Friday, October 31, 2008
Thursday, October 30, 2008
To Owen... (31-32 Months Old)
This is a long letter. After all, I've been writing this for like 2 months!
I started showing you the Peanuts Halloween special back in September. You really like it. And you really love Snoopy. There is one part of the special where Linus is playing music and Snoopy is dancing and reacting to the music. When the music starts to sound sad, Snoopy starts crying and acting really sad. The first time we watched it, you started crying and got really upset. I thought that I wouldn't be able to show it to you again for awhile because it upset you so much. But, the next day you said, "watch Snoopy on TV (although TV sounds more like TB when you say it)," so I put it on. That time, when it got to the "sad" part you started crying again and said, "Snoopy's crying." I told you that Snoopy wasn't really that sad. He was just acting sad and he'll be okay in a minute. That usually calms you down, but it still does upset you a little bit when we watch that. You are very sensitive about other people being upset. In this picture, you were crying because there was a little girl crying on the playground at the zoo.
You say the Georgia bulldawg cheer, "Goooooo dawgs, sic 'em... woof, woof, woof." It is so cute. Of course you don't have the attention span to actually watch a football game, but you will watch a little bit of it and say the cheer a lot. You also cheer with us and say, "yay, a touchdown!" when we make a touchdown. The best thing to distract you so we can watch the game is play-doh. You LOVE play-doh. You especially like it when we make footballs out of play-doh. Lately, you go to your daddy a lot and say, "daddy, watch football."
You are into all kinds of art. You love to draw with crayons, markers, chalk and pens. You also love to paint and cut paper with scissors and glue paper together. You like to draw, but you also like to make me draw (or sculpt if we are playing with play-doh). You say, "draw aaaaaaaaaaaa...." or "make aaaaaaaaaaaaaaa....." and then whatever you want me to draw. You usually start with easy things like, "draw aaaaaaaaaaa... car" or "draw aaaaaaaaaa... train," but then you start coming up with more complicated things to draw like the Wiggles, or purple Oswald or Snoopy, etc. Corinne was over one night and you were getting us to make things out of play-doh. You had us make things like balls, squares, triangles, etc. All of a sudden you said to Corinne, "make aaaaaaaaa... car." She only had a tiny bit of play-doh, but she was trying to make the car. I guess she was taking too long because you started saying, "make a car, make a car!!!" We're trying to work on your patience and politeness!
You drew your first face a few weeks ago, and you made your first play-doh sculpture recently too. You took little pieces of play-doh and piled them up to make sort of a green and orange blob. I asked what you were making and you said, "make nunkey's house" (nunkey is how you say "monkey"). You even showed me where nunkey's door on the house was. I got you on videotape talking about it.
The weather has been so nice for the past month or so, that we have spent many hours outside each day. The little boy next door lets you play with his Hot Wheels. You enjoy that a lot. You are getting very adept at pedaling tricycles and Big Wheels. You can even pedal Ethan's big Harley Davidson tricycle bike. You love to explore outside and take walks and you could probably spend hours throwing rocks down the storm drain. You are very curious about things.
Candy is getting to be sort of an irritating issue. I guess like most kids, you love candy. I don't mind giving you a little bit every once in awhile, but you ask for it all the time. The grocery store and restaurants are probably the worst problem because you see it there on your level and throw temper tantrums when I tell you no. Sometimes I stand my ground, but I do give in sometimes too.
You always want suckers when we go to the doctor or to get haircuts. The other day, we took Holly to the vet to get groomed. I said, "Holly is going to get her haircut." I could see you thinking about that for a second and then you said, "Holly haircut, blue sucker!" Rather than bothering explaining, I just said, "yeah, I think they might give Holly a blue sucker, but it is for her because she is the one getting a haircut."
Something that you've started saying a lot is the phrase, "How 'bout..." It is so funny when you say it. We'll just be sitting down playing or something and you'll say, "how 'bout... [dramatic pause] a popsicle?" or "how 'bout... A blue sucker?" Another funny one is "Oh man this is fun!"
You really enjoyed going to the zoo. You were sort of interested in the giraffes. You said, "let's count the giraffes. 1, 2, 3." You didn't seem to care about the lions, or gorillas AT ALL. You liked the birds in the atrium alright. You were quite interested in the Naked Mole Rats. But, of all the animals, you were the most fascinated by the little turtles in the reptile house that were eating lettuce. I guess it was because you could look at them so close, and they were actually moving around, eating the lettuce so close to you. You talked about it for days!
