Thank you Grandma Marsha! I love it!
Breakfast noise!
Owen does this at quite a few meals… cute, but we tend to get sprayed a little. 🙂
Burpie Naptime Hysteria
We thought Owen was tired enough for his afternoon nap. We watched him on the monitor, and he kept rolling around and playing with his burpies—tossing them around in his crib and laughing and shrieking. Mom and I were having a ball watching and listening to him on the monitor.
After about 20 minutes, mom went up to check on him to see if he wanted to come out…and he didn’t. He wanted to keep playing! So then I was watching and listening to BOTH of them on the monitor—and also hearing them down the hallway—and I couldn’t stand it and had to go up myself and take the camera!
Please forgive the bad quality in the first video segment—the camera lens was a little dirty from SOMEONE (cough, Owen, cough) carrying it around and chewing on it. 🙂
Owen’s New Game
Now that he gets the run of the first floor for part of the day, he has soooo much more stuff to get into. This was what I came across while preparing dinner:
Owen and the Flip cam
Owen is always grabbing things to carry around or chew or play with. I know he has grabbed the Flip cam, but didn’t think much of it…until today when I went to take videos off it, and saw about 15 1-4 second videos that he apparently took (just pressing the buttons). Here is the longest and best one:
I love surprises!
I recently used a Groupon deal to get my hair colored and cut, and as I usually do with businesses, I wrote a Yelp review about it (see a few posts earlier). It was a VERY glowing review because my experience was pure awesome. So imagine my surprise when I received a handwritten postcard from my stylist thanking me for the awesome review, saying how much it meant to her, and offering me a 20% discount on my next service as a thank you! Woohoo!
Burpie Heaven
Every week or so, we gather all Owen’s burp cloths (burpies, his security blankets) to wash them. When they come out of the dryer, it’s a burpie explosion…and consequent burpie heaven when Owen sees ALL OF THEM together. He rolls in them, grabs them, buries his face in them, whips them across the room, and will not let us actually keep any of them folded in a pile.
Hoppy Easter!
Owen is 14 months old today!
He’s getting harder and harder to take a photo of on these days. This was the best one of the bunch!
Frog Whistling
This is a new toy we got for Owen—it’s a spiral tower that balls (and a penguin!) roll down and a frog which whistles as it goes down the chute. It’s for 18+ months but he got the hang of most of it right away (he can’t quite get the hang of putting the balls on the spiral, but he’s great at stacking them on top of the tube!).
Anyway, he really LOVES the frog, nd he has discovered how to make it make noise by himself:
One of those days…
Ever just have ONE OF THOSE DAYS where a bunch of really little things just add up and make you want to scream? Sigh. Yeah, today’s that day.
- My good little napper only slept 30 minutes today. The day I had an actual crap ton of stuff to get done while he napped.
- I went to print an envelope and forgot I didn’t have Word installed. So I installed all that stuff and it didn’t print – oh joy, my printer has disappeared from Windows 7 again and has defaulted to the stupid Microsoft Document Printer.
- I had to login to paypal to buy/print a shipping label but my phone was syncing so I couldn’t get the security text until I was done with that.
- I find out that I screwed myself on paypal shipping because I thought “Gee, it couldn’t possibly cost THAT much to send a lightweight instruction manual” so I didn’t actually figure it out. Yeah, it cost 3x as much. I should have charged $1 for the item and $5 for shipping. Ugh.
- Every kleenex box I went to (only two, but still) were empty.
- I have dropped just about everything I’ve picked up, or at least part of what I was picking up/moving.
- I knocked a cup of water off my dresser all over the floor.
- I want to hang my towel on the bar next to the shower and instead dropped it in the toilet.
- I dropped my comb in the toilet.
- Our dishwasher stopped working last night so I went to do dishes today, and none of the stoppers we have fit (actually hold water) so I can’t do dishes in a big sink of water. I have called our landlords and they are supposed to get back to me today. I’ll believe it when it happens.
- The animals’ water fountain is almost empty, so it’s making ghastly noises and I hate filling it.
I can’t wait to see what’s next.
I cursed myself.
Yeah, I should know better. NEVER talk about how great Owen is at napping… He didn’t take an afternoon nap AT ALL yesterday or a morning nap today. 🙁
March photos online!
He’s REALLY walking now!
Left to his own devices…
I was at a mom friend’s house for a play date and the kids were out of sight for a few minutes… This is what we found when we went on the hunt:
Stuck!
