Babies everywhere

A week ago, picking up Scott, Carlie, and Lily at the airport, and then again at the train station yesterday, I was struck by the fact that all of us heading here and there with great purpose - maybe even to do Important Things - were once babies, whose existence could be summarized as eating, sleeping, pooping, and otherwise being fairly tiny and helpless. It's not a particularly profound observation, but the feeling of being surrounded by all those ex-infants was striking, nonetheless.

Now see here

Today, I saw Owen watching the mobile over his crib while I was folding laundry. He wasn't just looking through it; he was actually tracking the different shapes floating by. Kerry says she observed the same thing yesterday (Owen watching the mobile, not me doing laundry). Either way, it's the first time we've seen him really looking at anything other than the face of the person holding him.

Communication 2

Our boy can belch. Kerry says he "burps like a trucker".

Communication

Owen has increased his vocabulary in the past couple of days. When he is waking himself up, a process that may take 20-30 minutes, he often ejects a high-pitched little "Oo!" It's almost bird-like in quality, or like a single, loud hiccough. Or, as I prefer to think of it, it's the best barbaric yawp someone less than two feet tall can muster.

In the last 24 hours, Owen also seems to have developed the ability to indicate indigestion and soiled diapers. Naturally, both are announced with the same cry used during periods of hunger, certain diaper changes, and bathing, but it is an interesting development, nonetheless. We can't do anything about the indigestion (though Kerry may lay off Ros's curry for a while), but if Genghis says it's time to change a diaper, he's usually quite right.

Hands

As with all newborns, Owen's hands are not really his own. They are semi-autonomous, often acting against his interests. His fists of fury sometimes strike his own face, leading us to repeat the schoolyard bully phrase, "Stop hitting yourself," but with a great deal more sincerity.

Owen's upper hand (or arm, really) is the "full" indicator when he is eating. The fist begins clenched by his face. As he fills up, the arm relaxes, ultimately going dead limp. One of my jobs during breastfeeding is to check the gauge. I feel like an old WWF ref checking on Hulk Hogan in a sleeper hold. I lift the arm once. It falls down limp. I lift it a second time. It falls limp again. I lift it a third time, ready to declare the match over. But before the arm hits the canvas... it stops, then begins to shake, then rise up with new energy as Hulkamania runs wild. (Actually, Owenmania doesn't really run wild. When the arm has dropped once, he's pretty much done.)

Today, Owen developed a new hand move, lifting them both overhead. When he combines it with his claw hand (versus tiny fists), he looks like an old Marvel comic book character, saying "They will learn to fear the power of Mr Furious!" or "NOOOOOOOOO!!!"