It was only outside to the school parking lot but it’s still considered a field trip. 🙂
The class got to see a real fire engine, walk through it, and talk to the firemen. He also got his own fireman’s hat (though I didn’t get a good pic of him in it).
We were all asking him about it on the way home from the airport…
Grannie: Did they sound the siren?
Owen: No, you only do that in an emergency.
Papa: Did they shoot water from the hose?
Owen: No, you only do that when there’s a fire.
Yeah, I’ve gone a bit overboard this year as this is costume #3 (the others were Robo Knight and Superman) plus he has Thor leftover from last year that he didn’t wear (and still fits). But I couldn’t resist a ninja—and he plays in them as well.
If he chooses this one (and I guess even if he doesn’t) it will need some altering—the red leg ties don’t stay in place so will need to be ironed on permanently.
The pressure washer knocked on the door to let me know he rustled a small bat out of a [box on the side of our house—a vent? filter?] and it was currently laying in the grass, stunned. Cool! So I took Owen out to see it (Katie was napping).
I should have put something in the pic for scale, but I was more concerned with getting a picture before he woke up and flew off (he’d already been out about 10-15 minutes). His body was about the size of a child’s fist.
I tried to flip him over (with our pooper scooper) which woke him up and he started hissing (?) at us. Owen said “GE HAS TEEFERS!” 🙂 Yes, he did!
Then I got him flipped over…
And a minute or so later he flew off. Owen was sad he didn’t get to say goodbye. 🙂
Me: Owen, do you want yogurt or do you want it plain?
Owen: Plain.
Me: Completely stunned.
After he ate his two pieces and was clearing his plate, he says “Mama! You forgot the yogurt!” I reminded him he said plain and he didn’t say anything else.
I still can’t believe he didn’t have yogurt. I mean, there are times he doesn’t have yogurt, but never at home!
After getting in the car after school:
Owen: Hiiiiiii Miss Katie! I’ve been waiting for you to come back all day!!
Me: My heart melts.
We were playing Candyland and I got a really good card.
Owen: But I don’t want you to win.
Me: Why not?
Owen: Because you’re not nice.
Me: I’M NOT NICE?
Owen: Okay, you’re a little bit nice.
I love how I never know what’s going to come out of his mouth.
We have the baseball playground (the playground next to where he plays baseball, of course!) and the playground that I typically refer to as “the one by Miss Katherine’s house” to which Owen usually replies “Big’s house?” which is true (Big is Katherine’s son) or “the one with the three slides” (yes).
But today after we had the typical exchange, he says “The one with the wood chips? Not the sand?” Um, wow. Yes. The baseball playground has sand and the other one has wood chips. Impressive.
Me: Owen, do you want to try a dried cherry?
Owen: No.
Me: Are you sure? You’d get a bonus badge?
Owen: No. No cherries. I like blueberries!
Me: Okay. I turn to walk into the kitchen.
Owen: NO! DON’T GET THEM!
Tom sent this as a reward for Owen being a good boy and future pooping in the potty. Which he sometimes does after you MAKE him…or when he knows there’s a big new toy on the line.
He did pretty good following the instructions (with a little of my help) and he only got sidetracked a few times. His attention would start wandering and he wasn’t really paying attention and I told him he was losing his train of thought. He asked what that meant. I told him his brain was moving along like a train, but then when he stopped paying attention it was like the train was off the tracks. So then he would drag his finger across his forehead saying “This is where the train goes.” 🙂
Owen came up and told me he needed to put his cars in water (he has Cars cars that change color in water)…but the one he was holding was already wet. Hmmm… I asked if Amy got out water for him. No. He told me he would show me.
This is what I saw:
Me: Owen, cars don’t go in the water bowl.
Owen: Why not?
It’s like he’s 14 months all over again…until I realized that he was actually doing a good thing because I’ve told him he can’t play in the bathroom sink (because it has a leak) and he couldn’t play in his water table (because it needed cleaning). 🙂
Owen: Mama, I miss my daddy. How many sleeps until he gets home?
Me: A lot, buddy.
Owen: Like 21? 22?
Me: [laughing] No, like 150.
Owen: Wow, that’s a lot.
Me: Yes, it is.
I told Owen we could go to the playground this morning, thinking he would pick the one we’ve gone to a few times (the one we stopped at on the way back from seeing Tom off) that’s closest to us…but no…he requested the “baseball playground” (obviously, the one next to the ball fields we went to after playing baseball).
He also requested “socks like grannie’s at the hotel” so he could slide down the slides better. So I gave him some of mine (no pics, unfortunately)…and they stayed on pretty long, until he saw a girl in bare feet and then he wanted bare feet, too!