I’m not quite sure what Owen was doing, but my guess is attempting to crawl off the couch…and got stuck. But he was perfectly content—Sesame Street was on!
Napping Rave!
I know I’ve said it before, but I just have to say what a great napper Owen is…
After talking to my mom’s group today about naps, apparently Owen is the King of Naps. Everyone else has to deal with multiple 15 minute naps or maybe one 45 minute nap if they’re lucky. And my little sweetie gives me (on average) TWO 2-HOUR naps a day. 😀
I guess this is what I get since he’s become a picky eater. 😉
My new color and cut!
My Yelp Review
To be upfront and honest, I only tried Flip because of their recent Groupon deal. I have a regular salon that is five convenient minutes from my house, but I just couldn’t pass up Flip’s awesome deal–color isn’t cheap, you know, and I’d never do it otherwise. So I drove the 25ish minutes there (rush hour traffic, you know) and luckily found a parking spot close to the salon. I fed the meter with two hours (maximum allotted time) and set off.
I was a bit early, and was welcomed nicely. I took a seat to wait, which only turned out to be enough time to look around, snap a few shots for Yelp, and then Chelsey was calling me back. She was really very nice and offered me a beverage, then asked me a TON of questions about what I wanted, what I liked, what my hair normally does, how I normally style it, what type of products I use, how much time I spend on my hair, etc…and was thrilled I brought my own pictures to show her what I was thinking (from past hairstyles and colors). I was really surprised at all the questions–I’ve never had a stylist ask so many questions before, but it was nice to see she was REALLY paying attention and trying to get a handle on what exactly I wanted to make sure I was satisfied. She actually suggested a bit different highlight colors than I’d had before and explained why, and I definitely agreed.
Score one for Chelsey.
I apologized that my hair was a little greasy–I’d straightened it that week and it always lasts at least 3-4 days, but since I knew I was coming to the salon, I pushed it to six days, but it was definitely past its prime. So imagine my surprise when she said it was actually GOOD that it was a little oily, because it would help during the coloring, as the oil provided more of a barrier and my hair wouldn’t dry out as much. Interesting. And definitely an interesting tip I’d never heard before.
Score two for Chelsey.
Now, admittedly, I’m not much of a small-talk person, so salon visits always make me a little anxious. You never know if the stylist is going to talk your ear off or if you’re going to sit there in silent awkwardness the entire time…but Chelsey was awesome. Nothing ever felt strained and I felt relaxed the entire time–the snippets of conversation here and there felt extremely natural and never forced.
Score three for Chelsey.
She worked consistently and quickly and I just sat and relaxed, not even reading a magazine or playing on my phone–it was nice to just be out of the house and not. have. to. do. anything. but. sit. there. (I’m a SAHM so getting out of the house ALONE is great on its own. Being pampered is another level of excitement.)
So there was highlighting and sitting under the dryer and washing and conditioning then adding toner then sitting under the dryer again. By the time we were ready for the haircut, I’d actually been there almost 2.5 hours–and I suddenly freaked out that my meter had run out and I was probably going to get a ticket. I asked Chelsey if the parking police were bad and she said yeah, pretty much–then OFFERED TO GO FEED THE METER FOR ME!! Wait, what? SHE was going to run out herself? Whoa. She even said she’d grab quarters if I needed them, but I had change in my pocket. But, seriously, WHOA. That is service.
Score four for Chelsey.
I was getting a little nervous because it was nearing 9:00 (closing time) and we were really no where near being done–she was still cutting my hair, and it still had to be blown out straight (and I have a thick head of hair). I made some comment to that effect, and she said if I wasn’t in a hurry, she wasn’t either. Awesome. I mean, I didn’t really expect her to cut me off mid-cut or mid-blow dry at 9 on the dot, but I was a little worried that she might rush through it and not do as good of a job. I should not have worried AT ALL. She continued to do an amazingly thorough job, and she was finishing up about 9:45! And it was GORGEOUS. Great color, great shine, and full of movement! It was one of THE best haircuts (and colors) I’ve EVER had. And you could tell she was honestly thrilled that I was thrilled.
Score five for Chelsey.
Checkout was a snap and just took moments. (Note, you CANNOT put tips on your credit card…so it was a good thing I had a stash of emergency cash in my wallet.) I also had no problems using my Groupon coupon from my iPhone (I didn’t print anything out). It was a good deal, too–I don’t get color a lot, but from prices I have seen elsewhere, it didn’t seem terribly expensive (especially for the level of service received).
