familyvalues

owenIMAG0667, a photo by marymactavish on Flickr.

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.