Friday, March 28, 2008

The movie in my head

Owen and Robee were just outside playing in the snow (yes, snow). I looked outside to see what they were doing. At first I didn't see anyone, then from the side Owen came into view. He was running, the yellow coat and the blue rain boots heading for something. I glanced out front and I saw the target. A snowman. I then (without surprise) saw Robee running full speed after Owen. The image was something you would see in a cartoon or a movie. I could hear the dialogue in my head. It was almost a victory for Owen, inches before the snowman, inches before he could smile with pride, Robee tackled him to the ground and saved the poor little snow guy. Owen was lying in the snow. Defeated.

Poor Robee, this is not the end of this story.

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

And so they sleep

It is late, we leave tomorrow for Utah. There is so much to do, nothing is packed, things are a mess around here, and I still have work to do. Only one thing left to say....it is good to be the dad.

Sunday, March 16, 2008

To Nap or Not To Nap



What a conflicting question I ask myself. Should Owen take a nap or not. Heaven knows he NEEDS the nap, and most days he wants the nap, but bedtime at 8:00 after 2 books and no fighting about going to sleep is very tempting. While I may have had what feels like endless amounts of time to complete the many things that did not get done today, that isn't to say I didn't pay for the no nap this afternoon. I think he hit me 5 or so times, I can't count how many times he whined for something and he mentioned a lot today that he was getting kinda tired. Poor little thing. I know the nap makes us like each other more, but oh how nice it is to have a sleeping child early in the night. It is probably only a matter of time before he doesn't take a nap and still won't go to bed!!

We are gearing up for our trip back to Utah. We all leave on Wednesday and will be there until Sunday. (We all = me, Greg, Owen, Angie, Steve and Ben). We are heading back for our step-sister's wedding. We keep telling Owen who he is going to see. Some he remembers, some he says he doesn't know. We haven't been back since September (and Greg hasn't been back since Christmas, 2006) so he is probably right that he doesn't know some of them. We are very excited to be able to attend Grandma Lori's annual Easter egg hunt. I tried explaining it to Owen and you could tell he was so confused why we would look for eggs outside.
I learned in school this week that time-outs aren't the best idea. I want to write more about what I learned, but I am having great conflict with this so far. I need to ask some questions next class and then I will write about it. I am just not sure what the alternative is. I always thought they were working with Owen, but then I realized that before Thursday he had been on his "stool" (we have a tall stool he sits on) for hitting me about 10 times. If the time-out were working I am not sure we would keep going back there. I am at a loss, as after Thursday I tried really hard not to put him on the stool and he seemed to enjoy this new chance to hit me and then not have to go to the stool. I tried ignoring him, he hit me again, I tried explaining that I was sad when he hit me, he said he was sorry for making mommy feel bad and then hit me about 10 minutes later, I tried telling him to go play in his room away from me if he was going to hit, he just said no (and probably hit me again), I even tried putting him back on the stool today, he hit me when he got down. Actually, when he said he was sorry, he really said, "sorry mommy O not see that". I tried to explain that he most certainly saw my arm sitting there, but he was insistent. He also said "sorry mommy O not mean to". I again tried to explain the concept of an accident and purposely hitting someone but he was just sure he didn't mean to. (He LOVES these two sayings. He says them all the time with respect to anything). Clearly we have an issue here. Maybe it isn't the consequence of the hitting I should be concerned about but why he is hitting in the first place. My class teaches that kids act out and misbehave when they are trying to get a need met. I obviously need some more clarity and perhaps a little more patience on this one. I will seek out some answers and share as I can.

Tonight Felix sneezed and Owen looked at her and said "Bless you". Then he went about with what he was doing. Hilarious! His new favorite word is also and he thinks he is pretty neat for using it. He still LOVES to sing. His new song of the week is Are you Sleeping. It is very rare to go 10 minutes without him singing a song. Tonight he was reading a book with Greg that had a sheep in it, he started singing Mary had a Little Sheep. Clever. He has also made up some ridiculous answer for things, here is a typical conversation..."Mommy watch". "Why did you just hit T.J." (he never really hits me or anything, he just swings him arm in the air as though he were hitting). "Because daddy say yes every time"...a few minutes later... "mommy, o hit daddy". "Why did you hit daddy?" "Because Grandpa say yes every time"... another day, "Owen why did you just throw your bear, that wasn't very nice". "Because Kiki say yes every time". This is ALL DAY.

We are going to the reptile zoo with his school tomorrow morning, he said he is so excited!

