As soon as he became mobile, he showed us what it meant to be babyproofed. It's like he has radar for the most unsafe thing in the room and beelines straight for it at incredible speed. When you take it away, he beelines for the second-most-dangerous thing. Wires, tall lamps, anything that can be knocked over or pulled down, anything sharp or small enough to choke on. By now our living room floor is about as spotless as it's ever been, not a stray cable or old piece of hot dog or dust bunny to be found.
Once the obvious hazards had been investigated and removed, Owen's attention moved to the cats. He loves LOVES the cats. The cats hold Owen in contempt, although to different degrees. Makena views him like all things in life. She doesn't really like him, but she doesn't really care, either. She is very patient with him and will allow him to "pet" her under adult supervision, her face buried in the sofa as if to say "not happening not happening not happening." She plays a great chasing game, as well. She sits on the floor and when Owen gets close--squealing all the time--she just gets up and moseys about 4 feet away, cool as a cucumber. Then she sits down again with her back to him and her tail out like a fishing line. Repeat endlessly.
Scout just hates him. She watches him approach, her ears back, her eyes filled with mistrust and rage. Then when he gets close she slinks off to a safer corner. When he loses interest and goes after something else, she turns her baleful yellow eyes toward us. "Why??? Why???"
The other day, I closed Scout into the kitchen with Owen and I (there are baby gates at both exits now). Scout didn't hestitate, she jumped over the gate to safety. This unexpected kitty behavior struck Owen as absolutely hilarious. He nearly fell over to the floor, he laughed so hard. He has a real sense of humor for the unexpected. If I am walking around and then change to a silly walk of some kind--peals of laughter. If the cat is sitting calmly on the sofa and then shakes her head, flapping her ears--hilarity.
This leads me to another new development. Owen is just a lot more clever these days. He makes up games. One of his favorite games lately has been 'put it in the bank.' There are many baby gates around the house these days, and he will take a small toy, crawl over to a gate, and then place the toy between the bars and drop it. Repeat with another toy. Then he reaches through the bars to get the toys.
Two days ago, he figured out how to push buttons (literal buttons, not emotional buttons). He has a toy cell phone and when the # button is pressed, a very pleasant 5-second song plays. I have showed him 100 times how to make the song play. The other day, I showed him and he just understood. He immediately started to press the # button and then smile to himself, pleased with the song. It is not a random activity--there are at least 12 other buttons on this thing, some that make beeping sounds, some that play voices. But he likes the button that plays the song. He also transferred this understanding to "car-dog", a stuffed animal which plays many, many sounds which I keep in the car in case of traffic jams. Just as soon as he figured out the # button on the phone, he understood to press the heart on the dog to make it play a song.
Other fun games: feeding us his finger foods then laughing when we eat them, call-and-response raspberries, lid-flipping (this is a game where he tosses a plastic lid into the air and watches it fall on the tile kitchen floor. if it starts to spin, Win! Funny! If not, try again!), dancing with us (if we do a little dance he wiggles back and forth too). Driving things on the walls has also been popular on and off (wherein Owen puts a small toy on the wall and releases it to watch how it rolls down the wall and then falls on the floor).
Perhaps my favorite thing at the moment is that he's really into giving kisses, and they're getting a little more precise (though still completely open-mouthed). He'll just get it in his head that it's kissing time and give me a bunch of kisses in a row. So sweet.
Owen is getting closer to having top two teeth, but the progress stalled just when I thought we would have another birthday tooth.
Now that he's crawling, he's putting all manner of things in his mouth and he's been sick twice--first with that little cold and then last week with a minor stomach flu, which ended up being a MAJOR stomach flu for me and Noah last weekend. I figure it must have been a really nasty rotavirus and his vaccine protected him for the most part. Why don't they re-vaccinate the parents too?? Good god it was horrible.
Owen is developing new picky food behaviors. Some days, he only wants foods that he can pick up. Other days, he wants you to put food in his mouth. Some days he loves cheese, some days cheese is like bitter poison. Some days he drinks tons of milk, some days he wants no part of a bottle. Go figure. He is getting much longer and another batch of clothes went in the too-small bin last month, but a recent check in at the scale indicates that his weight is at a plateau. Probably because he's so busy burning those calories all of a sudden. Another side-effect of crawling: Owen has to wear shoes, or the tops of his poor feet get chafed and dirty from all the rug friction.
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