Owen @ 8wks ~ April 3, 2014

Owen is smiling more and more. It started at two weeks and has grown to the sweetest toothless grin with crinkled eyes and coos of delight. He loves Nora tickling him and she dusts him with her hair much to his elation and her giggly entertainment.

He has my crazy double-jointed toes and fingers. They get caught and bent in clothing so we have to carefully ease his hands through sleeves and layer his icy feet with socks underneath the footies of his pajamas. Which the aforementioned are his uniform since onesies are apparently a diabolical scheme by us to torture him because he screams as if he's on fire if you dress him in one. If a piece of clothing requires that i pull it over his head I ask myself if it's screaming like a banshee cute or howling like an air raid drill cute? Because the cute factor better be worth the subsequent tinnitus.

Nursing has improved but is still a full contact sport. We're beginning to find more of a routine with him. He's due to change it at any moment now but I can't help but laugh in exhaustion when he wakes me and fights my attempts to nurse until I realize it's his idea of zero:thirty social hour and grins at my flummoxed face and faintly coys hi with a twitch of his nose and an endearing blink. His other baffling tricks are making water drop sounds, barking in his sleep, sneezing with uncanny coincidental aim, and the soft curly downy hair is filling in nicely at the nape of his neck to form a mullet.

Nora vacillates between jealousy and possessiveness with no sign as to why. She proclaims "my baby" and tries to jerk him out of our arms or hangs on me while I'm nursing with the claim that she needs my help because she has an owie or her socks are stuck. If that doesn't work to get my attention she mumbles a request incoherently hoping we'll guess at what she's saying so she can Bugs Bunny us and say "ok!" It goes something like this.

Nora: (gibberish) walk (gibberish, clicking noise, Beowulf language)
Bamboozled sleep deprived parent/us: What did you say, Nora? A walk?
Nora:  OK!!

Totally fair trade in my mind for her deciding to use the potty full-time two weeks shy of her brother arriving. Not having to change two sets of diapers is worth putting up with a secret language. Even if it meant the pediatrician thought she needed to see a specialist or she fools strangers in to thinking she's speaking a foreign language. Win-win in my mind.