Owen experienced four more “first”s these past 3 days:

1) Seemed to have linked the word “mama” to me. Since Friday, when he said “mama” very clearly (he’s said it before, but randomly) and deliberate, I did a clown act, jumping around and hugging him cause it sounded like heaven in my ears.  That encouraged him and he’s been saying mama nonstop since, esp when he sees me!

2) Started “running” short-distance: Now that Owen has mastered the art of standing alone, he is no longer content.  His next challenge: to move one place to another that is 3-4 steps away.  For example, he will be standing at our cocktail table, and will aim for the sofa.  It’s really cute how he does this: he stares at the destination (ie.sofa) with intense concentration as if he is sizing up the distance, then taking a deep breath, will scurry over to the sofa in a lightening speed in 3-4 quick non-step steps (for fear of falling).  When you watch him, it’s as if you’re watching a little mouse run around! 

3) When we went out for our morning stroll yesterday, after taking a few bites of the honey cake, he started shaking his head when I offered him more.  Our little sweetie has learned to associate no with shaking his head side-to-side!

4) Owen is such a fast learner and so different from other babies - he loves to be an adult! For example, he completely bypassed the sippy cup phase and went straight from bottles to drinking normal cups/glasses when he was 9 months old.  Today, he surprised me again when he crawled to grandma auntie’s room and knocked, not with his palms flat against the door, but using the knuckles of his fisted hand!  That’s how I knock whenever I call my cousin to eat dinner - can’t believe Owen picked it up just like that! Absolutely amazing how God created these tiny little angels to learn!

Owen’s weight has been going up and down for three month, and kept steady around 21 lb 10 oz for a while, I remember the earliest date that I saw him 21 lb was sometime in June, finally Owen has made stable passing 22 lb in the past few days. pew…well, maybe my worry was unwarranted, you know how first time parents think.

Despite the slow weight gain, Owen has grown very well in all other areas, his newly developed skills include (but not limited to) have short walk, say baba-mama (together in one word), operate my laptop (yes, we will let him blog soon), drive unmanned vehicles (as usual, we have photo to prove I am not bluffing), etc, watching him growing, and growing everyday is priceless. Luckily my new job relived my travel duty, so I can spent more time watching Owen.

It has been a while since I post Owen’s photos, hope this gap really gives you opportunity to appreciate the growth of Owen drop some comments if you like..

Wow, Owen has reached 2 HUGE milestones today:

1) He took the first 3 steps of his life by himself today!  As usual, he was standing alone for the millionth time today but I was a few steps away from him so I enticed him to take his first step by holding out my arms; sure enough, Owen wanted to be held by Mommy and decided to take the risk and did not hesitate long before taking his first step (it was on his right foot) toward me.  After he took his first step, he even managed to steady himself and not fall! (it is SO adorable to watch toddlers steady themselves when they are standing/wobbling).  I eagerly told Sherwood about it, especially gloating over the fact that I was the only one present when our little angel took his very first step. Guess Owen didn’t want Daddy to feel too bad because a little while later, he took another attempt and took 2 consecutive steps all by himself! I have a feeling our “blessed” life of just chasing after a crawl-only Owen will be over very soon!

2) Owen put himself to sleep for the first time! Yes, even though he is already over 13 months, tonight is the first time he TRULY put himself to sleep.  Ever since he was born, we have rocked him to sleep.  However, because of the odd sleeping habits he has developed lately, I called the nurse for guidance and she recommended that it was time to train Owen to go to sleep by himself. 

Sherwood has been trying to get me to train Owen for the longest time, but I did not agree with his method (which he had read from books), which is basically to let baby cry it out.  I told him that I would not be able to stand it and that he wants to, he can do the training when I am out of earshot.  Now this is different…this is for Owen.  Unless he can put himself to sleep, he will not be able to have good rest as he has trouble putting himself back to sleep at night and thus cries.  Lately, he would then just wake up and start playing.

So for Owen’s sake, I decided to give it a shot.  Actually, even before this, I was trying to train Owen my own way - I would let him roll around our bed when he became sleepy and then put him back into his crib.  The nurse, however, pointed out that he needs to be trained in the exact same environment that he will be waking up to alone at night so everything is familiar.  So Friday afternoon, I made my first attempt at training Owen.

IT WAS UNDESCRIBABLY PAINFUL!!! I told Sherwood afterwards that it would have been easier to stick a knife in me because it pained me so much to hear Owen cry so hard…with his every sob (he was crying so hard at the end that he could not catch his breath), my heart bled and I felt like someone was tugging and twisting my insides.  Our poor baby had no idea why all of a sudden, Mommy would not pick him up from the crib when he’s so tired and sleepy but rather, just kept on wiping his nose and eyes as he wailed and wailed.  Owen kept on trying to climb up the rail and grabbing at my arms and shirt to pick him up…So many times, I wanted to put my arms around him and do just that, but the nurse’s comments rang again and again in my ears and stopped me.  She had said, “Make sure you can go through with this, or else don’t do it.  If you are going to give up halfway, then you would’ve let him cried for nothing as he will interpret that if cries long enough or hard enough, then you will give in.” So not wanting Owen’s tears to fall in vain, I forced myself to bear it.  I honestly was about to start crying myself.  Luckily, Owen became so tired from crying so hard that he slowly fell asleep and his sobs subsided.  As hard as it was for me, I believe I got the message across. 

That night, I told Sherwood that I couldn’t bear it anymore and that he would have to put Owen to bed (and watch him wail)…since Sherwood had always been the one who was for the ultimate cruel training method of just leaving baby alone and letting him cry it out, I was somewhat surprised when he came down with Owen in his arms a little while later after some minutes of wailing and crying from Owen.  Like many things, turned out that it’s easier said than done - he could not bear watching Owen’s struggle and cries and ultimately gave in.  In a way, I was relieved cause I was about to pull my hair out just hearing his cries downstairs!

