(Owen is currently 10 and a half months old as I write this post.)
As Owen is getting older and more and more mobile, I'm starting to see his little personality develop right in front of me. He has always been a cheerful, content, and relaxed baby. We have seriously had it so easy with him so far that it makes me nervous for a future baby if he or she isn't as easy going as Owen.
He is a happy little guy, mostly content with whatever is going on, and has been eager to be mobile from really early. He loves to explore new areas, play with his toys (or anything he deems a toy), and crawl, stand, and cruise constantly. He seems to both be independent liking to be on the go by himself and will play contentedly mostly on his own for a while, but at the same time he is definitely a Mama's boy (which I don't mind at all) and loves to be held and carried and close to me.
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| We get a lot of things done at home like this : ) |
Lately he has started squealing more and more often. I love how he is just so happy and sometimes he is purely joyful. He really loves pets/animals. His first squeals early on were always for Callie and his squeals now are mostly still for pets. He loves dogs and cats. He loves to reach out and touch or pet Callie and whenever our neighbor dogs bark he will freeze and sit and focus on listening and sometimes squeals back to their barking. It is really adorable : ) My parents recently got kittens and Owen has now interacted with them several time and he LOVES the cats! He smiles and squeals when he sees them, tries to chase them, and he also loves playing with them. He was holding a cat toy that was like a long pole with a squeaky toy dangling from the end. He was swinging the pole around and one of the cats was playing with the toy. He was having so much fun and it was so cute to watch.
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| Playing with the cats! |
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| He loves to grab Callie's tags! |
Owen has become so playful with us too. He will "give" things to Cody and then quickly take them back. He likes it when I make faces at him and recognizes when I'm being silly and he will laugh right away. He likes to try and put his paci in my mouth but often will pull it back and put it in his mouth and laugh.
This is a clip of my current favorite video of me and Owen. My heart just melts with his laugh and smile!
Owen is a fearless little man and at this stage with him exploring it makes me so nervous! He is not really cautious or slow and careful as he learns new skills. As soon as he might have it down he is ready to push his limits. When he was just crawling he would crawl quickly and recklessly (or at least as reckless as a baby can crawl) going up over our legs, knees, pillows, and sliding or tumbling down the other side. Now as he is standing and cruising I feel the need to hover as he plays and explores. He will be standing holding onto an item and set his eyes on something nearby. I watch him stretch out his arms as far as he can, one hand clinging to the item he is standing at, and the other arm outstretched toward what he wants to move toward. I can see it in his eyes that he just wants to go for it and leap toward the new spot. He will inch towards the new spot, lean, and sometimes I have actually seen him semi dive to get there. He will reach out and move from item to item so quickly that he often slips but fortunately can catch himself a lot of the time. The times he doesn't catch himself and he does fall or plop down, he quickly jumps up to try again.
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| Pulling up and standing like a pro. |
Two times I have actually seen him dive off of something to get to a new place to stand. I was letting him explore in our guest room and I was sitting right next to him. We still have two big boxes from Christmas in there by the bed. Owen was standing holding onto the side of the bed and leaning out towards one of the boxes trying to reach it. It was a couple inches too far and I thought he was going to plop down and crawl over. Nope. He let go of the bed and dove-fell toward the box. I was shocked and it was so quick I couldn't do anything. I was even more surprised when he actually grabbed the box and successfully stood up at it. He perfectly dove-leaned onto it and was just all "Look at me!" A bit later in the guest room he attempted a similar move that didn't end as well. He was standing at the other Christmas box and this time was wanting to reach out toward the bed. But this box was much father away, probably about two feet. I certainly did not expect him to dive for it again, especially with this being so much farther with no chance he could reach it. But to my shock he did. He reached out toward the bed and let go of the box and fell sideways landing on his arm. He cried quiet a bit and I was worried he had actually hurt his arm or shoulder, but thankfully he didn't and was fine and calmed down. Please don't scare me like that again Mr. Owen!
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| What can I get into next?! |
I love his eager excited personality : ) I both want to allow him to do what he is trying to learn and be as fearless as his little self seems to be, but I also want to shield him from hurting himself without knowing limits yet.
I am so in love with our baby and love my job being his mom. There's no place I'd rather be during this stage in life.
