Thursday, January 29, 2009

Owen is a year old today! How did that happen? Happy Birthday my little man!

A year ago, I met you for the first time.




And now you're a year old!


To celebrate, we're having a birthday lunch with Rowan (also born today) and then we're going to do something fun (tbd) with Dad and go out for birthday dinner! Saturday is the official birthday party. Photos and stories to come!

Monday, January 26, 2009

Owen is doing so many neat things, I can barely stand it. One of my favorite things is pretending to talk on a phone. My Mom taught him to do this when she visited at Christmas and now he does it all the time. He usually uses a wood block as a phone but the other day the phone rang when I was giving him a bath so I didn't answer it and he held his hand up to his ear and said, "heeeehhh?". I'll have to try to get that one on video.

He's been pretty attached to me lately. I tried to take a nap today while Dad was playing with Owen and I kept waking up to, "Mama??!! Mama!!". Oy! I think he says Mama at least 20 times a day. I love it but it's also a little tiring. He still hasn't really shown much separation anxiety - I keep waiting for the time when I go to leave and he cries but it hasn't happened...yet.

I'm being paged from the bedroom - Mama! Mama! Mama!

Thursday, January 15, 2009

I'm starting to understand why early toddler communication can be frustrating for both child and adult. Here's a excerpt from our breakfast conversation:

V: All Done? (also signing)
O: Hot?
V: All Done?
O: Hot!
V: All Done??
O: Hot!!

In other news, Owen has added a third type of "crawl" to his way of being mobile (the first two being the "wounded soldier" and "normal" crawls . We call it the "monkey crawl" where he sits on his butt with one foot flat on the group and one hand on the ground and moves about. It's his way of moving when holding something. I'm not doing a very good job explaining it. Time to get out the video camera!

Monday, January 12, 2009

The past week or so, Owen had been practicing standing up by himself. He typically pulls himself up to standing using me as a prop and then let's go. He gets this adorable grin on his face when he's attempting to stand by himself. It's amazing how fast he became stable on his feet. I fear walking isn't too far away!

Owen has constantly been adding new words to his vocabulary. Right now he says, Dada, Mama, Cat, Dog, Ball, Sock, Hot, Fish, This, That, Duck.... I think that's all. He also can woof like a dog, meow like a cat, roar like a lion/bear (his very favorite thing to do) and very rarely moo like a cow (my favorite). He was doing a cute little roar but in the last three days, it has become a very loud, throaty roar that might scare some people in public. I blame Dad for that one.

I'm not sure why we even have toys because Owen is perfectly content with going around the house and emptying drawers, cabinets, shelves, turning the radio on/off, etc. Once in awhile he'll play with his toys but they're usually second choice.

I've been trying to get Owen to take to a "lovey". So far, the idea is failing. I know, you can't force a lovey but I try to encourage his attachment to a little blankie. He tells me what he thinks of the idea by throwing it out of his crib and tossing it off the rocking chair when I try bring it in on our cuddles. Recently, he has become attached to a little purple ball that came with a ball popper train that he got for Christmas. He has taken the ball for car rides, taken it to bed at night, taken it to bed at nap time and Grandma and Grandpa said the ball got a bath on Saturday when they watched Owen. Hah! So, maybe the purple ball will be O's lovey? Weird kid!

Sunday, January 04, 2009

I haven't posted in so long - mainly because I always feel like I don't have the time to put much thought into posting. But, I'm hoping I can change that! Owen is growing up so quickly and hopefully I can quickly capture some of the milestones and special moments by jotting them down here.

On the 2nd, Owen's 8th tooth broke through and I discovered that a molar is on it's way, too. You would think that through evolution, teething would become less traumatic. Sleep has been crap lately - maybe because Owen has/had a cold and maybe because of the teething. Either way, I'm hating it! Late night was a "good" night - Owen was up 3 times. The night before, Owen was up 5 times or something insane. I feel like I have a newborn!

Owen is completely obsessed with cats. I'm not kidding! I exchanged some duplicate books he got for Christmas and I decided to get him, "My Little Noisy Book of Kittens" ... noisy, because if you push a button, it meows. What in the world was I thinking? Now I hear, "Cat? Cat? Cat! Cat! ... meow meow meow meow." He also flips through his picture books until he finds the cat and that's all he wants to look at. I hope this will pass or he's going to end up a crazy cat boy.