Don’t know if Owen since has decided to try to fall asleep before he is placed in his crib, but for the past 2 days, he has been fallen asleep while nursing.  Tonight though, although drowsy as usual, he did not fall asleep after nursing.  When I placed him in his crib, he tried to go to sleep but then started crying.  This time, I pretended like I was asleep already; he saw me “sleeping” and stopped crying and went back to rolling around in his crib and burying his head (that’s what he does to put himself to sleep).  He let out a few cries again, and stood by the rails to look at me again but I was still “sleeping” so he stopped and continued his routine.  About 10 mins later, he was asleep! I am SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO proud of him!

All in all, I believed I made the right decision, though I would not have done it had Owen not been having trouble sleeping enough hours.  I am a firm believer, however, that it would be detrimental to leave the baby alone and let him cry it out…although it is extremely difficult for the parents, being there in the room makes all the difference in the world because although the baby may be puzzled/confused at why you don’t pick him/her up, he/she will feel secure with your presence and not be scared or feel lonely or neglected/unloved (all of which will affect his personality and behaviors in the future). 

*Sigh* Now I know how “great” mommies are…not only are endure sleep deprivation, deafening sounds, they also happily withstand being abused by their children. Owen is only 1, but has already allowed me to demonstrate my “greatness”.

First on the sleep deprivation..the little emperor has decided to shift his sleepy patterns.  As I write this, he has semi-everted back to his “old” sleeping pattern.  His “old” sleeping pattern was to go to sleep around 9pm and wake up at 7am, getting up only 1 time to nurse but would go right back to sleep afterwards.  That was the angelic Owen. 

Between last Thursday to Saturday, I thought his sleeping pattern had shifted because he would not take an afternoon nap but instead would crash at about 6pm and would get up at odd hours (ie.3am) ready to play.  His new schedule was killing me…imagine a grown-up who had just gone to bed at around midnight and have to wake up at 5am to play…

Since Owen’s bedroom is pretty childproof, I would close his door, lie on the ground, and TRY to watch him for as long as I can.  Undoubtedly, I will fall asleep, but every time I drift off, I would be woken up soon by Owen making some noise or stepping on me to get to a chair (I deliberately lie in front of the chair so he won’t crawl underneath it and bump his head, but he’s figured out an way to “use” me to get ON the chair).

Thankfully, he began taking afternoon naps again yesterday, but now it’s a mixture of the two - he will go to sleep at around 9pm but will wake up at wee hours to play for an hour before going back to sleep. Suffice to say, I am starting to look a lot like a panda these last few days…

The deafening sounds is easy…Owen is a boy.  The toddler has a deafening cry when he is tired or frustrated.  I am seriously considering getting myself a pack of ear plugs and keeping them strategically around the house so I can pop in a pair whenever necessary.  It may not be that bad if you don’t have to be the one to sooth him, but when toddler Owen cries practically right next to your ears, you’d better take some protection measures - your ears will thank you.

Last but not least, the abuse…besides the daily toll of having to chase after Owen for feeding and from danger, as I mentioned before, Owen steps on me to get on a chair, crawls over me as if I am invisible, and just from two nights ago, have begin slapping me on the face when I am lying down and he wants me to play with him. Although he is just trying to say, “Get up, Mommy, I want to play with you!”, it hurts!

I also got “blamed” for the first time by Owen for something I didn’t do yesterday…Owen loves to play with a little windmill decoration that we have.  However, ever since I noticed that the needlepiece that holds the windmill to the rest of piece is coming off, I have not let him played with it.  Somehow, he got a hold of the item yesterday again, so I tried to get it back.  Tried to divert his attention initially to a new toy or to look away, but he was set on this new item and held it for dear life in his tiny hands, so I tried to just snatch it from his hands.  He managed to dodged me every time. 

So there I was, frantically sweating and worrying that the needle will pop out any second as Owen continuously to spin the windmill so I made one last attempt to snatch it away from him and in our struggle, the windmill piece came off.  My first reaction was to look for the needlepiece before Owen gets hurt; only after I found it and put it away did I observe Owen’s reactions.  He was first in astonishment, then in disbelief that his beloved windmill had fallen apart (stared at the windmill and then at the rest of the windmill stand), last came anger.   He tried to piece the windmill back to the stand but then realized that it was broken, and looked at me angrily as he cried and threw the two pieces on the floor.  I was speechless…it wasn’t my fault!  *Sigh* Oh well, guess being a Mommy means I have to be abused both physically and mentally!

Starting from yesterday, Owen loves to let go and try to stand on his own.  Although he has been trying to stand on his own since a month ago, he only use to do it occasionally.  All of a sudden, it’s as if a switch went off, and he has declared that he’s going to be on the fast track to walking; now, he is constantly trying to stand on his own.  He also doesn’t want to ride in the stroller anymore - he has always loved riding in the stroller ever since he was born, especially for the morning and evening walks.  When “the switch” turned on yesterday, he refused to let us put him in the stroller when we went out for a walk, so I carried him.  Carrying a 22lbs for 0.5-1 mile is no easy task, so today, I dug out our rarely-used BabyBjorn carrier and put Owen in it when he started fussing again halfway during the evening stroll. 

Another observation - Owen now likes to face your back and use your back as a cushion in case he loses balance. My aunt said whenever she tried to turn around to keep an eye on him, he would slap her to make her turn around! Last night, I didn’t realize that he likes to face people’s back now so as he was crawling to get behind me, I kept on turning my body to face him.  I wished someone had videocamed us as I pivoted on my butt and Owen crawled around me in circles (he was trying to get behind me).