Gillen Azar 10 months: HE TALKS!

Gillen: NUMBER ONE.

I don' t think this is a milestone that Owen ever really hit. Pointing is adorable.

Number one, Gil! NUMBER ONE!

Gillen Azar: Three Months Old

Dearest Gillen,

This video sums up everything about you right now. You are happy, giggly smiles 90% of the time. Unless it's after 7:30pm and we try to put you in the car - you aren't having any of that. Your favorite person continues to be your brother and he can make you giggle no matter what he is doing. We do have to remind him to give you some space because he likes to love on you a little too close and a little too hard sometimes but it warms my heart to see the two of you together.

Oh the giggles. The sound of you laughing is so infectious. I makes me laugh until I cry happy, sappy Mama tears. After raising such a serious boy in your brother, having a giggly one show me how different you both are. My second favorite thing about you? YOUR CHUBS! So many chubs, my love. Your butt, legs and thighs are adorned with roll after roll of soft chubby goodness. You have so many chins we've lost count and your little belly jiggles when you laugh. We moved you to size 3 diapers and this week I packed away all of your 3-month clothing. We actually had to make an emergency run to Carter's one night when we realized you were busting out of your jammies and we had no fleece jams in storage because Owen was in six month clothing in the dead heat of summer. We told Owen we were going on "an adventure" piled into the car and listened to you scream the entire way there.

When you are awake you are strong and active. I don't even remember a time when your neck was floppy. You are sturdy and want nothing to do with being put over our shoulders or held like a baby. You want to look around at everything. You love your baby milk, which from the size of you is quite obvious. You take it very seriously and demand my undivided attention when I am nursing you. If I talk to Owen or look at my phone, you pop off to coo and smile at me until you have my attention back. How do I have a distracted nurser this early? 

You don't like baths, but we're working on it and you don't like being held by strangers. You REALLY, REALLY don't like being passed around. I think you have the loudest cry I've ever heard and the two times we've let a stranger hold you in the evening - you let us know that was NOT okay with you.

You are so easy going and I can't imagine where you've gotten it from. Perhaps is necessity of being the second child. You'll nap in the wrap, in the Ergo, in the swing - even sometimes IN THE CAR! You flash your gummy smile at anyone who inquires about you. You giggle and smile while we change your diaper and have brought nothing but joy into this family.

I know I've told you this since the day you were born but you quite literally exude happiness.From you, to you and all around you. My darling boy, you make us so incredibly happy.

Love and giggles,
Mama

The Very Hungry Caterpillar

Owen reads 

The Very Hungry Caterpillar 

These are some of Owen's most favorite books right now. It melts my heart to read him classics every night and I love that he knows so many of them by heart.

Our favorite kisses/tickle saying right now is,
"I'll eat you up, I love you so!" (From Where The Wild Things Are)
to which Owen answers in fits of giggles, "Max said NO!"

Every pregnancy is different

People say this all the time, but until you've been pregnant more than once, it's hard to imagine anything being different from the first time around. I was incredibly lucky for the first two trimester's with Owen. I was in great shape, slight food aversion but despite my efforts cleaning the toilet every single day of my first trimester --I never vomited. I didn't even have nausea. My skin was glowy and beautiful and I was a little tired, but nothing unmanageable.

This pregnancy is SO different. I've had food aversion to almost EVERYTHING. I mistakenly ran out and bought sour candy and lemonade (my 1st trimester cravings with Owen) and had no interest in eating any of it. I've been dry heaving my brains out (involuntarily at times!), my skin is a minefield of huge zits and I'm completely and totally exhausted. Jeremy had a lot of time off during December and January which ended up being a blessing because I was sick on the couch most nights from about 5-9pm. They ate lots of tater tots. The only similarity between this pregnancy and Owen's are the terrible headaches. Most of the time, it's behind my left eye but sometimes behind both eyes. The only time I have gotten these headaches has been when I'm pregnant. It's so weird.

During our trip to San Francisco, I was about 7 weeks pregnant and Owen wanted me to hold him and nurse him around the clock. I have never been so exhausted in all my life. Mid-trip Jeremy even considered booking flights home because I almost couldn't stand it anymore. I took lots of naps and I'm sure our friends/family thought I was the laziest Mama on the planet (Jeremy was changing all of the poopy diapers because the smell was making me dry heave).  I was taking Zofran that Jeremy called in to help with the nausea (and appear more normal...) but it gave me horrible constipation and I had to stop taking it. 

