Week of July 17th, 2002

This past weekend, I took a trip to visit a friend on Saturday and left Owen with his Dad, and the extra comfy stroller. Since we're used to using the car to lull Owen into napping, I was a bit uncertain if a walk would work as well, but Scott put him in a reclining position and off they head to the center of town. The nice long walk did the trick, and they had lunch at the Craft fair on the common.

After a nice weekend, Owen had a tough week. He's had a stomach bug and along with taking his appetite, it also took the sweet and energetic child we're used to. Owen went back and forth from being just mildly off and listless, to crying and looking very unhappy. He utterly rejected food, and instead of giving us a quick hug or kiss as he climbed over us, Owen would do little burrows with his head. Scott and I thought we were managing pretty well, coping with it all, but our repressed tension made us edgy and abrupt. The only saving grace was that Owen's sleep seemed to be unaffected, so at least we could collapse in tired heaps at the end of each day.

Owen's slowly adding to his vocabulary. We think we're hearing "ottle" for bottle now, and "ata" for water. Perhaps we're imagining it but I think the references are pretty consistent. His words show the priorities in his life: cats, dogs, birds, water, and his bottle (although I suspect this is from observing other children, he's never all that excited by his bottle at home). He's speaking in very English-like gibberish. This preys on my fears -- he seems so intent, what if he's really trying to say words and we're just gumbies, unable to decipher what he's saying? How long will he desperately be trying to clue us in? How are we going to feel when we finally, finally figure out what he's saying to us?

We've been getting a lot of mileage out of the shape sorter. In addition to using it to sort, and playing with the key in the door, he has lots of fun running around the apartment with the little blue balls. He's also enjoying tossing things through the open stairs, since this often requires a parent and a yardstick for object retrieval. He's able to stack a good number of blocks, he's done up to 6 on a good day. It's often more fun just to toss them over his shoulder, however. Tossing and stacking and filling and taking things out are a huge source of joy for him. When he's done at dinner, he calmly starts to drop food off the right hand edge of his high chair. Noah is often close by at dinner time, but fortunately, Noah and Owen haven't figured things out well enough to join forces. It's just a matter of time, though, before Noah is the happy recipient of Owen's dinner. Dinners have been brief this weak, since he hasn't been hungry, and we've moved very quickly to the dropping stage. At bedtime, he's completely focused on our reading his books to him, though he'll periodically take a quick swig of milk. He expects me to be his milk holder in between though, it's very funny watching him place the bottle in my hand. We're hugely entertained when he moves our fingers and hands to complete whatever goal is in his mind.

 

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