For those of you who don’t know me, Owen is my 8 month old son, and Emily, the author of this entry below, is my wonderful wife. We sent this out to Owen’s mailing list the other day but I figured I’d post it here too. -Matt
From: em@baya.net
Subject: (Owen-news) December/January Update
Date: January 31, 2004 11:13:51 PM EST
We haven’t added any news here for awhile, so I will do my best to catch everyone up on what has been happening with the O Man in the past few months. (Hopefully this time Matt won’t delete it before it gets posted…)
Teeth:
Let me see… last entry was that we had seen teeth in his mouth. He definitely has two lower front teeth. They are sharp! I am pretty sure he is now getting the upper front teeth. They haven’t broken through yet, but I think I saw a white bump up there. It is really hard to look up into Owen’s mouth unless he is upside down and smiling, so I’m not positive. Although with his behavior last week there better be some teeth coming in. Lots of fussing and drooling and chomping.
Food:
Owen has tried all of the “first” jarred baby food and is rapidly consuming second and third flavors. What that means for those of you who haven’t visited the baby food aisle recently is he has moved beyond single flavors of food, like squash or apples and is now getting combos and meat. For example tonight for dinner he had: beef and barley, green beans and potato, and pears. It also means that he is getting a bit more texture in his food. He is also eating some finger foods such as cheerios (which me being the paranoid mom that I am I cut in half) and these things called wagon wheels ( I break these apart also) which you can get in the baby food aisle. He is getting much better at getting these bits into his mouth. At first most of them would end up on the floor or in his lap, but now I’d say 85%get into his mouth. He has no concept of finishing what is in his mouth before he puts more in so I try to just give him a few at a time. I think right now it is more about being able to “feed” himself (read get piece picked up and into mouth) them actually eating.
Locomotion:
Yes, Owen has started to crawl. He spent a lot of time between Thanksgiving and Christmas getting up onto his hands and knees and rocking back and forth. This was often accompanied by Matt saying “vroom vroom” as he wiggled back and forth. He really did look like a runner or a car about to take off. On several occasions he was even able to propel himself backwards. This was often amusing because it happened when he was really trying to go forward. I kept finding him backed up under the dry sink we have in the living room. We knew he would figure it out sooner or later, but I was really hoping that he would wait until after Christmas. I had these visions of Owen and the Christmas tree becoming one with each other. He was a good boy and waited until the week after Christmas to crawl forward and he did it while at a grandparents house! We couldnt ask for much more. Now he is even crawling through the tunnel at playgroup.
Of course the next thing that happened is that he would crawl over to something and pull himself up to standing. This meant that he toppled over and hit his head etc. a lot. It also meant that he had to figure out how to get down. Getting up was easy down is much harder. He seems to have the down part figured out now. It is a complicated combination of reaching for the floor with one hand and bending his knees and letting go at just the right moment with the other hand. We had to rescue him many times before he got that all worked out. Now he likes to stand up and bang on things and also if he is really excited he kind of bounces up and down while holding on. He is also starting to move around a little while standing and holding onto things. We have to keep moving him away from the curtains.
Another byproduct of the crawling is that his has become very wiggly during diaper changes and while getting dressed. Matt and I are totally exhausted by the time we are done. I dont know how anyone did it with cloth diapers and pins! He is a strong boy!
Miscellaneous:
Owen and I are doing swim lessons at the local YMCA. They arent really lessons in swimming. We get in the water and sing songs and move around. We practice kicking ,digging (stroking with arms) and blowing bubbles. Ok so he doesnt blow bubbles, but he does watch me and I have to move his arms and legs, but it is fun. So much fun for Owen that he fell asleep in the pool during his lesson two weeks ago.
He had his first play date recently. We went over to Romans house. Roman is a couple of months older than Owen and we met him and his mom at playgroup and they are in swim class together. At their age the play date is more for the moms then it is for the kids. They dont play with each other yet. They just sit in the same space. Knowing that, I would say it was a great success and we will be getting together again soon.
Along with the crawling and standing we again had to lower his crib. I think I was being paranoid again, but I was worried he would do a header out of the crib. I sleep better now that it is lower.
The dogs and cats have had to contend with Owen more now that he is crawling. He loves them! All he wants to do is touch/grab them and bury his face in their fur. He absolutely lights up when ever he sees one of them. If he is down on the floor the sighting is followed by a gleeful noise and a rapid crawl in their direction. Luckily for them right now he is slower than they are, but that wont last long. Depending on the particular animal that has been spotted their reaction to Owen varies from rapidly leaving the room to just lying there and getting crawled all over.
He still loves his bath time. Most of it is spent trying to convince Owen that baths are much better sitting down than standing up. He has discovered that the tub makes a great noise when you bang a empty plastic cup against the side and he thinks the shower curtain is very interesting.
Owen has his nine month check up towards the end of February so we will be able to update everyone with his new vital statistics then. Hard to believe that he is almost nine months old!