Owen Helping to Set Up at Dan and Meg's Wedding
We have, after all, been rather busy with other things. Mama got a PhD, daddy got a new job, trip to Madison for Mancation, a big trip to Pennsylvania for Dan & Meg's wedding, visits from Amani, Pops & Nonnie, and Jenna... and we all got bronchitis to boot. Yes, it has been a particularly busy 3 months at the Jones homestead.
Dr. Mama
Favorite words and phrases include: happy, bigger, giant!, tiny (which he says in a very tiny voice for emphasis), "do it", button, dump-truck, trash-truck, chocka (w/s chocolate ice cream--or just plain chocolate, which I don't even know how he learned about because I NEVER gave him chocolate, I swear), husher, apple, strawberry (which comes out with only two syllables, "stawbry"), TeeBees (T.V), and phrases such as "Bye bye, Mama!" And this morning he said his very first complete sentence: "Owen throw meckas." I don't know what meckas are, but he was evidently thinking about their potential as projectiles. Noah also taught him to say please & thank you (which he either says "que que" or "Thanks") and he's really pretty good about it.
Here's a cute word game Owen has been playing since Pops & Nonnie were here to visit three weeks ago--he makes all his family members into superheroes. He shouts SUU-PER-MAMA! then... SUU-PER DADA! ... SUU-PER POPS! SUUU-PER NONNIE! SUU-PER GRAMPS! Then I'll say, "What about Jenna? is Jenna super?" ... SUU-PER JENNA! Here's a shot of Owen with SUU-PER NATHAN!
Another very, very important word in our house these past few days has been Potty. We heard enough nightmare stories of potty training after the age of 3 that we decided the time was nigh. Why not? Noah had a few days off for the 4th of July so we took the diapers off, and they've been off ever since. The approach we're using is more like potty conditioning. You just keep doing it until they are conditioned to go when they're on the pot. Maybe that's how all approaches work, I don't know. He is getting it, bit by bit. Owen is very excited to be a big boy now. In fact, there are a lot of big boy changes coming down the pike--he slept in his big-boy bed for the first time last night. He's almost tall enough to climb out of the pack-n-play crib so its days are numbered. And pretty soon we're going to have to give up the bottle and the hushers. Fortunately, he'll always have Weasel.
After several months of showing interest in colors and naming them consistently but utterly incorrectly, he is finally sorting them out. He's known all the color words for a while but he used to just get them wrong--what color is that button? Purple! When it was orange. Now he gets them right most of the time.
Owen is also counting and can count things up to four, sometimes five. Sometimes he just says "one" over and over, or alternates between one and four. He says the alphabet if you coach him--every letter except V which seems to be too challenging to pronounce. Usually he just says U again instead of saying V.
In terms of physical development, Owen has grown to be extremely tall (we would measure him if he'd stand still for long enough) and weighs about 28 lbs. His baby fat is melting away. He has all 16 of his first-year teeth in, and no sign of second year molars so I (very, very much) hope that we have a respite from teething. Another unexpected change was that his hair went from being baby hair to grownup hair all of a sudden. His hair is now thick, not baby fine, and dirty blonde. His left hair swirl is beginning to dominate, too. He really looks like a big boy--easily 3 and people are constantly looking at me in shock and wonder when I tell them he's not yet 2.
Owen's favorite activities right now include loading stuff into buckets and then dumping the stuff into another bucket. Actually, bucket is another big favorite word. He does this with balls, small toy cars, puzzle pieces, blocks, buttons, plastic eggs, whatever he can get his hands on. If buckets are unavailable, he'll load up boxes, baskets, or his big trash truck instead. He likes to use the spare house keys to "unlock" the trunk of his dump truck. He is also getting very dexterous with stacking blocks, and with putting his puzzles together. He's interested in drawing but it requires a lot of sitting still, so it's a momentary kind of activity. Usually after a minute or two, he gets more interested in loading the crayons into a bucket than actually using them.
Portrait of a Pair of Shoes which Owen Outgrew in Less than Two Weeks
He also likes to build pillow forts (tunnels) and crawl through them, climb on the furniture, and dance around. We spend a lot of time outside. We play at the water table that Noah built for him in the front yard, dig holes in the garden (loading the dirt into buckets, of course), pick strawberries, and generally have a romping good time. He is a happy, energetic little monkey.
Life is Good when you Drink from the Pig
