Development
Owen spent a lot of time working on walking and not working on talking. He was able to communicate a sufficient amount by gesturing and grunting, or falling back on his multifunctional syllable "Da", and, being a dude, felt little need for more subtle or sophisticated interlocution.
He's now ramping up his speech again. He used to be in a space, before he quieted down to focus on running, where mom and dad could understand him but other people would have problems. Now that he's back on it again, he's rapidly expanding his vocabulary and introducing polysyllabic words. "Ka" (Cows) has become "Kao-ssss!" "Da" (Down) has become "Dooooo-N!"
He's evolving into a wee drunk Scotsman, essentially.
Silverback
He has a lot of hair, all of a sudden. Most of it is very fair, with some red layered on top. At the back he's got a thick patch of hair which doesn't match, coarser and less well behaved and silver-white. I suspect that this is something he got from Grandad.
He has a lot of hair, all of a sudden. Most of it is very fair, with some red layered on top. At the back he's got a thick patch of hair which doesn't match, coarser and less well behaved and silver-white. I suspect that this is something he got from Grandad.
Posture
Owen also learned to sit down. My lovely wife spied him carefully sitting on the bottom step of the stairs, lowering himself and then standing up and then sitting back down again, his face split with an incredibly self-satisfied grin.
He now will sit next to you, or sometimes on you, when you're on the floor. You can tell he's engaging in this maneuver when he stops, turns his bum towards you, and begins a backwards shuffle until his heels make contact. He can't see when he does this and so occasionally ends up comically misaligned.
The bottom steps of the staircase on the ground floor have been Owen's Office since (literally) day 1, but now he's sitting there and not just using it as a desk.
He also walks on his toes a lot. Like, a lot. My lovely wife suspects he might be trying to be taller, like everybody else in the house. I suspect he might just like the challenge of it.
Bonk!
On the subject of ruining my son (a recurring theme, you will find), I taught Owen to (gently!) bonk foreheads as a sign of affection, much as the Klingons do. He does it to me, and to my lovely wife, and sometimes with friends and family. On one notable occasion he did it to cow.
Sartorial Criticism
Owen doesn't like my sweaters.
It's true. He will, quite frequently, take issue with a sweater I'm wearing. He also doesn't like my workout pants, but mostly it's sweaters. He doesn't do this to my lovely wife; he walks over, plucks at my sleeve, looks at me with a concerned furrough of his brow, and shakes his head, No.
This reached its peak with my Dad Sweater, a heavy zip-up sweater I got ages ago. He really disliked it. Finally, at one point (when I fortuitously was trying to get him dancing on video, thus recording the whole exchange), he took issue with it and I took it off to see if that would appease him. He dragged it all the way from the kitchen to the front hall and then tried to put it on the coat rack, despite it being many times taller than he is. I put it on it for him and asked if that was better, and he nodded enthusiastically.
He had decided that, because it has a zipper, it's an outside coat, which means that a.) it doesn't belong inside the house and b.) I shouldn't be wearing it lest I leave.
Cheers!
Owen has learned 'cheers'.
Well, I say "he learned". I taught him 'cheers'. He now does it enthusiastically, sometimes a bit too much so, whenever he has a drink and so does someone else, or someone has a drink and he has a soother, or sometimes when my lovely wife is reading him a story which mentions Christmas Cheer, and he raises his fist into the air as if hoisting his goblet high. "Cheeeee!" he proclaims.
He also picked up on me making light-saber noises while we played with my light sabers. I introduced him to the android Lightsaber noise app, as one does. He thought that was delightful. The next morning my lovely wife was changing him and he was waving his soother around, making ZHOO ZHOO ZHOO noises as he moved it.
(Teaching him to pretend his soother is a sonic screwdriver remains a work in progress.)
Ninja
Owen likes to put things into things. He has a big tent and ball pit, courtesy of his aunt, and he likes to pile the balls into it. Recently my lovely wife came into the kitchen to find the sink full of balls, something like 30 of them. This is a remarkable achievement considering he can barely reach up to push the ball into the sink on his tiptoes, he has to do them one at a time, and he did so dozens of times without her noticing.
This is not the only area in which he is developing his ninja skills.
We bought him some bath toys and one of them, a rubber fish ball, disappeared after about ten minutes. We couldn't find it anywhere. Much later, my lovely wife found it; it was in the garage, far from the door. The only time I opened the door to the garage, which is heavy and on a retractor arm, was for a moment to throw the packaging from those toys into the recycling bin. In that narrow window, with me standing in the doorway, he managed to throw the ball in behind my back and then back away from the door and look innocent, all without me catching on.
Ninja.
Owen has learned 'cheers'.
Well, I say "he learned". I taught him 'cheers'. He now does it enthusiastically, sometimes a bit too much so, whenever he has a drink and so does someone else, or someone has a drink and he has a soother, or sometimes when my lovely wife is reading him a story which mentions Christmas Cheer, and he raises his fist into the air as if hoisting his goblet high. "Cheeeee!" he proclaims.
He also picked up on me making light-saber noises while we played with my light sabers. I introduced him to the android Lightsaber noise app, as one does. He thought that was delightful. The next morning my lovely wife was changing him and he was waving his soother around, making ZHOO ZHOO ZHOO noises as he moved it.
(Teaching him to pretend his soother is a sonic screwdriver remains a work in progress.)
Ninja
Owen likes to put things into things. He has a big tent and ball pit, courtesy of his aunt, and he likes to pile the balls into it. Recently my lovely wife came into the kitchen to find the sink full of balls, something like 30 of them. This is a remarkable achievement considering he can barely reach up to push the ball into the sink on his tiptoes, he has to do them one at a time, and he did so dozens of times without her noticing.
This is not the only area in which he is developing his ninja skills.
We bought him some bath toys and one of them, a rubber fish ball, disappeared after about ten minutes. We couldn't find it anywhere. Much later, my lovely wife found it; it was in the garage, far from the door. The only time I opened the door to the garage, which is heavy and on a retractor arm, was for a moment to throw the packaging from those toys into the recycling bin. In that narrow window, with me standing in the doorway, he managed to throw the ball in behind my back and then back away from the door and look innocent, all without me catching on.
Ninja.
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