The Aquarium (Again!)

Here are my boys walking into the Aquarium:



Colin and Owen got to see the hippos walking out of the water which was pretty exciting.



SHARK!



BIG SHARK!!!



Getting to the aquarium early lets us have the aquarium almost to ourselves. Colin loves having the shark tunnel to himself. We even got to see them feeding the sharks which was a first.



Who is that woman? A rare appearance in front of the camera for me.

Owen looks sceptical of the penguins.

Colin thought this was hilarious.


And the inevitable conked out Colin on the way home.


Another fun day at the aquarium.

Museum Chatter

I took a little video today of Colin talking about his favorite place, The American Museum of Natural History. You can tell he's a tiny bit distracted because he's talking about the museum while watching a movie about elephants (thanks, Uncle Kev!).



That video could have lasted about twenty more minutes, but the camera ran out of memory.

Fieldtrip to the Farm

Colin's class had a fieldtrip to a farm today to see the animals and pick pumpkins. I took a few pictures before we left:

And a few pictures at the farm:






They had fun!

Random Pictures from a Sunday

Weaned

Fifteen months ago, Owen was born. The first few moments of his life were scary. He wasn’t breathing and they had to work on him for a few minutes. Hearing him finally cry was one of the most relieving sounds in the world. As soon as he was cleaned up and I could hold him, I nursed him for the first time.

It was funny, but certain things Owen just gets. He just instantly knows how to survive in the world, how to figure things out. So figuring out how to nurse was easy for him. He instantly got it and calmly ate for 20 minutes until the nurses cut him off to bring him to the nursery.

Those first few days were a blur, but Owen just ate and ate. I did things with a little baby attached that I never imagined, talked to doctors, ate my dinner, I even received Communion with Owen nursing away.

At times, I thought I would have to wean Owen abruptly. When his first GI told me I had to wean immediately, I cried and cried. I tried desperately to get Owen to take a bottle, but he wouldn’t have it. And my heart wasn’t in it. I knew it wasn’t the right time.

And honestly, time kind of slipped by me the last three months. All along, I’ve worked toward weaning him. I got him to take sippy cups and cut out one nursing session at a time. But it still snuck up on me the other day when I realized he was probably ready to be weaned completely. I promised myself I would make sure he nursed for a year and then I would look for signs that he was ready to stop to make it easier on both of us.

It has been almost a week since he nursed for the last time. The funny thing is that I didn’t even realize when I was nursing him for the last time. There were no tears and no sad goodbyes. It was like any other time. I nursed him until he was drowsy with his little hand clutching my finger and put him to sleep.

The next couple of nursing sessions, I just experimented, I gave him a cup to see if he would mind. And he didn’t. He just took his little cup and drank in my arms and went to sleep the normal way. There were no tears (except for mine one time), it just kind of happened.

It feels weird to be getting my body back. Almost exactly two years ago I got pregnant with Owen. So for the last two years he has been relying on me, not just as his mom, but as his source of comfort and food. And now although he still relies on me, it’s a little different. And that’s not a bad thing; it’s just him growing up.

Walking With Dinosaurs

Last night I took Colin to see Walking With Dinosaurs Live. On Friday, I made a last minute decision to look for tickets. The only show we could make was last night at 7:30 (which is after Colin's normal 7:15 bath time). But, I went out on a limb and took him anyway.


He had the time of his life. The show was amazing, big life size mechanical LOUD dinosaurs roamed the stage. Colin literally did not stop talking through the entire show. He was beyond excited. So excited that he said "no thank you!" to the juice and cookie I bought him before the show.



It really was an amazing show and really informative. At one point, I just had to laugh when the Paleontologist who narrated the show was talking about a "dinosaur corpse" and Colin shouted "He's talking about horses! But where's the horse?"

On the way home, he talked about the dinosaurs for the entire 45 minute drive. He re caped the entire show. "The baby TRex was trying to find her daddy. She didn't like the Torosaurus" and on and on. He was little disappointed that the Velocirapters weren't there, but knew there was the Utahrapter. He said "well, maybe the Velociraptor will be there next time. Maybe he was just in his car." Maybe!

Politics According to Colin

"How about the elephant can be blue and the donkey can be red! Would that be a deal, mom? Maybe we should talk to the 'publicans".



"No, IIIIIII like Barack Obama, YOU can like John McCain! Only I like Barack Obama!"

"I like Barack Obama. John McCain is boooorrrrriiiiinnnnnnggggggggg."