's legal first name is actually Owen, so either way he went, we'd have double names : ) We did not get to see my parents this weekend, but we did go see them last weekend, and Owen was actually there from Friday night until Monday afternoon. Ryan and I took him on Friday and spent the night, and then Owen stayed a couple of extra days so that Ryan and I could go tubing and camping with friends for Ryan's belated birthday party over Labor Day. So Owen got to spend lots of time with those grandparents last weekend, plus my brother, his wife, and their kids were in town that weekend, so he got to spend time with them. Ian is three and Annaliese is 2 1/2 months younger than Owen, and I think they had a really good time. Ian is a really good big brother to Annaliese and really good about sharing his toys with Owen and making sure the toys he is playing with don't have small parts to them. It's the cutest thing. Ian loved getting down and crawling around with Owen (Annaliese isn't quite crawling yet), and even helped give him a bath (I wasn't there at the time, but I saw a picture of it.). I love watching little kids play together. It's so cute. Owen also got to see Great-Grandma Kuehl last weekend. He's one lucky little boy to get to spend time with all this family!
We don't get to see Ryan's dad and his wife and kids since they moved to Florida, but they did get to meet Owen once before they moved. Maybe we'll just have to plan a vacation...
And even though I knew it was Grandparent's Day, we forgot to say anything when we were in Muscatine, and when we got back it was nap time (for all of us!), and then Ryan and to work and life just got in the way and we didn't even call my parents. So this is our official "Happy Grandparent's Day!!" wish to all of the grandparents and great-grandparents. We love you!!
Now a post wouldn't be a post without a few pictures. So here are a few from the last couple of weeks:
BIG smile and you can see his two pearly whites : )
Getting tickled by Daddy
They love to wrestle on the floor!
Cheering for his favorite team!
Owen has been getting in a lot of practice standing up on his own. He can't get into that position without pulling himself up on something or pushing off of you while you are laying on the floor yet, but he's getting really good at being able to stand alone for long periods of time. He's taken a couple of steps on his own, too, but mostly if you are a couple of baby steps from him, he just leans forward at you instead of moving his feet. He can practically run while he has ahold of furniture, though! He's getting really fast!!
We also started taking Owen to daycare on Wednesdays and Fridays. There is a woman who does in-home daycare in our neighborhood, and we really like her. Her name is Johnna and it's cool because she has a son who is two weeks older than Owen, so he has a built-in friend! I'm glad we decided to take him to daycare to get him socialized and it also gives Ryan a break. He works really late at night and then has to get up early with Owen, so it's a lot for him. It's only for 12 1/2 hours a week, so it's not too expensive, and Ryan and Owen still get to spend some quality time together : ) Owen really seems to like it there. She has a lot of toys and everytime I pick him up, he crawls over to me, but then is pretty much just ready to get back down and play. I don't drop him off, Ryan does, but he said he hasn't cried yet, so hopefully it stays that way. He was having some trouble napping there the first few times, but he's gotten better. I just wish I could see him playing with that other little boy! Johnna said there is quite a bit of difference between them, though. Her boy is barely crawling and Owen's about ready to jump on a bike! : )
My little guy is always on the go. He got this walk toy a little more than a month ago, but it isn't very heavy and Owen hasn't really been able to use it as it's intended because it goes fast and its easy for him to pull it down. But yesterday, my 8 month old cutie finally used his walk toy for more than just something to touch.
I like how he's staring at me the first time. He was getting frustrated that he was running into stuff - he needs more room!
Owen is also getting good at standing without holding on to things, and he's especially good at it when he's distracted. Last night he was chewing on my cell phone and watching TV while he stood for about 15 seconds by himself! Fifteen seconds is a long time! Ryan was also standing him up and letting go, and Owen would stand there for awhile and even took 1 step! Oh my goodness, I'm not ready for this, but it's so exciting!!!
It's getting harder and harder to get Owen to lay still to change his diaper, so the other night after his bath, he played naked for awhile. I figured I'd rather clean up some pee (or poop, but he'd already done that a couple of times that day, so I figured the chances were small) than to have him get mad and fussy, and ended up taking some pictures. : )
He'd rather play with the diaper than wear it!