Overall, I had a really great experience from start to finish, and I am so glad I tried this salon…and Chelsey was amazing. Flip definitely gets five solid stars.
Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse
This was the third steak house in the local trifecta of The Capital Grille (which we tried last year), Morton’s Steakhouse (which we tried last week), and Ruth’s Chris.
To start, we were really debating taking Owen—I mean, it’s not a place for toddlers—but we REALLY wanted to try them during the (cheaper) Restaurant Week offerings ($30pp). I posted on Facebook asking, and (without counting) it was pretty well split yes vs. no.
We went.
And he was the perfect little quiet smiling happy giggling toddler. The whole time. Everyone who walked by smiled at him and/or had to stop and say hi to him/us and/or tell us how good he was or how cute he was. Our waitress loved him (“a grandma of five” she told us). We did get desserts to go, though, because he was starting to get a little fussy, but we probably could have stayed. I’m really glad we went. (And I didn’t see a stink eye from anyone!)
He is such a good little boy!
Oh, and he ate one bite of calamari and sweet potato, but spit out the filet mignon, baked potato, and shrimp.
Our rating? Better than Morton’s but not as good as Capital Grille.
Dinner, ugh.
Salmon?
No.
Red pepper?
No.
Lettuce?
No.
Tomatoes?
No.
Avocado?
No.
Just another frustrating dinner with Owen?
Yes.
Lost dog!
Talk about utter terror and complete panic.
It was horrible—I had just started feeding Owen and wondered where Maggie was, then remembered I had let her out so I opened the door and called her and she wasn’t there. So I ran outside and the fence door was open (from when Owen and I were out walking Sunday)! I hadn’t even thought about it, since Maggie had been out multiple times since then with no issues.
So, realizing what happened, I freak out because she does not wear a collar (although she is chipped, but that doesn’t help much if someone finds her) and she’s probably been gone about 15 minutes. So I ran out the front door and yelled for her. I ran a few houses up the street (leaving Owen in the high chair) and when she didn’t appear, I knew I had to go on the hunt.
I had to rush to get Owen cleaned up, out of the high chair, into his hat/coat/mittens, find shoes for me (I skipped shoes for him), find Maggie’s harness and leash (which seemed to take forever), get Owen in the stroller…then call Tom to say COME HOME (he didn’t answer so I had to leave a message!). Ugh.
All I could think of was that it was my fault the door was open. 🙁
After a trip up and down the street yelling for her, it hit me that she was probably at the park—with lots of people, dogs, and squirrels. As soon as I got there I saw her about 50 yards away playing with another dog, and when she saw me, she came running. Owen saw her and started laughing.
As I was putting her harness and leash on, the guy came up to me with his dog and asked if she was mine, and I said yes, she got out of the fence. He told me that some other woman had called Animal Control because Maggie looked like “she had been out awhile and her eyes looked bad.”
🙄
She’d been out less than 20 minutes and her head was covered in dog slobber from playing with the guy’s huge slobbery dog.
But she’s home now.
He’s walking better!
Since the weather has been awesome the past few days, I’ve been taking Owen out for walks—both in the stroller and just with him walking. At first, he needed to hold BOTH of my hands—but now he’s down to one hand (or should I say finger!). Here he is practicing a day or so ago with Grandpa Mike:
And today, he took some major steps on his own (with some help at first). He’s all bundled up because the temps dropped from the high 60s to the mid 40s.
Molars!
Owen has been REALLY cranky yesterday and today, and long story short, today I happened to look inside his mouth, and what do I see but the teeny tiniest little teefer poking through each side on the bottom! According to this chart, it’s the first molars (at least the best I can tell—it’s about in the middle of his gums away from his two front teeth)! Poor kid! :no:
So, right now, we have these eight teeth in varying stages of eruption:
He really only has three full teeth (still) and three partial teeth (still). I say still because he’s had those same three full teeth and partial teeth for MONTHS now, even though the partials are s—l—o—w—l—y coming in.
Just as an FYI, tere is the chart for the secondary teeth.
American Express Rocks!
I am signed up for paperless statements via email notification and it stays in my Inbox until I pay it. Well, I got the March statement and it says it’s 30 days past due. Huh? What? I check my email—even my deleted folder—and there’s NO email from them. I have the End of Year statement email and the January email, but no February email. So there’s a whopping $39 late fee plus interest, and you know it jacks up everything for months afterwards.