It was a nice, cool, fall-ish morning so we were all in long pants and long sleeves (which felt like heaven!)…but Katie just couldn’t quite understand the long sleeves and kept trying to pull them off.
This is how she sometimes goes down stairs.
Unlike Owen, she doesn’t mind sand at all.
Owen with Connor, one of the kids from my mommy group.
Katie had her first skinned-lip/chin fall on the sidewalk moments before this (she just stumbled). She cried for about 15 seconds while I brushed the sand off her face…and then she was fine.
Well, this morning was the first Special Needs Baseball game day! We drove around a bit until we found it (I’d never been to that complex before), picked up Owen’s shirt, and then it was a waiting game before all the registration stuff ended and volunteers got everything ready. And speaking of volunteers, there were a TON of them—a church group and a biker group along with friends and family—enough for a few on each base, ones to run with each batter, ones to have fun in the outfield, and many to just stand and cheer! (They told me later that there usually aren’t that many until later in the season.)
I had only brought my telephoto lens so I had to make Owen stand about 10 feet away to get a shot. Yes, he’s wearing it over his regular shirt—that was his choice. And I could kick myself for not taking more to have one with better lighting. Oh well. And yes, he had to go potty at that moment—that’s where we headed next. 🙂
Katie wasn’t really enjoying being strapped into the stroller, but since I wanted to take pics, I didn’t really have any other options. (In the future I likely won’t be taking as many pics so I can let her wander.) But she wasn’t really that bad (it could have been much worse) and she enjoyed everyone stopping to talk to her or wave at her. And I tried to keep her placated with milk, snacks, and toys.
He found a ball right away!
Lining up to be divided into teams. He was on the Crushers and they were in the outfield first. They even had a parent sing the national anthem!
Owen’s buddy in the outfield.
There was a lot of this in the outfield.
Bowling?
I think he was going for the fumble recovery. 🙂
Waiting for his turn at bat.
Picking a bat!
On second base!
Third base!
Running for home!
Back in the outfield.
I’m not sure why, but there was spinning.
Back up to bat!
He started running the wrong way, so the volunteers helped direct him! This is one of my favorite pics—even though it’s definitely not the best pic—because it shows how awesome and supportive the volunteers are!
Running to second base!
Coming in to a high-five!
Game over! High-fiving everyone!
You can’t really get a good feeling for how crazy it was. There were so many people around, the game being announced play-by-play on loudspeakers, lots of not-playing going on, no scoring, kids running to whatever bases they want, two or more kids running at the same time, some older kids actually hitting the ball and adults in the outfield taking care of those balls, some kids refusing to bat/run, etc. But it was fun and Owen had a good time…so yes, there will be more weeks of this.
Then they announced that lunch would be served at the pavilion, and Owen was hungry…so we went. Thankfully there was just a prayer before eating—which is just fine with me. They had hot dogs and popcorn—and if you can believe it, Owen ate an entire hot dog, bun and all! For the first time ever! WOOHOO! Then he wanted to play on the playground which was very close…so we went. And I finally got to let Katie out of the stroller and she had A BALL!
As we were leaving, Owen said “That was awesome”…and I’m guessing he meant the baseball, though I guess he could have also been referring to the playground as well. But it was a good day that gave me 428 photos to edit down to 58. 🙂 Next time I won’t take nearly as many!
This was a bear Tom got from the USO’s Comfort Crew for Military Kids deployment package. It had two matching dog tags included, so we’re sending one to Tom…
We tried to give it to him before but he wasn’t interested. Until today when he saw the box sitting there and said “Oooh, what’s in the box?” 🙂
Owen has been through two dollar store punching bags, so this time I went premium with the Eco-Bonk Grizzly Bear. Since it cost 10x as much, I expect it to last 10x as long…and seeing as how the other ones lasted about a month, I think we’ll be good. 🙂
Technically the bear’s name is Jackson (he’s wearing a name tag) but Owen has named him Boppy, like the similar inflatable punching bag on Doc McStuffins.
I’ve seen friends do this with their kids (from five questions to 20) so I thought I’d give it a whirl. I asked each question and wrote down exactly what he said.
Favorite color: blue
Favorite pet: Charlie—He licks me every time.
Favorite food: Sandwiches (What kind? Peanut butter and jelly.)
Favorite ice cream: chocolate
Favorite fruit: apple
Best friend: Joselyne—she’s my girl!
Favorite toy: cars
Favorite Cars car: Doc Hudson
Favorite Super Hero: Superman and Batman
Favorite TV show: Octonauts—no, Doc McStuffins.
