Great 2nd birthday!
Great surprise visit with Mommo and Daddo!
Owen enjoyed his spotlight weekend, was a sweet birthday boy, and hopefully everyone else had a good time too. The weather turned just nice enough for an outdoor party on Saturday, with rainy gray on the surrounding days. We had a BBQ with toys, space to run and Moose the bunny for a petting zoo. At Owen's request, Hats! Balloons! and Candles! were required for the festivities. Mommo and Daddo were invaluable in pulling off the event! Owen has been and will continue to talk about it for a good long while.

Lots of new pictures are up, including birthday pix at:
http://picasaweb.google.com/amyswint/09_05_16_O_Birthday#

5/13/09. First catapulting of self out of crib onto floor. Reason: Daddy left child in crib instead of getting him out in the morning because he was being a complete and total BRAT. Result: Beside himself with anger, child determined to get out while screaming and mommy in next room heard, thud, WAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

I'm very curious to see what happens now. Owen is the kind of kid who is fairly smart about being self-preserving and not hurting himself. He generally obeys quickly and consistently when he's told he might get hurt or something's dangerous. He's been talking about the event all day (Owen fall out. crib.) and I've told him that it's dangerous to get out and to not do it anymore. He hardly even stood up at naptime, I think he's a little nervous to be in there :} But with a few more months of smarts he might put 2 and 2 together and try again. I bought a used toddler bed; it's in the garage. But he is so not ready to handle that level of independence yet...it would result in a lot of lost sleep right now. Best for all of us to push the crib as long as possible...

Today Owen basically arm-wrestled me for control of the vacuum cleaner attachment hose. I was cleaning *under* the couch (gasp!) and getting all the prehistoric ginormo-sized dust bunnies in the corners of the living room, and this was way too much fun for Owen to sit back and observe. Once I ceded control of the hose, Owen kept himself busy pseudo-cleaning for a good 20 minutes. Too bad he only actually vacuumed about 5% of the places that I was hoping to get, and every time I said, "Mommy's turn!" he could only share the privilege with me for about 30 seconds before he wanted his job back. At which point he would look at me with very serious eyes, point at the sofa and say, "Mommy sit couch!" All of this while wearing his noise earmuffs, mind you. Insanely cute!

I find myself wondering why the world is ordered so that I am 7 months pregnant, my son wants to vacuum for me, orders me to sit on the couch, and this doesn't really work out for both of us. Why will it be that as soon as he is old enough to actually do the chore properly he will lose interest and there will be no warring over the attachment hose? Alas. Well, my theory is that I am (to a reasonable point) never going to try too hard to step in and do jobs 'right' when Owen is enjoying doing them and testing out his independence. Maybe we all stop liking to do things because it stops being fun and we get too burdened about doing it often enough, well enough, right enough. So for now Owen gets lots of praise and freedom to clean any time he feels like it! This means that the dirt piles I sweep up with the big yellow broom get quickly redispersed by Owen and the small gray 'Owen's bwoom!' And that when Owen wants to dump the full dustpan in the garbage, half of it ends up back on the floor. But that's the best he can do right now, and he really is doing his best! I'll help him learn to do it better as he's able, but I love that he's enjoying his work.

Speaking of work, there's some footage of Owen doing some of his favorite tasks around the house and yard in a quickie montage we made for our moms for M's day: http://www.vimeo.com/4578363.

Humbling moments:

Realizing that your toddler is pulling your chain and getting you to come into his room after bedtime for various reasons (fussing about having moved monitor camera and wanting it back where it should be, fussing about having pulled curtain off of wall and wanting it hung back up, etc.), the mother decides to ignore crying/fussing the next time when said toddler moves monitor camera again. After fussing has escalated and stayed loud for way too long (but mother can't see that anything is wrong because camera has been moved), mother goes in to child to find arm stuck in crib rail and extremely distraught. Even though she had the best intentions, she feels guilty. As far as I can tell, motherhood is one giant judgment call where you can never really be sure you're doing the right thing. Oh, and I love my video monitor. The judgment calls would be even harder without it.

Cute bursts for today include...

Coming in and waking me up after having breakfast downstairs with Daddy and proceeding to pour on the sugar while sitting in bed with me for 15 minutes. First, telling me all about breakfast. Then, kissing me on the face and lips with big smacks. Pointing to my belly and talking about baby brudder, then more kisses. Laying down his head next to me on the pillow, then a big kiss. Getting the hand lotion off of my nightstand and putting some on my arms...and my toes (of all places!), then kisses. Major cuddlefest!

After learning that we were going to have lunch with Daddy, informing me step by step where we needed to go (starting with telling me to park the car) to get to Daddy. Running with a squeal toward Daddy when he was spotted. Insisting that lunch with Daddy includes 'soup and li'l cwackohs and BIG cwackohs!'

Continuing to push away mommy's hands and insisting on doing almost everything on his own. When successful, announcing, 'Di't by yourself!' When not successful, 'Mommy do it!'

