Where's my cookie?

On the move

Here are two videos of Owen crawling, taken about a week apart. As you can see, he's gotten much faster and precise with his moves, and he can really cover a lot of ground quickly. While we want him to crawl, we're not sure that we...and our house...are quite ready for it.
And here's a video that was taken over the weekend. We've found that any piece of electronic equipment -- a cell phone, camera, remote control -- is enough to send him skittering across the floor. His little phone -- not so much. And he does a mean Michael Phelps impersonation with his lunge on the last stroke.


Is he trying to crawl or do pushups?

Almost eight months

Owen's been a very busy little fella in the last couple of weeks. He hasn't worked his way up to his knees yet, but he has perfected a military crawl. (More on that in a later post.) We also decided it was time for a little trim to get those side wings under control, so Owen had his first haircut over the weekend.

While Owen is having fun moving around, he's less than pleased about the two teeth poking their way through his bottom gum. The worst part is that he's used to being able to chew on things without those teeth getting in the way, so he's managed to bite his lip. Ouch!

Where Owen meets Blackhawk

When people come over to visit, they often walk in the door and say, "Did you name Owen after the street?" because Owen Dr. meets up with Blackhawk Ave. just outside our door. No, we didn't, but we still think it's kind of cool that Owen Dr. ends at his house.
Too bad our last name isn't "Blackhawk."

Talking

Owen loves to try out all of his different sounds. He's become increasingly vocal in the car, too, as we talk about what's going on outside.

Owen's spring

Owen's been keeping very busy during our recent wave of super-warm weather. He's been enjoying lots of walks and fresh air, and especially loves to sit outside our house and watch the cars going up and down Blackhawk Ave. (And we love watching him track them all the way up or down.) On Sunday evening, we took him over to the park across the street from our house, where he went on the slide and a swing for the first time.

He also finished a six-week swimming class with Colin. We had hesitated to put his head under the water because we weren't sure how he'd do with it and we didn't want to make him afraid of the water. But on Saturday, when one of the instructors came around to swim with him, our ladykiller got shy and put his head down...straight into the water. It was funny the first time and even funnier the second time he did it. For the record, sticking his head in the water didn't faze him at all.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

More belly laughs

Add "stinky" to the list of incredibly funny words.

A long car ride home

It takes -- at most -- three minutes to get from Nancy's house (Owen's day care) to ours. So, it's always funny to me when he manages to fall asleep in that time. I was really giving it my all today trying to keep him awake -- singing "The Wheels on the Bus" -- but no luck.
 

Belly laughs

Here's a video of Colin & O having fun. For some reason, O finds the word "Safe!" -- said like an umpire making a call at home -- really hysterical. Or maybe it's just Colin he finds funny.

Owen update

Things were a little crazy at the StalinBenester house in February -- the worst was the five illnesses between O and Stacy. (Stacy even missed her Oscar party because she was sick -- that tells you something!) Anyway, blogging was one of the first things to go, but I'll try to make up for it with some photos of O.



In the last month, he's mastered sitting up and rolling back and forth to get to something he really wants. He's also trying out all the different sounds he can make, from "dadadada" to clicking and gurgling. He's also become very squirmy -- we can barely keep our hands on him sometimes! But he remains a very happy and smiley boy and we must say "He's such a good baby" at least five times a day.