Both boys are sleeping in their OWN beds in their OWN bedrooms right now …

Ah …

Milo just went in for his 6 month check-up. Some fun numbers:

• 95th percentile for height
• 75th percentile for weight
• 40th percentile for head circumference

He is also getting his third tooth, right above the bottom two in the front middle. It’s making him quite cranky but luckily my trick for getting him to sleep is still working. If he’s tired enough I just cover his head with a blankie while holding him and bouncing him around and he usually puts his head down on my shoulder and after a little tossing back and forth he’s asleep. Genius! Of course, that just gives me more time to make sure Oskar is staying in bed, there’s never a dull moment.

We’re also moving Oskar into a new room, the old office/junk room. Milo will get his old room since Oskar’s new room is bigger which will be helpful for his big boy bed and big boy toys. His old room already has the camera set up in it (it’s hardwired) and we can use that to keep an eye on Milo once he’s in the crib, he’s still in our bed or in the Pack and Play right next to it.

Ahh, nothing like bloggin’ while sitting outside on a nice summer morning.  Oskar is playing in the dirt in his pajamas and a hat (he asked to wear one).  He is talking so much more now and we can understand most of what he is saying.  It’s mostly about “b-ball”, “wawa”, “moma”, “dad”, and “sha-sha” (his way of saying “Lola”) but it’s fun to hear what he has to say and what he’s thinking about.  Speech is good for the obvious reasons of communication but I’ve always wanted to know what is going on in his head; what he’s thinking about, how he feels about something.  It’s exciting to finally begin to find these things out.

We went out on Rose’s parents sailboat this last Sunday with Oskar.  He had been on a boat before but this was the first time he could really experience it, climb around and walk around the deck.  We have some great pictures that we’ll put up on Flickr later.  We sailed this time from the Tacoma Yacht Club over to Gig Harbor, stayed there for a few hours while we had some snacks, Rose and I got to kayak around the harbor, had dinner then sailed back.  The wind going over was strong and we were leaned way over for a little part of it.  I would have been scared if Gerry wasn’t sailing but it was pretty far over.  Once we were anchored in the harbor Oskar got to run around the deck, pose for pictures and climb all over.  The next day when Jody was watching him she taught him some parts of the boat.  He really likes to say “boom”, “bow”, and “mast”.

We leave for San Diego early Monday morning.  We’ll be there through Saturday and be back late that night.  The hope was to get an early flight so Oskar might go back to sleep and then get a late flight coming home so he can fall asleep on the way back.  We’re a little apprehensive about flying with him, especially since he’ll be sitting in one of our laps.  My “Be Prepared” dad book said to get the other passengers to help entertain the little guy so we’ll see how that works.  I’m going to be busy for some of the time but we should have an opportunity to go to SeaWorld, the San Diego Zoo (maybe Legoland!) or just hang out at the pool.  Like when I was in Orlando, HP will be footing the bill so we won’t want for food or drinks.  We’ll take pictures and post them to Flickr too either while we’re there or when we get back.  Now that I’m on break I have more free time but I just can’t bring myself to do more online stuff like bloggin’, postin’ or that sort of thing.  I’d rather spend time with my family but I’ll try to maintain a somewhat updated view into our real lives.

I’ve never really given much thought to resolutions but after looking at Scott’s I began to think of some for myself. Mainly I’m doing this for me but if you have comments feel free.

Here they are in no particular order:

1. Take my music more seriously

Right now I am working on a cover of an old 80′s song with a friend after realizing that it was TIME for this song to resurface. I got a MIDI keyboard for Christmas and as Steve O. says on “Kung Pow!”, “Thank you, you’ve helped me reach the next level.” He goes on to say some other things not exactly appropriate but I feel like I can move forward with my music now that I can play all the parts on the keyboard as well as push levers and twist knobs. My 3 projects will be Orgy-meets-dancehall, acoustic/Elliot Smith and Royksopp vs. DJ Shadow. Only problem is I don’t think I’m too good with writing lyrics or which project to do first but I digress …
My Goal: Put a song on the radio or, barring that, put out a REAL CD worth of music and a website

2. Finish my book

I’ve begun to write a book that I conceived of a couple years ago when I was student teaching. It’s about being a new teacher and my story and advice for other new teachers. I first came up with the title which will be something like “Growing your teacher brain”. It has to do with teaching being different than anything else and something that can come only with experience (for most of us anyway). I haven’t found much out there FOR the new teacher BY the new teacher and I think there’s space out there for my book.
My Goal: Finish the book and get it published

3. Take care of myself

I need to be getting up in the morning to go to the gym or going with my family. I need to take care of my work duties at work and get better organized in my classroom and with my career. I also need to push myself to continue to learn and better myself for personal and professional reasons.
My Goal: Schedule my life! Budget, and organize tasks and events at work and at home

4. Take care of my family

I need to be responsive to my wonderful wife Rose and most excellent son Oskar. Ultimately, my family is THE most important thing to me and I need to provide love, respect and time for them. There’s probably room in there somewhere for Lola too …
My Goal: Love my family more and more each day and give to them all I can

5. Get my business website up and running

I am working on a business idea and am spending some time researching the competition and planning out everything I need to do. I don’t want to go into details, not that I’m paranoid, but I’d rather let everyone know when it’s up. It’s exciting for me because I’ve always had an interest in business and have been thinking of starting my own in some form for a while.
My Goal: Launch the website, get some advertising revenue and scale it up, up up

This is not to say that I don’t already do any or all of these items. It’s just that the beginning of the year is a good time to straighten out your priorities, if nothing else.
This year already looks wonderful with Oskar growing up, me being more involved with school activities, planning fun summer getaways (Denver, CO and San Diego, CA), Rose doing more with her Doula stuff and beading, getting ready for a summer with BroadEducation.com (hopefully) and I’ve got to find out when my 10 year reunion is this summer too. Not too shabby.

New Snow 2

Originally uploaded by davstock.

Last night on the news we saw that my district would be 2 hours late but hadn’t heard anything about Tacoma. Rose was going to be watching her cousins and their parents work in that district so we wanted to see what was going to happen with them.

Rose got a call from her aunt saying that there was no news yet but to call back in 20 minutes. In the meantime, I got a call from a teacher on the phone tree saying asking if we’d heard the news (Rose was watching and had) about us now being out for the day. He said he was doing me a favor because the person above him on the tree had called at 4:00 am. He at least had the dignity to wait until 6:15 to call me.

We then heard that Tacoma had called it off too so we’ve had the day off together. We went on a walk with Oskar in the backpack, like last night, and looked at the snow and the kids playing. It’s the afternoon now but we still have about 4-5 inches on the ground. There’s been a fine rain all day which has been melting the snow on the trees and such but unless we get real rain this isn’t going to melt anytime soon. We’re going to see if there’s enough light out to go get a tree soon. We’ll have pictures up when we do.

Christmas lights

Originally uploaded by davstock.

At school today it snowed for about 1 – 2 hours off and on. It stuck for a while and then it started to rain and by the time I was leaving there was snow on the car but that was about it. I met Rose in Tacoma for some shopping and we didn’t get home until around 7:30. As we got closer to our house we realized that there was still a lot of snow around. When we pulled up we saw there was still snow in our driveway and all around the grass. Click on the photos link at top to see more on Flickr.