JTOK Chatter > Page 364

Words, words, words.

Posted on by

I decided to finally make a list of the words Owen knows—just for the fun of it, as well as knowing that the pediatrician will ask how many words he knows at his 24 month appointment and I’d like more than a guesstimate.

These are all that I can think of off the top of my head—I’m sure I’m forgetting some. Of course, most of them aren’t enunciated perfectly, but we can tell what he’s saying.

Letters A-Z (so, technically 26 words)
Numbers 1-10 (10 words)
ball
balloon
bear
bee
bike
bird
boat
boot
bug
cake => He just spouted that one last night when looking at a picture!
car
cat
cow
dad
dog
done
door
duck
fire truck
fish
flower
frog
heart
hi
ice cream
mom
no
pig
sheep
shoe
sky
snow
socks
star
sun
train
tree
truck
water

He is also getting better at finding letters when you ask him: “Owen, where’s the G?” and he’ll look at all the letters on the refrigerator until he finds it. Or when you tell him to find his milk, he will. He has also successfully pointed out Big Bird, Oscar, and Grover.

We are really loving watching him learn.

Pool fun!

Posted on by

My mom has a group of friends that meet every Wednesday night for dinner. Tonight’s happened to be at the Ramada Inn where one out-of-town couple was staying, so we were invited to come early and use the pool. Of course, we knew Owen would LOVE it—and since we don’t typically pack swimsuits and swim diapers for a winter trip to Grayling, it was off to Kmart.

Needless to say, Owen LOVED the kiddie pool. He stayed and played for over TWO hours, and I know he would have stayed longer except it was time to eat (which, as an aside, he didn’t care about at all since we were right next to a ping pong table and he was obsessed with watching the ball and trying to catch it).

Oh noooooo!!!!

Posted on by

GUESS WHO CLIMBED OUT OF HIS PACK AND PLAY THIS MORNING?!?! 😮 :no:

I heard him making noises (through the wall—I’m in the bedroom next to his) but then it was quiet again so I thought I’d just let him lay there. He’s always been pretty good about laying quietly once he gets up, so I didn’t bother to turn the video monitor on. But then I heard him chattering again so I went in there. 

And imagine my total shock and surprise to see him standing at the end of the bed, as if he just slid off (the PnP is between the bed and the closet door with barely any space on the sides…so my guess is that he somehow got out onto the bed and didn’t just go over the end of the PnP). 

Oh. My. 

He hasn’t ever tried to escape before, so I think he was just trying to get his B (blanket) which he had chucked over the edge. At least I hope that’s all it was, because I am not prepared to deal with this right now (away from home).

Hoo boy. 

Nashville –> Philly Fun

Posted on by

I didn’t get a direct flight home from Nashville, so I had to get home by way of Philly. Yeah, a total PITA. But I did have fun…

You never know who you’re going to end up sitting by on the plane, right? So imagine you’re exhausted after not sleeping all night, you’ve been up since 4, it’s 7:15am, and this somewhat loud and crazy guy stops next to you and says that’s his seat.

Lordy.

Except there was something about this guy that didn’t scream OBNOXIOUS like you might think. At least to me. 🙂

We shared a few small bits of small talk (he told me right off the bat that he’d had a few drinks because that was the only way he’d be able to stay awake since he’d been up for like 36 hours) and long story short, I could tell right away I liked him. And he said he was glad to be sitting by someone cool…so it was a good start. That said, I thought that would be that and I could try to get some sleep. But we kept chatting. And we were laughing. Yes, me…the one who generally doesn’t chat with strangers.

He asked why I was in Nashville and I said I was coming home from the Garth concert, which got us onto the topic of music and he asked if I had heard of a few country acts and I said yes. He asked if I knew Rascal Flatts and I said of course (Bless This Broken Road is one of my FAVORITE songs ever). So then he said he had something he’d like me to listen to to get my thoughts. So we plugged in to his iPod and I listened to a really great song called Endlessly. It was totally my kind of song—one I could see being a new song for me and Tom.

Of course I was wondering how this guy was related to Rascal Flatts—a producer or songwriter or something? We hadn’t even introduced ourselves at that point—but even if we had, there’s no way I’d recognize a producer or songwriter’s name (hell, I wouldn’t even recognize a band member’s name). Then I thought maybe it was his own music—but I wondered why he hadn’t said anything. So we talked about what I thought, then he had me listen to two more songs—both of which I also liked quite a bit. But then, I am a big country fan.

I asked who the artist was and he said “Taylor somebody” and I asked if the song could be purchased somewhere and he said yes. So I got out my phone and made a note of the song name and Taylor. And that was that. We finally introduced ourselves (his name was Brian) and he excused himself to the restroom. When he got back, I asked what his last name was and he said Taylor. And I said “So it IS you!” Yeah, I had caught him off guard. 🙂 So then we talked about the music and I made him promise to send me his CD (signed, of course!) and I took two pictures so I could have a memento (and I’d have proof that I knew him before he was famous!).

Overall we just had a really fun (nice) time. So much, in fact, that since we both had long layovers in Philly, we decided to eat lunch together. He gave me the website to buy his music and I Friended him on Facebook.

When I got home, of course I had to Google him, and I found this blog post on CMT…so he really WAS for real (not that I didn’t believe him, lol).

So, definitely an interesting end to a fun overnight trip!

