Owen, Oh!

Dear Baby O,

I can never fully express how much refreshment you have brought to my soul, in just one short year of life.

You are a wonder and a delight.

You are one of the happiest, most content babies I have ever encountered -- though your giggles and smiles are somewhat tempered, these days, by the serious eyes and puckered lips with which you approach anything to be 'figured out.'

You are also one of the loudest babies... ever! And, sometimes, the most frustrated. (Again -- you've got a CLEAR and SERIOUS goal in front of you, most of the time. It is NOT COOL when someone bigger and stronger removes you from your intended exploration/ destruction.)

I love the gutteral, consonant-filled utterings you make along with the usual baby vowel sounds. It sometimes sounds like the transcript of a mumbling, stuttering drunk, but it is precious, nonetheless. "KEEEY!" you say for kitty. "Gee-ur. Zhesh!" I hear while you're on the crawl. Then, absorbed in thought over the everyday object in your hands, you mumble: "Zsa-zsa. Zsa-zsa. Zhurrrr..."

You do have real words, too. Lots of them! You ask for favorite foods by name. Say "milk" for your bottle. Ask for "mo, peas" at about every meal. (That's "more, please," not "more peas.") You call for the pacifier as just the "-ier" (sounds like "e-yar." You say "Mow-sey" for Miles. You say Mama and Daddy and Mama Kay.

...But, mostly, you babble a lot to yourself in that secret language that makes adults feel like babies might have some intrinsic knowledge, some hidden memories of a time before birth, in a place very close to Divine Mystery.

Certainly, to us, you seem fresh from the hands of God.

Thanks for being our baby, wee little man. And no rush on the walking. The world out here is big and wide and will all be yours, one day. For now, you just ponder the mysteries put in you by your Creator. You are a fearful and wonderful thing.