Memories...

We've started noticing that Owen has very vivid memories of certain things and its always fun to get him to talk about his version of these early memories. It all started when we were shopping in Target and from the shopping cart I heard a very clear "I go a El-en-ois Mama, I see Gapa" (which translates to I want to go to IL and see Grandpa). Coming from this barely 2 yr old I figured I must have made that up in my head so I started to ask a few questions-
Me: "Owen, do you want to see Grandpa in IL?"
Owen: "YES!"
Me: "What is in IL?"
Owen: "Gapa"
Me: "Grandpa?"
Owen: "YES!"
Me: "What else is in IL?"
Owen: "A Gapa car! Gapa car in the garage door...garage door goes up, down, up down. Daddy push a button in Gapa car"

I apparently heard him 100% correctly and ever since then we can ask him questions about who else lives in IL, how do we get there (daddy's car or airplane have been his answers)and what he wants to do there ("play with Mack truck a el-en-ois" or "I ride Gapa car"). At least once a day either in play or in conversation he lets me know about his desires to get to IL...he has even grabbed his little luggage and taken it over to the front door saying "I take a backpack a el-en-ois a see gapa, peas mama!"

Another cute thing we noticed is that he can now react with emotions to his memories. A few days ago we were playing hide-n-seek and Owen and I ran to hide with the lights off down stairs. We are not very quiet when hide so Robert knew just where to find us and when he came into the room he banged very loudly on the door. Owen and first got scared but when I screamed and Robert came running in to tickle us Owen thought it was just hysterical. But what we thought was funny was that for the rest of the night, Owen would recall Robert banging on the door and just start cracking up. He would say "Daddy bang bang a door" and then just let out this deep belly laugh that was so genuine and cute. Over and over again he recalled that memory and laughed every time.

And a final thought on memories is just something that happened last night that I was amazed by. I feel like I am constantly amazed by this growing little guy and everyday I wonder what more he will come up with. So we had friends over last night and the girls were all in the dining room talking when Owen came over. Someone asked Owen if he had gone to a baseball game and he said "yes!" She asked what he did at the baseball game and Owen said "a bat a ball!" and then when asked what-else he said "a fireworks!" (they lit off fireworks during the National Anthem and when the Nat's scored) When asked again what else he did he said "A choo-choo" which was also correct because we took the metro train into the city to get to the game. He was asked what he ate at the baseball game and he thought really hard and while he was thinking I'm standing there going, hmm, what did he eat? and suddenly he answers "I eat a french fry!" At this point I am shocked and want to just keeping asking more and more questions even though he has clearly demonstrated his ability to remember the fun experiences we have. A final question that he was also able to recall from that night was that he rode in the backpack carrier in the train to the game. He loved being in the backpack carrier and thought it was great...I think its great that he can remember so much and that we can have conversations about the fun things we have done as a family. So fun, and now I can't wait to make more!