13 Month Pictures

At the Amazeum in Bentonville with Mom, Dad, and Nana Nelly. 

Life with Owen.

One year check-up on June 22nd. 31.5 inches long, 22.7 lbs. 

At Story Time at the Library. Owen always helping. 

Watching fireworks on his second 4th of July. 

At the water park. 

A walking baby Owen. 

Owen - 13-15 Months

Owen is fifteen months old. He weighs around 25 pounds and is 33 inches tall. He has 12 teeth now (our first dentist appointment in August was a success) and wears a size 6 shoe.

These past three months have changed Owen so much both physically and developmentally. He very much seems like a little boy, rather than a baby now.

He is a pro at walking these days. He can climb onto the recliners now and has figured out how to back off of furniture without falling. He likes to "dance" by wagging an extended pointer finger and nodding his head up and down. He does "hot feet" when we ask him to, which equates to him picking his feet up and down.

Owen now eats three meals a day, although sometimes he's not that interested in the food. He loves black beans, spaghetti, bananas, animal cookies, bread, crackers, blueberries, and most everything we give him. He is not a picky eater at this point. He still nurses pretty often, although certainly less than before the uptake in food consumption. He still sleeps with us, and he still wakes up multiple times a night but will go right back to sleep if I'll nurse him. He usually goes to sleep around 8:30, wakes up around 8:00a,m., and takes one nap around 1:00p.m.

He can say "mama," "ada" (for daddy), "baby," "no, no, no, no, no" (because Cody and I tell him that all the time) and "night, night, night" when it's time for a nap or bed. He waves, blows kisses, signs "more" and shakes his "no." He moos when asked about a cow and sometimes makes a whimpering sound which he thinks is dogs barking. When we ask for kisses, Owen will lay his forehead against your lips. On occasion, he will actually kiss your mouth when you ask him. When you ask him to hug the dogs, he will drape an arm across their back (mainly Felina because she's the only dog that lets him) and lay his head on them.

Owen can point to his eyes, nose, ears, bellybutton, toes, arms, fingers, teeth...you get the picture.

Owen loves to play in the pantry. He managed to escape from the house recently by simply opening the door to the garage and walking out. That was terrifying.

Owen rode on his first airplane at the end of July to go to Seattle to see his Uncle Jared. He did so well on all of the flights. He explored a new city with Poppy and Jared and saw Mount Rainier National Park. The trip was much more of a success than Cody and I expected.

We spend our days going to story time at the library, taking walks, and playing at the park. Owen loves to read books and play in cabinets. He's always on the go. He's healthy and happy and Cody and I are both so grateful for him.

Owen's First Birthday

Here a few pictures from Owen's birthday celebrations:

I made Owen and Cody matching shirts because their birthdays are so close. I felt like both 1 and 30 years old deserve a monogrammed tshirt.

Singing Happy Birthday.

With his cake...that he didn't like at all. 

Aunt Sandy showing Owen how to make the musical card work, which he loved. 

Mamaw and Poppy talking to the birthday boy.

Opening gifts in West Fork with the other side of the family.

In attendance at our first celebration was my dad, Aunt Sandy, Mamaw, Sharon and June. Owen did not like the cake much, but he did like tearing the wrapping paper off the gifts.

We also went to West Fork to celebrate with Owen's Nana and Grandpa, Nanny Gum, and Aunt Jig and Doug.

Owen - 12 Months

Owen is one! He is 32 inches tall and weighs 22 pounds. 

I spent countless hours making this chalkboard to commemorate who Owen is as a freshly turned one year old.

This guy has had a big month. First of all, he learned to walk. On May 20th, he took his first consecutive steps. He took a few steps to get to Cody and then took almost ten to get to me. He laughed like maniac the entire time. 

We took this video at Harley's (Owen's second cousin) birthday party.

Besides walking, Owen can also say "mama" and "dada." Mama is almost always "ah-bah" to him. He gets closer to dada although he often leaves off the first d sound and says "ah-dah."

Owen has really started expressing his love for dogs. He squeals and points every time he sees or hears one. Our dogs are still pretty indifferent toward him, but he loves them nonetheless. He also really likes walking outside to see our neighbor dog Riot through the fence. 

Owen throws his paci out of his mouth when he is excited to nurse. It's a hoot. He has also started eating food a lot more in the past month. He eats all kinds of things. He primarily feeds himself with his hands. He also loves drinking water out of his cup or out of a straw when we let him. 

Owen has started handing us different books that he wants to read. His favorites are Ten Little Ladybugs, I Love You Through and Through and Pat the Bunny. 

Owen likes fake coughing if someone will cough back at him. He likes handing us dog hair when he finds it on the floor. He likes vacuuming while Cody holds him in the mornings while I work out. 

He does not like riding in the car much, especially if he has to be by himself in the back seat. He also doesn't like getting his teeth brushed. 

