Owen: Now With Narrativity!

While the past week or so has been mainly a downer - first Owen with pink-eye, then me with flu, then Eric with flu, and tonight Owen's eyes looked suspiciously crusty again - we have had some fun new toddler developments. Tonight, for the first time either of us had seen, he started spinning in place until he would fall down (laugh maniacally, repeat). He's delighted by "IIIIIce!!" - his favorite new word and concept. He will fetch his towel and washcloth for his bath and carry his dirty clothes to the hamper afterward. And, most exciting for the English major here, he has constructed his first two-word sentence and story! It is actually told in sign language: first his sign for "alligator," (hold arms out and mime gator jaw snapping shut, like a UF fan), followed by smacking himself in the back of the head (yeah, I know). This sequence recounts a thrilling episode we witnessed at the Cal Academy of Sciences over Christmas break, wherein the albino alligator dropped a stick it had been chewing on, and the stick happened to hit the gator's unfortunate roommate, a large snapping turtle, in the head. Clearly, the kid has his priorities in the right place.

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