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Frogs

The frogs were especially loud tonight!! There is no picture in the video, only frog sounds from the pond in the backyard.

This is what Owen was listening for in the previous video.

Friday, March 7, 2008

Singing and Listening

Owen walks around singing all day long. This is his new favorite song to sing (and yes, he is wearing my high heels when the song starts).


He makes me laugh when he listens. Rather than putting his hand on his ear he puts it on his cheek. Here he is in this video listening for the frogs out in the pond in the backyard. That is our sign of spring!!!

Update from School

I love what I am learning in Owen's school and I decided I would share. I would want to know the information that I am learning, so while I know it may not be for everyone, I figured someone may benefit from it.

We talked about two issues this week, allowance and cleaning up toys. One of the parents brought up the issue of allowance with respect to doing chores around the house. The teacher was really against this "reward" system to perform while withholding the reward for non-performance. She recommended that everyone gets an allowance because they are part of the family, while at the same time, the chores are done by everyone because they are part of the family. We discussed that the two shouldn't be connected. She said that it is useful at the beginning of the week to decide who is going to do what jobs throughout the week. Allowing the kids to pick the job makes it more important to them. She said to make sure everyone picks jobs - even dads and the little ones, changing jobs each week. She also said that there should be a list of jobs that the kids can do to earn money, things that don't always get done but need to be done (pulling weeds, working outside, extra cleaning inside). With this system there isn't the same push pull relationship going on. If the child wants money for something extra they know how to get it.

So as we were discussing that, someone asked about how to get the kids to pick up toys. Everyone agreed that their kids never pick up toys. She said that kids don't look at the toys as a mess, they are their toys and they were just playing with them, they don't and won't see the same mess we see. She said that kids won't learn to pick up the toys by taking the toys away. She said that the only thing this does is cause resentment between you and the kids and they forget about the toys you took anyway. They will still make a mess, they will still leave it there, and we will still be mad. She said when it is time to clean up, helping the kids clean up is the best thing to do. She said to make a game out of it, doing things like setting a timer and trying to pick up all the toys before it rings, or looking for all of the red toys or letting the kids be the boss and ask them to decide who is going to clean up which toys (and mom doing everything is not an option). She also gave the option to put on music while you clean or sing songs.

So these were the main ideas of the discussion this week. I hope that this may help someone alleviate some anguish this week!!!

Wednesday, March 5, 2008

Another Week

(Owen and I went to the children's museum last Friday and made this frog hat in the art room)

When you get tired of looking at your own blog it has been way too long! Another week has zoomed by bringing me back to Thursday. It seems like we just had school and here we are again! I don't know how to keep up with things. We had music class today, always a highlight of Owen's week. Following music class it is off to the office to visit our "friends" (or as Owen says our "pens" (f's are pronounced as p's). We love visiting with Noni (Angie), Ben and Grandpa. It has been nice to have Greg so close to add him to the list of friends to visit after music class.


Tomorrow is another school day. I totally love going to this school. It is fun to see Owen getting more used to things. We finally left the birdseed bin last week and made things with the playdough. Last week in my parenting class we talked about anger and how important it is to acknowledge to kids that anger is ok. It is how we deal with the anger that may need some working on. The parenting style they "teach" really works for Greg and I. We discuss a lot in our groups how common it is to denying kids their feelings. They say they are tired, we say no you are not, they say they are hot, we say no it is cold or they may say they are sad and we say things like they can't be sad, there is nothing to be sad about. I find myself doing that with Owen. I have been really trying to accept what he says and help him identify what he is feeling (no matter what I feel about it, or how I am really quite sure he is not sick when he doesn't want to eat his dinner). It is hard! Tomorrow I am going to ask the educator how I can prevent myself from going crazy when Owen makes a grunting sound to communicate with me rather than saying mommy. I am getting really tired of the pointing and the noise. I ask him 100 times a day to use his words. I definitely need some guidance on this. I told Owen he was driving me nuts the other day. He said, sorry mommy, o not mean drive mommy nuts. Then of course I felt terrible.

Tonight he asked if he could watch one Little Einstein movie. I said no and that it was getting late. He said, "pease mommy, o want watch eeky (he still uses that word for little) einine rearry bad. mommy say, aaaaallll right, pine." I must say alright, fine a lot. He tells me to say that all the time. (Owen loves taking his picture, I have so many pictures like this on my camera)

The best news of the week is that we paid off a credit card - HOORAY to that! (still a few more to go)