Creative Expressions

Olie signing "moose"

Olie started sign language level 2 this week, and lo, he already knew all the new words. "Boat" and "plane"? Puhleeeese, we mastered those long ago. O did surprise me this morning by signing "moose." He also signed "tiger" and "wolf," but those aren't as fun to capture on film.

Olie continues to practice his two new spoken words. He basically walks around all day saying "shoes, shoes, shoes, door, door, door."

Oliver also made his first finger painting today. He really got into it. Then we took a bath.

One other endearing thing that Oliver now does: he waves emphatically at every truck or bus that passes by, sometimes people too.

First finger painting - pretty good, no?

Springtime!

As you can see, we took advantage of the gorgeous weather this weekend with multiple visits to Central Park. On Sat. we trekked to the Botanical Gardens (above), which were in full spring bloom.

Then on Sun., we took two strolls through the park, the first by ourselves (above). Later we joined Girl Bella and family as well as Lance and Sarah for the first picnic of the year.

Finally, after a bath to wash off much dirt and sunscreen, Olie and Bella Dog enjoyed watching a little bit of Planet Earth. Olie munched an apple while I cut his hair. (Unbelievably this was his 4th hair cut.)



In other news, we have two new spoken (!) words to report. For a while now Olie has been obsessed with shoes. He often haults mid-stride to bend down and point to his shoes, or he'll bring us his shoes to put on even if he's just wearing a diaper. While in Florida, Randal and Eric noted that Olie often gave them the once-over, checking out their shoes and discerning whether they might be sporting something cool like a motorcycle on their shirts. This past week, in addition to signing "shoes," Olie also clearly said "shuhz" many times. Imagine how excited O was on Thurs when R&E were in town, and Randal came over wearing his size 13 cowboy boots. "SHUUUHZ!" Oliver exclaimed excitedly. Oliver's other clear word for the week is "door." Go figure.

Oliver's favorite meal

(aka spaghetti bolognese)

Bella likes it too...

Finished!

Reading w/ Uncle Chris

Olie and the Three Bears

Recently Olie and I have been watching about 5 minute blocks of Planet Earth on Discovery Channel. Of course one of O's favorite scenes was that of a polar bear mom and her two newborn cubs. It was so cute to see Oliver laugh as the baby bears slipped on the snow covered slopes. But every time the camera panned to some scenic arctic vista shot, Olie looked at me, signed "where" and said, "huh?" - "where did the polar bears go?" So when I saw this painting I just had to get it for him. It came from a recent babygadget contact I made, an artist named Marisa Haedike whose work I love and who obviously shares Oliver's obsession with polar bears.

Also…Not quite accustomed to my leaving each day, every morning Olie trails me as I get ready for work. As he's into everything, this morning, he pulled my makeup bag off the sink. As we both bent down to retrieve the contents, I was amazed when Olie picked up a lipstick and rubbed it on my face. So smart. Luckily the cap was still on!

Olie's First Easter Egg Hunt

Easter in Florida with Randal and Erik. Unfortunately after 3 days of vomiting and a fever of 104(!), this is about the only activity that Olie got to enjoy during our trip. At least we got some good pictures...

Weekend on the Cape

Reading in the morning

Looking at dogs w/ Gram

All Smiles

Shy

Reading w/ Great Gram and Gramps

Flying High

Finding Shells w/ Sheila

Tower of Babble

Oliver seems quite interested in starting to speak now. For some time, he has well understood verbal requests from us and he hand signals a zillion different thoughts. (For the purposes of fair disclosure, I should note that others have expressed considerable skepticism about whether there really is any meaningful communication coming from his hand signals; rather they’re convinced that we are guilty of parental interpretation of randomly generated gestures, suggesting some toddler version of anthropomorphization.)

But lately he’s often practicing his verbalization. No real words, just many strung together sounds, and all at the top of his lungs. We try to get him to tone down the volume by saying, “Sssshhhh. Quiet as a mouse,” a quote from one of his many books, but it has little impact on his full volume blasts of babble. Despite the volume issue, it is really pretty cute. Sometimes he’ll repeat endlessly one sound (“dig, dig, dig, dig" or “dad, dad, dad, dad” or less often "ma, ma, ma, ma"). Other times, he throws in a whole mess of jumbled beeps, blurps, and blaps. If speech development is anything like the many other developments we’ve witnessed over the past 16 months, one day he’ll just start speaking in full sentences as if he’d been doing it all along.

He’s also quite the ambler now. Today Auntie Sheila invited us over to take a tour of her new beau’s land on Pleasant Bay. It was a lovely Spring day on the Cape and so we trekked all about their many acres of land. For a short while, Olie let me carry him on my shoulders, but for the most part insisted on walking himself. This was no short stroll, particularly for those 12-inch legs of his. And, since he’s incapable of walking in a straight line, he likely covered twice the distance the rest of us did. I suspect we’ll be getting a good, deep sleep out of him tonight.