This one goes out to Aunt Jenny. Anyone else have a request? Owen is full of tricks lately...
Notice anything different about the house? We decided to flip-flop the living and dining room furniture. This way we have lots more space, and I can now keep Owen in my line of sight from the kitchen. But my favorite part? There's no cable connection in the former dining room, so we've been surviving on very small doses of the idiot box this week. Scott and I have been spending our evenings listening to jazz, playing cards, and (gasp) talking. The audio-visual guys are coming at the end of next week to move the cable line and install some home-theater-type stuff, and a huge part of me will be tempted not to answer when I hear them knocking on our door.
My apologies to any of you who watched these videos expecting something funny or terribly momentous to happen; these clips are more in the vein of the exit footage for CBS Sunday Morning. I can predict, though, that there are at least half a dozen people out there who will still think this is the most excellent subject matter ever recorded.
We replaced the 32 MB memory card in our camera with a 512 MB capacity card, and I have been out of control ever since. These two clips were so long that Photobucket rejected me, and I was forced to enter the world of YouTube. I don't know why I have such a hang-up about it, but trying to navigate around that site made me feel about as old and out of place as I would be if I tried to shop for skirts at Abercrombie & Fitch.
So anyways...the top video was made at GG's this past weekend. We visited her on Friday & Saturday, and we spent our time eating, antique shopping, eating, playing with Owen on the floor, eating, and eating. GG is an incredible down home Southern cook. I once told Scott I was going to get her recipe for biscuits, and he looked at me as if I'd announced I was going to attempt to build my own atom bomb. Few people compare to Scott's grandmother in or outside the kitchen. She is an amazing woman.
The second video is from Scott's firm's annual lake party. Owen cried initially when I put him in the water, but once he got used to the temperature he loved it. (So much in fact that we now own the inflatable pool featured in the video.) Our entire lot sits at about a 15-degree angle, has more moss and dirt than grass, and is home to so many mosquitoes that you'd think we were intentionally breeding them, but surely we'll still be able to recreate those happy, sunny memories from our day on the lake.
If truth in journalism were important to me, I would have titled this entry "Owen can handle the teeth." But what fun would that have been?
I've been anxious for months now about when teething would start and how bad it would hit us, but overall Owen is handling it pretty well. There have been some fussy days and several nights of interrupted sleep. Yet I can safely say we are on the upside of it now, and the only casualties were my nose and one entire bottle of Baby Motrin.
I thought I was going to get a great shot of his two new pearlies in that top photo, but then he made like he was Brad Pitt and I was paparazzi. You can still sort of see them if you click on the picture and enlarge it.
Whew is it hot! Owen and I just got back from meeting friends for lunch at Sam's Deli down the street. If I were on death row, my final meal request would be a Sam's cheeseburger with extra pickles. And - to continue this disturbing stream of thought - if my punishment were death by electrocution, I don't think it could feel much hotter than it felt sitting out on Sam's patio at high noon.
I stripped O down to his diaper, fanned him and fed him ice chips to keep him cool. But eventually we had to just end our outing and seek the shelter (and the blissfully cool floor registers) of home.
We're back from Jamaica! Jennifer, Rebecca, Scott and I went down to celebrate Jenn's birthday, sans Owen. It was the first time I'd been away from him for more than a couple of hours, and I was terrified that I would ruin everyone's trip by crying the whole time. But I only cried once - on the night we left. And even though I did miss him a lot, it was nice to be able to lay around, enjoy uninterrupted meals, and reclaim a little of the spontaneity that life with an infant doesn't really allow.
Besides, I knew he was in very capable hands. DD and Coach came to stay with him, and they arrived several days early so they could learn his schedule. Owen was confused and cried a lot the first night we were gone, and DD said he kept looking over her shoulder at the door hoping one of us would walk in, but otherwise he basked in their attention. And just to make sure we would regret leaving him, Owen chose the 4 days we were gone to begin pulling up and to start waving and clapping on cue. Curse you DD and Coach for being such inspirational teachers!
Plug all the outlets and hide the breakables, Owen is crawling! He'd been tucking his legs and getting into position even before we went to Texas, but I credit cousin Gabe for spurring Owen on to reach this latest milestone. The opportunity to commune with fellow mini-humans was exciting enough for Owen, but I could tell it completely blew his mind when Gabe started crawling circles around him. And wouldn't you know, Owen gave the above demonstration five days after we got home. Thanks for the technical advice Gabe!
CONFESSION: It's almost too shameful to admit. I've joined the ranks of Dina Lohan, Kit Culkin and Jeff Archuleta. I entered Owen into a cute baby contest.
DEFENSE: The local TV station and sponsor of the contest kept running these commercials. Do you have a lovable baby? They badgered me. They hounded me. They haunted me. I started to think that not entering Owen would be a latent admission that I find him unlovable. And they made it so darned easy to enter. Just a few clicks of the mouse and I'd turned my baby into a cyber contestant. Now he's plastered on the internet alongside babies with nauseatingly pretentious and over-original names, and I'm left wondering if I have more in common than I would like to think with people capable of naming their children Par, Zen, Chantz and Anakin (which only works as a name if you're actually from the planet Tatooine).
PLEA: Now that I've gotten him into this mess, we may as well vote for him! Or, if you desire to spare Owen a life of excess and exploitation, end his career now and vote for some other (albeit less lovable) kid.
