Feeding frenzy

Owen loves to feed himself these days. Not surprisingly, dinner is usually followed immediately by a bath. Especially when he eats macaroni and beef with tomato sauce.

Summer solstice

Here we are, kicking off the summer by watching the sun set on the longest day of the year.

Many thanks to Leigh, photographer extraordinaire!

A baby human

Learning to walk and talk are big events in the life of 1+ year old, and most developmental checklists seem to focus on those areas. But it seems to me that there's another way in which Owen has been making huge strides recently, and it's also one that reflects his status as a baby human: tool use. At first we thought he was just really into personal grooming - he loves to brush his teeth and his hair, for example. But he also really gets a kick out of using spoons and bowls. And like all babies, he loves keys, cellphones and remote controls. It's obvious with some of these items why they might be appealing in their own right - sometimes the TiVo remote makes a great noise! - but babies don't just like them, they are obsessed with them.

Owen has discovered a new favorite object to be obsessed with - nail clippers. I'm lucky if I can clip one nail before he wrests them from my grasp. At first I never let him have them, because I was worried he'd cut himself. I eventually gave in after a particularly vigorous struggle, to watch what he would do. He very carefully touched them to each of his toes, one at a time. We started saying "click" each time he moved to a new toe and he laughed and laughed, looking at us with a look that said, "that's right, that's what I'm trying to do!" and now he says "click" while he does it. "Clipping" his toenails is something that absorbs him for several minutes, attracting all of his focus and bringing him great joy.

Suddenly it is clear to me that these obsessions are about more than personal grooming, fun gadgets, or imitating Mommy and Daddy. They're about Owen establishing himself as baby human, tool user.

... but enough about us!

When we started the bloglet, I really didn't think it would last very long. I thought you'd get bored with it; I thought I'd run out of things to say. But it's been over a year, and here we all still are. We're thrilled that it's given us a way to keep so many of you up to date about our adventures with Owen. But we want to know more about you. Do you have a blog? Send us the link (or post it to the comments), and we'll add it to the new linklets section on the right. (Even if you think we already know the link, please drop us a line and let us know it's OK to post it.)



Update: Of course it doesn't have to be a blog - any website or flickr account you're willing to share will do!

More! More!

Owen still uses some signs to communicate, which we taught him back before he could talk. His favorite one, depicted at warp speed in the animated picture, is "more". He now says it and signs it simultaneously, and is very careful to do it well, since it seems to be the most important concept in his life. With just a wave of the hands, and a sweet little sound "moa! moa!", he is able to get us to keep doing whatever it is that we're doing to make him happy. He almost always means more food, more singing, or more bubbles. His first two word combination was "more bubbles", followed quickly by "more milk" - which was interesting because he can't say milk, he can only sign it (squeezing his hand like he's milking a cow). Update: I slowed the animation due to popular demand... hope it's less frightening now!

O-O-O-Owen & O-O-Obama

More than a few of you have noted the conspicuous absence of political references here on the bloglet. Don't be fooled - we are just as obsessed as you would expect us to be with this exciting primary season. I've resisted all temptation to mention it until now, but alas, I have my limits. On Friday we learned that Barack Obama had agreed to step in and give Wesleyan University's commencement address since Teddy Kennedy was, sadly, not able to appear as scheduled. With us being huge Wesleyan fans, and huge Obama fans, we couldn't pass up the opportunity to spend this gorgeous Memorial Day Sunday on Andrus field. It was a day filled with beautiful memories of my own graduation (can it really have been 12 years ago?)...

the joy of watching Owen explore a campus that still feels like home...

and the thrill of seeing and hearing the next President of the United States.

...extra points for anyone who can name a faculty member (or count the undercover secret service agents) in the picture above!

Also check out a more official writeup here.

May showers

Those of you with an eye for these things might have noticed that I got a new camera, which means lots of new, higher quality photos of Owen. Soon I hope to be good enough at using it to be able to take fewer than 140 pictures of him splashing in a puddle before I'm confident that I got some good ones. For now, though, it's very useful that when he likes something, he enjoys doing it again and again and again!

Head, shoulders, knees and toes...

Owen has been learning his body parts. He loves the song "Head, shoulders, knees and toes," and would be happy if we sang it to him all day. I happened to have the camera in hand the very first time he did the motions himself, after some training from Daddy. If we sing very slowly, he can switch from his head to his toes by the end of the verse (leaving out the more advanced shoulders and knees, for now).

Where's the rhino?

We continue to marvel at the new words Owen acquires every day. It's interesting to see which words he picks and when he learns them. For example, he started saying "flower," "tower," and "shower" within a few days of each other. Perhaps that's not surprising since they sound so much alike, particularly when he says them (ower! ower!). But before he started talking, I would have expected language acquisition to reflect more what he understood rather than what he could say. Now, though, I think he understands almost everything, and is just waiting for the ability to make the right sounds.

The new-word bonanza got a jump start about a month or two ago, when Owen started pointing. I took the pictures of him with the rhino statues at the beginning of April, and I was so excited when I asked him "where is the rhino?" and he pointed at it. Now he points at everything, and often it's because he wants to know its name. A few nights ago we were reading a book before bedtime, and after we finished the book, he opened it back up, and turned the pages until he found a page with a window on it. He pointed at the window and looked at me quizzically. So I said, "that's a window." And he smiled, pointed at his bedroom window, and said for the first time, "didow! didow!"

g-i-r-a-f-f-e

Owen's most treasured possession is (are) his giraffe blanket(s). He has two, one at home and one at school, but shh! don't tell him that! Very early on we started holding it (them) with him during feedings, and putting it (them) in the crib with him for naps and bedtime, hoping he'd form an attachment to it that would comfort him and help him sleep. It worked. When we put him down at night, he will sometimes cry just for the seconds it takes him to find his giraffe, rotate it until its tail is in his mouth, and start sucking. It's actually more than just a suck. He likes to spit saliva into it first and then suck out the juice. It's pretty disgusting, as you can imagine. But he loves it and it helps him sleep, so we just try to wash it as often as we can and hope for the best. 

Recently Owen has started wanting to take the giraffe out of the crib with him, both at home and at daycare. It has coincided with an increased interest in snuggling in general - with his giraffe, his stuffed animals (especially "baa" the sheep, "beaaaaar" the bear, and "momo" the elmo doll at school), and with us. It has also given us a surprising insight into his spatial memory. If Owen leaves his giraffe behind to go play in another room, he remembers exactly where he has left it. He might not feel the need for his giraffe for half an hour or more, but when he does, he returns to the exact spot where he last saw it. Sometimes Mommy and Daddy are mean and move it (whether for purposes of straightening up or for experimentation), and he'll circle around with mounting distress. When he finds it, he presses it to his cheek and says "raff! raff!" under his breath, like it's a secret between the two of them.

While we're impressed with his spatial memory and love the uptick in snuggling, we're not quite sure how to handle the new giraffe addiction. We don't want it to interfere with his interacting with the world, or other children. And it is our failsafe secret weapon - the one thing that will comfort him when all else fails. If he gets used to having it around all the time, what will we use? And what if he loses it (them)?