Four Months, Fleetingly...

Owen, darlin'...

Tomorrow we visit the doctor for your 4-month check-up, and tonight I'm up late thinking about what a wonderful little person you're turning out to be.

...OK, actually, I'm up late washing all the bedding and clothing you projectile vomited on earlier. It was gross, my friend. Not good. But, A.) I really didn't want to finish Pan's Labyrinth, anyway (Oscar, Smoscher -- this is not a very uplifting film experience!) and B.), you do have that vicious sinus infection and a throat full of phlegm to excuse the booting.

And, hey, as long as I'm awake, I really do think you're a wonderful little person.

I hope one day you get you get your own go-round with the first, fleeting months of new baby life. The early weeks are hard to explain, but they're definitely worth experiencing.

Not much seems to be changing, or even happening, for large stretches of time. And then, sort-of unpleasant things will happen at regular intervals (that would be anytime between 2 and 6 a.m. for you, buddy). But the moments in between can bring a dry and dusty human soul as close to the Divine as possible this side of Heaven.

In both seasons of life when I've had new babies, I've felt flashes of peace and perfection that compare to nothing ...NOTHING... else. On earth.

In the first two months of knowing you, Owen, my eyes would often well with tears just from noticing something ordinary. Something ordinarily babylike, I mean, but extraordinarily nice. It might have been an alert expression -- a swivel of your head or a furrow in your brow. Maybe it was a certain purse of your lips mid-slumber. One tiny open palm could especially get me, waving idly to the world or conducting music, as yours seemed to do while you drifted into sleep.

I would look at you, in the most ordinary of circumstances, and suddenly be crying. My eyes literally launched my heart into a salty tide of blessing. The abundance was simply too great for me, unworthy, to take in. I have cried for the goodness of you, Owen, for the bounty of you, and for all the little lives just like you, greatly expected and lost too soon.

...I have idly wondered, during this tender, cocooning stage of life, if God is sheltering me from seeing or knowing anything sweeter than you or Miles. Maybe He knows that if I felt anything "more" than I feel the weight of you, my too-full heart would actually, physically explode.

And yet this overwrought, emotional stage of "new babyness" is quickly winding down. (Healthy, I think! All part of God's great design...) See, we're getting used to you, O. Growing accustomed. Rubbing the super-shiny wax coating off. While you're still miraculous, you're becoming more of an everyday miracle -- like the fact that your Dad always, without fail, every night comes home to me. Like the reality of your brother, who goes to bed one door over and who wakes up, still perfectly Miles, every new morning. Same as the other boys in this home, Owen, you're now one of my constants.

If this evolution goes the way it went with Miles, your dad and I will ever be impressed that you're here on earth; it will just seem, as time moves on, that you've always been here. With us. And, in this way, as we get all "commonplace" with each another, it will be easier for us to end our monopoly on your goodness. Bit by little bit, Owen, we will release you into the greater world.

And, speaking of that, you just started going to our church's Mother's Day Out program, a few hours a day, almost every day. You took to it on Day One and haven't looked back. You really seem to crave the interaction with other babies, the doting attention of the teachers who all think you are the cutest, most engaging, happiest and easy-going boy they know. (I am not exaggerating because I'm your mom. They seriously like you there! Teachers who have nothing to do with the infant age come in to visit you. I show up to take you home and, often, have to physically remove you from someone else's arms. Once they pick you up, no one seems to want to let go!)

I love that you're taking to the swim of life so easily, Owen. I love that I'm able to leave you some place other than in my own care, and feel safe, and get my work done. I love how perfectly you fit into this family, as if either we were meant for you, or you were meant for us. (Think maybe both?) I love that we have baby things in our house again!

I love all these things that are part of having you -- but above all I love YOU, Owen. Just you. Because you are an end as well as a means, a universe unto yourself. You are a lovely human being, both now and in the making. You are one of God's children, my son, created with seeds of promise and a spark of the Divine. My dearest prayer, young James Owen, is to fan your flame....