Make that 8 signs

Yep, he added a new sign to his vocabulary yesterday. "Baby." That makes 8 signs at just over 11 months old. Sometimes he actually tries to say "baby" and sign it at the same time. By the way, when you see a baby signing "baby", the cuteness factor is just off the charts.

Here's a scene from the grocery store today...Owen is in the cart, Rob and I are discussing some random item on the store shelves. We look over and see Owen signing "dog". I laugh and say something like "Yes, buddy. That's the sign for dog, but there are no dogs here." He briefly acknowledges me then continues to sign and looks past us both as if to say, "Uh, yeah, ok. Whatever, Mom. Turn around." Sure enough, we turn around and see SEVERAL dogs! Dogs all over the Our Best Friends pet card line from Hallmark! I kid you not! Continues to blow me away...

Sweetest kid on the planet

Here's some video taken just this evening before dinner. Owen was gathering pinecones in the backyard. He'd pick up a cone, bring it to me and then give me a hug. Same routine, over and over. After he'd done it like 3 times, we finally thought to get it on video. Lovebug in the backyard

How sweet is this kid?

AND...we've added 2 more signs in the last couple of days! He now knows the sign for fish and dog! This brings his total sign language vocabulary to 7 words! All I can say is Signing Time rocks. Three of his signs (car, fish, dog) came directly from watching the video as we had never introduced those signs prior to buying the DVD. All you mommies out there, if you are interested in exposing your babies to signing, get these videos! You will not regret it.

Imagine It!

We've discovered a new favorite...Imagine It! Also known as The Children's Museum of Atlanta. This place is the coolest! It will surely become a regular stop in our weekly schedule, especially as Owen grows. The museum is geared toward children 8 and younger and seems to be most appreciated by the 3-5 crowd. However, Owen jumped right in and loved every minute of it.


They do have an infant play area but he was much more interested in getting in the mix with the big kids. It was quite funny to see the tiny guy walking amidst the pre-school and kindergarten crowd.

The entire facility is truly interactive and encourages parents to get in the action too!

We planned to stay maybe a half hour...3 hours later, we left! He was so completely wiped out. So wiped out, in fact, that he just didn't even know what he wanted most...nourishment or naptime paci. Here's what being overtired will do to a kid.
What do I want?

Five minutes later...

Where do I even start?

I can't keep up. This kid is just growing up WAAAAAY too fast! And I've been too busy enjoying him to even come and brag to the rest of you. Seriously, Owen really seems to have had another developmental explosion. I continue to be amazed by this little person in our lives. What he's up to these days:

Walking I mean walking everywhere! Owen Stone is officially a toddler. Crawling is just such old news. He wants to walk everywhere we go and is extremely steady on his feet. The downside is that he now fights the stroller, carseat and highchair. Any restraint device is clearly seen as something straight from the devil! Now that he's mobile, he wants to be mobile 24-7 (even skipping afternoon naps every now and then, much to his parents' chagrin).

Talking! Yup, talking. Four recognizable words are in Owen's vocabulary: mama, dada, cat and go. The first two are obvious and now seem to be used discriminately (although dada still gets more airtime than me--go figure). But "cat" was the first real word other than identifying the two of us and he uses it correctly and in context all the time. He has even identified cats on his videos and in books. Today, we were looking at a zoo picture book and I got to a picture of a leopard. He immediately chimed in with "cat!"

The word "go" seems to have been picked up from two of his books: "Go, Dog, Go!" and "Go, Go Trucks". Owen now brings these books for us to read and repeats "go!" over and over again. Just so unbelievably cute.

Signing Owen now uses 5 signs with some regularity: more, all-done, eat, milk and car. I can't tell you how amazing it is to watch an 11-month old tell you he'd like some milk or sign "car" in response to hearing the word read in a story. It just blows my mind every time it happens.

Hmmm, what else can I tell you? When we're ready to go downstairs, he has learned to stop at the top of the stairs and lie down on his belly (instead of just walking off the first step like he's invincible). We're working on going down backwards all the way to the bottom--not quite there yet. He can correctly identify ball, book, and bear and can retrieve the named item when asked (if he's in just the right mood, of course). The flirting and schmoozing is just off the charts. We can see a sense of humor developing and he LOVES to laugh and play "coy" all the time.

I've gotta say this is the best stage so far. We are having so much fun watching this little guy learn and grow everyday. It really is incredible how much they pick up in such a short amount of time! Coolest job I'll ever have. I love this kid.

But it's not all fun and games. He's finally learning to pull his weight around here too! No more fun until the chores are done!



I promise we'll get some videos and more photos up soon. Right now, we're enjoying playtime far too much! For those of you trying to view old clips, sorry! The archived clips were being hosted by our old internet service provider. No worries, we'll get things back to normal soon enough.

Well, it's ABOUT TIME!

We finally have the tooth, the whole tooth and nothing but the tooth. Well, actually it's not the whole tooth just yet, but you get the idea. It took nearly 11 months to get it, but it has finally arrived! Owen's first chomper. It is hard to catch a glimpse, but if you look very closely, you'll see the beautiful pearly white. It was hard fought and a long time coming, but it's nice to know that Owen can actually look forward to enjoying his first BITE of birthday cake.

Bye-bye Nashville. Hello Atlanta!

Yes, I know it's been a long time since I last updated the blog. You've all made your points loud and clear! Sheesh. Give a mommy a break every once in a while. We've been busy moving, you know. Crazy, crazy times. It must be that you all just missed your regular Owen fix. And who can really blame you for that?

I am glad to report that we made it here safe and sound and are now getting settled in our new home. We are, of course, swimming in a sea of boxes. I'm actually growing quite fond of brown cardboard decor...perhaps we could start a new trend?

Owen is walking everywhere and getting into everything. And gosh, the bag o' party tricks just continues to grow. He now knows where his tongue is and can show you whenever you ask. (great for warding off crabby old ladies in the grocery store). He also occasionally signs for "milk" and to tell me he's "all done". In addition to kissing upon request, he now can hug too (just about the only way to get in a millisecond of cuddle time for this busy quasi-toddler). But, the very cutest new thing is playing telephone.

It goes something like this: Owen grabs the phone, Mommy says "Ring, ring. Hello", Owen contorts in whatever way necessary to get the phone up to his ear. He still doesn't quite know which end is for talking and which is for listening but he sure knows that the phone belongs at your ear.




Last night we enjoyed some great family time in the backyard. Mommy and Daddy sipping lemonade, watching Owen splash around in his new "big boy pool."



He was absolutely giddy and I gotta say that Mommy and Daddy were pretty happy too. Times are grand right now, folks. (we just miss our Nashville friends somethin' bad )