Owen got his first cold, and I'm the one that gave it to him : ( I got a cold more than a week ago (and its finally just starting to get better) and I tried really hard not to give it to him, but I can't keep my hands or kisses away from him! Ryan and I went out of town last Saturday and Sunday morning, so Owen stayed with some friends of ours. He wasn't sick yet when we left him, but they said he didn't have a very good night and was just not being himself. Which means he was snuggling with them and rocking in the chair with them, instead of crawling around like a crazy man! Luckily he wasn't being fussy, he was still smiling and laughing, but he was definitely not his active self. His nose was really runny and he had a fever on Sunday, but then by Monday he was loads better. I wish I had gotten better that fast! His fever was gone and his nose was much better and he was back to his active ways. It must be my magic milk! : ) This was the first time he had been sick with anything, and hopefully this is an indicator of how good his immune system is. I'm so glad I decided to breastfeed!
I started my new job at Impact Marketing last Monday, and so far it's going great. Since I have no experience in marketing and advertising, I have to learn a lot, but I'm a fast learner so I'm not too worried about that. But so far, I have mostly been organizing the office and especially the office of my boss. The first day I think we threw out 7 bags of trash from his office! Right now the company is going through a buy out, so my boss has a lot of meetings and everyone else in the office is busy doing their own thing, so I haven't really gotten into the meat of the job yet. Eventually, I will be going to meetings with my boss and will be doing more important things than organizing and filing. I think I'm going to like it a lot.
One downfall to the job: I go almost 12 hours without seeing my sweet little baby!! I feed him at 6:30-7:00 in the morning and he just goes back to bed. I come home for lunch around 12:30 and he's taking his first nap. I come home from work at 5:15 and he's taking his 2nd nap! : ( I miss the little guy! Then, he gets up around 6:00 (hopefully!) or I will wake him up at 7:00 so that he can go to bed at 9:00! Only three hours with my baby a day! NOT COOL! I just have to keep reminding myself that a lot of moms are in the same boat, and that I have this job to provide for him. (Besides, in 10 years, HE will be more thankful that he has the right clothes on than the fact that I got to spend more than 3 hours a day with him during the work week when he was a baby [if I stayed at home].) It sucks, though. As soon as he wakes up from his nap, I give him a million kisses on his chubby cheeks! The nice thing, though, is that Ryan is home during the day and works and takes classes at night, so one of us is always home with him and we don't need to pay for daycare. I like that Ryan and Owen get to spend time together by themselves (but I still wish I had more time with BOTH of them!).
So, new job for me and new haircut for Owen. I've given Owen a couple of haircuts before (I just buzz it), but that was back when his hair was falling out anyway and he was starting to get a mullet. Now, Owen's hair is filling in pretty good, but it was just sticking straight up in places and was all over, so I decided to just buzz it again and start fresh. Here are some before pictures:
And here are some after:
Pretty drastic, I think! It's funny because when I buzz Ryan's hair, I use the exact same trimmer, but it looks so much shorter on Owen because his hair is so light and not as thick. I kind of miss his crazy, longer hair, but it will grow back and it's still REALLY soft and fuzzy!
We all got to go to my parent's house last weekend for a visit, although Ryan had to come back early to work. I love visiting grandparents, because Ryan and I both slept in until late! It was awesome. We did our usual 'Elkader stuff': walks, visits with Great-Grandma, swinging, and lots of play time with Grandma and Grandpa for Owen. He also got a lot of kisses from puppies, as well as from his grandparents, of course! I think he really likes the fact that he can crawl all over at my parents' house (aside from going up and down stairs) and isn't stuck in just the living room like he is at our house. He was always on the go! I think he hates being stuck in the living room at our house, and here's why I think that:
He's always trying to escape, and sometimes he's successful. He is crazy and will crawl over ANYTHING. I'm going to have my hands full. I'm really starting to feel bad for Ryan's mom, because I know Ryan was the exact same way, and he had multiple broken bones and stitches as a kid. I'm screwed! ; )
I swear all the kid does is crawl, talk, sleep and EAT! I feel like I'm constantly feeding him, and I'm not even with him that much anymore! I only nurse him about 3 times a day and he gets one formula or pumped bottle other than that, but otherwise he is eating solids. He LOVES fruits and veggies, especially orange veggies. He also really likes these easy dissolve snacks I get at Wal-Mart. They are perfect for snacks on the go and at home and he really likes to feed himself. Today I also gave him some bread pieces and cheese, which he loved as well. I have a good little eater, which is awesome. He's not crazy about baby food meat, but they look and smell disgusting, so I don't even care! Eating time gets pretty messy, though, so most of the time I just strip off his shirt and let him have at it.
