What we've been up to...

Playing with Scout...Santa hid him in the coat closet and we didn't find him until yesterday. You can plug him into the computer and program him specifically for your child. He says "Owen" and even sings a song about him. Scout's favorite animal is a monkey and his favorite color is green.

Here is the turtle desk I referred to in the last post. Owen is turning into quite the artiste.

And then there are these blocks. This child cannot get enough of them. We build and build until he has to get the stool to reach the top. Thank goodness there are only 100 of them or we would need to pull out the stepladder.

P.S. I am not crazy about the new header/background but I finally gave up last night around 11:30. I am such a perfectionist, so it will likely be changing at the first chance I get.

Christmas 2009

***This post will most likely be all over the place. I apologize in advance if it doesn't flow, but I have been meaning to do this since Friday night. We also have a new camera, thanks to all our parents, so you will hopefully get some nicer shots than normal.



Where do I even begin? Owen really enjoyed Christmas this year and everything that goes along with this season. First of all, he was really into the ornaments on our tree:

He also fell madly for "Hanta Caus" and "Wotty Noman" as he calls them. I'm sure you are familiar and know what each of them look like.

If I sang the "weindeer" song once, I sang it 1,000 times. But I also sang him every Christmas song I could think of...even the non-commercial ones straight from the methodist hymnal and my memory.

As the big day came closer, and more gifts appeared under the tree, he started understanding the concept of presents. This year we didn't have as much trouble keeping him out of gift bags and away from tissue paper. He did, however, want to sit and stand on all the wrapped boxes.

As I posted a few days ago, we spent Christmas Eve with Brig's family. Christmas morning I got Owen up while Brig prepared the video camera. Since she and I exchanged gifts the night before, (and it was 1:00 am before we went to bed) their was a pile of wrapping paper on the floor in the den. When Owen rounded the corner and saw it he was pretty excited...until he went a little further and saw what Santa left him:


He got even more from our parents and other family and friends, some of which is still in the original packaging. Owen immediately went for his Elmo Restaurant as I predicted. Now this is important...it's a restaurant, not a kitchen...remember that. I, I mean Santa, did not bring my son a kitchen.


A few other favorites so far are his mega blocks and doodle pro. He played with those blocks for over an hour last night and this morning. How's that for keeping his attention? We should have invested in those a long time ago.


My parents came over and gave him his first remote controlled train with a track. We finally got around to putting it together today. He played with it on the track for a while, then just drove the train around the house. I was surprised it actually worked off the track.


After we opened presents with my parents, we went over to their house to exchange gifts and eat lunch with the rest of my family. I don't have too many pics b/c Owen was very shy and not at all his usual self. This sums up how he was the first 30 minutes.


I did not get a pic of his dump truck and books from Dylan, and can't get one right now b/c they are in his room. My parents also got him a huge Radio Flyer rocking horse, which he loved. He can't get on and off by himself, and I didn't get a pic yet b/c I was too busy helping him and not taking pictures.

That night we went and had Christmas dinner with Brig's family. I forgot to mention that Brig's parents got Owen a portable DVD player and an adapter for the car. They also got him a turtle desk that you can color on. Sorry again, this is in his room and I failed to take a picture before he went down for the night. He loves to color and draw, and now he has a proper place to do just that. I put it together for him during nap time today. We also took down the tree during nap time and b/c the turtle was in its place, he didn't notice the tree was missing.


It was a whirlwind week and although it was wonderful, I am glad we are getting back on track.

Christmas Eve 2009

Tonight we spent Christmas Eve with Brig's family. Owen got to meet his newest cousin. He is very interested in babies, but hasn't seen one in person until tonight. I also had an excuse to use our new camera and lens. J.J. stayed pretty still for me.


We had great food and then it was time to open presents. Here's a few shots of all the action.


Once we got home and had bath time, it was time to put out the milk (in this case brown) and cookies for Santa. Owen obviously couldn't resist.

It's officially Christmas and Santa has already come to our house. Brig and I are staying up to exchange gifts tonight. Be back tomorrow, I mean later today, with more.

It's almost here...

This morning we went to see Josh and Sam to exchange gifts. Owen loves his buddies and hasn't seen them much lately since he has been sick.

By the way, Owen's ear is now draining and he is back to sleeping all night. He is very excited about Santa coming tonight. I will post more pics later once we've had Christmas with Brig's family and Owen meets his new cousin J.J.

Will this ear infection ever end?

We mistakenly thought Owen's ear infection was clearing up around the same time his first antibiotic was done. He had a few good days, and last Thursday night he was back to waking up, crying in pain. Brig took him to our normal pediatrician Friday morning. The doc said there was a good deal of wax build-up by his ear drum. So much that he used a little scooper tool to pull it out. In the process, he scratched Owen's inner ear. He said it might bleed a little...and it did. He also said it was still cloudy in there. He told us to give Motrin/Tylenol for pain/fever and Benadryl to dry up that leftover fluid. If he didn't show signs of improvement by Monday to bring him back. Guess where we went Sunday morning? Yep...back to the urgent care place. Owen was miserable long enough. The doc there dug dried blood out of his ear and said it didn't look horrible, but was still cloudy. He put him on antibiotic #2, but this time it only lasts 5 days instead of 10. It didn't seem to be working that great until today. And he still has a fever. We spend much of our time with this by our side:

Owen really doesn't mind it...he knows exactly what we want to do when we say "let's take your temp". We already had a follow-up scheduled for tomorrow and I'm taking him regardless of how he feels or how our night goes. Last night was a little better. I am officially on vacation, so at least I don't have to work tomorrow on a couple hours sleep.

