A good night's sleep

Owen has been sleeping solidly through the night for a few weeks now, on and off. It actually happened a bit by accident. Owen had woken up one night, and in my sleepy stupor, I thought it was a few hours earlier than he normally woke up. So rather than nurse him, I held him for a bit and tried to soothe him back to sleep, which he was really unhappy with. The next morning, Adam pointed out that in fact, Owen had woken up at his normal middle-of-the-night hour, so no wonder he was so upset about things going differently than he expected. It worked out well though, as that started him sleeping till 6-630 most nights.

Adam and I have really been catching up on some much needed sleep. It's so wonderful not having to wake up between 2 and 4 every morning! Just sleep till the alarm goes off, or Owen wakes up, whichever comes first.

If only that were the case.

Now, instead of waking up in the middle of the night to a crying baby, we are waking up in the middle of the night to a crying cat. The first few nights, we thought maybe Paul was concerned about Owen being so quiet. Now, sometimes it's because one of the food bowls is empty (of course, the other is full. But that one is like, stale or something). Sometimes it's because one of the cats dropped a piece of food in their water. Sometimes it's because Paul wants to be chased. Sometimes, seriously, I think it's because he wants to see if being woken up in the middle of the night by a cat still pisses us off (it does).

So, we're trying to make sure we keep Paul awake during the evening. We found out yesterday that one of Owen's favorite activities - flailing his arms around - is especially awesome if you give him the length of yarn Paul stole from my mom. He wiggles the yarn around, Paul chases the yarn, both my boys are happy. Owen really seemed to enjoy playing with Paul, and Paul appreciated an activity with Owen that didn't involve losing fur.

In other news, we had a make-up Easter egg hunt yesterday. I expected Owen to really enjoy it, since he's usually pretty entertained by getting help walking and by picking things up.

I don't know what we're about to do, but I think it's going to be fun!

He was happy to combine these two activities - but he wanted nothing to do with the eggs. It was almost like he was purposefully ignoring the eggs.

Ooh, a snowman!

Ooh, a fireplace!

Ooh, a volume knob!

Eventually we were able to get him to focus on the eggs.

Ooh, an...egg. Thanks guys, this game is great.

Wait, these roll?!?

AND they go in your mouth. Ok, this game is pretty cool after all.

It may not have turned out how I hoped or expected, but overall it was still pretty entertaining for all.

As long as you're here -

Don't forget to support research and programs for moms, healthy pregnancies, and babies! Thanks to everyone who has donated so far. This has obviously become a charity that is very meaningful to us.

Happy 7-month birthday, Owen!

I spent too much time writing the last post, and Owen's waking up from his nap. So to sum up -
He bounces.
He giggles.
He eats everything, even if he doesn't like it.
He applies the spoon directly to the forehead. Spoon, I hate your commercials, but I love your product.
He rolls.
He then complains that he's on his stomach.
He plays.
He chats.
Did you know he has toes? Have you seen these toes? Hey everyone, come and look at these toes!
He shocks the doctors with his health and development.
He really pulls off the Darth Owen towel.

Good, good. Let the oatmeal flow through you.

Hey, that was almost a poop joke! Poop is funny!

There's no place like home

A big part of my absence from the blog has been that we were busy MOVING BACK TO COLORADO! It was definitely an adventure.

Note - if you're one of the people who doesn't want to read, and is only here for pictures of Owen, skip this post.

Adam got a new job in Boulder. It's not in video games, but so far his coworkers seem like lovable geeks. To give you an idea, the new employees got knighted last week with pool noodles. His office is only a few blocks away from mine, so having lunch together during the week is far more feasible...not that we have yet. But the option remains!

Adam started on March 4th, so we wanted to get back in to town with enough time to get settled before having to jump right in to a new job for him and new schedule for me (now that I'm no longer exclusively working from home). The plan was to leave on Friday, February 22nd, take a leisurely three day trip, and get home in time for dinner on Sunday.

Friday night, we made it all the way to...wait for it...Camarillo. Egad, the last bit of random crap and cleaning takes forever when you also have to entertain an infant. We were super lucky to have my mom helping out, or we probably wouldn't have left until Monday. Plus, we owe her a big thanks for making sure the Explorer was in good shape to tow a trailer all the way to Colorado.

We'll owe her more big thanks here shortly.

Saturday morning presented us with a new bump in the road - the trailer fishtails if you go much over 55. My suspicion is that it was in an accident and something got bent internally. I know that the tongue is not the original, so I think the guy who sold it to us may have left out a few other details that would've been nice to know. Suddenly, our leisurely three day drive was starting to look like a white-knuckled, terrifying five day drive. Adam and my mom refused to go on ahead, despite me insisting, and rather than staying Saturday night in Albuquerque (if anyone's curious, I totally just spelled that correctly without looking it up), we only made it to Seligman, AZ. Oh, you haven't heard of it? I'm surprised.