You woke up the other day really liking dinosaurs. I think it might have been that we have been reading "How do dinosaurs say goodnight?" a lot lately. But, that day you said, "watch dinosaur on TB, mama." You kept asking and asking. Finally I found a Blue's Clues that was all about dinosaurs and put it on for you. You loved it! That same day, we went to Target and you fell in love with "Spike," this Fisher-Price remote control dinosaur that is like 4 feet tall. It was on display in the toy department. You kept pushing the buttons, making it go again, and again, and again. I would make you go down another aisle and as soon as we would finish, you would run back to Spike and push the button to make him go again. You would say, "orange button, mama. Dinosaur goes ROAR!!!" and you would dance and jump as you watched him move around. I wonder if you would like it as much when it isn't in the glass box and without the background music that plays on the display model.
You count EVERYTHING nowadays. "Mama, let's count the cars... Let's count the eyes... Let's count the flags... Let's count the stars, etc, etc." It is really cute, but it gets a little tiring when we're trying to get you to go to sleep and you won't let us turn the page because you want to count all of the donuts, or neckties, or cows, etc.
My car is kind of gross. The inside is gross enough, but a few weeks ago, I decided that I needed to at least get the outside of the car washed, despite the fact that I thought it might freak you out. I explained to you what the car wash was. As we started to go through, there were some stuffed fish hanging in the entrance. You said, "blue fish, blue fish." Then I just tried to act upbeat and say, "oh, look at the colorful soap... And here come the spinny things, scrub, scrub, scrub... Almost done... Now the blowers are drying the water off, etc." You said, "car wash, blue fish, fun, go to car wash again, mama." So, every once in awhile, you ask me about the car wash and want to go. You almost always scream, "no, nooooooooo" as we start to go towards the car wash. Most of the time, we don't actually go, but if we don't, you usually ask to go to the car wash again later. Sometimes, even though you are saying no, I take you through anyway. After it is over you say, "car wash. Fun. Car wash, again, mama?" So, I guess you really like the car wash... But I'm not sure.
You did tell grandaddy one of the most descriptive stories I've ever heard from you when you told him about the car wash. You said, "car wash, blue fish, round and round and round," and your hands started pointing as you were saying, "swish, swish." You also said a lot of unintelligible things, but you just kept talking about it. It was so cute!
The other day we were taking a walk and Sara, from down the street, started talking to us. She gave you a little Wizard of Oz doll and said, "here Owen, you can hold this." It was so sweet. Then she saw a bird flying into a tree. She said, "that's a mama bird going to see her baby." She was really sweet and patient with you. You seem to really love it when older kids pay you attention. The next day, we saw another bird and you said, "mama bird, baby bird, tree." Ever since then, you have been really interested in mama animals and their babies. Anything small is a baby and if it is big, it is a mama. One of the funniest examples was one day when you were playing with some lego animals and you said, "mama cow, baby cow" although the "baby cow," was actually a pig.
Disney movies are finally starting to hold your interest. You love "Peter Pan" and "Cars" now. When you are watching Peter Pan, you repeat some of the words with the same proper, not-quite-British accent that the characters use. You say, "Pita Pan and Tinka Bell." You also sing, "you can fly, you can fly," and during the part where Peter is looking for Tinker Bell, you shout with him, "Tinka Bell, where are you? Where are you, Tinker Bell?" When Cars is on, you get super excited and jabber on and on about everything going on. Particularly, you are interested in the tractors and you love the part when Sally and Lightning McQueen go driving together. During the races you say, "go Lightning McQueen, go!" and "oh no Lightning McQueen!" You also shout after Mac, "Mac, where are you?" when Lightning McQueen gets lost.
You love asking about and making animal noises. You have been asking me about really hard ones though lately... "What's a bat say? What's a deer say? What's a bunny say?" But, you also have started asking me what things say, "What's a train say? What's Lighting McQueen say? What's a pumpkin say?"
When you asked what a candle says you answered by making a blowing noise like you were blowing out a candle. You also like to smell candles and when you do you say, "Ah, smells so sweet." You say the same thing when you smell flowers or other scented things.
I just love all of the funny things that you say and do. We do have our rough moments, but there are so many wonderful moments that far outweigh them. I love you and I feel so lucky that I get to share so many wonderful moments with you; I will treasure this time always.
