In lieu of a real post - Owen's words at April 20, 2010

Hi!
Ball
Mama
Dada
Look (doo!)
Done / All Done
Down (also means up)
More (mo-mo, with sign)
Nurse (nuh?)
oh-oh
Dat? (what's that?)
Banana (usually nana, but he got the ba in there last night)
ta (thank-you but mostly a sound for giving things to us or asking for them back)
toes (does)
Shoes (doos)
book
No (no-no?, with head shake. Often said while doing something he shouldn't)
Bottle (ba-ba, ba-ble)
Cup (baba, ba, bup)
door
dog
bowl (basket, bucket, etc.)
box/block (baah)
baby
go (doh)
apple (bap-boo)
woof (uff)
food/eat (nam-nam)
spoon (boo)
stuck (duh!)
touch (duh - reaching)
flower (loh-loh)

Onomatopoeia:
meow
wuff
elephant sound
tweet tweet
brrrrrmmmmm
wooohhhhh (vaccum cleaner, big truck)
pock-pock-pock (fish sound)
ahm! (give me a bite!)

Lots of little videos

Word List

A lot of these words are only discernibly different in context. You'd be surprised how quickly you learn to hear the minute differences. These are roughly in the order that we are certain that he is definitely associating a sound with something.

Mama
Dada
hi!
dog (doh!)
cat (tattat!)
meow (wa-ow) (he was meowing at the picture of the cat on the bag of cat treats this afternoon)
woof (uff)
bottle (baba)
sheep (ba-ba)
oh-oh
what's that? (dat?)
door (doh-oh)
ball (boohhh)
book (bah/buh)
banana (nanana)
toes (dohs!)
ta (thank you - or really more like I am handing this to you please hand it back now)
milk (mum)
baby (ba)
cup (bap/bop)
all done (aa duh, duh, aaa)
go (doh!)
eye (possibly this is still just hi)
down (doh)
more (mo) (very seldom says)
apple? (bub-bub)
yogurt? (oh-oo)

Other sounds that mean something:
bleaah! (John taught him this when he was eating stuff off the carpet and now he does it to be funny)
Mem (I do not know what this means, but he says it with great conviction.)
bwow
blom/blum


He is also big on mimicking sounds / words when we say them, though he won't necessarily remember these for the next time.

Other big things of late, walking, running, climbing the stairs, trying to climb into the bath, climbing over people on the floor, holding the phone to his ear and saying "hi! hi!", throwing food out of the high chair, hiding remotes, nearly turning ONE oh my goodness!

A big real post will have to commemorate that - promise!

Philosophizing and Updating and Loving

So yes, hello...

Turns out we're not fabulous parent-bloggers. Good intentions out the window when you have a sleepless, busy child, I guess.

Owen has, however, become a gem. He's such a happy, funny little boy these days.

He's walking, as we showed you in our hasty video post. He can't get up if he's in the middle of a room, but give him a wall or furniture or person to pull up on, and he's off to the races, padding his way down the hallway to see who's in the kitchen, carrying the contents of the kitchen (Tupperware, pot lids, tomato paste, whatever's handy) off to his toy box.

He's talking, maybe, or at least making sounds that sound a lot more like words. Mama, he says, often when he means me. Dada, likewise, for John. "Dog," he says when he's at his Mamgu's and hanging out with Bella the Jack Russel/Chihuahua, "Dog". Most other animals are "baa," especially the sheep kind. He's said cat, once or twice, when he's mislabelled Pumpkin as a baa or a dog. "Nam nam nam" means he's hungry, or enjoying his meal. There's a "baaaaw" sound for balls, and a "buuuhh" sound for books, but mostly everything is ba-ba-ba-ba-ba, so maybe we read too much into it. Was that a "banana" we just heard?

He started daycare in January, and has had a mild case of the plague ever since, a cold that turned into an ear infection that turned into a croupy sort of thing that turned into "that damn ear infection still hasn't gone away." We're finishing up our third course of antibiotics. We've retired the inhalers. He seems happy enough, but do his ears still itch? Do we have to make a hard decision about tubes? We'll know on Monday, I guess.

There are six pointy, sharp little teeth now, and a brand-new stream of drool that might indicate more are on the way. He sleeps five hours in a row, most nights, sometimes six, though not usually the same ones we like to sleep. He's getting better and we can see the light at the end of that tunnel.

He likes to make jokes, initiate peek-a-boo, feed us bites of whatever he's eating. He's in all the drawers and cupboards, testing, throwing, rearranging. Toys that make noise are the very best, and he shakes his head along with every rattle. He's starting to dance along with music, a little hand wavy bouncing thing. He understands more words than he lets on, I think, especially the kind that are "no."

He's ten and a half months old, already. In six weeks he'll have been around for a whole year. It's hard to imagine life before he was, but all the same, being back at work makes it hard to reconcile now with before. There's no more stopping on Barrington Street for a pint on the way home. No more spur of the moment decisions to see a movie on a Friday evening. Any evenings out take special orchestration. Is it worth it? Yes, oh, yes. Is it still weird? Again, yes.

The best thing of all, though, is the end of the working day, this little face full of love and smiles.

Owen's becoming a little more confident and adventurous when it comes to walking. Check this out (or see here: http://bit.ly/5HJVAw)