Two Years Old

On Saturday, October 9, we celebrated Owen's second birthday. Poppie hosted the party at his house in Chapel Hill, and all of Owen's family and friends gathered together for some birthday festivities. The day started off with LOTS of balloons:
People traveled from all over the place to be there. Lynn (Pooh) and Henry (PapaRuss) flew in from Lawrence, KS.
Owen reunited with several friends that he had not seen in awhile. Here he is sharing a hug with Monty:
He blew a birthday horn:
And he blew lots of bubbles:
Charles and Patsy Harrison cooked up a spectacular feast of fried catfish, green beans, hushpuppies, french fries, and corn pudding. Southern traditionalists and Whole Foods regulars all agreed: the food was to die for.
Owen ate three pieces of fried catfish to kick things off, and then roamed around charming his guests into feeding him whatever was to his liking on their plates, including approximately fifty hushpuppies.
It was kind of like a wedding reprise of sorts with so many of our favorite people in attendance. I could have happily spent hours on end catching up with each person there, but the whole party went by in what felt like 15 minutes:
Then it was time for some cake:
TIME OUT, PLEASE. Before Owen blows out his candles, can we get a closer look at that cake??

Oh, sure you can.

Homemade yellow cake with chocolate frosting (two of them, actually): yum. Having never baked a cake before, I was ridiculously excited and proud to have made Owen's cake myself. And by "made it myself," I mean that I read each instruction and then asked Helen worriedly what it meant and what to do and then she showed me and helped me do it and stayed up with me until after midnight the night before the party. One thousand thank yous, Dee Dee!
After 40+ people serenaded him, Owen successfully blew all of his candles out on his own:
Proud parents (I'm 14-weeks pregnant in this photo, and, with hormones surging through my body, I was putting forth significant effort to hold back the tears):
Get in there, baby. Lick those candles:
During the after party, Owen played some pool and opened a few presents:
He got to stay up way past his bedtime. When I finally carried him upstairs to his crib, he protested before almost instantaneously passing out.

It was an amazing day.

Birthday Pregame

A few days before we headed to Chapel Hill to celebrate Owen's 2nd birthday, Alex (Owen's babysitter) came bearing gifts and got the celebration started early:
How sweet are they together??

Hello, Baby

At the end of September (there are SO many things that happened at the end of September, it seems...next post will finally be about OCTOBER!), we headed to the doctor's office to get our first glimpse of Owen's new baby brother or sister.

We waited giddily in the waiting room first thing in the morning:
Owen blew off some steam with a few laps around the waiting room:
When it was our turn, we headed back to the ultrasound room, and I got up on the table. Owen wasn't sure what to make of this:
Then the baby appeared up on the TV screen. The baby is in Mama's belly and on the TV: weird. Owen has Skyped plenty of times, so perhaps this just seemed like a Skype with the baby.
Just to be on the safe side, he came over for a hand squeeze:
He went back and forth between climbing up in the chair to sit beside me and crossing the room to stare up at the TV. Here he is flashing a smile at Mama's request:
And here he is waving to the baby, saying, "Hello, Baby":
Our ultrasound technician was in training, so after she did everything one time through her supervisor came in and did everything over again to check her work. Dada entertained Owen and kept his hands out of the hazardous waste bin and what not while they finished up:
And here he or she is:
(I think this picture looks so much like Owen's ultrasound picture - second one down on the linked page)

Although the blog hasn't caught up yet, today (January 4) I am 27 weeks with three months to go...

Last Days of Summer

At the very end of September, Owen took one last romp through the sprinkler:
He's sporting Uncle Alex's old bathing suit...it is hard to believe that my baby son is now wearing something of my baby brother's. Even harder to believe that it is now 2011 -- the year, when I was 10 years old, that I calculated that my new baby brother would graduate from COLLEGE. It seemed insane at the time: surely our cars would be flying by then and SURELY I would never be 32, much less 33...

I can't even bear to calculate what year Owen will graduate from college. We watched a movie the other night with parents dropping their daughter at her new school and hugging her goodbye as they sobbed, and we looked at each other with fear and horror and then Bill suggested that we go wake Owen up and just get him out of bed and tell him that he has to be our little boy forever and that there will be no college if that's alright with him. (We restrained ourselves.)

Welcome, 2011. You and your kind are already turning my kid brother into a man and my baby into a little boy.

Japanese Soup and the Crane

At the end of September, Owen had his first bowl of Japanese soup. He enjoyed the bok choy, the tofu, and sipping the miso broth, like so:
But the REAL hit was the noodles. Owen navigated the buckwheat noodles with great dexterity for a first-timer:
And then (cue music from 2001: A Space Odyssey), Owen just eased right into using "the crane" technique.
I swear, it's genetic. This is a technique that my dearest friends have commented on (read: made fun of) for years. I dug up an email from my friend Kelly from several years ago, entitled, "Bonzo's Signature Snacking Move." Here is the photo that she attached:
(Yes. I have on a headband, a sundress, haven't showered for days, and am eating goldfish using the crane. It was Bonnaroo, people.)

Anyway, the soup was delicious. :)

Heba and Ed

At the end of September, Heba and Ed came to visit us in Charleston. They hadn't seen Owen in many months, but they were fast friends again in no time.
Aunt Heba plants a smooch on Owen:
Owen LOVES kissing a purty lady, so he grabs her cheeks and plants one on her right back, Français-style (Ed considers whether he needs to step in):
Post-smooch crack up:
Uncle Ed and Owen (Ed is whispering to Owen that THIS time was a freebie, but that if he ever pulls a stunt like that again, there will be words...Owen just laughs and laughs):
For days after they left, Owen would say, "See Uncle Ed!" and "Heba and Ed are here!" and "Bless you, Ed!" (Ed sneezed once during their visit, and I guess it made an impression).

Come again soon!

Going in for the Kiss: A Flip Book

Scroll through these pictures really fast, and you'll see a scene from one Friday morning in early September:
(Owen is the only member of our household 1. in blissful ignorance of the all the unspeakable things that have ever been in Bruno's mouth, and therefore 2. willing to give him a smooch. Owen is also probably the healthiest member of our family, so maybe he's onto something. Perhaps kissing Bruno is like our very own homegrown flu shot.)

On the Swings

Looking back at these photos, I am amazed that we were outside during the day smack-dab in the middle of August. But there we were. We were a touch warm, but we were having fun on the swings at Waterfront Park:

Just Waking Up

Taking in an August morning with a pass and some Richard Scarry:

Bob Dindin

One day in August, this happened over lunch:


The love has already secured its place in the next generation...