The Hungry, Hungry Baby Gremlin

Owen two weeks ago demonstrating some serious chub. In his defense, it is a very unflattering angle.

Owen smiling in the bath with Dad this weekend

When Owen was born at 7 pounds 1 ounce, I thought perhaps he would be a lean baby like his cousin Lucienne.  His legs were even too skinny for the newborn diaper covers that were meant to fit the tiniest babies.  Well that is certainly no longer the case. As you might have read in our previous blog entry, Owen has replaced sleep at night with marathon nursing sessions that have resulted in some serious chub. We all swear that he actually wakes up from a nap fatter. How is this possible?  He is nursing the entire time he is sleeping, which means that mom is not sleeping at all. I usually pride myself in learning my students' names right away, but this semester I don't seem to have the brain cells to remember much of anything, let alone 60 names.  It now appears that Owen will take after Drew in the chub department.  I wasn't a skinny baby either. The neighborhood kids called me Cheeks.

We call him a gremlin because the entire time he is nursing and sleeping he makes these guttural/nasal grunting noises that sound like a gremlin munching electronics in the middle of the ngight.  This doesn't bother me since I have already abandoned the hope of sleep at night, but Drew and Laila aren't fans of this development.  

Owen is gooing and giggling up a storm these days. He wakes up with the biggest smile on his face cooing, unless he's famished. In that case, he will cry "nuh! nuh! nuh!" or "hungeeeee!"  which of course we translate into "nurse" or "hungry." Yes this may be a creative leap, but my mom swears that he is saying nurse or hungry, but the skeptic should keep in mind that she sees faces in banana bites and any number of animals in the contours of clouds. No she doesn't take psychedelic drugs, in case you were wondering. She's just an artist.  It's where I get my flare for the dramatic.

For all the sleepless nights, you would think that Owen is sleeping all day, but in fact he isn't.  Mommy was a serious nap resister, and at 9 weeks Owen has started a grass roots organization to unite with babies everywhere to resist the oppressive sleep regimens imposed by weary parents. Vive le resistance. Their logo is of the single baby fist raised in defiance from the prison bars of the crib.  

In all seriousness, Owen began his radical education (sorry republican relatives) by attending two lectures this past week given by Keith Harmon Snow, who has been working as an independent journalist and human rights witness in the Congo.  His work can be found at www.allthingspass.com and more information about the Ugandan genocide and civil war in the Congo can be found at www.cegun.org.  Unfortunately we learned that these conflicts are being fueled by Western corporate interests.  I am hoping to have my English classes this summer do a service learning project with the Campaign to End Genocide in Uganda Now, which ties in perfectly with the global reader and its emphasis on colonialism and globalization that I currently use.  

In other news, we are still waiting for Drew's surgery to be scheduled. Will keep everyone posted.