Big Boy Room

So after a lot of hard work, O's really big boy room is almost compete. This is Matt's side of the room... He gave O the BBall Hoop for his birthday and donated the crime scene tape - it's over the closet door. The railroad crossing sign was from my parents. If you look really hard you can see a picture of the Mariners game, The Columbia (aka Peter's boat) and Kelli's cho cho Train.

This is the wall that is waiting for it's decorations - a Large WA State map and a map of the US are destined for this location. On the bed is a quilt that my Great G'ma started and my G'ma finished for O. If you look really hard you can also see the magnets from Kathy and Dale spelling out Owen Z, in the bottom right.

Even Diego likes the his new digs. The signs still have a little reflective coding left on them, but they don't glow in the dark or anything.

Here's the rest. It looks pretty good, my Dad & Matt really did a good job making my vision come to life. I'm pleased as punch and Owen was too.

Birthday, birthday, birthday, birthday, birthday

Owen was graced with 5 birthday parties this year - Chinook, Daddy's w/kids, Daycare, G'ma Lyn (my yaya) and G'ma Jeanette (my other yaya). Wow, I am birthday'd OUT! He had so much fun at all of them, although he talked endlessly about being a fireman for his birthday, he was not.

"My Matt Daddy Dale" is bringing out the cake, and O can't wait to dig into it. He actually didn't wait. There were finger marks in it already from earlier.

As you can see the tradition of finger licking birthday's continued at my mom's house too. O's favorite gift of the night was a nerf gun. Coincidentally it was also both Matt's favorite present too. Unfortunately i didn't allow O to bring it home. It's at Grandma's house for now, until he understands that we don't shoot EVERYTHING and EVERYONE! He's asked for it twice today, but hopefully that's the end of it.

Before we went to G'ma's house Matt and I took O to the Children's Museum. We had a bunch of fun and it started before we ever got inside.

Portland has funny cows everywhere and this was theirs.

Bob the builder was visiting with many of his friends, including Pilchard the cat. Does sitting count as climbing? There were please don't climb signs on everything, which seemed a little weird - we weren't very good at listening.

Matt was happy to see Wendy. As soon as Matt hi-fived her O went to do it too.

Matt and Owen even went and helped people with ouchies. They were even able to make the siren and lights on.

He had the most fun in the store, they get to shop, with carts and scan their stuff - making it beep - they haven't figured out a fun way to make stock boys yet though. No one wanted to put the stuff away. There was even a cafe where the kids big or small could cook and serve food. It was cool.

On the way out, Owen had to give Bob on last five.

Thank goodness the birthday's are over, but Christmas is right around the corner.

Happy Halloween!

Halloween happened in a few parts for Owen. There was the beach about 2 weeks ago (bridgewalk day), great grandma's last week and real Halloween on Friday with Matt and me.

This is just about the cutest picture, ever! He's holding ambulance candy from the meeting room. He grabbed it when Dale went to get us the Camera, since mine died.

We all had to get on the fire truck. Dale is concerned that Owen is going to go down the "hireman pole." Just about anything can be a fireman pole.

These are from Halloween night. We were just getting ready to go to Matt's house here. This is a full on cheese face. As you can tell Owen is not having any fun.

Who needs candy when you can get house flyer's. Unfortunately there are a lot of houses for sale in Matt's neighborhood.

He's still dumbfounded that they are giving him candy for no reason at all. The only problem, he hasn't figured out that it was just one day. We've worn our "outfit" everyday since, at least 2 or 3 times, a day.

He was getting tired, so Joe the Plumber gave him a ride.

O came in, went potty and took 1/2 his clothes off in about 2 minutes flat.So that was the big night. He ended up with a good haul a whole pumpkin full. He could hardly carry it at the end. A good time was had by all. I just love seeing everything through his eyes.

basking in the lovely yellow glow

Dare I say success, I dare I dare - SUCCESS! As you all know this hasn't been an easy ride. We were almost there, then completely regressed, complete with screaming fits. But about 2 weeks ago he decided he would go pee in the potty again, and then last week he went poo. Yes, I literally cried from excitement. My Owen is officially a big boy. He's been peeing and pooping in the toilet now for a full week. We haven't had one accident and have also been making it through the night. I'm beaming with pure joy over all of it.

Not to toot my own horn, because lets be serious he decided to do it, but I really feel like my determination helped the situation along. I used a dream of a big boy room to help him along, charting his progress with every little tinkle. Thankfully my child is as anal as I am. He really enjoyed making x’s all over his chart. We every scratch of the pen he would say “mommy, you so proud of me now?” And damn it all if I wouldn’t get teary again. I hadn’t cried for 6 months but poop and pee did it. And if that wasn’t enough, upon seeing me cry O looked up at me perplexed – “mommy, why you so sad?” Try and explain that one.

Business up front, party in the back

Matt, Owen and I went to Family Day at the Oregon Air National Guard Base. It was pretty cool. Matt had a lot of fun. He got to see jets up close, really close.

My dad took us down to the runway so he was able to see the f-15's and passanger aircraft take off and land.

Owen got to play fireman and go on a super bouncy obstacle course. The day was mostly fun. There were some tense moments as always with my mom.

I also caught this lovely picture of Matt, trying to get Owen's attention, I really think his dad would like it. He really doesn't like me taking his picture that much, but i have the camera so i make the rules.

Then there was little baby Addison, my neice and her fabulous mullet. Business in front party in the back!

Who's a Newbie?

I am, I am.
Welcome to my ramblings.
Today's ranting is potty training. I am the proud owner of a fabulous little monkey, also known as my son Owen. Circumstances that need not be discussed have led us to our current location which consists of me being the primary parent. I am caught between so many rocks and hard places that it's hard to describe them all in one sitting - bulleting is easier, so here goes:

Ex - wants what he wants, no matter how it affects our son
His Parents - never wanted time with O before the divorce spend more time now, but don't like doing anything "hard"
My parents - slightly needy and over bearing, still trying to be to involved
Daycare - stretched thin with 3 kids of her own on top of those she watches

Out of all these people i am the only one (until last week, when my parents started listening) who is actually trying to potty TRAIN. The rest have just asked him, like he should have an option. I'm not proud, but today i finally lost it on all of them. I am just tired of it - I mean COME ON! So i threatened my parents and really explained to the daycare lady and even bought a potty chair for her house even though her own daughter is potty training... I also really tried to explain to Ryan that we needed to have a united front and what does he do, but put him in a diaper tonight, after we said we were both throwing them out!!!

AHHHHHHHHHHHH! Who knew that the biggest issue with potty training would be with getting the f'ing adults on board.