The Paci Fairy

We have been getting ready to eliminate the pacifier from our house. We wanted to do it early enough so that Owen won't get jealous if the new baby takes one in June. Everyone I have talked to, and everything I have read made it sound like it was no big deal. The kids adjusted fine. Not the case with my son.

I tried to cut the tips off all his pacis last week. This is supposed to help them wean themselves when they realize that it didn't do anything for them anymore. However, Owen didn't seem to care. He sucked way like normal and didn't let it phase him. They just got gross and filled with saliva and germs...ewwww.

On to plan B: The Paci Fairy. We collected his pacis and put them in a pretty box by his bed for the Paci Fairy to take at night. She would take them to new babies that needed them, and in return, leave a present for Owen in the morning. Owen was very excited at the thought of this. He happily put his pacis in the box and said good bye. We were so excited, and thought "that was easy!" Once it was time for bed, it took 2 1/2 hours for my darling to get to sleep. ; ( We must have went in his room close to 10 times to settle him down. He was happy with us there, but the second we left he was hysterical. I basically had to rub his head until he fell asleep with me there.

This is what he woke up to from the Paci Fairy
A remote control back hoe. Nap today: Cried for 30 minutes till Adam went in and sang songs for 5 minutes, and then left. He cried for another 15 minutes before falling asleep and taking a HUGE nap.

Tonight: It's now after 9:30 PM and he's still up. In and out of tears. I spent 30 minutes in there rubbing his belly and his head. He was close to sleep and I slipped out. He noticed my absence 2 minutes later and started bawling! This is so not fun. I am typing all these details so I remember what to do with the next baby, and to advise other parents, DO NOT take your kid's paci away from bed time until they are ready. He used to be the BEST sleeper. If I don't give in tomorrow and get him a new paci (which I may), I hope this doesn't last much longer.

I feel so bad taking away his one little comfort item (other than his blanket). He loves his little stuffed friends too, so that helps. Right now he sleeps with a Christmas bear he got from Santa, two stuffed dogs ("Jacquamoux" and "Puppy"), a little white teddy bear with a chewed off nose (thanks to the real Jacquamoux) and a seal named "Silky."

Sorry to bore you with the details of this. I am sure it all seems trivial to people without kids, but this is HARD.This was the sunrise this morning. I got out my camera a few minutes too late. It was really amazing just before the sun popped it's head over the trees. It rained last night, so it was so fresh and crisp out today. I love the day after the rain.

Happy New Year!

This last year sure did fly by, we are now having a wonderful start to 2010. Yesterday was close to 80 degrees (sorry to rub it in east coasters). There are not many places in this country you can wear shorts and flip flops in January! We met up with our friend Suzanne and her daughter Keira at the Rose Garden below the Mission for a bit and soaked up the sun. The kids played in the fountain, kicked around a soccer ball, and wore themselves out running around the grass. It was a lot of fun.

I caught this cool cloud that looked like it was smoke coming out of this house's chimney.Owen became a "good boy" again when his friend Jacquamoux came to stay for a night this weekend. Owen Beckham ; )So this has nothing to do with these pictures, but it must be said: Owen has had some CRAZY two year old moments lately and I am realizing that he needs to just burn off more energy. We have a trampoline already, I think a treadmill is in order next! Adam and I need one just to keep in shape to catch up with Owen! The last two days however, he has been a perfect little angel. Which is a good thing, if he was naughty for one more day, I am not sure I would have been able to take it!

Last Friday was a pretty rough day that ended in tears (mine) when my darling boy put the last straw on my back and broke me. It is now hard for me to recall the events that lead to the meltdowns, but here are few frustrating things we have been dealing with lately:

He likes to be "cozy" and does NOT like to take off his pajamas. He would wear them 24/7 if he could.

He recently decided he does not like the shower anymore either, hence his lack of clean hair. It's not worth the fight.

Fifty percent of the time, he will not get in his car seat and will make it impossible to catch him in the car. This can be very frustrating when we need to be somewhere at a certain time.

He loves being home, and trying to get him to leave the house can sometimes take OVER an hour. I am not kidding.

We can't force anything either, without a parent getting hurt! He becomes this Tasmanian devil that twists and turns and screams and pinches until we give up. Fortunately it's not like this every day, otherwise I would be typing this from a rubber room right now. Thank God he has redeemed himself the past two days.

Here are some of the sweet things he has been doing:

Lots of pretending. He has a great imagination. Today he got an empty bowl and spoon and pretended to feed his stuffed animals soup for about 10 minutes. Sometimes the soup was too hot, so he would blow on it to cool it down : ).