Seligman offered a cemetery (seriously, it's the first thing that you see when you come in to town, which is totally super comforting and doesn't at all make you feel like you're about to act out a horror movie), a motel owner with so thick a hick accent that I could only tell what he was saying in context (can't park a trailer here, no cats), another motel owner who insisted he was very nice for letting us stay at his place (wait, isn't this what motels are for?), and surprisingly a pizza shop owner who was originally from New York and more recently from Nederland. Small world.

Sunday morning showed that my family are far wiser than I and were smart not to separate. Not an hour after hitting the road, the trailer had a blow out. You know those pesky details that the previous owner neglected to tell us? Turns out there was another one - the tires on there were not rated for the weight of the loaded trailer. So, Adam takes Owen in the Mazda on to the next town so they can stay warm - and as luck would have it - gets a flat. And here's the next day's worth of big thanks to my mom, for replacing all of our terrible tires.

Incredibly, we made it safe and sound to our comfy EconoLodge in Albuquerque Sunday night. As for that hotel stay, let me just say that you get what you pay for. And if you're going to stay in a cheap hotel in New Mexico, you should probably never watch Breaking Bad or you will be certain that every sketchy person walking by your room is a violent meth dealer.

On to Monday. The first big adventure was getting gas. In a terrible display of decision making skills, I attempted a gas station that had a steep, icy driveway right off a busy frontage road, and in a great display of consequences for bad decisions, got partway up and started slipping backwards, pushing my mom and Owen in the Mazda back in to traffic. Got super stuck, had to have people stop traffic so I could clumsily back the trailer out, had to go another 10 miles out of the way to the next gas station, had a mini mental breakdown, insisted that Mom and Owen go on without us and the evil, evil trailer. And now it's time for the big thanks to my dad, who met us in Trinidad and took the trailer. We all made it to my folks' Monday night.

So here we are, a couple weeks later, finally comfortably set up (and with internet, which was another adventure but not exciting enough to write about) in Ellen's in-law apartment. It was a royal pain in the ass to get here.

But it was absolutely worth it.

March for Babies!

Yes, I've been a little bad about updating the blog, and I promise to put some more effort in to it now that we're settled back in Colorado. In the meantime, a plug -

I'm very excited to be a part of March for Babies this year and hope you will join my team!

Every day, thousands of babies are born too soon, too small and often very sick. We're walking because we want to do something about this.

The money we raise will support March of Dimes research and programs that help moms have full-term pregnancies and babies begin healthy lives. And it will be used to bring comfort and information to families with a baby in newborn intensive care.

Please join my team. You can do so on my team page. If you can't walk with us, please help the team reach our goal by making a donation. You can do that online as well.

Thank you for helping me give all babies a healthy start!

Visit my team Web page at
http://www.marchforbabies.org/team/t2041883
If you would like to learn more about March for Babies,
visit the Web site at marchforbabies.org.
The March of Dimes mission is to improve the health of babies by
preventing birth defects, premature birth, and infant mortality.

What do you do with ten pounds of ham?

We really wanted to have ham for New Year's Eve, but the smallest one Vons had was just shy of ten pounds. I managed to keep the side dishes reasonable (except for the cranberry sauce, because I friggin' LOVE cranberry sauce - can't believe I used to not like it), so we're not totally swamped in leftovers. However, despite a valiant effort, we still have a ridiculous quantity of ham. Aside from sandwiches and pea soup, what's your favorite way to use up leftover ham?

We tried to watch the NYE special early, you know, to convince Owen that it was midnight and he could go to sleep. Totally not so we could call it a night early. But, the first performance was Justin Bieber, and we decided we could skip the ball dropping this year. Luckily, Owen still believed it was bed time.

No resolutions for 2013, but a lot of optimism.

Santa Comes Through Big Time

Well, to be fair, it was Ellen Claus with the winning gift - a Lamaze Firefly. Seriously, Owen is so captivated with this toy. It's got so many things on it that we're still discovering new ones (I just found the white fuzzy ball on one of the wings this morning...wonder what I'll find tomorrow? And yes, I do let Owen play with it too). Santa's big ticket item was a bouncer. Owen's a few inches shy of being able to sit in it correctly, but seeing as one of his favorite activities these days is to be held in a standing position so he can march or bounce, I'm thinking this will be a big hit once he fits.

We're also, thanks to my cousins, taking advantage of Owen being born in the smartphone era. They came over Christmas with an app on their ipads called Talking Ginger - it's this cat that repeats everything you say and purrs when you pet the screen. Hannah kept Owen really entertained with this - he seems to like that it repeats him so perfectly, and gets really chatty with it. Finally, he's found someone who speaks his language! I have to imagine, based on how much he likes the app, that he and Keira would already be well on their way to making up a secret twin language by now.

Sorry for the short update - there's an overwhelming amount of material to cover, so I'm going to try to do it in little bits (otherwise, I'd probably never do it at all). And, Owen's got SOOO many new clothes, I need to spend some time with him and the camera :)

Happy New Year!