Owen goes to sleep around 7 each night. He sleep in our bed for a few hours on his own each night before Cody and I go to sleep. He takes one good nap around 10a.m. every morning. In a perfect world he takes another nap before 4 in the afternoon but that doesn't always happen. 

We're working one wearing shoes. 

This is in Target in Tulsa where we had to buy Owen a new shirt after he explosively pooped in The Cheesecake Factory and forced me to strip him naked and bathe him in the sink. The only extra shirt I had for him was a sweatshirt and it was 90 degrees outside. 

This is Owen in his new shirt that he wore to the Tulsa Zoo. 

This is what Owen gets to do when Poppy watches him while Cody and I are in Walmart. 

Early morning vacuuming. 

At the library one afternoon. 

Owen at the cousin birthday party. To Owen's left is Cason, Harley, and Brantley (all cousins). 

With Allie Kate. 

Noelle (Owen's girlfriend) and Donald Melissa came to visit to celebrate these babies' June birthdays. 

Owen and Mamaw. 

Always working on his hair game. 

Those eyelashes.

Mother's Day

I have endured my first Mother's Day without my mom. It was as difficult as you'd assume it would be. I spent a lot of the weekend trying to remember last Mother's Day. What did I give my mom? What did she give me? I think I remember she gave me a card, but I couldn't find it. I can't remember what we did or what I wore. I don't know if my mom was feeling well or not. I just can't remember any of it. I'm angry at myself a lot these days for not remembering time with my mom. I wish I would have recorded all the details, taken tons of pictures. I wish I remembered what she said and what we did. But I don't. I never will.

I have a video on my old phone from Christmas 2015. My brother is in town and we are sitting in my parents' living room after having opened presents. My brother is doing something weird and I am filming him at the beginning. A few seconds into the video I started filming my mom. She was laughing at my brother, and I remember wondering if my mom would be alive at Christmas the next year. I filmed her reaction to my brother and then she says a few words and then the video cuts off. I've watched that video over and over again since my mom died, trying to solidify her laugh in my mind. I want to crawl through that phone and hug my mom, tell her I'm sorry she was sick, tell her how much I admire her for fighting as long as she did, tell her how hard it is being a mom without her here with me, tell her I love her, hear her laugh again.

On Christmas this past year my mom was bald and thin. We had our annual family dinner in Fort Smith rather than Poteau to try to accommodate her failing health. I remember when I got to my parents' house for lunch I went back into her bedroom where my mom and my aunt were. My mom was lying down trying to save her energy for the meal. She was happy. She didn't feel well but she was in good spirits. She talked about trying to gain some strength back. I told her we should do something really small each day like walk to the mailbox or something to help her get stronger. She thought that was a good idea. I sat beside her at lunch. I made her a plate of food. She hardly ate any of it. After the meal, we opened presents in the living room. My mom laid in a recliner. I sat beside her on the fireplace. I worried about her the entire day. The day after Christmas an ambulance took my mom to the hospital because she was dizzy and disoriented. That night they confirmed that the cancer had spread to my mom's brain. Forty-one days later she was dead. We never walked to the mail box.

My mom has been dead for three months. I've celebrated Easter at her grave site and Mother's Day as far away from it as I could get. I don't know where my mom is. I don't feel her with me. She doesn't talk to me. I worry about what happens when people die. I know that if my mom could send me some sort of message to help me she would. I haven't received it yet. I primarily feel alone. As if someone cut the only tether that existed between me and everything familiar to me. I don't feel sad necessarily or upset. I just feel alone. By myself. Adrift. Lost...

I don't know what I've learned from all this. I don't know how my mom's death has made me a better person. I don't know the moral of this story. Maybe it's lost too.

Owen - 11 Months

Owen is eleven months old. He is eating everything we put in front of him, walking around with eight teeth in his mouth, and working on walking on his own everyday. He experienced his first fever and vomited for the first time in the past month, although the two incidents were not related. I also celebrated my first Mother's Day this month, which was certainly less celebratory than I would have liked with my mom being gone.

I honestly have no idea how much the kid weighs or how long he is! He seems to be growing all the time though.

We visited the Janet Huckabee Nature Center with Dad one afternoon. We had a really good time, or at least the parents did.

Owen loves looking out of the window in the morning when he wakes up. 

We like to go to story time at the library when we can. 

My little Harry Potter. 

We retired this car seat this month. Owen had outgrown the height limitation. Weirdly, getting a new car seat sort of bugged me. Time is just flying by. 

We ate lunch with Owen's cousin Carmen one afternoon. 

His hair is laughable at times. 

We went to Wild Things Farm with Katie and Allie to pick strawberries. Owen tried his first strawberry and seemed to like it. 

We joke that our closet is Owen's "room" because he doesn't actually spend much time in his own bedroom. The boy does love going through our shoes though. He is his mother's son. 

Owen loves walking this elephant and another toy all over the house.