its been awhile. i keep breaking this promise, but my intentions are good. today Owen is 61 days old. we're sitting at the coffee shop and managed to forget binksus and his baba at home. sometimes it just cant all happen. he's zonked out, so we're safe for a while. the past 4 days straight, and several days here and there prior, Owen has slept from about midnight well past 8 am. Usually at 8 ish he gets up for a snack and zonks back out for another hour or two. what the WHAT?! its incredible. everyday i have a new reason as to why he is the greatest baby. just over 2 months and sleeping through the night without any changes in diet or anything like that. incredible!
in other news, Owen is rolling over. front to back, back to front. not with total regularity, but he tries and tries and tries and can usually make it happen after a while if he doesn't get himself worked into too much of a frustrated frenzy. he's holding full on conversations too. with filip and i, and his friends and just about anything when he's in a chatty mood. he's growing like a weed, like kids do, obviously. we've already got a nice pile of clothes and things to pass on. i was organizing his dresser yesterday and had a hard time not hanging on to just one of his striped long sleeved onesies. got kinda teary eyed and sappy. a lot of times, filip and i will be hanging out on the couch with Owen, right there, and looking at photos of him on flickr getting all nostalgic and sappy for 4 weeks ago. Looking at his birth photos is totally crazy to me now. he was the tiniest stranger then. I had to lug that dude around for 9 months not knowing who or what he was and meeting him for the first time was amazing, but really bizarre. we're both still just getting to know him, you know? its funny...he started noticing his mobile (his friends) above his crib a while ago, and now he gets really excited to see them and talks to them, and its kind of like he always liked them a ton, and they've always been his favorite, they've been friends for years and years, and since we just became friends with Owen, we're just now meeting his other friends. maybe this sounds crazy. you know what i mean though? lately, i've been thinking so much about making sure that i respect Owen as his own person. first and foremost we make sure his immediate needs are met and that he's healthy, happy and content. but beyond that, its been really really important to me to give him his space. to talk to him like he's an equal, because he is. to take him seriously and make sure he knows i take him seriously. and to make sure that i am always aware of the fact that i do not own him. we're here to introduce him to things, to teach him and guide him along and encourage him and support him. the most important thing for me has been respecting him. everyone has baggage and issues, and if that is my biggest piece to pick up at the claim, i'm actually really glad because of how i am learning from it to be the best i can for Owen and Filip, and for myself, too. with that, and with many other things going on, this says so much so perfectly right now. amazing.
yesterday i caught up with brandyn. in our conversations, listening to her, i see lots of myself, and its really pretty awesome. i super admire her, shes a great lady. maybe both of us being virgos has something to do with it. i dont really know, but what i do know, is that making a really good new friend is such an incredible thing. like all my favorite friends, i think a ton about our conversations afterward and i keep thinking about them, and i love it. i am really excited to be around all these amazing people, going through similar experiences, whether its 2 years ahead of where i am or 2 years behind where i am, with their own ways of handling everything and learning from all of it. im thankful to recognize these things the older that i get. in a conversation yesterday, brandyn mentioned the quote "youth is wasted on the young." so true. so good to keep thinking about and appreciate everything that is happening right now. and it feels pretty good to not have any major regrets about my own youth. except maybe not doing a shit ton of drugs when i had the chance. hence, youth is wasted on the young. haha.
speaking of greatest friends, i felt like pulling this out of the vault. from holidays last year. pretty amazing. i cant wait to do the same photo with owen and aero! i think filip and i are going to try to make it to schubas this week for lunch and photobooth pictures with owen.
and speaking of holidays, this marks the first year where i will be staying in chicago for both thanksgiving and christmas. thanksgiving was very nice, photos on flickr, of course. jason & lauren were great hosts! not sure what christmas will hold for us, but whatever happens i'm sure will be really awesome. im feeling ok about things, but like many other people, i've just never liked this time of year, cant get into it. its more depressing than anything else. nothing personal, just, you know. im ready to fast forward to a month from now.
that being said, new years is usually my least favorite holiday out of this cluster of holidays. always has been. and i'm not really looking forward to the actual holiday or any plans or anything like that, but its going to feel really good getting into a new year. there's so many important, unforgettable things that happened this year, but there are equally so many things that are much better left in the past and we're very happy for that. cleansing, you know? totally cliche, but things are usually cliche because they're true. and for once, i'm going to enjoy new years, totally embrace it, all of what i normally find trivial and bane, and i'll remember it.