Rubbing his tummy after eating a big supper while we sat together (Daddy worked late tonight), getting a sneaky grin on the corner of his mouth, fake sighing/groaning and saying 'baby owen's tummy.' Then,
Owen: 'Haht! Haht!'
Me: Did Dr. Lichter listen to the baby's heartbeat yesterday?
Owen: nnHHHnn (yes). Gwease on tummy (pointing to own tummy).
Me: Yep, he had to put grease on my tummy to hear it.
Owen: nnHHHnn. Gwease. Docah Lich-ah! Love baby. Come out!
Me: Baby brother is getting big. I want him to come out too, but he's not ready yet.
Owen: Baby brudder live house. Listen! Listen heartbeep.
Me: Heartbeat.
Owen: Heartbeep. Heartbeeps. nnHHHnn.

Outdoor activity of choice for the day: carefully hang a sets of earmuffs from each handle of tricycle. Put Red Sox cap on backward and attempt to pedal trike (not unsuccessfully!) while holding earmuff/handle assembly, which is not very stable. Reattempt this feat over and over, getting on and off of trike frequently to pick up earmuffs that have fallen to the pavement.

Raucous, giddy, uncontrollable, little boy laughter following learning to plant his open mouth on my cheek (while I'm attempting to wrestle him into pj's on the changing table after bathtime) and blow a funny sound. 'Owen zewbewt (zerbert)! Mommy face! Owen zewbewt!' Repeat ~15 times.

We had absolutely wonderful visits to both Swint and Spain grandparents this spring. I should record some memories while they're not too stale!

In March we did the cross-Texas tour. Owen and I flew to Austin while Reuel flew to San Antonio for a conference. Well, that was the plan anyway. About 20 minutes before his plane was supposed to board, Reuel began manifesting symptoms of the stomach bug Owen and I had enjoyed. So, he ended up in bed instead of flying, and left for SA the next day instead. Owen and I stayed several days with the Edwards and Owen had a fantastic time with the cousins. According to the amount of times he talked about his memories post-trip, he especially enjoyed getting pulled in the wagon and digging in the dirt with cousin Aidan. My favorite memory is popping outside to see how the kids were doing, and witnessing Owen flying down the steep driveway at umpteen miles an hour in the wagon (with one of the girls at the helm), holding on tight with a huge grin and saying WHEEE! while I peeked nervously through my fingers. It was terrific. I also recall lots of great chats with Erin and some fantastic fajitas the day we left. Mmm.

We spent a too-short day and night with the Matthews gang in Waco next. They took us on a boat ride! Owen loved the fast part where the wind blew in his hair...definite bit of daredevil in there. It was a lot of fun. Owen did have a hankering to pull Zayn's hair and got some ugly whoopings from Daddy. But overall it wasn't *too* bad and there was lots of fun had riding bikes in the banquet hall downstairs and checking out the up and coming parts of the loft....wow! I am constantly amazed by large families and how they manage all the chaos and Lorin and Chris seem to be pros at staying cool and calm.

Reuel's mom and dad picked us up in Waco and we had a nice evening ride to Paris (of course Owen didn't fall asleep til the last hour or so!). Where to begin. Owen is still talking about all the fine details of the visit to the ranch, now more than a month later. Fishing (worm! fishie! hold it. hook. sharp! ouchie! water. hold fishie? worms, dirt, fork), driving tractor and pickup (drive it. BIG!), feeding cows (moo. hay.) and visiting the garden (hose! daddo hose. mommo hose. dirt!) dominate many a toddler conversation. Not to mention cowboys, the playroom, painting and the birthday cowboy hat he got to shop for with mommo and daddo. We ate too much as usual, but enjoyed it thoroughly, and Owen must've put on more weight in that visit than he had in three months...liked mommo's cooking apparently, and ate like a horse. Laddie and Patty Paws get lots of memory time, too.















Just last week we returned from a week in NC with my parents and Aunt Debbie (sans Reuel, sadly). Also a great time! Cats, cats, cats!...a big highlight of visiting nunu and grandpa. Frequently we discuss the cats now...Holly? Max? Leo? Yes, Owen those are nunu's cats. Run away! Yes, they run away when you chase them. Eat turkey! Yep, they love turkey. Scwatch arm! Holly scratched your arm when you climbed up to see her, but it wasn't a bad scratch.

Other highlights in Owen's memory were collecting and throwing sticks in the backyard, eating ice cream (and lots of it), playing with kids from church, reading nunu's books (particularly the one called 'tails') and grilling out with grandpa. As for myself, I lounged around WAY too much and deslugifying myself after the trip has not been easy :} But it was a great vacation. Oh! I nearly forgot the zoo. We took a lovely trip to the zoo in Asheboro and enjoyed the animals there. Owen was CRAZY feisty about car trips there for some reason (he's back to normal here; no fussing for up to an hour of driving!) and Aunt Debbie, desperate for sources of entertainment, or perhaps just to punish the rascal, stuck her dirty, walk-around-a-zoo-all-day-in-sandals feet in his face and *I* said YUCK Debbie!! Owen picked up on that one quickly and has been parroting 'Yugh Debbie, yugh Debbie!' over and over since then. He thinks it is hilarious. Sometimes he says 'miss nunu. miss grandpa. miss debbie.' ...not necessarily in any particular order ;)

Photos courtesy Grandpa: