Friday, January 25, 2008

Old McOwen had a farm

Owen, Grandma Lyla and Cathy went to the Stock Show on Monday, and Owen had a grand time. Watch this space for pictures!

Monday, January 21, 2008

Stats

Owen had his 18month well-baby checkup today and seems to be outgrowing his "Q-tip" build a tiny bit. Historically he's been 90+%tile for height and head circumference and 17-25%tile for weight. So a tall skinny boy with a GIANT head. Well, he still has an enormous melon (the pediatrician says it's lots of brains to make me feel better, I guess). I knew he'd have an enormous head from looking at my family, and looking at both sides, the height is no surprise. He's now 25 lbs (40th%tile), 34 inches (85%tile) and off the charts for head circumference. (They just say above 97th%tile to make you feel better, I think)

We can now add "bath" to his list of signs. We're going to start working on "help" "cheese" and a few others. More importantly, he strung two signs together "more bath" and "more milk" etc. This means he can argue (when we took him out of the bath, he signed "MORE BATH!" because bedtime is what comes after bath time.) More importantly, it means he understands how language works. Now we just need to get sounds other than pterodactyl imitations to come out of his mouth.

Here's to you, Uncle Mark!
So here are a few recent pictures. There was this temporary tattoo that came with toy or something, so I put it on Owen's arm to see what he thought. #1, he was not amused. He wanted it OFF! He did finally get used to it. #2, those puppies are hard to get off! He ended up having it on for about a week. #3 What amazes me about this is how much he remembers. He hasn't had it on for about a week and a half, but he keeps pulling up his sleeve to look at his arm, like "where did it go?" I can't believe he remembers something like that for so long. I asked him today where his tattoo was and he just looked at his arm like "I don't KNOW!"


First sledding!
My Dad really wanted to get a sled for Owen, but for some reason couldn't find one in the stores. He looked several places. In the end, he put some holes on a tub and attached a rope. It works :) Owen wasn't overly impressed with the experience, but I think it will get better with time. We just pulled him this time because we didn't go to a steep enough hill.

Downward Dog
Owen likes yoga. Well, really he likes looking between his legs, but we'll call it yoga. Not bad form, huh?

Elder-wii.
Ok, so this isn't Owen, but I had to post it. On New Year's Eve my parents and the Hatfields came over, along with some other people, and there ended up being a wii cow racing smack down. I bet Nintendo didn't know they could market to the over-60 crowd!

Later dudes!

Saturday, January 12, 2008

Confessions of a slacker Mommy

Yes, it's been since November that I've posted any pictures. I see Owen so much, though, that I don't notice all of the funny little things he does as much as people. Here are some things he's learned in the last few months:

Fake yawning. Ben taught him this.
Fake sneezing. Also a Daddy trick. It's actually kind of helpful because he blows air out his nose so we're hoping it will help him learn to blow it and blow bubbles in the pool.
Walk backwards into things. Don't ask me why, but it's HYSTERICAL to him. We're trying to teach him that walking backwards is moonwalking.
Spinning. Just for fun.
Making a weird croaking noise with his voice. Think Dracula.
To sign "all done, more, milk (his favorite) and eat" Milk is pretty funny. The sign is to make a motion like you're milking a cow, and Owen does it really fast and frantically with both hands.

We're still mystified about why he'll imitate us making weird sounds like sneezing but won't immitate us making sounds like "mama" or "ball." We're working on some strategies that are supposed to help with this. The signing is supposed to go a long ways towards encouraging speech because they get the idea that they can influence actions/the world with communication and get what they want. Nonetheless, Owen is getting increasingly frustrated (as are we!) with life because he's more insistent about what he wants to do and still unable to communicate it for the most part. We're hoping this will actually help, though it's leading to more tantrums in the meantime. Part of the reason he doesn't say much is that he's so content with the world that he doesn't have super strong desires, it seems. A little frustration could motivate him to WANT to communicate more.

Speaking of Tantrums, Owen had his first big public one the other day. He LOVES the fire truck at the Children's Museum. I mean kitty loves. When we're there, we have a hard time getting him to do anything else.

Though he may love the fire truck, he's less thrilled with the fire fighter's clothing. This is a really cute picture, and I wish I could figure out how to rotate it on here.

Here's Owen looking mischievous for X-mas pics. Hmmm... How could I screw up Mommy's shot?

I LOVE this picture. I actually submitted it to the Regis and Kelly Cute Baby Contest (because the winner gets $125k towards college, and who could pass up a shot at that?) Just for the record, the Santa hat was in the water about 2 seconds after this picture.


The light outside was just amazing one night, so I went out and grabbed a few shots of Owen and Daddy playing in the backyard. Owen has become obsessed with going outside. He just likes to walk around crunching snow. He also likes to throw the ball to the dog, though he's going to have to work on distance.

Jeff, Kelly, Ben, Owen and I braved 20 degree temperatures and met downtown to see the Parade of Lights. It was fun. Owen was getting a little cranky by the end but would calm down the second he caught sight of the next float or balloon heading our way.

This is X-mas day at Justinian and Christina's. We were trying to get a picture of all 3 kids on the couch together. I don't know what we were thinking. This is the best I got.

Most of them were more like this:


Tiernan's performance gives me hope that someday this picture will be a lot easier to take. Actually, now that I look at this one, she doesn't look terribly lady like. At least she sat on the couch!

This is by far Owen's LEAST favorite gift. Who knew Tickle me Ernie was so traumatic? He's scared to death of him. Edges away from us when we point to him. Won't touch him. Freaks out if we turn him on. Maybe someday it will be a hit, but for now it's Owen torture.

Owen's new BFF Cesar. They're doing pretty well together.

Owen's preferred position. We're trying to discourage it because Cesar doesn't like being pinned down.

Owen and Grammy at the Children's Museum while they were here for X-mas. I'm a terrible Daughter in Law. This is the best picture I got of them together. At least there's a great one of Ruth Ben and Owen from Thanksgiving.


And last but not least, Owen's visit to Santa. It wasn't too bad. Owen wasn't overly fond of Santa, but he liked feeding Mrs. Clause some of his snacks. (The Santa here is a guy I used to teach with, Don King, who dyes his beard and hair every year to do this. Mrs. Clause is his wife Kim (but that's a wig :) The first time I saw him with the Santa beard, I didn't know he worked as Santa and I thought he was having a weird anti-midlife crisis.)