You can’t remember the last time you changed a poopy diaper.

Can it be that here it is 8:30 in the morning and I’m up while everyone else is in bed? Notice I didn’t say sleeping …
I heard Oskar get up this morning around 5 and thought that he was coming into our room. I next heard the toilet flush, door close, another door close and then silence. He got up, went potty and went back to bed! I am so proud of my little boy. Of course he did come into our room about 30 minutes later. I told him he could get in my bed only if he closed his eyes and went back to sleep. He did. Then I had to get up with Milo at 7. We played, took pictures, made coffee, he ate breakfast, we played some more then he started to get cranky and yawn so I bounced him around a bit to give him a taste of what was to come (back to sleep) then took him to Rose since that was where he was off to anyways.

Milo can stand on his own now for some time. He pulls himself up and then stands looking at something or playing, or clapping, he loves to do that. You can also pick him up and then instead of plopping him on the floor on his bottom just stand him up and he’ll stay there until he sees something he wants to get. I’ve seen him take a little half of a step toward me or Rose but usually if he’s standing there he’ll wobble a little bit but then drop down to the ground to go crawl since he knows he can do that really well. He can also walk around with his hippo toy and practically runs down the hall. No walking for this boy, how else is he going to keep up with his big brother?

Oskar finished his first swim session without me and we got a little sheet back to let us know what he can do, what he can almost do and what he still needs work on. He only had one thing that he needs work on, it was something I didn’t really understand. Something about floating and then standing up. He can almost swim 5 feet on his back, stomach, or side all by himself. Not that I’m trying to raise an Olympic swimmer here but I am so proud that he can do almost all of the beginning level of swimming just after his first time.

Oskar also had his Holiday night at his school. The kids sang lots of songs and it was very nice. Oh, and apparently we have “that kid”. You know, the one who is dancing and swaying while everyone else is singing and standing still. The one who claps along with the audience when the song is over. Yeah, we have him. I’ll post up pictures once I get some from the multitudes that we brought along.

Oskar has been taking swim lessons since he was a little baby but this was the first time he had swim lessons by himself without me. We were a little nervous because although he has been going to school and becoming the big boy that he is but this was still something new and we didn’t know how it would turn out. Also he had fallen asleep on the way home so I didn’t know if he would wake up happy or cranky as he does sometimes or at all.

Anyway, we got to the YMCA and met his instructor and I took him in to the locker room to change and then we met up with his class near the pool. I didn’t really say goodbye or introduce him he just joined the group and did what he was told and followed around the other kids to the shower. We watched him and his group in the toddler pool while they jumped around and kicked and floated on their backs.

It’s funny, the things that get you as parents. We’re sitting their watching our boy play and follow directions from his instructor, just simple little things, and yet the emotions they bring up. I understand how parents can get all choked up over seemingly simple things when you start to remember how little they used to be, etc. etc. Afterwards we told Oskar how proud we were of him and how he listened really well to his instructor (something we’re working on) and we went out to Cold Stone to celebrate.

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

Ah …

In a nutshell this movie is the funniest and most accurate account of marriage and becoming a new parent that I have ever seen. Rose and I could relate to almost every scene, especially the ones about being pregnant, at least I could, and where the hormones are on the rise and things get crazy. I especially liked how they portrayed the actual labor and delivery of the baby. It wasn’t like most movies or TV shows that show the water breaking and then rushing to the hospital. They showed early labor and the mother trying to calm down by taking a bath and relaxing and, what looked and sounded like to me, a real contraction. Once they got to the hospital they also wanted a more natural child birth, which was cool because that’s what my two boys and their mom went through, and they had to talk to the doctor about their options because at first he wanted to medicate them both and break the bag to induce labor.

Outside of the whole baby stuff in the movie you could relate to all the characters. Everyone seemed very real and legitimate, Rose said that in that respect it was more like a reality TV show than a movie; no one seemed like a “character”. All in all, a very honest and funny look at new parenting and developing a relationship between the soon to be mother and father, which is something that I think even married couples have to go through as their relationship changes.

Yesterday, Oskar decided to try going potty on the toilet. I was changing his diaper in the morning before breakfast and he told me he was going to go potty soon. I told him that if he needs to go he should tell us and he can go in the toilet. He said he wanted to go in the toilet and off we went.

He got up and went potty like it’s no big thing. We made a big deal out of it and gave him some treats for being a big boy. Later that day he went poop on the toilet and then went potty again before bed. It’s funny because it’s like he just decided to start going on the toilet and that was all he needed to do.

Setting: The breakfast table. Dad and Oskar are eating cereal and there is music playing in the background.

Oskar: Dad?

Dad: Oskar?

Oskar: Robot.

Dad looks around to see if there is a robot that Oskar is thinking about.

Oskar: Robot rock.

Dad remembers the Daft Punk song “Robot Rock” that they have listened to in the past. Dad asks Rose to put on the song. Father and son groove to the beats as they eat their breakfast.

Awesome. Here’s a link to the Windows Media sample of the song from Amazon.com.

Last Sunday, after we got back from camping for the weekend on Hood Canal, Rose noticed a little spotting so she called our midwife, Colette, and we came in that night to go for a checkup.  We were scheduled to meet with her on Tuesday but we needed to go in that night.  We wanted to see if Colette could find the heartbeat because if she could then everything would be alright.  She didn’t, but at 12 weeks there is a possibility that you may not hear it so not hearing it didn’t tell us much.  We decided to wait until the visit on Tuesday since there was nothing preventative we could do anyway.

Tuesday we went in to see Colette in the afternoon, Rose had been feeling okay and there had been no more spotting.  Colette tried to find the heartbeat again and didn’t, although she thought she did at one point.  She also said that Rose’s uterus was too low for 12 weeks.  With not hearing the heartbeat and the uterus being low we decided to go to Babycatchers where we could see an OB who would do an ultrasound.

We drove directly there and got in very quickly.  As soon as the doctor put the ultrasound thing on her belly she saw the baby, which is doing fine.  She did ask if Rose had had pre-term labor before, she knew because of the position of the uterus.  The baby is moving around just fine, we saw the tiny heart beating, and it measured right at 12 weeks, which was exactly where Rose was on Tuesday, to the day.

The baby is still to tiny to tell if it is a boy or girl but we are still debating on whether we’ll find out or not.  We’ll keep everyone updated with the baby news as it happens.

As I was walking across the bridge to the Museum of Glass in Tacoma tonight I walked by all the glass and instead of thinking about how cool it all looked I was thinking about how I want to bring Oskar down to show him all the scuptures. I realized in that moment that I was assessing the potential for an outing with my son from a dad’s perspective and I thought that was pretty cool.