So I sent them a stern email explaining what happened, and mentioned this isn’t the first time I have missed an email—and what is the point of offering paperless statements if I don’t get the notice?—and asked to be refunded the late fee. I also told them I paid the bill in full that day and I would set my own reminder to pay the bill so this didn’t happen again.
Imagine my surprise when their reply email mentioned not only removing the late fee, but any and all interest associated with the resulting fee, AND removing ANY notation of anything being paid late so it would be as if it never happened.
So it sucks that the original mistake was made, but kudos to them for fixing it.
In the cupboards.
We’ve been letting Owen explore a bit more…
Did you know that collage frames LIE?
I hate >:XX lying collage photo frames. It said the holes were 2.5 x 3.5 so I spent an HOUR in Photoshop resizing 13 photos…only to have them be too big. WTF? So I measure the frame and sure enough, the holes are actually 2 x 3…so why the >:XX aren’t they labelled like that? GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR.
And of course, digital photos don’t automatically resize to 2 x 3 (it’s 2.25 x 3) which means another hour of resizing.
So it was a long night for a project I thought would take 20 minutes.
My First Bechamel!
I have always wanted to make it because it sounds good and looks fairly easy, so tonight I decided to try it—we bought Lobster Ravioli at Costco and it sounded like a perfect match.
So, how did it go? Well, I almost kinda screwed it up but it ended up okay. B)
I measured four cups of milk to start heating, but when I mixed it with the roux, it was WAY too thick, so I thought “Well, this is strange, I guess I have to add more milk.” (Thinking How can a recipe from Mario Batali be so wrong?) And I turned around and there was the rest of the milk on the counter.
/slaps head/
I apparently only poured the first 2-cup measure in the pan to heat up—that’s what I get for trying to start dinner and make sure Owen doesn’t eat anything bad or get into trouble at the same time.
I added garlic salt, pepper, and parmesean and it was yummy. I will definitely make it again (and try other spices and cheeses)!
Daylight Savings Time
I was a bit worried about DST this time, since Owen has a real schedule now (as opposed to when he was too young to really notice) and I was afraid he would get really messed up. And you all know how I hate doing anything (ANYTHING!!) that will mess with his sleep schedule.
So he went to bed a little later than normal last night—he’s been taking long afternoon naps again (like up to two hours!) which means he’s getting up from his nap at 5:30—so he didn’t go to bed until about 7:30. But he got up at his normal time this morning, which means he actually slept an extra hour…YAY OWEN!
But the biggest YAY was that it meant we were still on the same schedule—with him napping at around 10am for two hours. But then he took a late afternoon two-hour nap again…and was SO NOT TIRED at 7:30 when we tried to put him down. He tossed and turned and didn’t really fall asleep until 8:30! 88|
So, we have NO idea what to expect tomorrow morning…if he’ll sleep his normal number of hours (which means “sleeping in” until 8:30, which will throw off the rest of the day’s typical schedule) or if he’ll be up at his normal clock-time of 6:30-7:00 (which means he will not have gotten his usual 12+ hours of sleep).
Life is always interesting with a kid, right?
Walking! Finally caught on tape!
Well, not really tape but you get the idea! I was trying to put Owen to bed and he was just not tired and wanted to play and crawl around. He kept taking half steps, so I kept the video ready to go but of course he never went more than that. So I recorded another cute video and as I was sending it to Tom (who was out running an errand)…THAT’S when he decided to walk. |-|
But then I got this:
AND THEN I GOT THIS…SO CUTE!!!
I think it’s only a matter of time before he starts ZOOMING…
Real food!
The real food thing is going a lot better now!
Since the last update, he has tried (and liked) a lot of things including red and green grapes, spaghetti (any shape noodle), and Kraft cheese slices. We tried fresh strawberries again (for about the third time) and he finally ate some! YAY! He also really loves fried eggs now, and can easily eat a whole one by himself. He is still really liking Cheerios and of course he still LOVES his yogurt. He wasn’t too keen on broccoli, although he did eat the tops. And he’s LOVING his whole milk.
This past weekend Grandma Marsha and Uncle Rob came down, and we went out for lunch. Owen ate chicken and grapes, tried shrimp (he ate it!), and had a lot of fun squishing (and eventually eating) orange pieces and jello.
It’s really fun to try new foods, although it’s still frustrating when he will scarf something down at one meal and won’t touch it the next meal. He’s pretty much off baby food, although now and again he’ll get some (I fed him a jar when we went out to lunch). Some times it does feel like a challenge trying to figure out what to feed him (if what we’re eating isn’t really acceptable) but there’s always yogurt. 🙂