Favorite book: Olivia
Favorite movie: Planes
What I want to be when I grow up: race car man…race car guy…racing guy
What’s funny is that if I asked him the same questions on another day I’d get mostly different answers. For example, he has three friends that he regularly talks about, but whatever he saw (or played with) most recently is going to be the one he mentions (I was SURE he was going to answer that Braxton was his best friend so was surprised when he said Joselyn—until I remembered she was here at the house yesterday for swimming). And when I asked his favorite food the other day for his actual preschool questionnaire, he said pizza. And I know he says he loves strawberries, but today he answered apple. The mind of a four-year-old!
Which is really more like playing with the crayons and talking to them and…doing everything you see here. He did eventually get something done we can send, but it was almost like pulling teeth. It kills me that he really has zero interest in drawing—he can’t be my kid!
Driving into town, Owen saw a John Deere.
Owen: Gramma Jean has that at her house!
We were talking about babysitters and I asked who his babysitters were.
Owen: I got no idea.
Me: Yes, you do.
Owen: I don’t!
Me: Miss Virginia.
Owen: Yes!
Me: Who else?
Owen: Amy! And Miss Hailey [Amy’s daughter].
Me: You’re right! I thought we were done, but a few moments later…
Owen: And papa and Grannie!
Watching and responding to Bubble Guppies.
BG: What kind of dinosaur are you?
Owen: I’m an Owen!
Owen: If I break this puppet, Santa will bring me a new one.
Me: Are you sure?
Owen: Yes!
Me: Just because you break a toy doesn’t mean Santa will bring you a new one.
Owen: Then he’ll fix it with his Santa glue.
Owen was playing with his rubber snake. He wrapped it around his eyes.
Owen: She’s my eye cape.
Owen used to love when we’d do serpentine in the car on the way home. (“Serpentine” is from the movie Cars so of course he loved it.) But now?
Me: Owen, do you want me to serpentine?
Owen: No, because you might hit the trees…or the bushes…or the truck…or the boys…or the girls…or the adults. I just want to go home.
After two full plates of strawberries, cheese balls, and cocoa almonds:
Owen: Mama, can I have more snack?
Me: More?
Owen: Yes! My belly is still snoring.
Owen: I love my new shoes! They’re my matchbox shoes!
Me: Matchbox? Like your cars?
Owen: Yes! Because they go fast!
Owen was telling me stories as he was getting ready for bed, so I turned on the camera. First he’s talking about a Sophia the First episode in which Baileywick (the castle’s butler) gets a red rash and “pumpkin head” from touching Mettlesome Myrtle (though it’s not really a pumpkin head…just very red puffy cheeks):
Then he talks about reading, a new book, two new ideas (the Doc-mobile Tour, from Doc McStuffins), and then Sesame Street talking about Elmo and the word of the day. Phew!
He saw me through the door and I could read his lips: “Mama!” And he was excited to see me. (Yay!) He finished out his turn in the game they were playing and as I was gathering his bag, his teacher said he did just fine—that he’s VERY talkative!
The first thing he said to me? “I love school! School is SOOO fun! When can I come back?” 🙂
On the way home I just started recording him because he kept talking about school and I was afraid he wouldn’t do it once we actually got home…I didn’t want to miss the moment. So that’s why the video is all over the place—I was driving and obviously not watching.
When we got home:
Me: Do you want to tell me more about school?
Owen: No, it’s a secret.
And then he asked for a granola bar and to watch TV.
After being excited about school being today, he actually started the morning with a mini meltdown because he didn’t want to put clean underwear on because his weren’t dirty (“See? There’s no poop in there!”)—which he was right, there were no poop stains (which is, honestly, fairly new) so I tried explaining that we change our underwear every day but he wasn’t having it. It wasn’t a battle I really cared about, so he got to wear his ninja underwear again.
Then the outfit he had picked out was a little too small. It’s been on the verge for awhile now, and of course this morning was the morning it was too tight…so he wasn’t happy about that and I had to make other outfits look appealing. He wasn’t thrilled, but picked another. While he was getting dressed, he came up to me with sad eyes and said “I don’t want to go to school because I will miss you!” Awwww. I told him he would be so busy and be having so much fun that before he knew it it would be time to come home…and I couldn’t wait to hear ALL about it!
Socks still proved difficult to get on so I had to help with that…and he got frustrated with the tennis shoes, too. Poor kid. But he was still VERY excited for school!
Ready to go!
He was the first one to arrive!
He found his cubby! The poor picture quality is because I only had my phone plus I was holding Katie plus he wouldn’t stand still!
Playing with the other kids before class started.
Then it was time for me to leave so I actually had to get his attention to come over and say goodbye. Yeah, he couldn’t have cared less. 🙂
As I was out in the parking lot talking to another mom friend (from mommy group) asking about our other mom friend, she texted saying she wouldn’t be coming to school because her husband took both sets of keys. I told her I’d be right over (she only lives five minutes away). She’s the one who has volunteered to bring Owen home now and again, so I figured it was karma at work!
