9 Months!!!

OMG... I got an email this morning from babycentre. "9 Montsh: Week 1". I can't believe it. It seems like just yesterday, Owen was 7 months old and we were going to Italy for two weeks. How time flies. On some level, I feel like he hasn't changed much, but on another, it's like he's a totally different baby. His personality has really blossomed and  he rolls over constantly.

Lately he wants me to watch him do everything, even if it's just him looking at a toy, again. He tumbles it over and over and looks at it so intently that I think he must not even notice that I'm there. But there's no way I can get up to do something else while he "plays by himself". No, no, no. It's important that I watch. Because the minute I do get up, he puts on his mad face and lets out a big mad grunt, stiffening up his body and making fists with his hands. Or he puts on his sad face, sticks out his lower lip really far and cries with his whole face. Nope, I must watch him play by himself. Still, I remind myself, it's cute that he needs me so much even if I'm not doing anything.

Grandma Lou

Grandma Lou came over today to watch Owen so I could go out and treat my feet to a much needed pedicure. Walking around all over Europe for a month sort of killed my feet. It was divine.

The two of them had a lovely afternoon of chatting, singing and reading books. Owen said dada a few times, which grandma was so excited to hear.

As much as I appreciate and love to be able to get a little freedom from time to time, I get pretty anxious when I'm out without Owen. The longer I'm away, I get worried that he's having a melt down or that he needs me. So after a while, it's hard to enjoy my freedom. I wonder if that feeling will subside after he's weaned.

For the record, I haven't given any thought to when I will start weaning. I'm not ready to let it go just yet. I wonder, will I ever really be ready?


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Happy Mom's Day

Owen woke up this morning at 8:30 am! Happy Mother's Day... an extra half hour of sleep for mom. Best gift ever no. 1.

Best gift ever no. 2? Diaper free day. Kris has changed 3 poopy diapers today. Way to go Owen.




I haven't had to do anything today. No laundry, no deciding what to eat or drink, no cleaning or dishes. It is awesome!

Owen bought me some beautiful flowers and Bernard Callebaut chocolates. Yum.



Owen's made his first vowel-consonant combo... Yesterday morning he was laying in our bed after his morning drink. He likes to hang out with us and tell stories in the morning. He was banging his legs and made some noise at the same time and low and behold, his jaw closed and the sound was different. All day yesterday he would nod his head and make his noises. This morning, he figured out that all he needs to do is close his jaw. The combo is, you guessed it, da-da-da. Happy Mother's day.

Correction: Owen has had 4 poopy diapers today. I think it might be a record.

Owen woke up from his nap this afternoon with the craziest bed head. So cute.

Rolling over, back to front

Yesterday, we had Owen on his tummy in the living room and he was practicing rolling over onto his back. Then, the craziest thing happened. He saw the box of cords and DVD's sitting under our TV stand. He wanted it. But, the only way to get to it was to reach over, quite far, putting him on his side. He reached and reached and reached. And then... he ended up on his tummy again!!! I think it surprised even him. I am so proud.

Today, I managed to get some video of the big event. Enjoy.

Home Sweet Home

May 1 and 2 were filled with travel to get us back to Venice for our flight back to Calgary. Try as we might, we couldn't convince the airline to allow us to fly out of anywhere else but Venice. Very dumb.

We hopped a train at 9:30 in the morning of May 1 in Munich and arrived at Venice Mestre at about 5:30 pm. It was long, but not too bad, since we basically just sat around all day. There were some nice older Italian ladies sitting across from us and they loved Owen. Neither spoke any English, but I'd heard enough Italians gushing over Owen to know. They were so cute.

We took a cab to our hotel, since we didn't really know how to get there, and didn't care to figure it out. It was a lot farther from the train station than I thought. The cab cost about 20 Euro!

We ate dinner at a family resturant "about 300m down the street from our hotel" according to the innkeeper. I don't know if he was right, but it was really far! Dinner was decent, but like all resturants in Europe, it took forever for us to get the bill, and Owen was loosing it!

Owen slept in the bathroom, again. At least this one didn't smell at all.

May 2 was the longest day ever... we woke up at 4:30 to get to the airport for our flight to Amsterdam at 7:05am. We arrived in Amsterdam one hour and 50 minutes later. Our flight from Amsterdam to Calgary wasn't until 13:30 so we had some time to kill, and Kris really wanted to go to the red light district of Amsterdam to eat a "space brownie", if you know what I mean. So we hopped a train into town. I've got to be honest, I was pretty aprehensive leaving the airport, even knowing that there was AMPLE time to do so. I just don't travel very well. The weather didn't cooperate with us. It started raining shortly after we got off the train and it was pretty cold. None of us was dressed for it. However, Kris managed to accomplish his mission. We would have explored further, but we were all pretty cold and miserable, so we headed back to the airport. In through customs and ready to go.

We got on the plane at 13:30 and arrived in Calgary around 2 hours later. The flight was delayed, I think because of some course corrections along the way and to avoid Iceland all together. Yea... I watched the flight path from time to time. I know, dork! Owen napped 3 or 4 times during the trip.

When we arrived in Calgary, we got stuck in the customs line... it was, after all, Sunday. I guess there were a number of other intercontinental flights that landed all around the same time. It was brutal.

We managed to get Owen to bed at 8:00 local time and then ourselves at about 9:30. In total, we'd been up for about 26 hours. Whew!