Washington

Owen, Richard, and I headed up to Washington last weekend to visit Kristi Gee and her sons. Owen did great on the trip- he slept on the way up there, and mostly read to himself on the 5 hour drive home. And, for one of the first times, he slept at night away from home- for 3 of the 4 nights.

Owen had a great time playing with Jackson and Henry, and particularly enjoyed their toys. It was great to see them all and to see Eastern Washington. Richland has a lot of beautiful community parks, and Owen is a big fan of "slides and swings!". On Sunday we took the boys to see "Thomas, Live!". Owen isn't quite clear on who Thomas the Tank Engine is, but he likes trains a lot. He had mixed feelings on the live stage show- he was happy when the trains were on the stage, but upset when the actors kept singing. Richard had to bring him outside and then back inside several times. He may still be too young to appreciate theater.

Owen now likes to say OK and not OK- his version is "K" and "no-K". Sample conversation:

Owen (with urgency): "Bubba! Bubba! Bubba! Bubba!"

Mom: "Would you like Bubba?"

Owen (calmly, with a smile): "K."

Alternate conversation:

Mom (or more likely, Dad): "Would you like to eat this nice vegetable?"

Owen (with urgency): "No-K!"

We found a new toy at Kristi's house that Owen loved. In her play room, she has an inflatable pool filled with plastic play balls. Owen spent the weekend in Washington hanging out in that pool with Henry. So I found a pool and play balls at K-mart and set it up for Owen on Saturday. He is so happy with it- we had a hard time convincing him to leave it to do anything else.

We had a very nice Mother's Day today. Owen and Richard surprised me with a hanging fuchsia, and they both had a card. Richard made us a great breakfast and dinner. We went to get gelato and to the park. It was a fun day for all of us.

Owen is beginning to enjoy using crayons- he also enjoys instructing Richard and I to draw various things- usually Bubba, bunnies, and dogs. Even with those, he's taxing our artistic abilities. We tried to play with Play-Doh, but I don't think he understands that yet. He's doing a great job using a spoon- he likes to eat Cheerios and milk in the morning all by himself- and he doesn't make a mess.

2 new things

Owen did 2 new things yesterday.

When we were walking down the stairs, he counted them, up to 5. Then he skipped to 8- his favorite number.

At dinner yesterday, Owen shared a joke with us. It must be something he learned at daycare. He kept pulling spit from his mouth and trying to hand it to us. He thought this was completely hilarious. We are missing the joke, but it's hard to not laugh when he cracks up. Perhaps a 4 year old could explain the humor.

Easter with Gramma and Grandpa

My parents were here for the week of Easter.

On Saturday, we celebrated Owen's cousin Laurel's first birthday. She enjoyed eating cake for the first time.

We attempted to take him to Easter service on Sunday, but he spent most of the time outside the church, watching men spread out Easter eggs for the post-service hunt. Sitting still for an hour isn't part of his skill set right now.

Owen had a full Easter basket. His favorites include a bunny from Grandma McManus, which he has slept with each night since receiving it, and "career hats" from my parents.

He did enjoy going to the children's museum with his grandparents in Salem later in the week- lots of fun things to play with and climb on. We had such good time, we went back the next weekend with Richard since he had to work the first time.

Owen has gotten much better at colors. He's interested in the alphabet and numbers- he will count the even ones when we count the odd ones and will fill in letters when we sing the alphabet song.

He and Richard often go out to the yard to dig for worms, then they come in and Owen will

explain to me everything they found. They went for a bike ride this morning, and when they returned, Owen told me all about the farm animals they saw, and how they were eating grass- amazing that he can tell a story now- using mostly nouns. He has said a couple of sentences- if you count "ball down" and "coat on" as sentences. We do.

When we read him books and he learns about things, Owen wants to know if it's something he can put in his hand, or if it's something he can eat. So, for example, if you point to a flower, he'll ask "hand?". Yes, Owen, you can put that in your hand. "Eat?" No, Owen, you don't eat flowers. Then the next time he sees that thing, we will identify it as Hand or Eat. Sometimes he plays a joke with his car book and says he can Eat them, but giggles the whole time.

