In prep for the arrival of Kevin, we have been trying to get Owen to start loving his little brother, even before he arrives! Through numerous efforts, including spinning it so that Owen considers Kevin a little student he can teach rather than an intrusion into his territory, Owen has started to develop brotherly love toward the baby inside Mommy’s tummy. Just 2 days ago, he came up to me himself and said he wanted to kiss Kevin (his Daddy has taught him to kiss Mommy’s tummy to display his love for the baby) so I turned my tummy toward little Owen so he can kiss Kevin; then to my surprise and great joy, he added, “I love you, Kevin!” It was sooooooo sweet!

After a long 4.5 hours drive back from VA last night, Owen had a biological call for #2 soon after we arrived home. As I was waiting for him to finish (he still refuses to try #2 on a toilet), he proclaimed that he was going to get Daddy to change his diaper. I was thrown off by his statement as he usually does not like his Daddy to change him; it’s always been “I want Mommy to change diaper.” So out of curiosity, I asked, “Why, Owen? Why do you want Daddy to change you?” He answered in a as-a-matter-of-fact manner, “Mommy will be stinky.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing!!! My little 3-year-old son was being so sweet & considerate and knew that I would have to smell his smelly poop if I changed him (I’m always teasing him how smelly it is), so he was going to get his Daddy to change him so Mommy wouldn’t have to smell it! (Sorry Daddy, his preference of people DOES make a difference ;P ) I was so tickled by Owen’s actions that I had to call Grandma Mom and tell her; she laughed and said wanted to know if he followed through. He didn’t…still wanted Mommy to change him at the end…but hey, it’s the thought that counts, right?

As we get ready for the arrival of baby #2 (since we don’t know the sex of the baby yet, have not named him/her yet), we have been scoping out for a new bed for Owen. Initially, Owen’s 4-way convertible bed (crib to toddler bed or sofa bed to full-sized bed) was going to accompany him all the way from birth to college, but we have decided to let the bed accompany baby #2 all the way to college instead. That means lucky Owen gets to pick his own new bed…it’s true the firstborn always gets the new stuff.

When we went to the store, however, much to our dismay, Owen kept on showing an interest in the “girly” beds (as evident in the video)…as Daddy noted, Owen especially likes pink. Luckily, that’s starting to change though as he learns to shun away from girly stuff (when we walk down the “Barbie” aisle in Target, Owen now proclaims, “That’s for girls!”). We may have done some conditioning at home, but most of it is obviously being done at school by his friends.

Now that Owen is almost 3 (he will be 3 in about a month), I am REALLY starting to feel the strong desire to hold on to this cutest phase of him forever…how I wish I could just freeze time right now and enjoy Owen’s 2-3 years old phase forever. He is SOOOOOOOOOO cute and sweet right now I don’t want him to ever grow up! Now’s the perfect phase because he can do and say many things so he’s easier to care for and much funner to interact or just watch and yet he’s still tiny enough to swoop into your arms and cuddle & kiss many times a day.

All of a sudden, he’s taking all these big milestones, that are reminding me of how fast he is growing up. Just 2 weeks ago, he started potty training (we tried earlier at around 2 to no success - doctor said boys usually are ready around 3 and when they are ready, it takes very little time for them to be potty-trained…she was right on) and is pretty much potty trained now for #1…doesn’t want to wear his diapers anymore and even pees standing up (we initially trained him sitting down, but by accident, Grandpa Hong introduced him to peeing peeing standing up this weekend (he didn’t realize that we trained him sitting down so he held Owen up standing to pee and that was all it took…now he won’t pee sitting down)…

Knowing that that was pretty much the only thing that may potentially held Owen back in the older 2 class vs moving up to the 3 year old class, now that that hurdle has been overcomed, we just received a letter today that Owen is scheduled to move up to the 3 year old class on Aug.24th. I know he will be very sad to leave his beloved teachers who love him very much and have taught and introduced him to so many things, including becoming more independent. I am so thankful to God that Owen had such loving and patient teachers as his first teachers and forever indebted to them for starting Owen out on the right path to independence and schooling.

