Teefs

Owen has been a really good baby. Not much crying, good nap taker, lots of laughs etc. However, over the past couple of weeks he has been a bit grumpy. Myers and I often find ourselves making the most ridiculous faces and noises in order to make him stop crying. Glad Owen doesn't have a camera of his own to take OUR picture.

About a week and a half ago, we discovered what all the crying was about: he has sprouted 2 teeth! Both teeth are on the bottom and they make him look like a distinguished gentleman. I can't believe he already has teeth, it makes me realize that he won't be a baby forever.

Other recent milestones:
1. Rolling front to back and back to front. He likes to practice these moves in his crib. We never know what position he will be in when he wakes up in the morning. We often find him sideways, face down, with his booty sticking up in the air. Very cute.

2. Cereal eating. It was a slow process, but Owen now seems to have gotten the hang of eating from a spoon. He has made some pretty funny faces along the way and is now eating cereal twice a day. I think we are going to start adding some fruits and vegetables to his diet soon. Another step away from being a baby.

3. Sleeping!!! After months of waking up 3 or 4 times a night, Owen is FINALLY sleeping through the night. Hallelujah. He usually goes to bed at 7:30 and then wakes up to eat at 5:00ish and then back to bed for another 2 or 3 hours. It is fantastic.

Helmet

At Owen's 4 month doctor appointment, the pediatrician suggested that Owen might need a helmet to correct a gigantic flat spot on the back of his head. Myers and I noticed the flat spot a long time ago but were hoping it would correct itself. (yes, we were delusional enough to think that Owen's skull would magically mold into a normal shape all by itself). I have to admit I was a little upset at the prospect of getting a helmet for our baby. The more I thought about it though, I realized that if I were a teenage boy with a misshapen head and my parents could have fixed it and chose not to, I would be really mad.

Cranial Technologies is THE PLACE for this kind of thing. They have several locations around the country and apparently people drive hours and hours to get their helmet (DOC band) at Cranial Tech. I feel very blessed that there is a Dallas location. We went for a consultation where they take mugshot-like photos from all different angles of Owen's head. It was very difficult to have someone point out all of the problems with your baby's head/face/skull. Anyway, after a cool digital imaging appointment Owen is now in his helmet. Since he is so young they are hoping he will only be in it for about 6 (maybe 8) weeks.

Big Changes

After 4 years at ACIG, I will be leaving the insurance field to begin a new phase of my life. After months of prayer, thoughts, meetings and interviews, I have been hired as the Director of Education - Membership at Hackberry Creek Church. I could not be more excited and can't wait to get started. My new friend, Kelly Shultz, will be the Director of Education - Outreach and the two of us will both be working part time.

Since I am moving from a full time job to a part time job I will now have a lot more time at home with Owen! Myers and I feel so blessed to be in a situation where one of us can be home with Owen most of the week. We are going to have to get used to cutting back on some of our favorite luxuries (i.e. going out to eat) but we both know that the "sacrifice" is well worth the reward!

Swimming

Ok, this time I promise I will start updating the blog more consistently. Do you believe me? Didn't think so.

Owen is turning 4 months old this weekend. How exciting! His new tricks include grabbing things, laughing, sitting up (well, sitting against the back of the couch and not falling over) and swimming! Last weekend we heated up my parents' spa to a nice luke warm temperature and gave Owen his first swimming experience. He wore his fancy little swimmers diaper covered by very stylish orange swim trunks. We had high hopes that he would absolutely love the water. While he didn't hate it, he didn't exactly love it either. He almost seemed not to notice that he was in the pool. We held him in there for about 5 minutes and then got out. Even though he didn't laugh and splash and play, I am still considering it a successful experience.

As the weather gets warmer we hope to have many more trips to the pool. By August, Owen will be a regular George Hamilton sporting a beautiful bronze glow.

Stay tuned for a new post next week with a report from Owen's 4 month check up.

Not So Great at Blogging...

