Owen @ 19 months

Just a quick update before we leave for our holiday trip. Owen, now 19 months old, been practicing for Christmas for the past month or so by grabbing cardboard boxes out of our freezer and ripping them open. He’s quite good at opening boxes and plastic containers now, though he has no understanding of the fact that some presents aren’t going to be for him, so look out CT and NY, the mad present opener is heading your way! Also, a suggestion for anyone shipping presents to an 19 month old. Packing peanuts are a lot of fun and the box they are in is easily turned over, and they get EVERYWHERE! We had a styrofoam peanut playroom in our living room last night 🙂 We’ll be sure to put lots of pictures up, we have a bunch from the past month or two that we haven’t had a chance to upload, so expect a big update soon.

Last Saturday night we were having trouble putting him to sleep so Emily sat with him for a while and he was lying down, quiet, in his crib. As soon as she walked over to the door he started to fuss. We decided to let him fuss for a few minutes in hopes he would fall asleep (since he was 90% of the way there). After about 4 minutes we heard a loud THUNK.. he had climbed out of his crib! Yikes, we didn’t know he could do that. He was fine, and he eventually went to sleep.

Speaking – He hasnÕt really said an English word yet but he has his own words for things, like GAH for cat (since one of our cats is named Goblin), WOO WOO for dog (like woof woof), FFFFFFF for Fish and BAY BAY for bagel. He also will blow short puffs of air when something is hot since he sees us do that for any of his food that is too hot. On the other hand he surprises us every day with what he understands. Just yesterday Emily was reading ‘Who’s Hatching’ to him and the last animal in that book is an alligator. When Emily said the word alligator he got up and walked off in the other room. A few seconds later he returned with the plastic alligator. Things like this happen every few days, where we realize he knows more than we thought he did. A few weeks ago Matt started to try to make a list of all the words that he’s demonstrated that he (Owen) knows, but it started to get very long.

That’s all for now. We’ll be in CT and NY for the holidays. Best wishes to all.

– Emily, Matt & Owen

The songs in my head

In the past few weeks I’ve been listening to books in my car ride to & from work (45 minutes each way), so the only music I’ve been hearing has been with Owen in the morning when we watch small bits of Sesame Street, Blues Clues and occasionally a Bear In The Big Blue House DVD. These are the only songs ‘in my head’ all day, and since they are written for very young kids, they are basic, repetitive and frankly… addictive. So in the quiet moments, in the back of my mind I hear snippets of these songs in my head;

‘….The moon, the bear and the big blue house are waiting for you to come and play…’

‘… we put it in our notebook, that’s second clue, Blue’s clues, Blue’s clues…’

‘… it’s Ernie, It’s me, I’d know him anywhere that HHHH HHHH when he laughs that Ernie shirt and hair’

‘…Elmo’s world …’

‘…Welcome to the Blue House… Hello from the small mouse’

‘… here’s the mail it never fails, it makes me want to wag my tail, when it comes I want to wail.. MAIL!’

‘…can you tell me how to get .. how to get to Sesame Street’

I guess I should be happy that Barney & Sponge Bob aren’t part of this.. yet.

What other shows are good for toddlers? Not that we want to prop him in front of the TV. Re-runs of the Muppet Show seem to be a good match, any other suggestions?

-Matt