A visual record of Owen Parris' first year
Ever since day one, Owen has favoured the outdoors. Things started getting interesting when he was crawling, because we couldn't plop him down in the front yard with a couple of toys, duck inside to get ourselves chairs and a book, perhaps a drink and just quickly make a sandwitch, then relax for a hour or so. With him crawling, if we stepped away for a moment we would come back to find Owen supplementing his diet with the contents of the garden bed, as you can see him doing in this photo.
Here you can see Owen hoisting himself to standing. He did a lot of that. A long time of threatening to walk, any day now. He was an early crawler, commando-style (kids can crawl using all sorts of techniques, including bum-shuffling - as if that's crawling!) and Owen's initial crawling by using his arms to drag himself around made him look reminiscient of The Terminator at the end of that movie. Then he was an early cruiser. It wasn't too long before he found himself standing on his own - mainly as a function of getting distracted. He'd be holding onto a piece of furniture, with something fascinating like a knife or bottle of poison in one hand. To get the lid off, you need two hands, so he'd let go of the furniture and turn the object of desire over and over, perhaps manipulating it in some way. After about fifteen seconds, his head would jerk up, he'd look around wildly - clearly asking himself "how the hell did I end up standing?!?" - and then fall on his arse. In his later career, he would lash an arm out and grab at the furniture that he clearly didn't need to stand upright, and because of the stability this gave him, there was no bum-first landing on the ground.
Actually, I think humans are like this with a lot of things, not just standing.
What is it with kids and putting things into their mouths? Apparently, their hands aren't calibrated yet, so to truely know the shape and texture of something it needs to go in their mouths - and this provides feedback to help calibrate their hands.
Dirt. Really, you shouldn't eat it. Sure the microbes are good for you, but there's also the cat faeces - and from a health perspective, that's not cool. But this is pot plant soil, and I figured it would have to be a pretty perverted cat to crap into that tiny little pot. Of more worry was the stones in the soil, and the effect they could have on his teeth.
Owen is always putting things into his mouth, often to his displeasure. Here he is trying out the fruit of our lime tree. We planted a lime because I figured everyone has a lemon tree, you can get free lemons all year 'round, but no one has a lime tree - and limes are expensive. We've be the most popular people in the world! Turns out that no one uses limes, but they use stacks of lemons.
Owen didn't hate the lime, yet it was nothing special so he didn't go back to it.
This is a photo from when Owen first learnt to open cupboards. It presented a whole new world of opportunities to break things. Not long after this photo was taken, all the cupboards had rubber bands put across them. The next step in the ongoing arms race between his parents and his quest to get into dangerous places to destroy valuable things will be the installation of magnetic latches. It's the nuclear option, but hey. The strategy thus far has been to slowly increase the sophistication of the techniques used to block him from accessing these areas; we figure that defeating each measure in turn makes him a cleverer boy.
The baskets you can see to the right are our pantry. For several months, the best game in the world was taking things out of the pantry and dropping them on the ground. We quickly learnt that keeping glass jars in there wasn't a good idea.
This is how I'll always remember Owen's early years: lusting mightily after my mobile telephone. I suspect it was the cover, uncovered phones just didn't seem to hold the same allure.
Eileen gives Owen a cuddle.
In an ongoing theme, Owen unwittingly injures those around him. Here you can see Owen using a meat tenderizer on Cathy's head, much to her delight and pleasure. Of course, rather than save my woman, I took photos.
For some reason, Owen has been fascinated by the dishwasher, mainly the cutlery basket. And, with
baby-radar operating at full tilt, he loved pulling out the serrated knives and waving them around.
- Baby-radar
- The ability for babies to know, at any point in time, what is the most dangerous thing they can travel to. Example: your child is playing quietly in his bedroom, while in the loungeroom you are slicing the barcodes out of a Huggies box, then you put the box cutter on the floor while you turn around to grab the next box; when you turn back your child will be putting the box cutter into his mouth. Take a toddler outside, and they will bolt for the road. If they drop a glass on a floor, their immediate reaction will be to pick up the shiny pieces of broken glass - and put them in their mouth. When you spill dishwasher powder all over the place, junior will instantly appear and poke his fingers into that funny white powder, then rub his eyes.
Seriously, it is uncanny. I have a feeling that, once he's old enough to competantly undertake various useful tasks around the house, the same sixth sense will morph into an ability to avoid being around any work that needs to be done.
While we were down at my parent's holiday house, Owen managed to grab a Tim Tam. Getting it off of him wasn't going to be an option. He was insistent. He ate it all.
Babies really shouldn't be eating chocolate before their first birthday.
Our impression was that Owen really enjoyed the holiday down south, he was taken on long walks by his carers, and there was a whole lot of outside to see. Owen likes outside.
Dorothy seemed particularly adapt at entertaining Owen, here you can see them doing a little drumming with chopsticks.
Okay, so Owen likes putting stuff into containers. And the dunny is a container. And Owen likes water.
After the first item ended up in the water closet, a rule was instigated that the toilet seat would forever be down, unless the convenience was in use. Things that have thus far been subjected to a watery treatment include a slipper, a tube of sunscreen and a telephone. Failures in the system have included forgetfulness, and Owen's lightning-like reactions allowing him to deposit an item into the container between the cover being raised and the resulting hole beinc covered by sitting human. Owen has also reduced the amount of standing-up peeing that Josh is doing, due to Owen's habit of touching that stream of water.
Cathy decided she wanted Owen to take swim classes; generally he enjoys them.
Still threatening to walk, he looks like some footman from the 18th century
But walk he doesn't.
Remember baby radar? Remember opening cupboards? Grandma & Grandpa's place hasn't been secured against this threat.
Here we see Peter supervising Owen as he consumes the detergent from under the kitchen sink.
Owen likes keys.
Cathy's face hasn't recieved kind treatment from her son.
The day before his first birthday party, he got his first haircut. Most of the time he wasn't crying.
For his birthday, Owen got cuddles.
And new clothes. And the opportunity to open presents. Here he is with Uncle Bob and Doidyma as they attempt to coax him into tearing a pressie from Rachael open.
One of the best presents was a box.
Rachael and Carsten cut up a packing box, putting in windows and doors.
The adults then proceeded to have an excellent time playing hide and peek with the youngster.
Owen started showing signs of walking. He spent a week or two wanting to hold onto our hands and walk around, for some reason carrying a bucket or perhaps a paint tin. Later we'd find out that buckets are great because you can put things in them and then carry them around with you. That's the attraction of walking (which is intially slower and a lot more dangerous than crawling) - being able to take things with you.
Owen's first footy. Yep, its a Sherrin. Peter won it, and I figure he decided he wouldn't be playing football anytime soon - so Owen got it! Yay!
The weekend visits to Grand-Grandma Eileen's normally involve sitting at the table and eating. Owen loves nothing better than sitting in someone's lap and helping them eat. Here he is with Grandpa Peter.
Then Peter took him outside and dunked him in the birdbath. Owen likes water.
Owen likes keys.
Owen has started walking.
Owen looks pensive
Super-Owen
Did I mention Owen likes water?