September 24th, 2007 | 
Author: 
Posted in 
It’s been a big month for Owen. Not only have we finally figured out what is going on with his speech and other issues, but he has also been doing many fun and exciting new things this month. He has grown into a solid little boy, who is tall and thin, and moves like a boy and does little boy things. His face has thinned out and he is loosing his baby look and his baby unsteadiness, and is replacing it with a new and more coordinated self.
Owen is very eager to help us. Though he is only 2, he is a great helper. He takes the initiative to figure out what the task is, and then to jump in and make himself a useful part of completing it. He does laundry, dishes, sweeps, and throws away trash. He picks up his toys, puts them away, feeds the fish, and serves as a gopher while we are doing projects around the house.
Owen loves going on a walk every day. He likes to go to our local grocery store because they have free samples of whole M & M cookies! He signs “walk”, “cookie” and “candy”, and then “stroller” to tell us he wants to go. On the way home, we put the groceries in his stroller and he walks. He likes to run ahead, so we had to teach him to stop when he reaches a street and wait for us to hold his hand to cross. As soon as we cross he lets go of our hand again and runs off, and then he comes to a halting stop as soon as he reaches the very edge of the sidewalk near a street. If I forget to grab his hand, which I do when it isn’t a real street, but just a driveway, he stays back and scolds me saying, “maa-maaaaaa!” Sometimes he gets confused because some sidewalks are black like the streets, and sometimes the sidewalk spills over into the street, so at times he stops and points to the ground and says “Mama?” and I say “it’s okay, it’s a sidewalk, it’s just black like the street.”
Owen has finally begun to take more of an interest in music. He even has started singing! We play a Raffi tape for him in the car and it has three songs on it that he “sings” to. The first is “Noah”, which he just smiles big and then periodically says “Noah” during the song. The other song is a scary song and it says “ooo ooo, oo oo” in it and Owen sings this part. Then the end says “boo!” and Owen copies, “boo!” and then laughs. The other song is “shake your sillies out” and it begins “you’ve got to shake, shake, shake your sillies out, shake shake shake your sillies out, you’ve got to shake shake shake your sillies out and wiggle your waggles away!” During this verse Owen bobs his head back and forth, kicks his feet and says a steady little stream of “hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey!” It’s very cute.
Owen has really enjoyed the garden this year. Now that it is harvest time, if he is playing outside he just walks over to the sweet pea tomatoes and picks a red one right off the vine and then eats it. One day Daddy was picking tomatoes and Owen just walked up and started picking them too and throwing them into the bowl. Daddy noticed that he would only pick ripe ones. If he does pick a yellow one on accident we hear a whole lot of “uh-oh’s” from him until we tell him it’s all right that he picked a yellow one on accident.
We had to change Owen to a forward facing car seat when his rear facing one broke. It is safer to be rear facing at his weight (though it is legal for him to be forward facing at this point), but we couldn’t afford to buy another rear facing seat and we already had the forward facing booster for him, so we just put him in that. The forward facing seat is the safest available, according to consumer reports, so I think he is pretty safe in it. It is anchored and tethered to the seat and it doesn’t move at all, therefore as safe as it can be. Though I feel pretty guilty about him not rear facing anymore, it has it’s advantages. It is much easier to keep him happy in the car. When we drive Owen learned to say “stop” and “go” according to the color of the traffic lights that he can now see. He has lost stop, but he now makes a hand signal for it, and he loves this little game. If it’s red, he stares at it smiling and waiting and then yells “go!” as soon as it turns green.
Owen has a new bed. It is a wooden toddler bed with a side rail that I got from a garage sale for only $15.00. It is very cute and Owen loves it. Mama loves it too, because that side rail deters him from climbing into bed with Mama at night. Now I don’t get a visit from him until about 5 or 6 in the morning, whereas he used to climb into bed with me between 1 and 3. His toddler bed is next to our bed, but I keep inching it further and further down so that eventually he will have to get out of his bed to climb into ours. Then I will move it across the room, and eventually out of our room and into his own room.
Owen now calls his Grandma “Dayzee May” and he calls his Grammie “(signs little) (makes sound for kitty) little kitties”, because she has two normal sized cats, but compared to our large ones I guess they are little. He can’t say Grandma or Grammie, and he needs to tell them apart so he refers to them by what pets they have.
Owen loves talking on the phone, though all he really says is “hi”, “huh-ah” (yes) and “bye” and makes random noises. He sits there with a huge smile on his face while people talk to him. He also loves his new sunglasses. He likes wearing them all the time and points out that we all match because we all have sunglasses on. He very much likes “hee haw” (pop) and asks for it often. If he can’t have hee haw, then tea will do. And since it’s been a bit chilly, he asks for hot tea now. He has been really into pretending this month. He plays in the kitchen and makes tea, and pours it into cups, and feeds it to his dolls.
Owen taught himself to do summersaults this month and even though it appears that his head is going to break off and roll away, this has not happened yet, and he has successfully pulled off many a summersault, even ones which started on top of the couch and ended on the floor! He also has gotten it into his head that hiding is great fun. One day I went looking for him and I saw the curtain in the mud room moving. I said “where is Owen, where did Owen go?” He started laughing, and then was quiet again until I “found” him. He hides under his crib too, which is set up in his bedroom now. He goes under the crib skirt and hides and we pretend to look all over for him while he sits under there laughing intermittently. It’s very cute.
On the way home from Grammie’s the other day, there was a beautiful large crescent moon hanging right on the horizon. Owen saw it himself and said something that sounded somewhat like moon. First he said “boy, boy” and I said “oh, does boy want to go to the moon” and he said “ghmmm” (yes) and I said, “well, maybe someday you can” and then he said “no, no, no”. So I guess he changed his mind suddenly about that. Then the moon disappeared behind the trees and he said “mama, moon, mama, moon, mama, moon” as he signed “more”. I tried explaining that I had no control over whether or not we could see the moon, but he didn’t seem to believe me. So instead, every time it would duck behind the trees I would say “uh-oh, bye bye moon!’ and then when it appeared again I would say “here it comes, it’s coming, hi moon!” He laughed and laughed, thinking I was controlling the moon. It’s so funny to me that he believes that I am in control of the moon. That’s a lot to live up to.