Crib Standing

Owen has clearly perfected the art of pulling up from his tummy into a standing position. He just needs something stable to hold onto - coffee table, shelves, your knee, a chair, or as we found out last week, the railings of his crib. It was quite a shock to open the door of his room and see this looking back at me:


Now, he greets us this way after every nap and first thing in the morning. Unfortunately, he's also greeted us that way at 2 AM for several nights, but thankfully the novelty seems to have worn off and our sound sleeper is back.

We owe a HUGE THANK YOU to Shannon and Brian for letting us borrow their exersaucer for the next couple months. Owen loves to "walk" circles around the outside while he checks out the attached toys. Plus, I can drop him in it if I need to leave the room, say, to use the bathroom!

Walking around the exersaucer has also made Owen more brave. Once he's standing, he's now creeping along anything solid - even the walls. That's a new one today - he used the exersaucer to sand up and then moved a good 10 feet along the walls to get to me at my desk this morning. And he just did it again... Hello Owen! Gotta go!

Visitors

It's been a busy (and fun!) couple weekends. Aunt Kate came down for a visit and retrieved the ridiculously large Kayak that had been living under our porch for the last few weeks. She bought it on Craigslist here in Bend, so we've been storing it until she could visit. How she will transport it up to Alaska in the fall remains to be seen. Oddly, last night, another kayak took residence in our garage. This one is smaller, but will be living with us until Scott can use it in the Pole, Pedal, Paddle relay race - easily the largest event in Bend all year.

Last weekend was the much anticipated visit from Amy and Sam. Sam gave us a great glimpse into what our lives will be like in six months... and how many objects need to be stored away or moved before then. He is one active kid and Amy said Owen is headed the same direction. At daycare, they told me that Owen is "very brave for a kid his age"... Again, how's our health insurance?

Scott's taking the boys "flying" through the house.

Amy and I took the boys for a great nature walk on the day it was warm, went to mom's group, took the boys swimming, watched and walked in the earth day parade, and even took a visit to the wine bar after the boys went to bed one night. (Thanks Scott!) Unfortunately, we also dealt with a short bout of the stomach flu for Sam. He was a trooper and thankfully recovered well enough to get back on the plane. (So far, it also looks like he's the only one to get the bug... keeping our fingers crossed!) Amy was amazing to travel with Sam by herself and not even flinch when he puked right into her hands. All in a days work for the mom of a toddler!


Amy and I have been friends for so long (23 years??) that we might as well be family, and that's what it felt like this weekend. We've only seen each other a handful of times in the last 3 years, but we spent 4 days sharing space, chatting non-stop, and moving about our days without skipping a beat. Everyone should be so lucky as to have a friend that they can be 100% real with. The fact that our boys are so close in age is a wonderful joy. As Amy pointed out, our boys will likely be in the same grade in school, so we'll be experiencing many more of life's adventures together. Amy...I appreciate you!

Calla Margaret

We have a niece! Calla Margaret Maxwell was born on Sunday evening. We are thrilled for Ryan and Sara to begin their parenting journey and excited to experience this stage of our lives together. Owen now has a cousin to play with at all our family events - so fun! We got to see all sorts of pictures today, and Calla looks simply beautiful - such an adorable little baby. I'm sure she is going to bring many blessings (and sleepless nights) to her parents.

We have been looking forward to this day, but I surprised myself at how excited I got when we got the phone call. I just wanted to hop on a plane right away so we could hold that baby and share the joy with Ryan and Sara. It makes it hard to be away from Seattle, but we only have to wait a short while to meet Calla. We're headed to Seattle in just 9 short days.

Congratulations Ryan and Sara!

Sporty Moms with Boys

Owen had his 9 month doctor visit today. I'm so pleased with our choice of pediatrician - Bend Memorial Clinic Pediatrics is awesome. Stats: 26 1/2 inches, 16 lb 12 oz. Back to the 5th percentile in both categories. I'm glad Owen is back on the chart, even if it is the 5th percentile. Okay, so may have skewed the "weigh in" just a bit by loading him up on a bottle in the waiting room... that's not cheating is it?

Just for the record, it legitimately snowed this week. At least an inch over night on Tuesday. I had to pull the boots back out to take Owen to daycare. I am SO OVER winter. Any great ideas for a vacation with a toddler this August? Do not say Disneyland. I was thinking Bahamas until l remembered that August is hurricane season. Maybe Mexico...

I am AT LEAST hoping for warm weather tomorrow, so we can go walking with my mom friends. Such a blessing to have found these women - smart, active, funny - and all with boys Owen's age. We strap the kids on our back or in the jogging stroller and chat while we walk the awesome trails around Bend. As the kids get bigger, we're getting stronger, and the boys all do a pretty good job of napping through the laughter.

We always marvel that we don't have any little girls in our walking group, but I think sometimes you get the gender you are supposed to get. Is it any wonder that all these sporty moms were given boys to raise? Not that you can't do sporty things with girls (obviously, we are a group of sporty girls ourselves), but I think there's a little bit more leeway to be rough and tumble with a little boy. (Though I do hope that if we ever have a girl, Scott will still wrestle with her like he does with Owen, the laughter is contagious!) Anyway, I also think that little boys are a bit more likely to land their parents in the urgent care center for stitches or foreign objects up the nose. So those of us that were given boys had better be calm under pressure and not stress about blood and dirt. Note: when we had our "it's a boy" ultrasound, I think the first question I asked Scott was, "How's our health insurance?" We knew what we were getting into.

For now, I'm grateful for moms to laugh with and amazed that we are going to be celebrating first birthdays in just a few short months!

Picture Update

It's getting exciting around our house as Owen is getting more mobile. I wanted to post some of our recent pictures. You can see that he's much happier than that colicky baby we had back in August, September, October. Only gets more exciting from here...

If it were up to Owen, he'd be standing all day long, but mom and dad know crawling is important. We're taking bets as to whether he will crawl or walk first.

That's our happy kiddo! Yes, the bib indicates he is still spewing, but we have high hopes that he'll outgrow it in the next couple months. Today and yesterday were nearly puke-free... (though I'm sure I just doomed myself to a soggy day tomorrow by typing that.)

Busted in the act! Owen loves to play with the hanging blinds.

My two guys.