Big News! Owen is here! Ok, so he was born 8 weeks ago. Our initial plan to update the blog several times a week is not going so well. Oops. Anyway, the first 8 weeks of parenthood have gone pretty well. Lots of eating, lots of sleeping and lots of pooping for Owen. I read a message board that was polling new mothers to see how often their babies poop. Many of the women said once a day or once every other day. Some even said that their little ones poop once every 5 days!! Owen is pooping, on average, 5 or 6 times every day. Usually he poops immediately after we change his diaper and then laughs at us. (Myers is not a fan of the word "poop" so I wanted to include a story that used the word poop as many times as possible)

Other highlights...
I swore to myself that I would not refer to myself in the third person and that I would not talk to Owen in a ridiculously high pitched voice. I am sad to admit that I am now doing both. If you were a fly on the wall at our house during the day you would likely hear me say something like, "smile for your mama" or something dumb like that. What is it about having a child that makes you suddenly talk like an idiot? At least I keep this nonsense contained within the walls of our house.

At 8 weeks of age Owen is able to hold his head up. He also smiles and laughs and sleeps like a champion. When he was born he weighed 8 and a half pounds, he has now chunked up to an astounding 13 pounds. Most of that weight is contained in his gigantic cheeks!

Big Boy

A week ago I went to the doctor and had a sonogram. The sonogram revealed that Baby Lever is a big ol' boy weighing in at just under 9 pounds with two weeks left until my due date. The doctor is estimating that he will end up being somewhere around the 10 pound mark (plus or minus a few ounces) once he arrives. After much deliberation and discussion with the doctor, we have a scheduled delivery date of Friday, December 18th at 7:30 in the morning. We are both really excited to meet this baby but are now scrambling around to finish all of the chores and errands we have been putting off.

Yesterday I had a burst of energy and thought it would be a good idea to wash my car. At one point our neighbor came outside to see a nine and a half months pregnant lady, barefoot, in her pajamas, washing the car in the middle of December. I am sure it was quite the sight! I also managed to buy and wrap all of our Christmas presents, purchase and put up a Christmas tree, do some laundry, hang some stuff in the nursery and catch up on all of my TV shows. Of course today I was exhausted but at least I got some things accomplished.

My last day of work will be tomorrow. That gives me 2 full days to finish getting ready for the baby (although I am sure you are never really completely ready) and rest. Friday morning Myers and I will head to the hospital at 6:00 a.m. and by 8:00 or so we will be able to finally meet that baby face to face!

A Couple of Firsts

We took our first ever first-time parenting/child-birth class, aka An Introduction to Gross Stuff. I'll keep this part of the post as general as possible, this is a family blog. I tried to maintain my "I'm about to be a dad and I' m an adult" face the whole time but it was difficult. We were sitting about 5 feet from the instructor and 10 feet from the projection screen, I didn't want to seem immature. I failed twice. Once was when they had a Power Point slide of circles measuring from 1 cm to 10 cm with the nurse proclaiming "this is what 10 centimeters looks like." Ok, well, maybe on the computer screen it measured 10 cm but on the projection screen it measured about 2 feet. I could've fit through that circle. It struck me as very funny, particularly the nurse's proclamation. The second time was during another slide. I'll just say that my eyes got big and I had to do a double-take (and then immediately look away again) to see if the picture was real or a drawing. It was a drawing and I don't think the instructor saw me. I was entertained by one of the instructor's accent, she was Irish, she pronounced baby as "bebe" ... she might have said "bellay" or maybe I just hoped she would. That's Fat Bastard if ridiculously hilarious late 90s movies aren't your thing (I know he's Scottish but what's the difference, really?).

We also got a baby CPR instructional DVD and a blow up baby on which to practice. For some reason the deflated baby reminds me of one of those papery Burger King crowns they used to give away, except it has a creepy baby mask with hollow eyes. They probably still have those BK crowns but I haven't been to Burger King since the turn of the century. I got a chicken sandwich circa 1999 at the one that closed in Coppell, if you're interested. Back to my original point, we have not yet attempted fake baby CPR.

The second "first' was that we took the baby to his first ever sporting event; of course, he'll never know it happened but I'm counting it as something. We sat in a suite at the Cowboys game so he had all the water and 7UP and cranberries he (or Karen) could handle. Karen said he was very active when the crowd got loud; let's hope he was doing fist-pumps and self-high-fives and not high-kicks and jazz hands (if you've seen So You Think You Can Dance celebrations you know what I'm talking about). Also, he better not get accustomed to that level of luxury because when I'm paying for the game it will be nosebleed section all the way. The stadium was great, the free food and drinks were great, the humongous HD screen was so humongous and HD ... and the Cowboys won.