Sunday Ramblings

Whenever Greg is home alone with Felix and Robee and Owen he makes them run laps (up and down the stairs), and do push-ups and sit-ups. Felix just came downstairs and said Robee, have you done your laps, push-ups and sit-ups today? He replied that he had not. She said, um, Greg needs you to. The conversation was very serious. Robee then asked Felix if she had done hers. She said that she lifted weights with Greg and Ben and that Greg let her know that would count. Robee got up and went upstairs as though he really had to go do them. I envision a very scary childhood for Owen and can hear it now, the home workout in preparation for baseball, football, and basketball. Good thing Owen has me.

This weekend Owen got a haircut. He is really good and each time we go, they always say he is better than any kids they see and even some adults. He just sits perfectly still and smiles at me. I love when he gets a haircut but it reminds me that he is getting old.After the haircut on Friday we went and ate at Boston's Pizza with Ben. They had just opened and we have been dying for a new restaurant as Red Robin in the only thing close. We were feeling adventurous and one may imagine, extremely hungry, and so we ordered the triple play appetizer consisting of garlic bread, Parmesan bread, potato skins, cheese quesadillas, "screaming hot" buffalo wings and cheese sticks. It was delicious. That was just the beginning, then we ordered dinner. Thank heavens the brownie dessert had nuts in it - we couldn't have said no otherwise.

Greg is playing on a flag football league with Angie's soon to be husband (she hates the word fiance, but I suspect she will hate that more). I have a theory that Greg has joined forces with Steve in order to position himself better when it comes to my acceptance of his leaving and constant play time. He has invited Steve to play baseball with him, in fact, Greg's teammates are revolting and moving away from the bad team they are. A select few are moving up to an intermediate league. Greg was invited to go. I asked him what he was going to do and he told me that he would much rather play with Steve than move up. I have known Greg now for 15 years and he will never convince me that this is true. He will try, he will read this and insist that it is true, he will swear that his friend Steve is the most important part of this. It won't matter. I don't believe it. Deep down Greg believes, and is probably right, that if Steve too is always gone, I will have Angie to discuss it with and we will both be going through the same thing which will help his cause. Greg just pretends to be sweet and innocent.
Greg was practicing yesterday for the football game (they were running through some plays, apparently it is a very serious league). Owen and I went to the mall and to go eat a sandwich. I found him a shirt and he says what he says everyday when I get him dressed..CUTE! He wanted a cheese sandwich after we shopped. Here he is eating and poking the sandwich.

Ok, it is official, Greg does not think highly of my intelligence. He teaches Owen Spanish all the time and we were just asking Owen how daddy says different words (like monkey, lion, elephant and tiger) and Owen responds to every question with "mas", Greg says "no" and then Owen tells him the right word. I just asked Greg if he had taught Owen the word "si". I told him he kept saying si to Angie the other day. In a very over confident manner, Greg said that he had taught Owen that word and then said "it means yes". I do not know much Spanish, but I think almost everyone knows that "si" means "yes". Greg started laughing and said he had no idea why he told me that. I don't know either!

Greg starts his new job tomorrow. I am more stressed about it than Greg!! I just hate the unknown and as soon as I know that Greg likes it, when his paydays are, and how much each check will be I will relax (until I find something else to freak out about).

A few pictures

Angie and I are going to teach a mom and baby yoga class. We had to meet with the people to take some pictures for the advertising on their website and pamphlets. Owen did a great job!!

Downdog with Mom

Updog with Mom

Tree with Noni

Bow with Mom

Dancer with Noni

Chair with Mom

Noni as a bridge

Mom as a bridge

I must admit...

Ok, I will admit it, I am addicted to Days of Our Lives. I have been withholding this information in my blog entries for fear of what this may do to my reputation, but after watching today's episode just now, I can't stand to hold it in anymore. I LOVE IT! I watch other shows first just so that it won't be over and I can still see it on my DVR as an option. I honestly have no idea how this happened, I haven't watched this show for 15 years and suddenly I am hooked.

Sorry to Greg who wanted to hang out with me and watch something tonight, I told him no, I wanted to watch Days and I couldn't bear to watch it with him. Not the same. Besides, I can't take any chances, he may watch it and be addicted, after all, it is so good. I was just protecting him from what may happen.

Well, now we have that out of the way, I feel much better.

Owen talks in his sleep all the time, he says no to people and says hi, he says things that happened in the day, and he yells at people (usually saying NO PAPA - my dad teases him all the time) but last night was my favorite. He sleeps in our bed so I hear everything. Last night he started saying "mommy, o not wear clothes". He kept saying this over and over. He will often say things until I talk back. He was totally asleep but I said, "You are okay, you are wearing clothes", he said no and started crying. He sat up on his knees and leaned over and started pushing me. I asked him why he was pushing mommy. He told me that I needed to get him some clothes. Poor little thing was so distraught thinking that he wasn't wearing any clothes and using all his might to push me out of the bed. I told him he had clothes on and hugged him really tight. He seemed to accept the fact that his pajamas were on and all was well.