Yesterday, Owen received his first “missing” ears report…no, it’s not a recognition or reward; on the contrary, I have been dreading for the day but knew it would come soon regardless. I am, however, very relieved that it wasn’t due to hitting/pushing friends but just not following directions.

Everyday, Mommy receives a daily report from daycare on how Mr.Owen did at school…during the first 2 months, it was always good reports ( his ears were always “on” or mostly “on”. Then once he had comfortably settled in, the trouble started…

We started getting reports of “loose” ears. First, it was maybe once a week, then it was 2-3 times a week. The teacher’s comments were also deteriorating, with reports of Mr.Owen pushing or hitting friends. Having always been a goodie goodie student all my life, I was very shocked - don’t know, but I guess I was expecting Owen to follow suit…or at theeast, not cause trouble. Alarmed to find out that sometimes, the aggression was not provoked, I tried to understand why he does this, but to no avail as Owen could not verbalize why he hit/push someone.

So I took both the positive and negative approach: if I get a report that he hit that day, when he gets home, he gets 2 mind of timeout in his room. I also repeatedly remind him hands are for gentle/nice touches and praise him when he was well-behaved that day. At night, he will also get ice cream. After 2 weeks and 2 timeouts, it is finally working. Now the first thing he says to Daddy & Mommy when we pick him up is: “Owen didn’t hit any friends today!”

Compared to him being physically aggressive and potentially hurting another kid, I would take a “missing” ears report for not following directions anyday!

Mommy is so glad Owen did not inherit his Daddy’s lack of rhythm ;P…our little one has shown great sense of beat since he was very young.  Even before he could stand by himself, he would dance to the music…when the music was quick, he would dance quickly and when it slowed, his dancing would also slow down. Over time, we’ve grown accustomed to his natural response to any upbeat music and have not thought about it in a while. 

This past weekend though, we were reminded once again of his talent.  We were listening to music while eating dumplings, and when Lady Gaga’s Poker Face started playing, Owen started going at it and doing his moves…it amazes me how many different moves he did! Daddy and I had such a good laugh watching him…you can too (good thing we always keep our Flip handy for times like this).

Owen had the 1st Easter party in his life today - he semi-enjoyed it as he cried through some portions of it.

His class had a series of activities for the celebration: a parade around the classrooms to say “Happy Easter!” and to show off their beautiful/cute self-made springtime hats, followed by a Easter egg hunt in the playground and finally, snacks.  By the time I got there, all the kids already had their pretty hats on…not sure why, but Owen started crying soon after he saw me.  When the teachers asked the kids to line up, he started tugging me to take him home…as the parade progressed, he would cry on and off.  It finally hit me that perhaps he thought he was going to another classroom and was afraid. 

Luckily, as soon as we returned to the classroom, the teachers did not waste any time leading right into the egg hunt, so Owen charged toward the playground as soon as he saw the eggs (we had practice last Sat on a much grander scale at our town’s egg hunt ;P so he knew what was going on.  He was doing great, picking up eggs with great speed until he came across a purple glitter egg that popped open…I asked him to pick it up and initially he didn’t want (prob figured it was a “bad” egg so he didn’t want it) but at my urging, he ultimately did.  I wished I hadn’t though…because he then spent the next 30 seconds or so fussing at the egg, turning it this way and that - guess he wanted to put it back together.  I repeatedly asked him to put it in the basket and to pick up more eggs but he was oblivious to me….after a couple of tries, he finally put the egg into his basket and started looking for other eggs.  Of course, in the 30 seconds or so he spent staring at the purple egg, most of the eggs were gone so he did not end up with that many, but he was happy, and that was all that matters.

Once we got back to the classroom, the kids had tons of food - it was so fun watching them eat and have crumbs/cakes all over their face and hands.  All of them - including Owen - seemed to be starving and stuffed down the snacks and juice…overall, Owen still did enjoy his 1st Easter party so it was a huge success!