Last night, I was laying on the floor playing with Owen, when he crawled over to me, put his hand up on my belly, got up onto his feet, and pushed off my belly to stand up without holding on to anything! He did it a bunch of times and is starting to get pretty good! I think the longest he went was about 5 seconds, which is actually a pretty long time. It was awesome, and tonight he was doing the same thing. He also will just let go of the couch or whatever he was holding onto while he's already standing. He puts his arms out to the side to balance. It's so cute and I love seeing him do and try new things. He'll be walking before I know it!
When Owen spent a long weekend with his Grandma Angie, he came back with a rocking horse. He's been messing around with it for a couple of weeks now, and today he actually climbed up on it by himself (swung his leg over and everything!) and got a little ride with help from Daddy.
There is a guy that calls himself The Naked Cowboy and he wears a cowboy hat, cowboy boots and tightie whities and sings and plays the guitar on the streets of big cities. Well, Owen may not have the hat, boots or guitar, but he's my Naked Cowboy and he's much cuter!!
Here's another picture of Owen enjoying his horse:
Owen has been getting all over the place and getting into everything, so we try to keep him wrangled in the living room. He finds LOTS of stuff to do in there, including playing with Ace
and standing up and banging on the TV!
He loves to pull himself up on any piece of furniture, and sometimes even peeks out the windows! He did manage to pull one of our curtains down, which kind of stinks because we have a big window in the front of our place and I hate that people can see in better now, but the curtains that are there are UGLY, so maybe he's just telling us to finally change them!
This last weekend, Owen and I went to Elkader. My oldest brother lives and works there now, and my other brother and his family were in town visiting, so Owen and I got to see the whole family. On Friday night, we had a fish fry out at my parents' acre, and my nephew Ian got my dad to give him a ride on the tractor, and Owen ended up getting his first ride, too! I think he liked it!
Saturday was a hot one, but my mom and I took Owen for a walk across town and ended up in the park, so Owen got his first experience on a swing (aside from his indoor baby swing and sitting on my lap in a big swing). He seemed to have fun, but the design of the baby swings in parks isn't great, so he was sitting kind of awkward and it looked like it hurt his neck, so when we got back to my parents' house, my dad put up the baby swing that they have. He definitely liked that!
Sunday was another HOT day, so it was time for some pool action. Ian jumped right in and had a good ole time, but Owen was definitely hesitant. I'm not sure if the water was too cold for him or what, but he would stand up in it fine, but if I tried to make him sit or get on all fours in it, he screamed. We haven't been back to the big pool since that one time we went to the Cedar Falls pool, so maybe he just needs more experience with it. He's been wanting to only stand up in the bath now, too, but I think that's just because he's curious about all the stuff in the shower and wants to play with everything (and by play, I mean shove it in his mouth!).
I finally got a job!! It's not a teaching job, which stinks because I worked SO HARD to get my degree, put in a lot of hours in the classroom, and it's something I know that I like, but it's a job. I start on Monday and I will be the assistant to the CEO (or something like that!) for Impact Marketing Technologies in Waterloo. There are so many good things about this job, though, that makes it not being a teaching job, OK.
1. I get paid every 2 weeks. It's the same amount of money every time and we can actually make a budget!! Right now, my husband and I both work at a sports bar and it makes budgeting IMPOSSIBLE because we rely on tips. And if I were substituting again this year, it's still not guaranteed money.
2. By the end of the year, I'll be making more money than I would if I were a teacher.
3. Weekends off!! (Same as if I were teaching/substituting, but not if I were waitressing.)
4. I will be awesome at this job. True, I don't know what all it entails, but I can be good at anything!! ; )
5. Good experience. If finding a teaching job never works out for me, and something happens to this new job, I have my foot in the door for another career path.