Love, Mama
This is a long letter. After all, I've been writing this for like 2 months!
I started showing you the Peanuts Halloween special back in September. You really like it. And you really love Snoopy. There is one part of the special where Linus is playing music and Snoopy is dancing and reacting to the music. When the music starts to sound sad, Snoopy starts crying and acting really sad. The first time we watched it, you started crying and got really upset. I thought that I wouldn't be able to show it to you again for awhile because it upset you so much. But, the next day you said, "watch Snoopy on TV (although TV sounds more like TB when you say it)," so I put it on. That time, when it got to the "sad" part you started crying again and said, "Snoopy's crying." I told you that Snoopy wasn't really that sad. He was just acting sad and he'll be okay in a minute. That usually calms you down, but it still does upset you a little bit when we watch that. You are very sensitive about other people being upset. In this picture, you were crying because there was a little girl crying on the playground at the zoo.
You say the Georgia bulldawg cheer, "Goooooo dawgs, sic 'em... woof, woof, woof." It is so cute. Of course you don't have the attention span to actually watch a football game, but you will watch a little bit of it and say the cheer a lot. You also cheer with us and say, "yay, a touchdown!" when we make a touchdown. The best thing to distract you so we can watch the game is play-doh. You LOVE play-doh. You especially like it when we make footballs out of play-doh. Lately, you go to your daddy a lot and say, "daddy, watch football."
You are into all kinds of art. You love to draw with crayons, markers, chalk and pens. You also love to paint and cut paper with scissors and glue paper together. You like to draw, but you also like to make me draw (or sculpt if we are playing with play-doh). You say, "draw aaaaaaaaaaaa...." or "make aaaaaaaaaaaaaaa....." and then whatever you want me to draw. You usually start with easy things like, "draw aaaaaaaaaaa... car" or "draw aaaaaaaaaa... train," but then you start coming up with more complicated things to draw like the Wiggles, or purple Oswald or Snoopy, etc. Corinne was over one night and you were getting us to make things out of play-doh. You had us make things like balls, squares, triangles, etc. All of a sudden you said to Corinne, "make aaaaaaaaa... car." She only had a tiny bit of play-doh, but she was trying to make the car. I guess she was taking too long because you started saying, "make a car, make a car!!!" We're trying to work on your patience and politeness!
You drew your first face a few weeks ago, and you made your first play-doh sculpture recently too. You took little pieces of play-doh and piled them up to make sort of a green and orange blob. I asked what you were making and you said, "make nunkey's house" (nunkey is how you say "monkey"). You even showed me where nunkey's door on the house was. I got you on videotape talking about it.
The weather has been so nice for the past month or so, that we have spent many hours outside each day. The little boy next door lets you play with his Hot Wheels. You enjoy that a lot. You are getting very adept at pedaling tricycles and Big Wheels. You can even pedal Ethan's big Harley Davidson tricycle bike. You love to explore outside and take walks and you could probably spend hours throwing rocks down the storm drain. You are very curious about things.
Candy is getting to be sort of an irritating issue. I guess like most kids, you love candy. I don't mind giving you a little bit every once in awhile, but you ask for it all the time. The grocery store and restaurants are probably the worst problem because you see it there on your level and throw temper tantrums when I tell you no. Sometimes I stand my ground, but I do give in sometimes too.
You always want suckers when we go to the doctor or to get haircuts. The other day, we took Holly to the vet to get groomed. I said, "Holly is going to get her haircut." I could see you thinking about that for a second and then you said, "Holly haircut, blue sucker!" Rather than bothering explaining, I just said, "yeah, I think they might give Holly a blue sucker, but it is for her because she is the one getting a haircut."
Something that you've started saying a lot is the phrase, "How 'bout..." It is so funny when you say it. We'll just be sitting down playing or something and you'll say, "how 'bout... [dramatic pause] a popsicle?" or "how 'bout... A blue sucker?" Another funny one is "Oh man this is fun!"
You really enjoyed going to the zoo. You were sort of interested in the giraffes. You said, "let's count the giraffes. 1, 2, 3." You didn't seem to care about the lions, or gorillas AT ALL. You liked the birds in the atrium alright. You were quite interested in the Naked Mole Rats. But, of all the animals, you were the most fascinated by the little turtles in the reptile house that were eating lettuce. I guess it was because you could look at them so close, and they were actually moving around, eating the lettuce so close to you. You talked about it for days!