Today marked Owen’s first day of day care without tears.  Usually, in the mornings, since he wakes up, he will periodically repeat, “Don’t want Miss Ann.” Initially, it alarmed me because he said it about every 10 seconds the first weekend we started day care that I wondered if there was a reason why he singled out Miss Ann.  From what I was told in the daily reports, Miss Ann was his favorite teacher - he followed her everywhere and when she needed to step out for whatever reason, he would get upset.  Last Wed, they finally moved back to the REAL day care and I finally were able to see him in action via webcam.  He seemed to get along with both teachers and the other kids, so I felt much better, but still had to deal with “Don’t want Miss Ann” (read “Don’t want school”) every AM. The little smart aleck appeared to have come to recognize the route and he would start crying halfway to school.  Every time he does this, my heart ached and I wonder if I should quit work seeing the poor kid resisting so.

Today was different.  Although he whimpered and almost cried during the last minute, I told him that he was a big boy now and is brave and that Mommy/Daddy has to work in order for him to buy Thomas (he loves the choo-choo train Thomas)…while we go to work, Owen goes to school, and we’ll Amazingly, when we got to the school and went to the playground (it was outdoor time), the teachers greeted him and waved at him and Owen happily waved back with a smile and “Hi!”.  They opened up their arms for a hug and he went straight to hug them.  Then he turned around, cocked his head to one side, and with a huge grin, said, “Mommy, bye bye!” with a wave.  I just stood there in disbelief.  Then it was a wave of relief and gratitude to God for helping Owen adjust to quickly.  It’s only been 8 days since he first started daycare and he has adjusted well beyond my wildest imagination.  My baby is really growing up. *happy tears*

It is finally here…the time when Owen will be old enough to start causing trouble. He drew on our master bedroom’s bed sheets today and it only took a few seconds!

I was looking at something on the computer and the next moment when I turned around, he had already “decorated” the sheets.  My initially response was of course a loud “Owen, no no!” Then remembered all the articles I had read about not saying no, but rather explaining what he/she can do.  So I calmed down and tried to explain to him that you can only draw on paper.  I don’t know if he understands…we’ll see.  Sherwood asked him why I had given him a pen and I said I gave him a pencil, but somehow he got a hold of a pen and that was what he ended up using. Luckily, we were still able to wash the ink off.

The incident doesn’t end here though.  When Sherwood came home from school yesterday, he noticed the marks and asked Owen who drew on the sheets.  To my surprise, Owen lied and said “Mommy.” Now that was not acceptable.  We firmly told him that if he did it, he should say he did it, and not lie about it.  It’s unbelievably hard to explain to a 2.5 year old the concept of lying.  We did the best we could…he seems to understand as he later said “Owen” when posed the same question.

I personally expect many more of these incidents to happen, so I  need to read up on what to do when they do and how to teach him the virtue of honesty.

*Sigh* Yesterday was the worst day for Owen to start day care, but I had no choice as his caretaker - my aunt-in-law - was leaving for TW today.

Two main reasons:
1) We actually had a snow storm (by NC definition - a few inches) on Tuesday and since it has lingered in the 20’s, the road conditions were not great yesterday morning.

2) The day care had a flooding over the weekend, and thus had to moved to a temporary site, so Owen would be at a new environment (what I was trying to avoid by having him sit in the class for a few days) and I would not be able to see him during his first few days via webcam.

As we braved the road conditions, I hit black ice along the way and had a spinout.  Was initially on the left lane of a 3-lane road and ended up facing the opposite direction on the right lane.  Thanks to God there was no cars behind us (know God was protecting us because that’s a busy road) so we managed to manuever back to the left lane but I was clearly shakened.  Didn’t think Owen was affected until this morning, on our way to day care, he kept on repeating, “Mommy, no spinning, no spinning.”  Poor little guy.

In any case, Owen did not cry when I left him with the teachers (he was too caught up in observing his new surrounding).  According to the daily report, the teacher wrote “Owen had a great day all things considered.  He has cried off and on today.  When we transition to something new that he’s not familiar with, he gets a little upset.  Tomorrow will be a much better day now that he’s getting the routine down. Great job, Owen!” He ate most of lunch (Turkey & cheese sandwich on wheat) and all of his snack (wafers & cookies) so he did do pretty well for his first day!