They survived!

I spent my first night away from Owen this weekend when I went to Detroit for my friend Kate's wedding. Ben and Owen stayed home, and they both survived in tact! Evidently they had a good time at the company picnic and took a trip to Petsmart, just for fun. Owen enjoyed watching the dogs at doggy daycare, especially since they were on the other side of a gate and couldn't lick his face (his #1 reason that dogs make him nervous.) We THINK he's started to say "dog," but we're still waiting to hear it again a few times. He's been calling all dogs "kitty," and I've been saying "no, that's a dog." Last week when we were having dinner on the deck, the neighbors let their Great Dane out and Owen said "Dah! Dah! Dah!" over and over. Ben said he repeated it a few times at Petsmart, so we think that's word #3. If you're counting, the first word was "kitty," then "cat," and now "dog." Mama and Dada are no where to be found...you can see where his priorities lie!

It's official... He's a genius!

He's currently flipping through my AP Psychology text book while dancing to "Flight of the Bumblebee" It would be one thing to only be interested in the inner workings of the human mind, but to ponder it while multi-tasking? That's a gift.

Owen needs toy lessons

He sits and plays with the push thing you're supposed to walk behind.

He's currently pushing his STATIONARY leapfrog table around the living room.

Now he hit the rug with the table, and he's checking out what's under it.

Found a scrunchie and is back to pushing the table around (scrunchie in hand.)

I just have to say this is one of my favorite pictures of Owen ever. I'm pretty sure he's saying "Dude! Am I French ? Nobody told me I'm French?"Not sure if you all heard this or not, but at about 2 weeks, Owen said "adieu." Who's laughing now? Clearly he meant it.

Unfortunately, I don't have a picture of Owen's weekend highlight. He got up early with Ben on Saturday, and Ben put on some music. Evidently, Owen likes to dance to "Bootylicious." Dancing consists of bouncing up and down a little, but he's already got more rhythm than Ben and I. What can I say? The boy's got big butt and I cannot lie.

That boy is hot hot hot!

Poor Owen had his very first fever. I woke up at 3am when I heard him crying, and could feel that he was pretty hot. (Btw, he wakes up routinely at 3am, so I don't think he woke BECAUSE he was sick, necessarily.) I took his temperature and it was 101.3. It came down some with Tylenol, but stayed between 100-101 all day. Poor kiddo. Fortunately, it only lasted a day and he seems to be better now. I felt bad having to leave him and go to work, but Grandma Lyla took good care of him. Unfortunately the first week of work at a new job is a bad time to take a day off.

He's started walking much better and is braving trips across the room. He'll still hold on to something if he has the choice but is getting more and more adventurous.

Does anybody actually read this?

Owen, zen master...

One last deep thought for today:

Owen just walked across the room and then fell and bit his lip. Poor kid. Learning to walk is hard! He's eating an envelope now, though, so I guess he's over it. Guess I should take it from him before he has an allergic reaction to the cheap glue like on Seinfeld.

Did anyone see the movie "Knocked Up?" Remember the scene the guy's sitting there watching his daughters and says "my girls get more joy out of chasing bubbles than I get from anything in life." That's totally what Owen's like. He was laughing hysterically at lunch today because the cats were under his highchair eating the food he dropped. I should study him and learn his ways.

He's moved on to eating the remote control and a t-shirt (together. The remote's in the t-shirt.) Again, it leading to hysterical laughter. How does he do it?

Rest of 1 year portraits

Note the frequent appearance of the purple monkey in his hand. This is another of his new things. He likes to carry something around with him. One night he had a little plastic stacking cup that he held on to for at least an hour, through his bath and everything. We finally took it away when we put him to bed.

We call this the wide-mouth frog series. He was in that frantic tired happy state by the time we had waited an hour for our appointment, and he screeched through the entire sitting. (Once she stopped attacking him with the big feather duster thing, anyway.)

Up to 10 steps!

SO, last night Owen took 10 steps. Well, it was actually 5, then he paused, thought about crawling, then he took 5 more. I really thought when he started to walk it would be like when he started to crawl--he'd just take off one day. He's been much more careful than that. This is good, I think. Let him start running around when Grandma's watching him. Bwahahahaaa! Ben and I were thinking yesterday how strange it's going to be to just send him in the backyard to run around. We were also thinking we were really happy we had a backyard to send him to run around in!

I tried practicing the stairs with him yesterday again. He's got the hang of going down the one stair into the living room, but he's kind of afraid of the big stairs, I think. I suppose it has something to do with him falling down a couple of stairs when we first moved into the house.

I'm typing this while he eats breakfast. He's having ham and eggs, so the cats are gathered around the base of his highchair. He keeps dropping them pieces of food and then laughing hysterically. He LOVES the kitties. Now he's squealing "kiki kiki." Yes, in case you haven't heard, Owen's first word was kitty. Not mama. Not dada. He's been saying kiki on and off for a month, but I guess we're just not that exciting.

This blog would be a lot more exciting with pictures, but I still don't have my old computer set up in the office, and it's the one with all of the picture software. I do have Owen's 1 year portraits on CD, though, so I can at least show them off. (Grandparents, copies are on their way! Bug Ben about them!)

Welcome to Owen's world!

Since Owen has so many grandparents out of town (and general admirers), I thought I'd start this blog so people can keep up with his day to day activities.

Owen has a couple of big interests lately. One is the Little People Farm that Grandma Ruth and Grandpa Bob got him for his 1st Birthday. He loves to open and close the doors (even more so now that we put batteries in it), and he likes to chew on the farmer and animals. The chicken plays a few bars of "Old McDonald" when you move it back and forth and he's taken to dancing to it. Better yet is making the music play and watching DADDY dance to it.

Speaking of Daddy, he and Owen have a new trick. There are these plastic balls slightly larger than a golf ball that came with one of his toys. Daddy has taught Owen to bounce one of the balls off the hardwood floor while he's holding him. Then Ben catches the ball and hands it back to Owen. It's pretty amusing.