A Boy and His Blog

Archive for July 19th, 2010

Getting Ready For Little Baby Brother or Sister

Owen is growing and changing every day. He is extremely excited for the baby to come now and he hugs and talks to my belly all the time! Because of this, the baby now responds to him the most and will start to kick when he/she hears Owen. Owen still insists that the baby is a girl. After seeing a video of a mom in labor who has her kids helping her through the birth, Owen now has big plans of helping me through the birth. The other night we filled our birth tub and Owen and I got in it together. Owen started touching my back and holding onto me the same way the girl in the video does to her mom. Then he said, “it’s good I watchded that video so now I know what to do”. He really wants to be in the tub with me during the birth, and he isn’t deterred no matter how much I talk about the blood and things that might be in the water. I tell him if he wants to come in during the birth he will have to ask me first. I am not so sure he will want to do this in the actual moment though. I could see him doing it and being totally comfortable, but I could also see him shutting down and putting his lazer hands up. He has been very tender with me lately though and when I complain of a back ache he is right there to rub it for me. When I can’t get up, he runs over and offers me a hand. So it is possible he could end up being my little doula at the birth, but I’m not sure how he or I will feel in the moment, so I talk to him about all different scenarios.

Lazer Hands and The Wizard of Oz

Speaking of lazer hands, Owen likes to pretend he is a robot. The reason is likely because Owen sometimes has a difficult time admitting to and expressing emotions. If someone says hi to him, he might blurt out “WALL•E” in a robot voice, because he is nervous to meet someone new and he knows they will be asking “what is your name?” He will act like a robot a lot, when we are home or out and about. The more stressed he gets, the more he likes to act like a robot. He has lazer hands now, where he takes his right hand and points it forward with all his fingers (his lazer), and his left hand he just points forward with one finger (his pointer). He usually puts these up near his face and he uses them for a variety of purposes. He often uses his pointer for helping us find our way when we get lost driving, or he turns it into a hook to carry things. He uses his lazer for protection, or to help out characters in a movie he is watching. When we watch a new movie with him, if his lazer hands go up we know he is really enjoying it. We showed him The Wizard of Oz the other day for the first time and he really liked it! He was afraid of the tornado, but didn’t seem overly distressed by it, and he handled everything else just fine. Of course, his favorite character was the Tin Man, because it’s not too much of a stretch to think of the Tin Man as a robot. Owen’s lazers went up during the movie, so we are pretty sure he thoroughly enjoyed it.

TV Free Summer

Ever since Owen got out of preschool we haven’t watched any TV. We have watched a handful of movies at night as a family, but there are days, and even weeks that go by without Owen getting to watch anything. It is going really well. I think in the long run it is so much better for him and for me, but it is certainly not easier. It takes a lot of work for the parent to remain TV free. It means that I can’t just do my own thing while he is being babysat by the television set. This is good of course, but it is so much easier to have that babysitter around whenever you want it. It also means that Owen is slightly different acting. He is more physically active, more likely to challenge requests or fight with me, and just more like a little boy should be I guess. He is also playing pretend more. He is more socially engaged with his peers, and is willing to play alone for much longer stretches of time than he used to. I really see now that TV had a sedating effect on him and was causing his entire personality to be more suppressed then it should be. He really seems predisposed to being addicted to TV and video games, which is very much like me. I think it will be something we will really need to regulate for him until he is older and we can teach him to regulate himself. He still does play on my computer or my iPhone often and that is the next step of things we will need to pull back on. But for now, not allowing TV shows has done a lot for him.

Language

Owen is outgrowing saying his “L’s” as “W’s” but he has to try really hard and really over emphasizes the “L” sound in the word. He says some words very cute. When he wants to say “except” he says “pasept”. When he wants to say “supposed to” he says “unsposedto”. For the restaurant “Chipotle” he says, “apotesway”. When he tries saying “iron” he says, “eye-Ron”. He thinks “know what” is one word and he will say things like “Knowwhat what?” He’s trying to say, “do you know what?” but ends up repeating the ‘what’ because he thinks it is part of the word “knowwhat”. He likes to add an extra ‘d’ into ‘ed’ words. Like he says, “watchded” or “surprisded”. He also adds an “ed” to words that don’t need it, like “put-ed”. He often says the phrase, “that why” instead of “that’s why”.

Owen also makes up his own words. For example, ‘doopy’ can mean either crater type holes or small raised round things. For example, the Moon has a lot of doopies on it, but so do lego pieces. ‘Pavy’ means a flat plain such a paved street, or a table, or a book. Whereas ‘gangly’ means that something is twisted such as a screw.

He also uses a couple words incorrectly. He thinks that ‘freezing’ means ‘extremely’ and will say things like, “it’s freezing hot” or “I’m freezing hungry”. He thinks ‘hilarious’ means ‘a lot’ and will say “isn’t that hilarious big Mama?” or “I’m freezing hilarious hot!”

A Couple Cute Stories

A few weeks ago Owen was telling me about Horton Hears a Who and how they have a whole world that just lives on a speck. He thought that was just crazy that they all live on a tiny speck and Horton has to carry it around in a flower to protect it. Then I asked him, “what if the earth was just a tiny speck?” He kind of looked up for a moment and then he said, “the earth is a tiny speck”. I thought that was an amazing conclusion for a five year to make. But then again, he does know more about astronomy than I do.

Also, a few weeks ago, Owen and Daddy were watching the lava lamp in Owen’s room. He said to Daddy, “how can those things float in there, isn’t there any gravity in the lava lamp?”

Latest Obsessions

Owen is obsessed with time lately. He has two clocks in his room and insists that I draw clocks on his chalkboard showing him what time Daddy will be home, and what time any other people are due to arrive when we are expecting guests. He asks me about time all of the time. He is obsessed with calendars, hours, days, months and years. When we park somewhere that has a time limit, he will continuously ask me how many hours have gone by to make sure that we don’t exceed the time limit.

Owen is still obsessed with robots and astronomy, but is also getting into the Egyptians. He loves mummies and is starting to get interested in pyramids and Egyptian culture too. We are planning to take him to the Science museum one of these days to show him the mummy there.

He is also quite taken by the old 1974 soundtrack and movie Free to Be You and Me. This is a good sign that he is becoming more comfortable with his emotions. It also validates for him that our societies tightly constrictive gender roles are stupid. He likes the songs, “It’s All Right to Cry” and “William’s Doll” the best. He also likes “Parents are People” and “Sisters and Brothers” a whole lot too. He has the DVD, the CD, and the vinyl record album. We’ve been listening to the record mostly, because we’ve been trying to be TV free, and Daddy mixed all his kids songs together and burned them on a few CD’s, so the Free to Be You and Me songs are scattered throughout those. For a long time we had the DVD and he hated it, but suddenly this is one of his favorite things to watch and listen to. I think that shows some social progress!