He pretends to go the store a lot too. He gets a bag and says he's off to Trader Joes or Costco to go shopping. He says he goes there to get "stickors." TJ's always gives him a bunch of stickers on our way out : )

He will also pretend to make smoothies with "pasta, carrots and apples" (gross). He always finishes his "drink" with a "mmmm good."

Owen also goes to work. He says "bye, going to work!" Then he asks for hugs and kisses and walks out of the room. Thirty seconds later he comes back in and says he's back from work. We ask what he does at work all day and he says "running, running, running" and "making money!"

We started some fun reverse psychology lately too. We are hoping this game doesn't get old too fast. We say that "we don't want kisses or hugs from Owen", and he gets so excited to come over and give us the BIGGEST kisses and hugs ever (over and over again)! This is my new favorite game : )

He has started making up words in his own little language too. For example, the word "Pookie" can be used as follows: Q: Owen, what do you want for breakfast? Answer: "Pookie!" or when he's pretending to cook (which he LOVES to do) he's usually making "Pookie Pie" : ).

He recently started saying "Neeh" instead of "no." If he really does NOT want to do something then it is a definite "NO!" If he's somewhat indecisive, he will answer with a "neeh", which can go either way. It's pretty funny.

When I came home from work the other day he turns to me, gave me a big hug and said "Owen missed Mommy today." Melted my heart.

Adam took him to the beach last week and said "It's such a nice day" and Owen replied " Yeah, and not too dark out!" He always says he wants to go to the zoo or the park or beach and if he asks at night, we always say, "it's too dark out, we can't go."

Often, Owen will say "Owen being VERY good boy", and if I disagree, he says "Owen being very stinker."

Afternoon in Carpinteria

We had a spur of the moment trip to Carpinteria with the folks today. It was such a beautiful warm day! We met at Farmer's market in Goleta and then took off together for breakfast downtown in Carpinteria. We walked to the beach and watched Owen play in the surf with Nanna until he did a face plant when a rather large wave came rolling in. Nanna wrapped him up in her cozy fleece vest until we could get him to the car to head home. Such a nice day.

The Big Race

We had some fun at Hendry's beach a few weeks ago. It was a chilly day, but had a good time running around. Adam started a start line in the sand and he and Owen would run and run until Owen won of course :) I ran along and snapped pictures. It was a refreshing break from an otherwise boring day at home.

"Look at me Mom!!"On your mark, get set, GO!!!He was saying "I am the winner!"I thought this was a cool picture of the pattern in the sand.

Merry Christmas 2009!

Oh where do I begin? 24 days since my last posting, there is a LOT to cover in our simple yet busy lives! And of course lots of pictures. I may just have to work backwards to get it all covered. Let's start with Christmas, shall we?

Owen has been SO excited for Christmas this year, as this is the first year he actually "gets it." We have been excited for him! Christmas Eve we had a delicious dinner at my Mom's house with David's family. Owen had a good time getting lots of attention (which he is not used to of course ;). After dinner, we put him in his new red polar bear Christmas pajamas and headed home. We put out cookies and milk for Santa and carrots for his reindeer, and we put our sleepy head down for the night. Before long he was out while visions of sugar plums danced in his head. :)

When he woke up in the morning he walked out to see what Santa had left him. Adam had set up a HUGE train set that took up more than half of our living room the night before. Owen didn't even see it. You can't miss it, yet the boy didn't notice a thing. It must be the male gene. Once we had to finally point it out to him he was excited and was happy to make it run. The presents were a bit overwhelming and took some time opening, but he got pretty good at it by the end.
Checking out his new beta "gold" fish that he named Freddy the Fish : )

Apparently he was VERY excited to get a soccer ball from Santa!Once we finally wrapped up at home, we got dressed and headed back over to my Mom's house for brunch with Grandma Zena, Katie and Matthew, Jean and Clark. Owen continued to open up box after box. He got a lot of great loot!

Once he opened the box for the trampoline he was done unwrapping and ready to set that thing up ASAP! So, David pulled out the tools and Adam and Owen got to work! Notice that Owen is holding the screwdriver!

The finished product. This was his favorite gift of all, and OURS too. He bounced for hours that and slept in the next day until 10:45 AM!!!! What a blessing! Mom and Zena gave each other the same book for Christmas.

Here's the family on a beautiful warm sunny California Christmas day!

