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! : )
It's a good thing that I lowered Owen's mattress the other day, because when I went in to get him out after his nap today, this is how I found him:
STANDING UP IN HIS CRIB!
Lowering the mattress in his crib was a pain in the butt, and afterward I decided not to put the bumper pads back in because I was being lazy and I didn't think he really needed them anymore (plus, books that I read before he was born said not to even use them at all). BUT, after he had been in bed for about 20 minutes, I heard him SCREAMING at the top of his lungs, so I went in there and he had gotten his arm stuck through the bars. So I put them back in, but did not tie them to the posts, and when I went in the next morning to get him out, this is what I found:
I'm not sure how he manages to do stuff like this but he did the same thing at my mom's a couple of weekends ago. So I ended up tying them to the posts :)
On Tuesday, Ryan and I took Owen to the pool. The pool in Cedar Falls is really nice and it has a baby pool, lazy river, a family pool, two diving boards and three waterslides. The baby pool has lots of stuff for kids to do and climb on, which of course Owen can't do yet, but it will be fun in the years to come! Anyway, I took Owen in the baby pool first because I thought it would be warmer than the other pool (for gross reasons!) and he acted terrified! He clung to me like a koala bear! It was cute but he was pulling my hair out of my ponytail and I could have stood up and not held on to him and he would have hung on just fine. I was surprised because he LOVES taking baths. So then we took him over to the family pool and it was the same story there. I thought he was going to pull my hair out of my head, so I gave him to Ryan for awhile. Then he was fine! Little turkey! He started smiling and didn't cling to Ryan at all. And later when I took him back (Ryan wanted to go down the slide), he clung to me again like a koala bear. I did manage to unglue him from me a few times and we "swam" around. He seemed to like it, but if I didn't keep him away from my body a little bit, he would cling. I don't know if he just felt safer with Ryan or what, but it was kind of funny. We're going to keep going so he gets more experience.
Owen is always on the move! Today he crawled from the living room all the way to the bedroom, which is the length of our house. Maybe he was looking for his Daddy, who was still in bed. :) He's a master crawler now and getting fast! And yesterday he was babbling away saying "Da-da" quite a bit. He started doing that about 3 weeks ago, but only did it for a couple of days and then stopped until yesterday. I got a few of them out today. I'm working on "Ma-ma" now!
Here are a couple of cute videos I took today.
I didn't even have to clean it up because Ace came right over and ate what was on the floor!
What a cutie! And yes, he fell a little bit and bonked his head at the end. When I put the videos on the computer and watch them, Owen gets a big kick out of seeing and hearing them. He loved that last video!
