Little Monkey

Owen has expanded his climbing repetoire past the simple 'up and down the stairs' routine. First stop? The fireplace, then the lawnchairs, his leapfrog toy, tonka truck, on and off his push toy. He is a little too short to manage the couches, but I'm just waiting for him to figure out that he can push his leapfrog over and climb onto that, then onto the couches. YIKES!

Exploring the Park

Todd took Owen to the park twice this week to explore and he was mostly interested in playing in the bark and wanting to climb up on the benches. Today when we went, we tried out the swings and the slide. He wasn't sure about the swing, but he thought the slide was awesome!

More and More

Recent happenings:

• terrible sleep habits - he goes through this cycle about every 6 weeks. In the past ten days, he has had 3 2:30 a.m. hysterical wake times and for one of those, he didn't go back to sleep until 7:30 in the morning. Since I was the one up with him that whole time, I had a less than stellar day at work! Almost every other night he has woke up at least once and is in our bed with us by 11:30 or so for the rest of the night. I know it is related to having a hard time going to sleep by himself; we  are trying to get him back into a routine, but there is a lot of music videos and rocking in the chair going on right now!
• new words - car, up, go
• holding our hand and pulling us by the hand to places if he feels we don't understand what he wants (which most of the time we do, but it is simply that he can't have it at that moment, like going outside or looking over the neighbors fence at the dogs!)
• lots of scrapes, bumps, and bruises from exploring outside
• putting rocks in the rain pipes outside, a great hiding place

First time out playing in the rain, we need more rain gear!

Even better than rocks in the drainpipe - water coming out!

Joyful Noise

Permanently ingrained in a little boy's DNA - the ability to make car noises....

The best seat in the house...

Laughter is the Best Medicine

Owen loves to talk to anyone we meet on our walks, or in the store, cars passing by, etc, but especially any dogs we meet. Yesterday, we were outside and he was talking to the dog across the street and nodding his head vigorously as the dog barked. Then, when the dog would stop, he would throw his hands out to the side, lean forward, and just start chatting away, with little laughs peppering the conversation. They must have gone back and forth like that for about 5 minutes straight.