Sweet Babies Mey: A Year and a Half!

Oh my this little boy is just the cutest thing our eyes have every laid eyes on.......he makes us swoon in everything he does. He's so jolly and loud and a character to boot. He squints when you ask him to smile for the camera. He's a ham when eating his food, but oh such a good little eater. Owen will eat anything put in front of him. Lately he loves roasted veggies, especially broccoli, blueberries (boo-ber), cookies (tootie), yogurt (yogi) and butter (peanut or almond butter).

Owen is really talking a lot now. His vocabulary has absolutely exploded since turning 18 months. He was building a nice little vocabulary before that, but at 18 months it all exploded. He repeats everything and gives any word a try to pronounce. He's got an amazing memory, something I don't know is normal for this age or not (I'm assuming it is). He'll hear something once, and then repeat it much later. For instance, i'll briefly mention that daddy went to get a movie. Then we proceed to play in the bath and do all sorts of other things, but as soon as he hears the door open and close, he immediately says "daddy movie." He did the same thing today with something else and it simply amazed me.

Since the last blog, around Christmas time, Owen has continued to develop very strong dexterity skills. He's very coordinated in climbing, kicking, throwing, catching, rolling, balancing and building. He loves working with his hands and using his real life tool set on his workbench. He's also following stories more and can remember what comes next on the pages, remembers the way we read them to him previously and mimics that same storyline.

Owen is a wonderful sleeper, something I wondered if we'd ever experience. When he was very very small the middle of the night wakings was just too much for me to handle. It's so hard to function waking 2 or 3 or 4 times each night. But our sleep training method really worked well for all of us. Owen is a confident sleeper who feels safe in his bed and in his room. He likes his confort items, like his binkies and his blankets. He recently has taken to two "lovies." These are two separate blankets that he has used in his crib for some time now, but only recently has attached to them more significantly. The Dr. says we should be weaning him from the bottle at bedtime and his binkies all together but we don't feel he's ready to lose the binky. The bottle would not be as big of a deal, and actually I think we'll start tackling that soon. But the binky really is soothing for him and doesn't seem to be harming him in the least.

We've been to our first dentist appt. and everything checked out great. We have a little flossing tool that we use, along with our toothbrush and toothpaste. Owen is a pretty good sport about it all, for the most part. We stay consistant and that really is the key, not only for things like brushing but all things toddler.

Owen continues to be a strong-willed and spirited little boy. At home he's become more snuggly and cuddly. However, he doesn't want to sit long in a shopping cart, he'd rather run around the store. Treats only buy us so much time (there's NO browsing the aisles with this little guy). Buying him a balloon is one way of buying a little more time when needed.

At our last 18 month old appt. Owen weighed 25 lbs and was 93% for height in his age group. His head circumference is still off the charts but not my much. We haven't cut his hair but I'm getting close to snipping off the longest one inch or so just to shorten the mullett a tad.

Ash is entering his last quarter of school and will be an RN in 3 short months!! AMAZING! I'm happily at home still. My unemployment ran out so that will sting for a while. I dove in to a new challenge and something I've been wanting to check off my life list: run a half marathon before baby number two. I'll be running my first half marathon in September! After that is over, I think we'll consider having another baby (if all is willing). Once Ashton is employed we'll feel especially confortable with that decision. I also started a food blog called Me and My LG at meandmylg.wordpress.com. I've really enjoyed it but have slacked off a little lately. I'm excited to get up and going with it again.

Happy Birthday Grandma Reta!! We miss you dearly.

A few photos follow to sum up Owen hamming it up at home: