Happy 16 weeks Owen!

Today, Owen is 16 weeks old. This week marked a lot of milestones.

1.) discovering feet
2.) eating rice cereal
3.) bouncing in jumparoo like a pro the first try!

Dave took him to Cradle Talk today. The topic was 'pediatric emergencies' and a doctor came in to address questions and concerns moms/dads have about their baby. Dave asked a question about Owen drooling. The doctor said it is normal. I wonder if Owen will get teeth earlier than the average child? Time will tell. He sure does love to drool but I'm proud to still say that Owen has never 'spit up'. This to me, is quite the accomplishment. I know tons of babies with reflux/ spit up problems so it's funny holding them and having accidents because I'm not prepared for it. We change outfits due to drool but that's about it. Owen's pretty easy.

Dave weighed Owen today at Cradle Talk and Owen weighs 15 lbs 15 oz!! Just about 16 lbs! Holy Cow! He's a growing boy. On Sunday evening, I started to feed Owen rice cereal. The doctor suggested we give Owen cereal as he consumed more than 40 oz within 24 hours, a couple days in a row. Some spoonfuls/ whatever he will eat after his morning bottle and after his afternoon bottle. So we are giving it a go! Owen sometimes snacks and drinks 2 oz at a time.. but other times he can put down 8 oz no problem. So we started rice cereal to see if that'll curb his thirst. Thankfully, I'm producing enough breastmilk still and have some frozen in reserves but it'd be nice to get his diet back to 30-35 oz/ daily. On Monday, Dave forgot to give Owen rice cereal. Today, Dave forgot to give Owen his afternoon rice cereal.  I'm going to be with Owen the next 4 days since we are going to Door County so hopefully we can get him more used to the rice cereal. I can't wait for this 4 day weekend so I can spend time with Owen. He's changed so much the last 4 weeks that I've been back to work full time. He can push up on his belly much better these days and yesterday my mom brought us a jumparoo (loaner from cousin Mason) and I saw Owen bounce for the first time today.

Owen is so strong in his legs. He loves to stand up on my lap and on his changing pad! I feel he may not be a big time crawler (since he hates tummy time and gives up quickly) but he may go straight to scooting around on his butt and pulling himself up and walking along furniture. This employee, at my chiropractor, has an 8 or 9 month old. Isaac. He's WALKING already! Crazy! That's super early.. but Isaac just skipped crawling and went straight to walking. I guess Isaac goes to a babysitter with a 4 year old son, so monkey-see-monkey-do! Perhaps?

Owen is going to miss Gymboree tomorrow since we are going to door county so we'll have to make sure to do lots of fun stuff tomorrow afternoon. Thankfully, Gymboree offers 'make up' classes too. Owen may go 2x to Gymboree next week to make up!

Finally, I was changing Owen on Monday or was it Tuesday night?? and Owen started to grab for his feet! It made me sad since I missed it for the first time. I told Dave.. hey! Owen knows where his feet are.. Then Dave says "Yea, we've been working on that.. he's been doing it awhile." :(  I know times flies with children. I understand that. It just makes me sad knowing I'm missing it since I'm at work. Hopefully Owen will do something monumental this long weekend in Wisconsin so I don't miss it. :cough cough: rolling over : cough cough:. :) We'll see.

I called Gretchen today, to set up an appointment for next week so we can start Owen's college fund and go over our options. 529 and Coverdale are the ones we are looking at. I  just want to get it over with and put a few thousand away to start growing interest. I know if I don't start it soon.. we may end up delaying it since we'll buy a house and not have the opportunity to start a college fund soon. That's the thing about buying a 4 bedroom house.. you can become house poor real quick because you bite off more than you can chew especially if it's a fixer-upper. We'll see! I really like Elk Grove Village as it's close to my parents, high way, airport, mass transit, and has good schools. It's not district 15/211 like I grew up with but I'm sure the schools are just fine just a bit south of where I grew up. We don't know if we are putting the townhouse back on the market March 1 2012 or 2013. We'll see.  I'm fine with living here until 2013 but I just don't want to move in the middle of a pregnancy and Dave and I discussed having another one so the kids are 2 years apart. We'll see I suppose... these last 2 years flew by so I'm sure the next 2 will fly by too!