We're going bald

Owen is losing the thick head of hair he was born with. But he's not losing it evenly all over. He has male pattern baldness, which is apparently common in babies for hormonal reasons. In Owen's case, it's exacerbated by moving his head from side to side while lying down. He has a bald ring around his head, with plenty of hair underneath it and a nice long tuft on top. It looks pretty funny.

And he's not the only one. He and I started losing our hair at the same time, about 6 weeks ago. (Mine doesn't show, thank goodness!) I hadn't really noticed, but one of the benefits of pregnancy is that your hair doesn't fall out the way it normally would. Now it's making up for lost time. I find it interesting that Owen and I are still experiencing hormonal changes together.

Cuteness is in the eye of the beholder

Obviously, as his mom, I think Owen is the cutest baby in the world. But what I find fascinating is how variable his cuteness can be. When he was about 2 or 3 weeks old, he became super-fussy for a while. Then the doctor started him on medication for acid reflux, and It worked like a charm. I was surprised to find that one of the major side-effects of the medicine was to make Owen decidedly more cute. Now that I'm back at work, he seems to be especially, unbearably cute when I go to pick him up after we've spent the day apart.

We left our stomachs in San Francisco

It's been nearly three weeks since we came back from San Francisco, and I'm starting to get hungry for the food again. While we were there we ate our way through the city, visiting many of our favorite old haunts and sharing them with Owen.

Happy Mother's Day!

Being a mom can be so overwhelming that I sometimes have to stop and remind myself that every single person on the planet has one. Our moms carried us around for 9 months (more or less!), delivered us, and cared for us through infancy and childhood. And somehow, most of us turned out OK. That's billions of moms changing diapers, waking up for late-night feeds, and feeling a little burst of pride with every burp (or developmental advance. It's just that I personally have a thing for the burps.) It's billions of moms staring lovingly at their babies, wondering what they'll grow into. So I know I'm not the first, and I know I'm not alone. But I do have a new appreciation for just how special each mother-child relationship is. Happy Mother's Day!

How does he know it's a toy?

I've always been amazed by how babies respond selectively to baby toys. What makes a pink hippopotamus puppet more interesting than say, a frying pan? OK, maybe that's not the best example. But it is amazing to watch Owen light up when we present him with a favorite toy. It's also just amazing that he HAS favorite toys.

Baby blues