Owen has become an expert "cruiser" - pulling himself up on furniture and walking along holding onto things. He's less dependent on us for his constant walking, since between cruising and crawling he can get almost anywhere he wants. He seems very close to walking on his own, but first he has to learn to stand still unassisted, and that's proving to be a deal breaker - why stand when you can walk? With the newfound mobility come the inevitable bumps and bruises (you can see some on his nose in the picture to the right). He has also grown 4 teeth - one a week for the past month. It's a hard time for him, but we can't help but be grateful for the extra snuggling that this normally fiercely independent baby is allowing us.Perhaps the most exciting recent development is what appears to be the very beginnings of spoken language. Owen hadn't shown any interest in talking - again, why talk when you can walk? And then a few weeks ago, we learned that his friend Meredith was saying "duck." This caused a minor panic as we realized that Owen had probably never even heard the word duck. So as the overeager parents we never thought we'd be but we have of course become, we immediately made sure his ducks joined him for his baths, and changed the way we talked to him and read books to him, focusing on simple nouns, especially the names of his favorite things, and repetition. We've been working on duck (not just Meredith's, but also my first word), doggie, cat, cow, sheep, bath, book, bottle, mirror, light, and of course, mama and dada. This week, though, I was playing one of his favorite games with him, where we lift a toy "up up up" in the air and then drop it "down, " and he started saying "daaaan" when he dropped the toy. It was hard to tell, because he says "da da da" almost all the time, especially when he's happy, but it sounded a little different and he seemed to be doing it appropriately. There's now no question that he says "down," both when he drops a toy, and when he wants you to drop one. He also answers the question "what does the cow say?" with a very sweet little "moo."
Now that he's mastered the concept of "down" and the vocalizations of bovine creatures, we're hoping he'll put some effort into figuring out "mama" and "dada".
