Sweet Rebecca is now enjoying lots of new toys including her bumbo chair. Don't you remember pictures of Owen just like this??? She's also really really liking her play gym on the floor, but doesn't last very long on her tummy.
Still haven't really caught it in a photo, but she is the smiliest girl ever. She loves loves loves our faces and pretty much lights up at everyone she recognizes. Then the squeaky, breathy, cooing begins. I've started keeping my camera with me most of the time so I can try to catch both the smiles and the coos but I think she's shy, because she stops smiling and talking as soon as I pull it out!
Here is my beloved Aunt Joyce. She's holding the most precious tutu outfit you've ever seen--a birthday present for Miss Rebecca. She'll probably be big enough for it in the spring--I can't wait to have pictures of that! Joyce was in town for part of last week just to see us and hang out with my mom some. We had a great visit. She got to play with both of the kiddos and us girls got to escape to the "Christmas Affair" for some really fun shopping for part of a day. It was an overwhelming experience (you've never seen so much stuff and so many women!) but was a lot of fun!
Owen has a special project at Bee and JoJo's house right now. He helped Bee plant an amaryllis for Christmas and its his job to go water it once a week (after school on Tuesdays). He knows that a green and red flower is going to grow...not a blue and purple one (a little joke of theirs).
This video is priceless to me. It's some of the first real playing Owen has done w/ Rebecca. He's starting to pay a lot more attention to her--beyond just telling me to put her in the swing or her jungle chair (so he can have my full attention). Oh, you can very clearly hear him call her "Betta" which I love (all his c's are t's right now).
Okay, here is the random list of funny (to me at least) Owen-isms and recent happenings:
-I didn't realize how often we say "how about _____" because now Owen begins almost every sentence with it. "How 'bout I have some juice," "How 'bout no night night," "How 'bout 'where's my other shoe?"...
-Owen has also recently discovered "maybe," "neither," and "too". Like I'll tell him we're going to go to the grocery store and he'll say "maybe we see fire trucks, maybe we see school buses too!". And after the trip he'll be saying "we didn't see any fire trucks. we didn't see any school buses either". It goes on and on and on and on.
-Owen has gotten really good at trying to play Kyle and I off of each other. He has figured out that if one of us tells him No about something he should go and ask the other. Of course we try to be on the same page (and are about the big stuff) but if we're busy or distracted we won't know that one of us just tole him no more juice, for example... One time he came to me whining, "Dadda said no milk. Dadda said no juice. Dadda said no water. Dadda said no milk..." on and on and on as if he was truly being neglected. Smart.
-Owen has always really liked to draw. I keep poster-board on hand so he can sit on the floor and just go crazy. And he got an easle for his birthday which has a white board and a chalk board and paper which is a lot of fun. So, really, there is no reason for him to need to use his poop as means for artistic expression...but recently his Picasso-side broke free and he "drew" all over the floor and wall in our hallway. As soon as he heard me gasp his full name he knew he had done a BIG no no. He immediately started crying and asking for his dad. We spent the next few minutes giving him a bath and him telling me all the things that were no no's about what just happened--"no no touch poop," "no no draw on walls"....I think he got the point.
-We had a "standoff" at dinner the other night because he refused to eat the one tiny piece of carrot on his place that we told him he had to eat. He ended up sitting at the table until bedtime. He never ate the carrot (even though he had it in his mouth and chewed it up half way and then spit it out) but he didn't get to play with any of his toys for the rest of the evening. I'm not sure who won...
-He likes to practice telling flies (and anything else unwanted) to go away. I'll hear him just walking around the house waving his arms saying "shoo shoo do away" even though there are no flies in the house. He'll be ready the next time he sees one!
-I guess Owen has become accustomed to receiving praise at the dinner table (when he DOES eat his carrots) because the other day I gave him some ice cream and he kept telling himself "good job" while he was eating it!
-Another anti-discipline tactic of Owen's is that if we're in the middle of scolding him or instructing him about something he just looks at you and says "fire trucks" really loudly as if we'll be so distracted that we'll let him just change the subject on us. Right...
-Owen has actually started joking with us. For a while now he and Kyle have had a running joke about whether Owen can put lotion in his eye (no). And now Owen has started requesting songs he knows don't exist because he knows we'll say "there's no truck song" and he laughs. Ah the sense of humor of a 2 year old.
-Owen likes to say "bwess you" after you sneeze or cough but he also says it to himself (bwess you still, not "me") after he toots or makes any sort of noise.
-Owen's has added some new songs/poems to his list of favorites to finish: Supercalifragalisticexpialidocious (sp?)...if you sing the words he finishes w/ the "docious" but it sounds like "Do Shush!" and is either shouted or whispered. He also really likes "the Vision song" (Be Thou My Vision) which makes Kyle and I really happy because we've been singing that one to him at bedtime since he was born.
-As if it would change our minds about things, Owen has started saying "I said no" when he doesn't want to do something instead of just "no". Makes sense since that's what he hears us say.
-Owen can count to 10! The funny thing is we taught him to count to 3 but he figured out the rest on his own. We were both shocked the first time he did it. What a hoot!
Yea! You made it! Now feel free to peruse the other new posts below...You're a trooper!
Happy Thanksgiving...I'm off to make some casseroles!