Garth Brooks Rocks!

Posted on by

Through a bizarre set of circumstances, I ended up flying to Nashville to attend a Garth Brooks charity concert.

And wow. Just…wow.

He was AMAZING. A. MA. ZING. He did a 2-hour show which included (I think) three or four encores.

It was an awesome experience. Especially since I haven’t gone to many concerts in my time… But to hear ~16,000 people singing every word to every song just blew me away. And his energy? Holy crap. I was exhausted just standing, singing, screaming, and applauding for two hours…he had to be dead. But he just kept going and going and going. As I said in my Facebook post, he was “balls to the wall for two straight hours.”

It was just pure awesome, and I am very thankful to how everything worked out in a matter of hours…and how things all came together in the end!

  1. Seeing Garth on Oprah and thinking how I’d love to see his acoustic concert in Vegas.
  2. Me tweeting that if anyone wanted to know what to get me for Christmas, it was “Garth Brooks Vegas.”
  3. A friend of mine from Alabama, Jen, posted a reply that she had an extra ticket for one of his Nashville shows if I wanted to fly down.
  4. My dad and stepmom were planning on being here anyway on that date, so they would be able to babysit (Tom had to work).
  5. Tom agreed I could spend the money—Merry Christmas to me!
  6. A week later I tweeted that I arrived in Nashville—and my friend who lives in Nashville (Laurie, who I graduated high school with) called me to say “I didn’t know you were coming to see Garth HERE! We have to get together!”
  7. My friend with the extra ticket had another extra ticket for MY friend…so we all went together!

Everything was apparently meant to be. And I am a very, VERY happy woman!

His new thing.

Posted on by

He loooooooves this bucket now. I keep all his balls in it, and he’ll come down from his nap, toss out every single ball, then hop in and just sit there, or watch TV from there. Thanks, Grandma Marsha!

He also likes getting pulled around the floor in it…and then Tom picked him up and carried him around, then gave him a bumpy ride!

The old door is fixed.

Posted on by

We did have to make one more call but eventually someone did come over…and they were able to fix the door. It works much smoother now, which is a bonus. The guy said the metal wire spools were very old and frayed, which likely contributed to the issue.

Rental Rantiness

Posted on by

I went upstairs to change clothes at 4:30 and there was no power in the MBR. I hadn’t been up there since morning—and I swear I turned the light out on my way out—so what the hell? Yeah, the breaker was tripped, so obviously I did something. I had the lights on and the heater plugged in…which I’ve done before with no problem. But…who the hell knows.

The garage door has an opener, which is a bonus, but it’s a piece of crap door and opener, and has never really worked right, and the last few months it’s started stopping half way and/or closing then opening or whatever. Tom WD40d the tracks which helped for a bit, but tonight it died. It came off the track entirely, then some metal wires got wrapped around something—and of course we were on our way out to dinner. I held the door open so Tom could at least get his car out so it didn’t get stuck…then he had to CUT the wires to get the door to be able to drop closed. And drop it did—damn thing slammed to the ground with a thunderous slam. I hope it’s completely busted and they have to replace the whole goddamn thing. We called the owners and to their credit, they were really worried that our house was left open and vulnerable—and they said they’d call someone first thing in the morning and then call us. We’ll see. I’m not holding my breath.

So we get home from dinner and oops, I don’t have my front door key—I had taken it off for the catsitter and hadn’t put it back yet. And Tom doesn’t carry one. But we have an emergency one (which we placed for this very reason)…which we used…except the screen door was locked (a habit left over from summer when the big door was open and Owen could open the screen door). So we had to cut the screen to unlock the door. (Now, I know this part isn’t technically a rant about the house. But it technically kind of is due to the whole garage door fiasco.)

Then Owen got sick and we had to clean his carpets with the Rug Doctor. That tripped that breaker [a separate one] three times before we found a plug we could use successfully. Well, we were using it but turning on the hall light and [something else I can’t remember] actually tripped it. >:XX Swear to god, they have 15 things on one breaker an then two on another (that you never use).

And it’s all worse because it’s so >:XX cold in here. [Insert last year’s rant.]

Fish!

Posted on by

Owen loves the fish tank at my chiropractor’s office! He opens the little door on top and sticks his fingers in (if you notice, he knocked it in this time)—and then tries to squish the fish (through the glass) with his fingers!

Stupid USPS

Posted on by

/sarcasm on

I’m sooooo glad we used the online form to stop our mail while we were on vacation for two weeks.

/sarcasm off

Yeah, that didn’t work at all. Even though I got a confirmation number and everything, the mail never stopped. Thankfully our neighbor knew we were on vacation (and was checking for packages) so she picked up all the mail, too.

99,999…100,000!

Posted on by

My 2001 Toyota Highlander rolled over 100,000 miles on the last leg of our 2700+ mile road trip today! We knew it would happen on this trip, so were keeping an eye on it—to get a picture, of course! I had my iPhone camera at the ready when Tom made the 5-mile announcement…and right as it turned 99,999 (which I also wanted a picture of), my phone rebooted! 88| Thankfully there was a turnpike convenience center a half mile down the road, so we pulled in! (We also needed gas!) So I got my picture!

Since we were obviously only a half mile from 100,000, I wanted Tom to drive around the convenience center, but he said no. 😐 So the picture for 100,000 is a bit blurry since I was taking it while he was driving.