Waving hello to the fireman who hitched a ride on the train. (The fireman came with his firetruck he got from Pop Pop and Mimi).

Cookie Exchange

Some of our friends from PEP got together with the kids to exchange some cookies before the big holiday. We hung out at a local park to let the kids run around so we could actually have adult conversations at the same time.

The cookies were all delicious as expected! The kids had no complaints and were not picky in what they liked : ) Owen had way more than he should have. I thought, why not? He doesn't get to eat like this often....boy did I regret that decision later that day! He would not take a nap and was quite a grump for the rest of the day. Next time, Mommy and Daddy are putting a cookie limit on! We learned our lesson.

On our way to the park Owen is giving me his fake smile "Cheese!" face. Nicholas licking up every crumb off the side of his mouth : P Odin, Mika (reading the ingredients on her juice box) and Nicholas always smiling.

Owen is eyeing Laith's cookie...as usual.Love watching the parents trying to get their kids to sit still and smile! Yeah right!Mason, looking for crumbs that Owen leaves behind. Gabbi is wondering where her cookie is? "Hmmm, I think this cookies needs a good glass of milk." Says Odin "Look Mom, messy hands and face....now what?"

Cruise to Mexico!

Adam and I needed a much needed break from life for a bit and could not pass up a four day cruise to Mexico that we saw on Travelzoo. We had never taken a cruise before, so it was nice to experience it together and with just the right amount of time. I was off work from UCSB, Adam only had to take two slow days off from work and Nana and Pappy were more than willing to take our little man for the week. (Thanks guys! xo)

When we got there we realized that we left our passports at home. Not a good way to start the trip. The lady who was checking us in laughed in our faces and thought we were joking....nope. After checking with her supervisor, they let us on and said that we might get extra questions from customs on returning from Mexico, but "welcome aboard!" PHEW!

We saw some great comedy shows on the ship, ate way too much (as expcted), slept in and just relaxed. We spent a few hours in Catalina just walking around on day number two. It was a cute little town, lots of shops, but probably a better time in the summer.

A seagul was greeting us to the island :)There's our tiny ship from Catalina.Ensenada, Mexico was day 3. We walked around the town which is full of shops and street vendors trying to reel you in. Yuck. We decided to take a bus tour to "La Bufadora" (one of the three natural blow holes in the world). It was a fun little 45 minute bus drive on twisty roads. Once we got there, we were guided through (my interpretation of) a "Mexican strip mall" of people bombarding us with cheap trinkets and churros. The craziness ended when we got to the blow hole (that didn't seem to be blowing while we were there there).

It was peaceful and beautiful over looking the ocean. We hung out there for a bit before heading back for a quick lunch of below par fish tacos and overly sweet margaritas (one being virgin of course).
Before heading back to the bus for our departure time I was swindled into buying some horrible fake "vanilla extract." I was tired and wasn't thinking straight. Adam got some nice cocktail glasses and a toy for Owen. When we got off the bus I noticed a military vehicle parked on the corner with armed men holding machine guns standing up in the back of the truck. Adam said this was to "make us feel safer"...whatever. I couldn't wait to get back on the ship and get in the hot tub! Ensenada is a place I have no desire to return to. Not to sound so negative about the whole thing, I just have yet to find the nice part of Mexico that people are always talking about. I have only been to Mexico twice...maybe the third time is the charm?

Here we are getting wild and crazy at an empty bar with my non-alcoholic margarita (that actually tasted good as it was made with fresh lime juice) served in a Pepsi cup! Whooooo Hooooo, Viva La Fiesta!Every night they had a turn down service and made the cutest little animals out of towels on the bed. Not sure what animal this was supposed to be, but Adam made him look even cuter with the mini guitar and hat : )Adam is going to kill me for putting this picture on here, but he was making me laugh so hard, I had to share it : ) This is Owen's sombrero we brought back for him (he wears it around the house all the time now!)Day four was at sea. We hit the gym, ran the track (had to work off all those desserts!), and relaxed on the chaise lounge chairs reading our books. It was so nice. Relaxation at it's finest.I didn't really miss Owen until this day, and then all of a sudden around dinner time, I couldn't wait to jump off the ship and give him a huge squeeze the next day!

When we finally got home to see Owen, he was not quite as happy to see me as I was to see him. Though he had an amazing time with his grandparents, I think he was a little pissed that we left him for 4 days! : ( It took about 10-15 minutes or so for him to warm up, then he was full of hugs and love for the rest of the night.



The End.