a note to Owen

Owen,

Today you allowed us to see a whole new “you” – and what an eye opener it was! From the start, you have been our easygoing, fun-loving, happy-go-lucky, laughing, charming, little boy. Nothing much phases you – not changes in schedule, hours of travel in the car, being in different church nurseries every month, or meeting new people. You are always ready with a smile and the ability to wrap the ladies around your chubby little finger!

But something changed a couple of weeks ago. At eleven months, you finally started crawling. We thought this was so exciting! How fun it was to watch you explore your world, which suddenly had greatly expanded its previous horizons. Very quickly your sisters began to say things like: “Daddy, don’t let Owen see where we’re going. We don’t want him to follow us!” And we began to see that quite a bit more child-proofing was required in our little home.

For the most part, these were all enjoyable changes. But now you’ve decided to challenge the one thing Mommy could always count on with you … BEDTIME. Since you can crawl, instead of laying calmly on your tummy with your pacifier and falling asleep, you writhe and turn and wriggle until you’re facing the opposite direction and screaming at the top of your lungs for someone to get you out of this restrictive place we call your bed. And today -well, today you just declared war on bedtime. It was not a pretty sight! When Mommy rocked you, you fell asleep. When Mommy laid you down, you screamed. When Mommy let you scream, you screamed louder. And longer. And kept screaming. No amount of back patting, rearranging blankets, or repositioning pacifiers helped.

(...)

In the end, Mommy closed the door again and waited a while longer. Finally, you calmed down and quieted down and peace returned to our little household. Next time, your stubbornness won’t surprise us quite so much! You are growing up, our sweet little boy. And together we’ll make memories through the changes – temper tantrums and all!

I love you!

Mommy 03.31.06