When Jeremy's parents visited in late January we had no choice but to tell them I was pregnant with all of the dry heaving going on. One night I took some Zofran so we could go out to dinner. Dinner was a success and I was able to eat some salmon. We headed over to the custom milkshake shop for dessert and I enjoyed a strawberry milkshake, right up until my last sip when I thought "This was a mistake." I dry heaved on the sidewalk on the two-block walk back to the car and then puked up my shake behind the car while Owen mimicked my vomiting noises EXACTLY saying, "Mama makes that noise!" --- Needless to say, everyone was DYING laughing. Who laughs while your daughter-in-law barfs behind your exhaust pipe? My in-laws. And my husband. And if I weren't so busy being sick I probably would have laughed too.

Now that I'm in my second trimester, I'm doing a little better. I have more energy, the headaches are only once or twice a week and the nausea comes and goes. Not constant. I'm still not very hungry -- actually the only thing I've craved this pregnancy has been... fried chicken. Yep. FRIED CHICKEN. We never eat it and in my first trimester alone, we ate it four times.

That's my update for now. We waited a while to announce our pregnancy and I'm trying to do updates as best I can.

Here is a video of Mr. Owen after he turned two. It's mostly a long video of him telling me "No" but around the 3 minute mark he talks about taking pictures of Mama's belly and the baby jumping. He talks about that a lot! 

Saying his name

"L, M, N, OWEN, P"

BabyTurTALLs

Lately, Mr. Owen is enjoying a fruit and vegetable set we stumbled upon at IKEA. We basically told him what everything was once, and he took it from there. We are scouring Black Friday deals for a wooden play kitchen for Chanukah, well that and a babydoll stroller. Our boy is so domestic!



(Also, I have no idea why I called a banana a vegetable. No. Idea.)

Happy 18 Months "ooo-wah" !!

{a little post-nap video of our half-birthday boy}

and some cheezin' with Mama!

Owen Counts to TEN!

Owen loves numbers and loves to talk about numbers but the other day I heard him saying, "blah, blah EIGHT" and so I started counting to ten with him and with the exception of five, and nine - he does pretty well!

"Shhhhhoes and COCKS!"

(please note the curl above his ear that is OUT.OF.CONTROL these days)

Owen says something new every day and I have to pay VERY close attention to know what he is talking about. He likes to review our day, and what's to come. He loves the firetruck that lives across the street and he finds new words to say in familiar books that we read. Jeremy and I were just talking the other day about how we are officially "those people" whose toddler mumbles a bunch of gibberish and someone looks at us with a blank stare and we reply, "Oh, he was telling you about how he went to the pool today and wore his swim shoes and learned to kick and blow bubbles."

here are a few new additions now that our boy is the big 17 months!

"bamp" (lamp)
"sssss" (snake)
"shhhoes an cocks" (shoes and socks)
"choo choo" (train)
"This" (pointing to everything...)
"pool"
"star"
"cock" (sleep sack, apparently "sack" and "sock" sound the same)
"woo woo ta" (fire truck, it says "woo! woo!")
"ooh ooh ee eee" (monkey)
"kick" (is learning to "kick, kick, kick your feet" in the pool)

THREE play together at bath time

Owen's favorite number is THREE! He shows us three fingers and says "THREE!" all the time (even though we have worked on counting... one...two.. three...four... he just really likes THREE! He actually doesn't hold up one finger anymore when we ask him how old he is, only three!)  During bath time Owen wants the wet wash cloth over his face. He squeals and holds his breath as we count to three and then he grabs it off and gives it to us to play again. He could seriously play this game for a half hour. It totally cracks us up and earlier this week Jeremy said, "This is so cute, I want to take a video but its probably considered child abuse..."

At the risk of CPS being called, we decided to take a video last night after TONS of bath time giggles.

Here is our game... THREE!


Untitled from Tam on Vimeo.

Bauw, Bauw, Bauw Baby

Owen started talking last week. He says, "Ah, Zuece" and "Bauw, Bauw, Bauw" -  I'm pretty sure this translates to "I love you" and "I want to eat"  Its not quite the ga-ga-goo-goo we expected but it's a start.

But for my first trick... I will shove an entire Maraca in my mouth.

And for my next trick I will demonstrate my talking skills while being deliriously tired right before bedtime.

View from above

This morning before he went down for his nap, Owen explained to me all of the reasons I shouldn't take him to the doctor today for his 4-month vaccines.

You gotta admit, it's pretty convincing...



We always put Owen down to sleep awake. At night he will listen to us read to him and then when he is done interacting with us and ready for bed, he turns his head away and goes to sleep. He never wants to be rocked to sleep or cuddled or hushed. He has always just wanted to be left alone. I've decided I'm okay with that.

This is the first thing I see every morning when I wake up. I look down on my smiling boy and he tells me a story. NOW do you understand why I'm not ready to move him into the nursery?

THAT is a pretty convincing argument.