Whenever my dad asks Owen who taught him to do something he says Ben. Owen informed my dad that Ben taught him how to eat with a spoon.

Owen keeps calling me Jennifer, he says "jenna". I get this mostly at night when I am trying to get him to go to sleep and I am lying with him very still. He will say Mommy, mommy..and when I don't answer, he repeats, Jenna, Jenna, Jenna. He finds himself so amusing. Of course he still calls me Monia and Mom-eye as well. He calls Greg "geg" more than Greg would like.

Speaking of Greg, he got a new job. He wasn't really looking for a new job, well, he did go online and searched "available jobs in the Seattle area". Just kidding, it didn't work exactly like that. He didn't get as big of a raise as we would have liked, and without much thought, was just looking around on the Internet for the comparable salaries for his position. He found a job posting for another bank and applied. They called him back but when he explained how much he would have to make in order to leave his current job they said it wasn't a good fit. That was that and we were fine with what we had. Then, about a week later they called Greg and said they had a position open up for an underwriter and thought Greg would fit well. He interviewed, interviewed again, met with the staff members to see if they would get along, had to tell his boss that they would be calling to check references, negotiated the salary and finally took the position. He starts on January 28. The best part is that he currently drives 45 miles to work and the new job is 20 miles away and just down the street from my office. Better pay and we save a lot on gas each month. I am of course freaking out. I will be happy when he gets there. People's Bank has been good for him and we will always be grateful for the job, Cascade Bank will hopefully offer new opportunities for him that will make him happy (and get rid of our credit card debt).

I have some great pictures of O, but they are on Angie's camera. I will get them posted as soon as I get them from her. I am off to bed with a smile knowing that tomorrow is Friday and there is still one more episode of Days of Our Lives before the weekend.

This is my day

This is my day, all day..... "O talk to daddy", "No, not right now, daddy is at work and he is busy", "Why Mommy", "Because he has things to do at work", "Why", "Because the bank told him to do something", "Why", "Because they need daddy's help", "Why", "Just Because"

"Owen, don't touch the pan, it is getting hot", "Why", "Because I turned on the oven to cook your pancake", "Why", "Because it needs to be hot to cook anything", "Why", "Because the pancake can't cook unless it is hot", "Why", "Just Because"

"Owen, it is time for you to go to sleep", "Why", "Because it is late and you are tired", "Why", "Because you didn't take a very long nap and you played all day", "Why", "Because you were at the office", "Why", "Because you and daddy had to bring mommy the vacuum", "Why", "Owen close your eyes", "Why Mom-eye"...... (I have no idea why he calls me that)

Greg claims this is how my conversations with him go as well and I am sure you can guess that it isn't Greg always asking why.

Never as Planned

So, Angie and I had our new yoga session start last Thursday. We teach for 5 Thursdays and the class is a pre-pay. The Thursday sessions weren't going to start until February but our class from last time asked us to start sooner. I was able to work it out with the city that we are employed by. This was an unadvertised class and we knew we had 7 people coming that have been doing yoga with us for some time. Ang and I were excited and got to class early on Thursday to prepare. We discussed what we are going to do and decided it was time to really push everyone. We practiced a really hard class and wrote down all the new things we were going to do. It was time to unlock the doors. We were sitting there with about 10 minutes left before the super challenging hard class was to begin. We hear the door close, our students are arriving. Hope they are ready for this class we have planned we think to ourselves. This class will be great. Then, in walks a couple we have never seen before. They appear to be holding what could be a yoga mat but we aren't quite sure. We look at each other with questioning faces. They sit down and start taking off their shoes. It seems like they are here for our class. Angie and I are nervously assessing the situation....maybe they are here to watch, maybe they are in the wrong place. I ask them if they are here for yoga and they say yes with excited trusting eyes. I ask them, "Have you done yoga before". "No", they say. Panic begins to set in. Why would we panic because a couple walks in we have never seen before. Well, the class that we have planned will probably not work for our new 61 year-old students, oh and especially for the husband who walks with a cane. In fact, our REGULAR class was out the window too. We had 5 minutes, everyone was coming in, people are handing me registration forms, everyone is setting up their mat and in the meantime we are a million miles away in our heads wondering how will this work, what will we do, dolphin pose is out, maybe we could meditate for the entire class - work on our breathing. The class starts and we settle into the breath. Angie and I exchange worried smiles as the rest of the class is breathing (eyes closed of course). Class begins. We took it slow, got everyone moving. We both felt at times things were going horribly. Suddenly we were in the final relaxation pose and I took a moment to notice the positive calm energy that filled the room. The couple told us after class how wonderful it was and how they felt great to get their bodies moving. The rest of the class thought it was a good class back after the holidays and said they couldn't wait to come back next time.

I forget and the reminder is good - sometimes the best plans are no plans at all.