Meet Froggy Potty

We bought him for Owen when he started telling us he had a poop. We read that was one of the signs that he may be ready to start potty training. For the last two months he has sat in Owen's bathroom just waiting for some attention. In the last few weeks, Owen has sat on him ever so briefly right before getting into the bathtub. Froggy hadn't seen any action until tonight.

Owen was running around playing with only his diaper and socks on right before bedtime when he stopped in his tracks. He grabbed himself and said "pee-pee". I asked him if he had to go potty and he said "yes". I scooped him up, took him to the bathroom and quickly took his diaper off. I told him to sit on the potty and he (like most nights) immediately sat down and stood back up again. He got into a weird stance and peed a little on the rug and stopped. We told him to sit back down and he did it! He peed on the potty!

We made a huge deal about this milestone and kept saying how proud we are of him. We high-fived, fist-bumped and puckered up over and over again. That's a thing I made up when he does something really good. If we had any fireworks we probably would have shot those off too.

Running with antlers

I was determined to get a few decent shots tonight...

Sing-along

Owen has recently started to sing. He currently sings "Happy Birthday" in a really high voice and is working on "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star". It's hilarious but he's a little shy if we focus too much attention on him. We can only assume he learned HB in school since we haven't been to a birthday party since June and that's not a song we sing on a regular basis.

Sorry for the lack of pics lately...it's getting increasingly difficult to snap decent pics b/c as soon as we whip out the camera/camcorder he wants to see pics/video of himself.

Catching up

***WARNING...this will take a few minutes to get through.

Owen has been sick on and off for over three weeks. It started with a runny nose and a fever. His fever usually lasts for a day or so but not this time. It hung around for almost a week. We took him to the doctor and thankfully his ears and lungs were clear. His fever finally ended and we thought that was the end. A few days later he got a cough and we thought it was just drainage.

Last weekend his fever returned. He had it for another few days and we took him back to the doctor last Wednesday. Again, he just had a cold. The doctor told us to bring him back on Friday if he still had a fever. Thursday...no fever. Friday...no fever. Friday night...high fever. Of course! This always happens on the weekend. Despite the fever, he seemed okay and slept so-so on Friday night. Saturday, Brig and her mom went shopping and Owen and I stayed in and played. He had no fever on Saturday and was perfectly happy despite his never ending runny nose and cough. Saturday night he woke up crying. This rarely happens, but since he was sick it wasn't unexpected. He had no fever, but was acting really weird. He would not settle down for Brig so I tried. He was mumbling jibberish to me, and every now and then he would say "airplane" or "garage". If I didn't know better I would think he was sleepwalking.

The details are fuzzy b/c we didn't get much sleep that night. Brig may correct me, and I reserve the right to amend this later. I finally got him to sleep but it didn't last long. He was back up soon and the only thing that got him settled was Brig rocking him on the floor. He refused to be held in the rocking chair in his room. Anyway, we started asking him if something hurt. We asked him if his stomach hurt. No. Teeth? No. Then he said, "Ears hurt". He still didn't have a fever, but we immediately gave him Tylenol. He finally went to sleep and slept for a few hours. When he woke up we gave him another dose and he went down a little easier.

We had already decided to take him to Medcare Express when they opened on Sunday. I had been reading about the symptoms of an ear infection and he had all of them. The fever part wasn't always the case. He didn't wake up until 9:30 but Brig and I were ready to go. He was acting pretty good and I didn't tell Brig until later, but I almost suggested we wait and take him to the pediatrician today. I'm really glad we didn't wait.

For starters, Medcare Express is wonderful. It is very nice inside and very clean. The nurses and doctor we saw were very good with Owen. We were the only ones waiting and they called us back before we finished filling out the paperwork. We went into a little room where he was weighed and his vitals were taken. Poor little buddy was down a pound. It has been a struggle to get him to eat these last few weeks.

We were then taken to an exam room. The nurse took him temp (the most accurate way if you know what I mean) and he screamed. Then the sonographer came and took us to get a chest x-ray. Brig and I thought this was a little premature considering he hadn't been examined. He didn't like that at all but it was over quickly. Owen's hand was in the way, so we had to go back and do it again. Fun!

We waited and waited, but the doctor finally came in to examine him. He checked his ears and no surprise, he has an ear infection. The doc asked us to come with him and look at the x-ray. It took him forever to get to the point, but after much explanation he basically had the start of pneumonia. Good news though, the antibiotic will get everything under control.

By the way, I discovered that I'm not at all comfortable looking at the inside of my child. I wasn't sure what he was going to tell us. I was worried he found something more serious. Needless to say, we were very glad they did the x-ray. The doc explained they always do this when a child his age has these symptoms b/c he can't get them to breathe deeply. They also did a breathing treatment to help open his sinuses.

We finally left two hours later, went home, had lunch and put Owen down for a nap. Brig and I napped too and we finally woke him up around 5:00 pm. He was pretty happy last night and went to bed at his normal time. Brig went to check on him around 2:30 this morning and he was awake. I heard him talking over the monitor so I went to see what was happening. We gave him another dose of Motrin and she stayed with him since I had to work today. A side note about Motrin/Tylenol: They told us we should be alternating between the two and that would get his fever under control. We also weren't giving him enough. We were giving him the correct dosage on the bottle, but they gave us a chart based on weight. He can actually have 7ml/1.5 tsp every four hours.

He didn't get up today until 9:30 and so far seems to be better. He was eating pretty well when I called to check on him a little while ago. Hopefully he is on the mend. I will say he held out getting an ear infection longer than we expected. Most of you know my history and all of my ENT problems. Also, I'm not knocking our normal pediatrician. We saw a different doctor last week and he actually said, "Owen doesn't have an ear infection but it doesn't mean he won't have one tomorrow".