we've had an explosion!

but only in the communication venue. this weekend we were in spokane for my great-aunt's 80th birthday and we were staying with some friends. at dinner on saturday evening, no wait. let's back up to earlier in the day. we went to riverfront park and took owen on the carousel. he fussed and cried until it started moving. then he was having the the time of his life. this picture is from after the ride was over. after that, we went to the not-so-little red wagon (see for yourself!) we're just on top of the thing. there is a slide going down and owen went down that on his own as i was in khaki pants for the party and didn't want to get them dirty. while the two of us were up there, i told owen to say, "hi daddy!" and he did! "hi" was new word number one on the weekend.

after the park, we went to the party and had a wonderful time. i saw my second cousins, and it had been quite a while since i've seen most of them. i think the last time i saw all but one of them, it was at our great-grandmother's funeral in 1993. we've all changed quite a bit since then. here's our group picture, with my great-aunt, their grandmother. that's conor, kelly, kjersten, aunt fran, zach, jay, and me. we really enjoyed talking and they had a blast watching owen play.

anyway, back to the vocabulary explosion, at dinner on saturday night, we were sitting around the table and owen was asking for "more, please".i had no idea he could sign, "please", but there he was, signing please! we gave him some teddy grahams (a favorite snack) and he continued to ask for "more, please!" i asked him if he wanted more bears (i signed those two words) and he, being the smart little bugger he is, signed "more bears please" but instead of using the true sign for "bear", owen did the action from the wiggles song, "rock-a-bye your bear", which is a cradled rocking motion. i was blown away. he took (1) what he saw me do for "bear", and (2) what he already knew had "bear" as a part of it and put them together for his own sign. then, as if he hadn't flabergasted mommy enough, he proceded to sign please bear several times, each time getting another teddy graham or two. do you think he understands that he is communicating? do you think he gets this thing? i sure do. oh, and he also said "bear" right after he signed it the first time. so, if you were counting, that's two new signs and two new spoken words all in one day. geeze, kid! keep it up!

another thing he learned to do this weekend is go down stairs on his bum. the funniest part of the whole thing is that when he was coming down the top flight of stairs, he'd do it on his bum. going down the next flight, he would turn over to his tummy and go down that way. too cute!

i'm on spring break, and owen is napping now. we had a late night last night (at jeffy's sister's house playing poker) and didn't get home until around or after 10. owen was up at 6:30 this morning, which is much better than the 4:30 stuff he's been pulling lately. maybe after he gets his tubes, he'll sleep even longer at night! here's hoping!