Mama's Boy

This is a view of Logan that I see quite regularly nowadays.  He pulls himself up on my leg and just hangs on me.  Sometimes he looks up and tries to get me to pick him up, and other times, like this one, he just snuggles up close and hugs my leg.

Lawrence Hall of Science

I take my class on a field trip to the Lawrence Hall of Science every year, and every year they send me a free "teacher preview pass" which I have never used.  I'd been waiting until Owen was old enough to enjoy it.  Well, today was the day.  As per usual, he started out scared of everything-- the noises, the giant bugs (the new XTreme Bugs exhibit), the dinosaur bones...but now that I know to anticipate of these fears, I am learning how to trick Owen into having fun.  Once I got him into a quieter room where he could just play, he was sold on the rest of the museum.

He used a brush to uncover fossils like a "real scientist."
He saw a cast of a Tyrannosaurus skull and a mastodon, and real triceratops bones.
He watched a model of the earth, which changed into other planets and the sun.
He saw all kinds of small animals (geckos, turtles, boa constrictors, snakes, bearded dragons, chinchillas, rabbits, fish, frogs, a tarantula, and more), and he got to pet a rat named Pixie.
He saw three brains: bottle-nosed dolphin, monkey, and human.

He is turning into such a smart little kid.  I was fascinated watching his little mind take in everything and how much he learned and grew in just a few hours.

Owen and a beach ball being blown into the air

Logan playing in a life-sized kaleidoscope

Owen making shapes with his hands, face, back, etc. (germs, germs, germs is all I kept thinking)

Logan played with that big orange foam block for a long time, just pushing it around on the floor and giggling.  That's me taking a selfie in the mirror.  Some rare photographic evidence that I was there, too.

Library

The sun did not shine, it was too wet to play, so we sat in the house all that cold, cold wet day.  And then I'd had enough and I just had to get Owen out of the house before he drove us all mad with his energy.  I took him on an errand and we stopped at the library on the way home.  I don't take Owen to the library that much since I feel like our own personal library, plus my classroom library (from which I often borrow books) is pretty extensive.  But he loved the fact that he got to pick out some books all on his own, and he really got into the whole experience, even finding a comfy chair in which to curl up with his books.

Some of the books he chose: Pout-Pout Fish and the Big-Big Dark (his "sea creature book"), George and Martha: Back in Town, books about bones and muscles, a dinosaur book, and my personal favorite (kind of a wtf? moment): a book about musk oxen.

That's My Baby

Logan will be 10 months old this week.  Ten months old already!  I am trying to savor his baby-ness, knowing that when he grows up, that's it for us; no more babies.  What a sweet and cuddly baby he has been, and I think these two photos really capture what he looks like at this very moment in his life.

Always with the two fingers in his mouth

Serious but sweet

P.S. Logan was totally climbing all over me when I took these.  He had me backed up against the wall in a corner.  I held the camera in my right hand while my left hand intercepted slobbery fingers so they wouldn't smudge my lens, or pull my hair, or scratch my cheek.  He found this to be quite an amusing little game.

Bubbles

It was a lazy Sunday afternoon, and we got out the bubble maker that blows "millions of bubbles."

...Logan watched from the screen door.

Throwing Rocks

For Owen, one of the highlights of our walks is when we get to the part of the Iron Horse Trail that runs along the creek. He likes to throw rocks and listen for the "plop!" sound as they fall into the water. For awhile there it would always end badly because he was too little and none of his rocks would make it all the way down to the water. Now, thank goodness, he is bigger and stronger, and he has a much higher success rate.

Owen Day

Since Logan was born, it's been very apparent that Owen sometimes feels like he got the short end of the stick, attention-wise.  Actually, he's usually very happy to play with Logan and share the attention, but there are moments when it's clear that he misses being an only child.  Jeremy and I totally get it; we miss when we didn't have to divide our attention between two kids.  So on Martin Luther King day, when daycare was open and neither of us had to work, we thought it would be fun to have an "Owen Day."

It was totally a surprise for Owen.  When he woke up, we asked him what he would want to do if he could do anything that day, and he said that he wanted to go to Fairyland.  (He'd been talking about it ever since we took him for the first time last summer.)  Then we told him he was going to have a day with us all to himself.  At first he was a little sad to not include Logan, but when we explained that he would get all the attention, he was literally bouncing up and down with excitement.

So here it is: "Owen Day," filled from start to finish with things that make our little guy happy...

At Fairyland we ate lunch on the stage (well, backstage I think).  I look at this picture and I can't believe how grown-up he is starting to appear.

Owen ran around in circles after he was finished eating.

