Sweet Owen,

You were one month old yesterday, and before you get all offended about how you are my second child and therefore I can't even write your first letter on the right day, I am writing this on the 10th but saving it until the 11th so I can include your stats from your one month well check. Just in case that sort of thing comes to matter to you some day.

And so, you tipped the scales at 11 lbs 15 oz and are 22 and 3/4 inches long. Yowza.

Little man, I cannot believe it has been an entire month already. It feels, as I'm sure it always does, simultaneously as if you have been here forever and also as if you have just arrived. This month has been so fabulous, getting to know you, getting to watch how much you change in such a short time, seeing how easily and fully you fit into and complete our family. I cannot believe that it only a month ago I hadn't even met you, had no idea what you looked like or how you would be.

The benefit of being the second child is that I didn't have to spend the early weeks figuring out how to keep you alive and instead got to spend them getting to know you, so that I feel I know you very well already where your sister was still a stranger to me at this point. I can tell when you are hungry and when you just want your pacifier. I can tell when you want to be held and when you want to be left alone to explore the wonder that is your right arm. I can tell the difference between your waking-up noises and your just-because noises. I fell like we are already such a good team, like we are already partners in this business of getting through each day.

In the past month, you have gone from a warm, cute loaf of bread to an actual person. You are incredibly alert during the few hours a day you manage to stay awake. You like to watch people, stare at toys, admire yourself in the mirror, and most of all, you love to see Mia. If you are crying, which is rare, I ask Mia to sing for you and you invariably stop crying and listen. She adores you too, always wants to hold and kiss and hug you, and while I know there will be trouble ahead I deeply hope that you two will always feel such love and concern for each other. A few days ago, I caught you playing. You were sitting in your bouncy seat and would fling an arm over your head, smile, and then do it again. On a different day I put you on a blanket on the floor for a few minutes, and you had such fun kicking your legs that you cried when I picked you up and could not be comforted until I put you down to continue your game. You smile easily and often, and sometimes even seem to almost laugh.

You eat well, you sleep well, and for both of those things I am incredibly grateful. You are very relaxed, and even when you are very hungry can be bribed for a few minutes with a pacifier if I have something else I absolutely have to do first. You spend a lot of your time being dragged to Mia's' various activities, and endure it all happily either asleep in your carseat or lashed to my chest.

You are the noisiest eater I have ever seen in my life, slurping and chomping and cooing and making a cacophony of noises. When you get excited, you hoot and holler and it took me a while to figure out that it was a good thing and not the prelude to a cry. You will sleep just about anywhere, but at night have a definite preference for my chest, and I am usually happy to oblige, provided you let me get a few hours of sleep on my own first. You are incredibly strong and we have all learned to live in fear of your accidental head-butts.

I am afraid that I have allowed you to get sick in your very first month. Nothing serious, just a stuffy nose that requires me to spend much of the day extracting trails of green slime with the nasal aspirator, to your intense displeasure, but you have tolerated even that with your usual good cheer. Even when I can hear how very hard it is for you to breathe, you continue to sleep well, eat well, and be comforted easily following my nasal violations.

Owen, I was terrified about becoming your mother. Scared that I would not be able to cope, would not do a good job, would always be giving someone short shrift in my efforts to care for two children, but you have made my job easy. I keep saying that you are the World's Most Perfect Newborn, and that is true, but it would be true regardless. You are perfect because you are here, because you are, as Mia says, "our Owen."

Love,
Mama