Owen

Now for our sweet Owen's update.

Owen

He is our super star student. He always brings home good weekly reports from school. He often comes home telling me he won a prize for good behavior in class. At his school if they "go to the principal's office" it is for being good and he has already gone this year.We are just so happy he loves school and desires to do well. 

He was super motivated to be able to read his first 100 sight words in a minute and he reached his goal the second week in September. He is working on his second hundred now, but with a little less vigor. The first 100 sight word prize is a doughnut date with his teacher and the second hundred sight words prize is a pack of gum. I wonder why he is less motivated? :) Even still he is about 3/4 of the way to getting his second hundred.

Edited to add: I just picked up Owen from school today and he told me he finished his second hundred today. Whoo hoo. Good work Owen!

He finally, finally learned to tie his shoes just days before school started. It's mostly my fault that it's taken him so long to reach this milestone. I enabled him and got him those sneakers that we could tie loose and then just slip on with them already tied. This year though, he has Converse high tops. There wasn't much way around it, plus I wanted him to learn to do it. It didn't take him but about a day which was a huge relief to me. I was feeling probably too much mommy guilt over it. He likes to do the two bunny ear method and insists on double knotting them, because as you can see they come loose easily.

He loves the monkey bars at school and loves that he gets to play on the big kid playground which is way more fun and challenging. He talks about the adventures he goes on everyday at recess with his friends who were in his kindergarten class, but sadly are not in his first grade class with him.

He doesn't really associate with girls all that much. His girl to boy friend ratio in kindergarten was something like 1:3 but now when I ask him if he has any friends that are girls, he gets all fidgety and in a grossed out voice says, "No Mom. I'm a boy!" :) Ha ha. One of his primary teachers told me that he gets "bugged" by the girls in his class and will sometimes move his chair far from them during sharing time, if they get too chatty or I'm guessing - girly.

He has started to get embarrassed about almost anything. If we try to involve him in some imaginative play that we are doing with Reid, or even if we are just joking around, he whines that we are embarrassing him. I'm just glad he's not embarrassed about hugging or kissing me in public - yet. And he still likes to goof off - A LOT- but it has to be on his own terms. :)

He is more into Lego building than drawing these days. I'm admittedly a little sad about it. He was once a detailed drawer who would take an hour on a single picture, but now is too impatient to draw anything that takes longer than 5 minutes. He's just got too many other things he wants to do.

He loves squids - loves them, ocean animals, and Wild Kratts.
 

Owen is becoming more independent. He learned how to do internet searches at school - yikes. So we got him a restricted user account on our computer for just him to use. He loves to play Lego computer games and PBS kids games.

He showers/bathes on his own - and used to go through shampoo and hot water like crazy before we nipped that in the bud.

He loves the dentist. I have no idea why, but he actually seems to like to go, probably because he hasn't had a cavity yet.

During the summer he would sometimes get milk-less cereal breakfasts ready for him and Reid on his own, because I was often sick and had a hard time getting out of bed for a couple of months. He is a great helper around the house - most of the time.

He's not perfect, and tends to backtalk {it is no wonder where Reid gets it}, spit raspberries at us, complains about doing homework and piano, and still fights/wrestles with Reid, but overall he is a really great kid. 

He is a great big brother and we love having him in our family.