And just when I think he's beginning to look grown up, I see a picture like this one where he looks as cute and scrappy as can be.

No parents allowed on the merry-go-round, but Owen was not afraid at all!  He rode three times in a row.  What a difference a year makes.

This was the highlight of Owen's trip to Fairyland.  Sliding down an astroturf hill on a scrap of cardboard.  Again and again and again and again and again and again...

We had to park our car really far away (because apparently everyone else in the Bay Area woke up and decided to go to Fairyland that day, too) and Owen liked this painted building near where we parked.  I actually didn't mind the long walk around Lake Merritt, because it was such a beautiful and unseasonably warm day.

How do you get a 3-year-old to leave Fairyland when he doesn't want to?  Bribe him with Yogurtland!  Nah, it wasn't a bribe, it was just another special part of Owen Day.

Next stop: the comic book shop with Daddy

Aaaaaaand now you can see that the long, busy, no-nap day had taken its toll as we left the comic book shop

Time for a little bit of rest at home on the couch...

...watching Owen's favorite-movie-of-the-moment, "Monsters University
."

Our last special stop of the day was dinner at Red Robin.  (This is Owen "racing cars" while we waited for our table.  When does he find out that it only works if you put money in the game?)

Owen and Jeremy coloring on the kids' menu while we wait for our food.  Then back home for bath, books, and bedtime.  Kind of a perfect day :)


P.S.  I left my camera at home (gasp!) this day so I could just live in the moment.  These are all iPhone pics.

Poetry

Awhile ago, Auntie Laura got this book for Owen, Every Thing On It by Shel Silverstein, and he is just now starting to get into it.  Presently, his favorite poem in the book is called "Dirty Feet."

We had a dirty-foot contest

In the middle of Mudpuddle Street,

And all the unwashed dirty-foot kids

Came with their filthy feet.

There was Shoeless Billy and Toe-Jam Tillie

And the boy who walked through mustard.

There was oozy-Toes Trish, who loved to squish

Her toes in lemon custard.

Through muck and mud, through slush and crud,

They came from coast to coast,

And we scraped the dirt off everyone’s feet

To see whose weighed the most.

And Toe-Jam Tillie’s weighed thirteen pounds

But the winner was Sloppy-Sole Saul,

Cause when they scraped all his foot dirt away,

There were no feet at all.

It made me smile one night to look over and see the book on my nightstand.  Shel Silverstein's poems were some of my favorites when I was younger, and I hope Owen will share that same love for those silly, wacky poems.

 

Little Bro

ABCs

Owen has been really interested in the alphabet lately.  He knows all of his letters, he's always telling us the beginning sounds of words, and when you ask him about his favorite song he'll tell you it's the ABC Song.  He got these alphabet magnets for Christmas, and one morning I walked into the kitchen and he was making an alphabet on the fridge.

Alcatraz

A lifetime of living in the Bay Area and I had never been to Alcatraz.  So when Robin and Matt were in town, we decided to make it a family trip.  I was a little worried about bringing the boys (mostly Owen) and had visions of temper tantrums and tears, and being stuck on an island with a 3-year-old Complainy McWhinerson.  As it turned out, it was a gorgeous, sunny day, and Owen loved his adventure at the "pretend jail."  Most of it was way over his head, but he liked pretending to be one of the bad guys who robbed a bank.  As for me, I was impressed with my ability to balance a baby on my left and a camera on my right, all while [kind of] listening to the audio tour and fending off the grabby baby hands that wanted my headphone wires and sunglasses.

I know I missed a lot.  I'll definitely be going back again someday without kids.

New Year's Day Part 2

I found a few more from New Year's Day-- some iPhone photos from our trip home from Quincy.

We can't make the whole drive without stopping now that we have the two boys.  So what should be about a three-and-a-half to four hour drive turns into closer to six hours.  We have to stop somewhere on the way, and our choices are the lovely Oroville or scenic Marysville.  This time we found a Starbucks and a frozen yogurt shop with a lawn out front for Owen to run around and use up some of his energy, and for Logan to crawl around and stretch after being stuck in his car seat.

New Year's Eve in Quincy

A freshly laid egg from one of the chickens in the backyard

Snow!  Not a big deal to most people, but we NEVER see snow!  This was Owen's first time getting to touch it, and we made snowballs with the hard, icy snow.

Logan, in a room full of toys, grabbed the one toy he shouldn't have, if Owen has anything to say about it

A table full of Legos, and a room full of toys-- Owen's dream

Jakodi

Owen & Oisin, making silly faces with Logan's toy rings

Owen's oatmeal- steamy in the morning sunlight

Little Logan...

...I love all the colors on this rug