Owen smiles!

One big happy family

I managed to get all the kids to sit down together for once--it only lasted for a moment, but it was great to see them all cooperate. They all love their baby Owen!

On Monday I took Owen for his one-month doctor's visit. He's about 12 pounds now, and he's grown 2.5 centimeters (whatever that means). He was extremely unhappy about the vaccination he got, but otherwise he did a great job.

Owen's passport picture

We're going in on Tuesday to apply for Owen's consular record of birth abroad and his passport--here's the picture. Not too bad, although Maria still wins in the "cutest passport picture ever" category. She was only a month or two old, but you would swear she's smiling for the camera. Owen's not smiling, but he looks slightly less disgruntled than usual. He has started smiling in his sleep, though, and it is adorable!

Captain Spit-Up

Wow, Owen has had some serious spit-up issues the past few days--it makes sense he's so hungry if he manages to regurgitate half of everything he eats. On the bright side, sort of: lots of outfit changes mean lots of photo ops! Owen seems to have grown quite a bit over the weekend, too--the tiny 0-3 month onesies look skin-tight, and the 3 month outfits that seemed huge when he was born now look just right. He's still tiny, but getting bigger!

Everyone in the building who sees Owen for the first time says "he looks just like Joey!" I can really see it now, too--he does look an awful lot like Joey's baby pictures. Maybe Joey will have his own mini-me!

Maria is still doing a great job being a big sister, although it's hard sometimes. Mostly she seems very happy to have a baby brother.

Oh, and Owen has officially busted out of his velcro swaddle, but the Miracle Blanket arrived just in time. Its arm flaps really do keep him swaddled all night, at least for now. Along with his new binky, it's a key part of the plan to get Owen to sleep through the night.

May Babies!

Yesterday we had playgroup at our place--our first chance to see all the new babies in person! How cute is this? Oscar, Annabelle and Owen in their first group photo op!

Today Owen slept in his sling for an hour and a half while we went to the Build-a-Bear workshop. Maria picked out a beautiful white bear with pink highlights and dressed her in a pink ballerina suit--her "big sister" bear. She and Owen were both so well-behaved, we will definitely have to try some other outings in the future.

Baby Acne!

Poor Owen, he has a terrible case of baby acne. It seems to have popped up all of a sudden--and all over. At least it doesn't seem to bother him, and hopefully it will clear up soon.

On a brighter note, today I took Owen in with me to the office (I had to straighten out a few things before I can start working from home in a couple of weeks.) He did a great job, even when everything inevitably took longer than it should've. We did a few on the go feedings without too much trouble, so with any luck we can start venturing out more often now.

Amazingly, I managed to put Owen in the sling for this morning's outing--I'm not sure I was really doing it 100% correctly, but he seemed comfortable (he fell asleep) and he didn't fall out, so I'll call that a success.

Finally, here's Owen with his big brothers (pre-baby acne). I still can't decide who he looks like...

Swaddles and slings

Owen is still sleeping fairly well at night, thanks to his velcro swaddling blanket, but I'm afraid it won't work forever. Already, he sometimes manages to wiggle one little fist up to his mouth--you'd think sucking on his fingers would make him feel better, but in fact it just reminds him that he's really, really hungry. Always.

I have to laugh seeing him all swaddled up, though: he looks like a tiny, disgruntled middle-aged man inexplicably trapped in a cocoon.

The sling, on the other hand, is no laughing matter. I watched the DVD that came with it, complete with footage of Guatemalan women toting toddlers on their backs, and I tried to follow the instructions given by the robotic 1980s uber-mom as she popped dolls and babies in and out of various slings while throwing out terms like "shoulder strap flap."

Yet when I put on the sling and put Owen in it, he disappeared completely and started screaming bloody murder. I tried to adjust the fabric but the high-pitched screams were distracting, to say the least. The DVD suggests trying the sling for the first time when your baby is full and well-rested--this may be the problem, since Owen is either sleeping or hungry at all times.

That being said, Owen did much better than I expected yesterday, when Jim and I took him along to my first post-C-section doctor's appointment. I was on standby, so we were there for nearly an hour before I saw the doctor. I had been dreading this outing, picturing Owen screaming non-stop while I was in with the doctor, but he actually did okay. Jim walked him around and he managed to hang in there for the ten minutes or so I was actually elsewhere. Prior to that, I did have to feed him in the waiting room, something I wouldn't hesitate to do at an OBGYN's office in the US, but Bumrungrad has so many patients in burqas, it made me really nervous. I think I was being fairly discreet, but who knows.

Later, when Owen was fussing while we waited for our turn at the cashier counter, a nurse suggested I could use a vacant office to feed him if I wanted to. I thought maybe this proved no one had even noticed I'd fed him earlier, but Jim suggested maybe they had noticed and were trying to preempt me from doing it again. With its international clientele, I'm sure Bumrungrad must have American and European women feeding babies there all the time--but I've never actually seen anyone doing so in the waiting room of the Women's Center. Hmmm. Also, there was nowhere to change the baby in the women's restroom there, so Owen had to wear his stinky diaper until we got home. Luckily, home is literally a stone's throw away (I could see the balcony of our apartment from my hospital room when he was born.) On the way home, he didn't even cry in his carseat--we may have to venture out again soon!

Belly button!

Right on schedule, Owen's umbilical cord fell off this morning! Looks like we may have an outtie...

More alert every day

Every day Owen seems to be a little more alert. Today he even sat in his bouncy chair for a few minutes while Maria and I talked to him--it probably helped that I put a battery in so the vibrating function would work. He seemed to find it pretty entertaining.

One thing that doesn't work: our baby monitor. We have one, but it picks up some sort of interference that I suspect comes from the construction site next door. Since that construction project has been there as long as we've lived in Bangkok--nearly two years now!--I don't have much hope they'll finish up soon. In the meantime, I run to check on Owen every five minutes or so and about half the time find him screaming his head off. Let's hope there's no long term psychological damage.

Maria is definitely adjusting to having Owen around, and her initial emotional outbursts have tapered off. She's growing up, but just like her older brothers at this age, that means she's also refusing to take a nap. Not even Tukkie, who used to have the magic touch, can convince her to go to sleep in the afternoon these days. I wouldn't mind, but whenever I'm sitting on the couch with Owen, she now insists that I read her the same books over and over until I think I'm going to lose my mind. It's good quality bonding time, I suppose, but I'm still really hoping she'll cave in and take a nap sometime this week!