6. I can't wait around forever for teaching jobs to open, and I need to do what's right for my family!
I'm very, very, very excited for this opportunity. I HATE starting new jobs, though, because I don't like not knowing how to do my job, but that will turn around in a few weeks or so. I'm still sad that teaching didn't work out for me this year, but I will always have my degree. Wish me luck!!
Owen turned 7 months on Friday and he is doing new stuff all the time. Last week, he learned how to scream, which he does quite a bit. Here's a taste:
Owen also started "cruising" last week, which is where he walks while holding onto furniture. He walks the length of the couch, along the TV, and has even gone from the chair to the end table. It's so crazy how fast he's learning to do all this stuff!
Last Saturday, Ryan's mom came up and took Owen back to her house until today (Tuesday). It's the longest I have been away from my little punkin, so it was scary, but Ryan and I had a great time. One of our friends came to visit from Colorado, so we spent a couple of days on Lake Delhi and just relaxing and sleeping in! It was very fun, but I missed my little guy. Last night, I had a dream that we got him back and he had started walking and talking! It must have felt like a lot longer than 4 days! When we did get him back though, he came back with TWO teeth! His bottom two teeth have popped up and it's weird to feel them in there. I was nervous to nurse him because I was afraid he'd bite me (you should see the way he gnaws on his bottles!) but he was gentle : ) I think I'm going to start pumping more and start weaning him from breastfeeding, but I'm definitely going to keep him on breastmilk. Formula is EXPENSIVE and (knock on wood), Owen has not been sick yet, so I must be giving him some really good stuff! ; )
I also got another surprise when we got him back because over the weekend he learned to say "Mama"!!!!!! It's so cute. He obviously doesn't know what Mama and Dada mean yet, but I love that those where the first two "words" he said.
And of course since Owen spent some time with one of his grandmas, he got spoiled! He came back with a Pack n Play, a walk toy, a rocking horse and his great-grandma got him some clothes. I think he got a lot of attention too, and got to spend time with some cousins. The walk toy is a little advanced for him right now, but he keeps trying, and he sits on the rocking horse and just smiles. I'm sure it won't be long before he's pushing that walk toy everywhere and rocking that horse like there's no tomorrow. What a little sweetie.
We finally got some milestone pictures taken of Owen. We took him to Portrait Innovations in Waterloo and I think they did an awesome job! We picked four poses to have printed, but they gave us a picture CD with all of his pictures, so here are some of my favorites:
We got prints of this one ^
Prints of this one in sepia (brown) tone ^
Prints of this one ^
Prints of this one ^
And one 8x10 of these two side by side in a collage-type picture in sepia tone for us.
There were a lot of cute ones to choose from and it's hard not to spend a ton of money! I'm really glad we got the picture CD with it because then we can print some of our own later (which we have already done)!
I was a little disappointed because he was NOT in the smiling mood. All he wanted to do was crawl back toward Ryan or me. There are even some pictures where he just looks terrified! At home he's all smiles, but not there. It's probably a good thing, though, or we would have had even MORE awesome pics to choose from and it would have been even harder to choose without breaking the bank : )
We finally tried some real baby food today! His first veggie was peas and he actually seemed to like them! I made Ryan watch as I fed them to him the first time because I thought he'd have a funny reaction, but he didn't. That's probably a good thing. So we'll stick to peas for the next couple of days and then try something else - carrots maybe. I hate peas AND carrots, but hopefully Owen won't be picky! We'll see, guess! Ace apparently likes baby food peas too because he loved licking some off of Owen's hands. Gross! : )
Last weekend we decided to go back to Elkader, just for the heck of it, but we had to leave pretty early on Saturday because a blizzard was coming. We made it back ok, but it's been very white around here since then. Luckily, the weather is looking good for this weekend, because we are celebrating the Big 01 for Owen in Dubuque with the grandparents, some aunts, uncles and cousins. It's too bad that his birthday is so close to Christmas, because we want to keep his birthday seperate from all the Christmas stuff, but it's hard for some of my family to get back this way two weekend in a row. So we will have to do some more birthday celebrating at Christmas, too. Oh well, I'm sure Owen won't mind!
