No No No No No No No No

Owen is on the cusp of speaking.  Or rather, Owen is on the cusp of speaking in real words and sentences, for he currently speaks all the time, it’s just that his sentences, always featuring a lot of the letter D, tend to sound a bit R2D2-ish:  De do da de do de di doo?  Sometimes it almost seems like a sharp clip on the back as he talks would change the above into real words.  And often in the midst of the nonsense syllables real words appear, like gold in the sand:  de doo da di do thank you de do?  Dorr! (his word for Dorothy) De do di big boys de do?  Etc. 

He plays an iPhone word app game with Susan and she says his favorite words are “opera” and “bellow” and that he repeats them often.

Hands down though, his most oft-repeated word is No.  And it is not enough that he merely say “no”; he must needs say:  No no no no no no no.  In the middle of the night when Owen wakes up crying and I pick him up to nurse, he’ll say no no no no no, and I’ll think (and often say), I’m the one who should be saying no!  But he’ll say it with vigor, he’ll shout the no’s in anger, he’ll speak them in triumph, and he’ll say them sadly while shaking his head, no no no.  He’ll say it even when we are quite certain he means yes.  I will be glad when no is a less featured word in his vocabulary.

Owen dreaming of saying no.