How to get to Aunt Susie's

Owen and Richard went for a walk Friday night. At the end of our street, Owen pointed to the left. Then at the end of that street Owen pointed to the right. Then he refused to turn on any of the next streets. Until he got to Susie's house. Then he pointed to the front door. They went inside and played with Laurel and the cat and the dog.

Owen has learned how to get around Corvallis faster than me!

little lambs

Last weekend, Owen and Richard went to the OSU barn to see baby lambs. Zoie wasn't welcome, so she and I went for a hike. Owen loved seeing the lambs and had a lot of fun. He kept saying "baa, baa" for the rest of the day.

Owen turned 20 months this week. At his day care, I was told that he knows the names of all the kids in his class, and all the kids in the older class. They'll be transitioning him to the older class (2-3 year olds) in the next few months. He's very close with his current teacher, so it will be tough on him. But looking at him compared to the 12 month olds, he has grown so much! He didn't even walk when we moved here 8 months ago.

It's getting sunnier and warmer here now and we are spending more time in the yard. We did some weeding last weekend- well, actually, I did SOME weeding. Richard did a LOT of weeding. Owen was an excellent helper, and held a ladybug for the first time. Now he keeps pointing to his hand and saying "bug" and "outside." Richard also had him hold a worm and a slug. Boys.

Owen's been taking his stroller out on walks in the evenings. He looks very cute pushing the pink stroller down the sidewalk.

Two other new things for the week: Owen's been drinking from a cup all week, without the sippy lid. He's quite good at it, though you have to watch him because he likes to pour out whatever he doesn't want to drink... Also, Owen now has strong opinions on what he wants to wear. Yesterday and today

he vetoed the shirt we chose for him. Yesterday, Richard kept showing him shirts till he found one with frogs. Today Owen asked for his shark t-shirt while I was changing him- luckily it was clean. (He says shark, by the way, by pointing to the top of his head- his fin- and saying do-do do-do, as in the Jaws theme song.)

Cabin in the Woods

We spent last weekend in the Cascade mountains, at a cabin rented by my sister on Odell Lake. We only went for one night, since Owen still doesn't sleep well when we're not at home. There was 20" of base snow there, but it was warm and we didn't need to bundle up much to go hiking on the groomed trails. Owen loved the snow and sliding on the ice and jumping in mud puddles.

Zoie proved to have less sense than usual (maybe that's being too nice- less sense than we hoped?) and jumped into the frozen lake. She got out pretty quickly.

Owen got to sled for the first time. He and Richard had a blast.

Zoie proved herself useful as well.

Owen had a great time with his cousin Laurel. He even gave her a great big kiss. This was his reaction to the kissing.

catching up

Since starting this thing, I have yet to invite folks to read it, and I have yet to post pictures. So I'm going to use this post to get updated.

Owen's now almost 20 months, but I haven't done much picture sharing for a while, so I wanted to send this picture from his 18 month birthday. We made cupcakes, and he had 1 and a half candles. I don't know how he learned the word cupcake, but he definitly knows it now. He's a big fan.

A couple of weeks ago we counted the number of words Owen knows, and got up to 90. He seems to learn a new word almost every day now, so we've stopped counting. When he's very excited he speaks in detailed sentences, but doesn't actually use English. I hope to record one of these rants. He's good with naming animals and animal sounds, but not as good at colors yet. He knows pink, then assumes all other colors to be green or blue.

Owen got pieces of a train set for Christmas from his relatives. The train set seems to keep expanding and has it's own room in the house. But he loves it and asks to play with it every day- he calls it "choo choo" and makes the train whistle hand motion.

He also loves playing with balls- the blue one seen in the picture is one of his favorites, as well as Richard's exercise ball and smaller bouncy ones. He often asks for "bu ball". We are still not sure what bu is.

These are 2 more of Owen's favorite things- Bubba Bear and his little pink stroller. We got Bubba in Vermont in Christmas in 2005. They've been close ever since. "Bubba" was one of Owen's first words. He pushes Bubba or any other toy around in the pink stroller- around the house or on the street. He's very cute pushing it around.