You woke up the other day really liking dinosaurs. I think it might have been that we have been reading "How do dinosaurs say goodnight?" a lot lately. But, that day you said, "watch dinosaur on TB, mama." You kept asking and asking. Finally I found a Blue's Clues that was all about dinosaurs and put it on for you. You loved it! That same day, we went to Target and you fell in love with "Spike," this Fisher-Price remote control dinosaur that is like 4 feet tall. It was on display in the toy department. You kept pushing the buttons, making it go again, and again, and again. I would make you go down another aisle and as soon as we would finish, you would run back to Spike and push the button to make him go again. You would say, "orange button, mama. Dinosaur goes ROAR!!!" and you would dance and jump as you watched him move around. I wonder if you would like it as much when it isn't in the glass box and without the background music that plays on the display model.
You count EVERYTHING nowadays. "Mama, let's count the cars... Let's count the eyes... Let's count the flags... Let's count the stars, etc, etc." It is really cute, but it gets a little tiring when we're trying to get you to go to sleep and you won't let us turn the page because you want to count all of the donuts, or neckties, or cows, etc.
My car is kind of gross. The inside is gross enough, but a few weeks ago, I decided that I needed to at least get the outside of the car washed, despite the fact that I thought it might freak you out. I explained to you what the car wash was. As we started to go through, there were some stuffed fish hanging in the entrance. You said, "blue fish, blue fish." Then I just tried to act upbeat and say, "oh, look at the colorful soap... And here come the spinny things, scrub, scrub, scrub... Almost done... Now the blowers are drying the water off, etc." You said, "car wash, blue fish, fun, go to car wash again, mama." So, every once in awhile, you ask me about the car wash and want to go. You almost always scream, "no, nooooooooo" as we start to go towards the car wash. Most of the time, we don't actually go, but if we don't, you usually ask to go to the car wash again later. Sometimes, even though you are saying no, I take you through anyway. After it is over you say, "car wash. Fun. Car wash, again, mama?" So, I guess you really like the car wash... But I'm not sure.
You did tell grandaddy one of the most descriptive stories I've ever heard from you when you told him about the car wash. You said, "car wash, blue fish, round and round and round," and your hands started pointing as you were saying, "swish, swish." You also said a lot of unintelligible things, but you just kept talking about it. It was so cute!
The other day we were taking a walk and Sara, from down the street, started talking to us. She gave you a little Wizard of Oz doll and said, "here Owen, you can hold this." It was so sweet. Then she saw a bird flying into a tree. She said, "that's a mama bird going to see her baby." She was really sweet and patient with you. You seem to really love it when older kids pay you attention. The next day, we saw another bird and you said, "mama bird, baby bird, tree." Ever since then, you have been really interested in mama animals and their babies. Anything small is a baby and if it is big, it is a mama. One of the funniest examples was one day when you were playing with some lego animals and you said, "mama cow, baby cow" although the "baby cow," was actually a pig.
Disney movies are finally starting to hold your interest. You love "Peter Pan" and "Cars" now. When you are watching Peter Pan, you repeat some of the words with the same proper, not-quite-British accent that the characters use. You say, "Pita Pan and Tinka Bell." You also sing, "you can fly, you can fly," and during the part where Peter is looking for Tinker Bell, you shout with him, "Tinka Bell, where are you? Where are you, Tinker Bell?" When Cars is on, you get super excited and jabber on and on about everything going on. Particularly, you are interested in the tractors and you love the part when Sally and Lightning McQueen go driving together. During the races you say, "go Lightning McQueen, go!" and "oh no Lightning McQueen!" You also shout after Mac, "Mac, where are you?" when Lightning McQueen gets lost.
You love asking about and making animal noises. You have been asking me about really hard ones though lately... "What's a bat say? What's a deer say? What's a bunny say?" But, you also have started asking me what things say, "What's a train say? What's Lighting McQueen say? What's a pumpkin say?"
When you asked what a candle says you answered by making a blowing noise like you were blowing out a candle. You also like to smell candles and when you do you say, "Ah, smells so sweet." You say the same thing when you smell flowers or other scented things.
I just love all of the funny things that you say and do. We do have our rough moments, but there are so many wonderful moments that far outweigh them. I love you and I feel so lucky that I get to share so many wonderful moments with you; I will treasure this time always.
Love, Mama
