From the mouths of babes

It's amazing how quickly things change in the life of a two year old. Sometimes Owen wakes up with about 20 new words, games, and songs that weren't part of his repertoire the day before. Forget comparing him to the child he was a year ago...his development is noticeable daily now. He has been extremely talkative lately. This morning, for example, he stopped to pick a flower in the front yard on our way to the car. As soon as we walked into school, he got Miss Mica's attention and said, "I got a flower and look at my jacket." He proceeded to tell her that he wanted to take his jacket off so he could sit down to eat breakfast, then showed her the train on his shirt and pointed out that the train has a nose. She praised him for using his words and commented at the end of the day on how verbal he's becoming. He's quite the conversationalist! Here are a few of the funny things he's said lately:

• after blowing his nose, "Bye-bye, boogers!"
• O: "Mommy, you likah pizzpahs?" (Mommy, do you like pizzas?") Me: "Yes, Owen, I like pizzas a lot. Do you like pizzas?" O: "Yes, Mommy, I likah pizzpahs. I likah pizzpahs too, Mommy." Such a sweet little conversation. It was the first time he asked for my opinion on something. I know I'd better appreciate that while it lasts!
  
• after commenting on the moon earlier, we got out of the car and he pointed out an airplane ("arcain") and the "messent moon" (crescent moon). Some days, he sings entire songs saying only "arcain", usually to the melody of the ABCs.
  
• when he has a dirty diaper, he asks for a "bapper change"
• when pretending to be a frog, he hops around saying "robbert, robbert". Pretending to be an animal (usually a lion, dog, or frog) is really popular around our house right now. The animal of choice used to be cat, but we have discouraged that because it is so uncomfortable on our bony knees to crawl around on the wood floors meowing for any length of time. Dog is more bearable because he mainly just wants to walk around growling with something hanging out of his mouth...no crawling required.
  
• at the end of a long day, he will tell us that he is tired and just wants to rock with his blanket. "Daddy, I tired."
  
• he asks for a kiss ("piss") when he's feeling affectionate
• using descriptive words like dirty, nasty, gross, cool, and dark. My favorite is when I sing to him and he tells me it is scary or loud. I love that he expresses his opinion so freely--although when it comes to my singing being scary, he is obviously either joking or just wrong!
  

I know this only the beginning...soon he will be airing our dirty laundry for all to hear. I'm just appreciating these moments, these innocent little thoughts and questions. I can't wait to see what he'll wake up saying tomorrow...