What was I Thinking?

Last weekend I had an idea that turned out to be great and terrible all at the same time. Due to the fact that I work at a church, Sundays are usually fairly busy for me. Last weekend I had an exceptionally hectic Sunday with activities that kept me running around town all day. By Sunday evening I was dead tired and looking forward to a relaxing Monday at home with Owen.

After my workout Monday morning, I found myself thinking about my Grandma. I hadn't seen her in awhile and thought it would be nice to go to lunch with her. The only problem with that idea is that she lives in Yukon, Oklahoma which is about a 3 hour drive from my house. Being the spontaneous person that I am, I called my mom (also spontaneous) to see if she wanted to come. After an excited call to Grandma to warn her that we were coming and a quickly packed bag for Owen we were on the road! In my mind I was picturing a nice leisurely drive of chatting and laughing with my mom. I pictured Owen sitting calmly in his car seat playing with his toys until he peacefully drifted off to sleep only to awaken when we arrived at Grandma's. I could not have been more wrong.

Owen does not sleep in the car. About 20 miles into the trip I knew we had made a mistake. IF we hadn't already told Grandma that we were coming I would have turned back and gone home. Owen was so tired but refused to go to sleep. After he threw his toys and his cup about 100 times (with me reaching behind my seat to pick them up) I decided to move to the back seat to sit next to him. I gave him some cheese and Cheerios which calmed him briefly but he quickly reverted to whining and crying. If you have spent any time with Owen you know that this is in no way his normal behavior. He is usually very calm and quiet so, not being used to the decibels he was emitting, I got a headache. Since my head hurt and Owen was crying, my mom and I stopped talking. We stopped several times to get Owen out of the car to walk around. Finally with about 30 minutes left before reaching Grandma's, he fell asleep.

After a looonnnng and uncomfortable drive it was so great to see my Grandma. She lives in the Spanish Cove Retirement Village and I got an in-depth tour of the whole place. Everywhere we went, Grandma was happy to show off Owen to her friends and to the Spanish Cove employees. At this point Owen was on his best behavior and was charming the ladies with his smiles and giggles. We ate in the cafeteria which was actually quite delicious.

Spanish Cove was pretty nice. They had a card room where there were several tables of people playing Canasta. I told my Grandma that you have to be at least 70 to know how to play Canasta. I got to meet the Activities Director who bragged about my Grandma saying that she is in great shape and takes exercise classes at least 5 days a week. Seeing the smile on my Grandma's face while she held Owen and introduced him to her neighbors made the whole trip worthwhile...

Even though he cried and whined on the way back as well.

Discipline (Written by Myers)

It's unfortunate that saying, "NO!" while laughing is not an effective method of disciplining a child. I find myself doing that a lot. Owen is a funny little guy even when he's doing bad things. For instance, he has started doing a pelvic thrust as soon as we put him in his car seat, in his mind this makes it impossible to hook him in. It's even funnier because he starts sliding out of the car seat while staring me defiantly in the face; like "what are you going to do now, Dad?" His huge stomach sticking out, funny; the obviously uncomfortable position he's stuck in, funny, his face staring back at me, funny...but also bad. Karen locks him in the seat way more often that I do and is probably well past the point of this being funny.

The other bad thing he almost always does is feed the dogs food from his plate. I'm pretty sure he knows he shouldn't be doing it but that doesn't stop him. He'll look us right in the face with his best smile all while leaning over and putting a piece of waffle in Jack The Dog's mouth. It doesn't help that Jack is immediately pacing around the chair as soon as we put Owen at the table. Again, it's funny...but also bad.

The last one happens all the time so it's not quite as funny anymore. We're sitting on the floor to be on Owen's level but he always wants to be on the couch. He's too small to get up there on his own so what does he do? He uses us as human ladders. He has no problem stepping on our faces to propel himself onto the couch. Of course, once he is up there he just laughs and laughs until we put him back down on the floor.

Other funny things Owen has been doing that are appropriate for laughter:
doing a Frankenstein walk across the room (I know, it's Frankenstein's monster), thinking about and starting the motion to jump on the couch (he might get a centimeter off the ground, it's hard to tell), shaking his head quickly then stopping abruptly while smiling, and a Woody Woodpecker style laugh that I'm pretty sure he only does because he knows it will make us laugh.