Big Boy Bed

Last week, Ryan and I did a little bit of an overhaul on Owen's room - got rid of some stuff, moved things around, put his toy boxes in there, and biggest of all, converted his crib into a big boy bed! I had told myself (and had been told by other parents) that I wouldn't change his bed to a big boy one until he finally tried climbing out of his crib. He has made a couple of attempts when he was really mad about going to bed, but almost fell one of those times and I think it scared him enough that he never made a good attempt. BUT, Owen has slept in a regular bed a few times before - in hotels and in our new camper - and did a GREAT job. So Ryan and I decided we would try it out at home.

Owen sleeping in a regular bed at the hotel a few months ago. He started out under the covers with his head on the pillow, in the middle of the night was like this, and then woke up laying "normal" again. 

The nice thing about his crib is that we just take out a few screws, pop off the front rail, and voila - instant big boy daybed. So I knew that if it wasn't working out, we could always revert to the crib by screwing the rail back on in a few minutes. But thankfully, we haven't had to!

Owen was so excited about his new big boy bed. After we had switched it, we were all in the living room watching TV and Owen comes up to me and says, "Thank you my big boy bed, Mommy!" and gives me a kiss on the cheek. Stuff like that just melts my heart! It was so genuine. I told him, "Your welcome, but Daddy did most of the work!" So he wandered over to Ryan and said, "Dad! Thank you my big boy bed!" and gave him a kiss on the cheek, too. What a sweetie!!

So at bed time I tucked him in under the covers and sat on the floor next to him and read him a story. After the story, he was ready to get back up! Oh, NO! I thought he was going to be so excited about his bed that he would have no problem. Turns out he just needed to give Daddy a hug and kiss. After that, he snuggled back in bed and I went to get ready for bed. I was walking back and forth down the hallway a few times and would peek in his room. Once, he was standing on his bed, getting a monkey down from the changing table and then snuggled back under the covers. Another time he was just sitting up, playing with his stuffed animals. When I finally got into bed, I could hear him singing to himself and talking about Daddy's "big twuck!" (He LOVES Ryan's truck. LOVES!) And after a while, he was quiet, so I went to check on him again, and I couldn't resist taking a picture.

Sleeping like an angel!

Slept all night, no problems! The next morning I went in to wake him up and asked him if he had a good nigh-night in his big boy bed. "YEAH! My wuv my big boy bed!"

We've had really good luck with this little boy since the day he was born, but I'm surprised at how well this transition has gone...so far. (Knocking on wood!) We had one night where he woke up at 3 am and I had to put him back in bed and read him a few stories and then pretend to sleep with him. That didn't work, but after about an hour - hour and a half, he let me go back to my bed and stayed in his. Otherwise, he stays in bed until he wakes up!

Actually, I can tell that he sometimes gets out of bed and plays with his toys for a little while, just by the music that is playing in his room, but as long as he stays in his room, I'm not going to worry about that. Once, though, while he was supposed to be laying down for a nap, Ryan was walking by his room and he was out of bed. Owen could hear Ryan coming down the hall so he quick ran back to his bed and looked at Ryan like, "What? I've been in my bed the whole time!" and then when Ryan walked away, Owen got back out of bed and shut his door! I thought that was pretty funny. He ended up falling asleep in his bed and took a great nap!

Monday night. I just can't stop myself from taking pictures of him sleeping! It's so cute!

And this was later that night! He doesn't remember sleeping on the floor. When he got up in the morning, he was back in bed. We didn't move him.

I asked him on Tuesday afternoon if he slept on the floor. He said, "At Ron's house?" (Ron and Tammy are our overnight babysitters in town, and he had gone to their house last Friday night and had slept on the floor in the living room.) I said, "No, at Mommy's house." He gave me a look like I was crazy and said, "NO!" I told him he did and showed him the picture. He didn't really know what to say!

This morning, Ryan told me he was on the floor again, and he ended up waking up on the floor. He got up before I did and came into my room and I asked him if he slept on the floor and he said, "Yeah." "Did you fall out of bed?" "Yeah." I don't know if that's actually what happens or not, because I never hear anything on the monitor, but somehow he ends up on the floor sometimes! Apparently it doesn't bother him, though!

I'm going to keep praying that the big boy bed thing keeps going as well as it has so far, so you can add that to your prayer list, too! Thanks! : )

Omaha Weekend

A few weekends ago, Owen got to go to Omaha to visit my brother, sister in law and their kids with Nana and Boppa. Ryan and I had some stuff going on at home, so we didn't go, but my family took lots of great pictures! They might not be in order - like I said, I wasn't there. I just picked some of my favorites.

Playing in the sandbox, waiting for his cousins to get home

Driving around

On the tank with Ian

Time to slide!

Aunt Colleen helping them seesaw!

SO much fun!

Candy Land with Ian and Nana

Dressing up the superhero

Snuggle time with Annaliese - so adorable!

Snuggle time with Boppa

Going for a ride!

Playing frisbee

Resting

I think this spins??

Boppa helping Owen and Annaliese seesaw

My little boy on Cloud 9 (I would be willing to bet, anyway) - trucks in the sand

Sand in the toes!

It looks like he had lots of fun! Hopefully we can all get back out there this summer and hit up the zoo and Children's museum again!

Happy Easter!

     Owen had quite the Easter experience this year - 5 Easter egg hunts! He's a pro now! The first one was the Thursday before Easter,  at his normal day care (Amy). He was in charge of getting all of the blue and green eggs, and his friend Emmalyn was in charge of getting the pink and purple. Apparently he had fun because he kept talking about finding eggs by the little tree.

     Then on Friday, Owen went to his previous daycare (we switched at the beginning of this year because our lady, Johnna, had a baby and moved) because Amy was closed. Owen was pretty excited to go see his old friends, whom he remembers pretty well because Johnna gave him a photo album for Christmas. Anyway, Johnna was planning an Easter egg hunt for that day in her HUGE backyard, and hid something like 105 eggs! For 3 kids! She said he found 24 eggs, but was getting kind of distracted because she has a swing set in her yard and he LOVES to swing and slide. But he had a GREAT time!

      Next up was the Easter egg hunt in Elkader at the city park. LOTS of kids showed up! We got there about 10 minutes early, which ended up being a bad thing, because all Owen wanted to do was play on the playground equipment! He was crying and kicking and screaming, but we made him wait. We also made him take a picture with the Easter Bunny - he didn't think too much of that!

     They finally started, and for the kids 1st grade and under, it wasn't really an egg hunt, but more of a pick up as much candy from the ground as you can find, which I thought was kind of dumb because eggs are much easier to find! Oh well, he was having a good time and even shared his candy with us.

    When the candy had all been picked up, we headed over to the playground for a while.

Weee!

   Later that night, it was time to color eggs. He had colored some at Amy's house, too, so knew just what to do. He'd drop them right in and tell me when they were done, or if they needed to go in a different color, too. He was pretty upset when there were no more to dye!

Boppa had to make a DOT orange egg

Ryan and I had fun coloring eggs too!

    That night, the Easter Bunny came to Nana and Boppa's house and hid his basket in the house and his eggs outside, so Owen had to search! We directed him around the house, telling him to look in the bathroom, the office, in the corners, etc, until he found his basket hiding in the corner of the dining room. The  bunny brought him candy, a Tow Mater shirt and an Elmo movie. Then we headed to the yard to find all the eggs! He did an awesome job!

     Then, this last weekend, we had our first camping trip (in our new camper! More about that some other time.) and since we hadn't seen Ryan's family for Easter and three of his cousins were camping, too, we had one last Easter egg hunt at the campground. They all had a great time, but now we have TOO MUCH CANDY! : )

   This weekend Owen is off to see his cousins with Nana and Boppa in Omaha, and then on Monday is starting back up at his "old" daycare with Johnna because Amy got a new job. Owen will miss his girlfriend Emmalyn, but I think will be happy to get to see his buddies Zadyn and Alex again and hang with the boys!

Picture Montage

Yeah, yeah. I stink at keeping up on my blog. So here's a BUNCH of pictures to tell some stories about what we have been up to since Christmas.

January:

Daddy went shopping and bought Owen an Iowa stocking cap (the exact same one that Ryan has) and a new sweatshirt. Here he is modeling them.











I tried to catch him making his "mean face", but he would start to laugh before the picture was done taking. Here's the most ferocious one I could capture:

Here are a couple of him sleeping. In the first one, he's pushed all the way into a corner of his crib because he has so much stuff in his crib - stuffed animals, pillows, books, and blankets. But God forbid I take any of them out!

<---

This second one shows him falling asleep for a nap with Fruit Loops and his computer. He LOVES that computer! He's so cute when he's sleeping! Oh, and when he's awake, too!   --->

My little punky LOVES to help! In fact, he will throw a fit if you do laundry, unload the dishwasher, start the dishwasher, give the dogs food, or sweep without him. So here he is, sweeping up his hair after a new buzz cut.

<---

"My wuv egg, Mommy!" --->

February:

<---

Owen also loves to help cook and bake. So here he is "cooking soup" (stirring water) while I was making minestrone.

And here he is helping me with brownies.  --->

Over here is my Valentine, sporting the sunglasses he got from his friend Macy at daycare.

<---

Showing off his cool "tattoos" - Lightning McQueen and on the other arm is Mater. 

            --->

We went to Muscatine to visit Ryan's family and stayed in the hotel. We learned Owen can swim by himself! Well, with a life jacket of course, but he can move on his own!! "My swim big boy!"    --->

Video here

<---

We went shopping the next day and found this AWESOME Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles backpack for Owen. He didn't get much say in the matter. : )

March:

March started out pretty warm, so we decided Owen needed some rain boots for all the mud (and winter dog poop) in the yard. He did get to pick these out! I had to cut off the tags and the plastic binding them together so he could wear them through the store. He will wear them rain or shine. --->

<---

Owen stayed at Grandma Angie's for a weekend, and when he came home, I had underpants and a potty seat for him. He wore the underpants for a while that day (Captain America ones shown here), but later on he got to running a little too fast and fell and face planted right onto the edge of the coffee table in this picture. LOTS of blood and swelling...

---->

This is actually him a day or two later. The picture doesn't really do it justice, though, poor baby! He didn't look like himself and had a hard time using a sippy cup. We did lots of snuggling.

We haven't been pushing potty training 

too hard. He's not ready. He will go every once in a while, but he mostly refuses.

<---Our March weather was AWESOME! This is March 15, and Owen is enjoying a ride home with his window all the way down. It's a good thing our car has window locks on it though, because he figured out pretty quickly how to do it himself.

On the slide at the playground. --->

Playing with Play Doh and his dump truck (an almost nightly ritual).

And last, but not least, what little boy doesn't love to blow bubbles? This is the first year he's been able to do it by himself, and he loves it!

So that's what we have been up to. The crazy kid gets smarter everyday and its so fun because I don't know what he learns all the time at daycare, and then out of the blue he will say something and I just think, 'Did my two year old just say that?!' He's SO smart!!!!!!!!

Christmas 2011

Christmas morning, Owen was feeling better. He had slept all night without throwing up, and was ready for presents!! He found a few under the tree to open:

A remote control car

A black and red ball that he calls his Spiderman ball.

A variety of CAT trucks

After that we packed up and headed to Muscatine. I was still kind of weary that he was going to throw up again, but thankfully that was not the case. He was a little more shy and clingy when we first got there, but we just snuggled a bit and that was fine with me! : ) Surprisingly, Owen was more interested in eating all the appetizer stuff than I was - I think all the puke the night before kind of ruined my appetite. After a little while, though, Owen started yelling, "Mommy!" and whimpering. I picked him up and he moved so that his tummy was on my shoulder. I think he had a tummy ache and/or was having a hard time pooping. Needless to say, he filled up 2 diapers in about 1/2 an hour. I'm still not sure what was really the matter with him. Must have just been a 24 hour bug, because after he got that out of his system, he was good to go!

The rest of the afternoon we hung out at Ryan's grandma's house and ate and opened presents. Owen got to play with cousins. Then it was off to Ryan's mom's to open more presents!! I can't even remember everything that he got (probably because it's April now!) but there were some clothes and an art desk in there. We spent the night at Ryan's uncle's house and the next day made our way up to Elkader. 

There, Owen got to play with his cousins and be spoiled with more presents. He got lots of colors and coloring books, trucks, books and movies. 

I had taken the whole week between Christmas and New Year's off from work, and would have LIKED to spend more time in Elkader, but Ryan had to go back to work and Owen was coming BACK to Elkader for New Year's so his mom and dad could have fun : ) So we left on Tuesday morning. Then comes the fun job of opening the seemingly millions of presents and finding enough batteries for everything!

It was really nice to be able to see everyone over the one weekend, but it does get to be a lot of travelling. Thank goodness Owen wasn't sick longer than he was, and we still got to have a good Christmas!

Christmas Plans

I told myself my New Year's Resolution would be too keep up on my blog, and look at me. Already the middle of February and I haven't even posted about Christmas!

WARNING: This post is a little graphic!

Our plans for Christmas were supposed to be:
24th - Leave for Muscatine after Ryan got off work
25th - Presents at Ryan's moms, dinner and presents at his grandma's, then leave for Elkader
26th - Spend day with family, open presents after supper
27th - Say "Happy birthday!" to my Dad and head home.

BUT, on Christmas Eve, Owen and I headed to Target to get some wrapping paper and other little things, and while we were there, Owen was laying down in the cart. I just thought he was tired, but when I looked at him more closely, he was pale. I tried to take his hat and coat off, but he just started bawling and screaming and didn't stop until we got home. I felt his head, which was pretty warm, so I gave him (force fed him) some Tylenol, which within 30 seconds he had thrown up. UGH. I absolutely HATE puke. I've never been able to handle it, but my "Mom Superpowers" kicked in and I just cleaned him up, changed him and put him in bed, hoping and praying that it was a one time puke because he had gotten so worked up. He had been sleeping for about an hour when I heard some commotion in his room and when I went in there, he had thrown up in his bed and then threw up again before I could get him out. Poor punky! So into the bathroom we went to get cleaned up again. This time, I opted for no clothes on Owen, which turned out to be the right choice or he would have gone through his entire wardrobe by night's end. Then it was time to clean the puke from his bed. ICK! ICK, ICK! At least I knew from the last time Owen had been sick NOT to just put this blankets and sheets directly into the washing machine (Common sense, no? Apparently not to dads! I was cleaning puke out of the machine for a few days after that).

Poor little man!

So all afternoon and part of the evening, Owen was sick. The worst part was that kids his age give absolutely no warning before they throw up. One second your just laying there, the next you have puke on you. ICK! He even started eating a little bit of my supper while sitting on my lap, but then puked all over me while I was eating. But I was kind of proud of myself. I handled it better than I ever could imagine. Mom's really do have superpowers, I think! Thankfully, he slept through the night and we could continue with our Christmas plans...