three months of Owen
Jun. 22nd, 2011 12:57 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
familyvalues
Today, Owen turns three months old, or fourteen weeks. He was conceived almost exactly a year ago, coincidentally on solstice, coincidentally on the weekend of his other parents’ commitment ceremony. So tonight, while those parents are off on a celebratory anniversary date, I will sit down and write a note about how things are going for Owen, and for us.
(I fully intended to write this on June 21, but was attacked by a nap, succumbed, and didn’t wake up until almost midnight.)
I know I should be recording Owen’s milestones, but “shoulds” aren’t doing very well by me, and I haven’t much been. But let’s see: He can say a hard G now! He learned, just today, to grab the ring on his beloved hangy-things toy, and shake it to (almost) make the bell jingle. He has a mirror, and can talk to mirror baby for an hour at a time. We visit the library now and then, he looks around and I browse. He's got books at home but hasn't yet been fascinated by them. I picked out an oversized board book today and we looked all the way through it twice. I wished for a camera in someone else's hands, it would have been lovely to document.
Right now, he’s lying near me asleep, giggling. He is so happy. He giggles and smiles easily and often. It’s like we’re trained monkeys around here and his smiles are peanuts. We will do whatever is necessary to keep those peanuts coming.
He is strong! His neck is mostly stable now, considering his age. He is playing a new game with me where I’ll sit him on my belly, while I’m on my back, and he leans back against my thighs, then he’ll pull his upper body toward me like he’s trying to do a crunch. I help him shift his balance very gently with my legs and stabilize him with my hands, and as he sits up, he beams. He can do this over and over until he’s exhausted, somewhere between five and ten times in a row. I’m not sure I can do ten crunches right now.
He is GigantoBaby, long and lean, in size 6-12 month clothing depending on whether the item snaps at the crotch and how the neck opening is built, at three months old. He sucks on his fists a lot, finds his thumb now and then, and we've started to wonder if he's in the earliest stages of teething already.
I’m starting to notice something I don’t like in myself, and I think it’s just about years of conditioning, in that though Casey and Audrey both clearly identify me as one of Owen’s parents and though I often see myself that way superficially and act as Mom, my subconscious leaps out now and then. I will say something like, “Let’s get you home to your mama so you can have lunch” or most telling, recently, when a woman at the hardware store asked us, “Is he yours or hers?” about Owen. I answered, “Hers,” without a moment’s hesitation, then corrected it quietly, “Um, ours.” In the correction, I don’t think I was trying to appear not-gay so much as that I didn’t want to invite questions. But the initial “hers” was straight from my deepest insides.
But really, nothing else has been an issue. Everyone who needs to see us as a family does. We spent Father’s Day -- all of us did -- with Audrey’s parents, celebrating her own father, and Owen’s father, and it was good. We are good. We’re a family in ways I never dreamed even up until Owen’s birth, and I love it. I’m happier than I’ve ever been before.
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(no subject)
Date: 2011-06-22 04:08 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-06-22 04:08 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-06-22 04:42 pm (UTC)I have thoughts about the whole mom thing, which I'll probably just chat about with you in person or IM ... the punchline is that I think it's probably very important for both you and Owen to have a legal relationship, since there isn't a biological one. Your years of conditioning aren't going to be invisible to him, long-term, and having a legal structure around which to rebuild your conditioning is likely to be really important to both of you. Of course, that is a much more complex thing to actually accomplish, than to talk about, especially if Audrey isn't feeling the same way about it as she was pre-conception, etc. The thing about her is that she can never NOT be his mother. Legal papers can't take that away.
I have 100% faith you'll all work out something that is wonderful for all of you, and like I've said before, I support you all no matter what. I just think, having raised someone else's biological child, without an adoption, even with a guardianship, it was unnecessarily rough for both of us when he hit certain milestones/stages to not legitimately BE his mother in some fashion.
(hugs) and thanks for sharing something that is potentially so personal and deep. That's gutsy ... but that's you :)
(no subject)
Date: 2011-06-23 12:06 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-06-22 05:23 pm (UTC)I'm very happy for you.
Years of conditioning are very hard. I wish you the best of luck in dealing with them.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-06-22 07:42 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-06-22 07:52 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-06-22 08:16 pm (UTC)I loved my Mom, but how lucky I would have been to have a Mom like you. <3
Lucky Owen, Casey and Audrey.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-06-22 08:17 pm (UTC)