Portraits of the Orglets as young children

How big are the Orglets?

So big!

Zoe was born a little smaller, but you can see she's catching up. And it looks like she's going for that Orglet head after all... though I'm glad she waited until after she was born!

Zoe go bragh!

An advantage of having kids with birthdays so close together is that they can wear the same clothes at the same time of year. In this case, it's a special St. Patty's Day onesie from their cousin Molly. Happy St. Patrick's Day, everyone!

1 month old

The first month of Zoe's life went by so fast that I'm a few days late in marking it. She's a sweetheart, who loves to be held and suck on her mommy's finger. She is starting to show more and more of an interest in the world around her...

and even starting to smile occasionally!

An Orglet by any other name

One of the most fun, but also most weighty, things about pregnancy is choosing your child’s name. We had a relatively easy time with Owen. We first decided to use my last name as a middle name for all of our children - it seemed to be a good way for us to share a name without having to bother with hyphenation. Then, we agreed to go with a first name that started with “O.” We flirted with a few other options before making the final decision, but Owen was always at the top of the list.

With Zoe it was more difficult. This time we wanted a better reason than “we just liked the way it sounded” when people asked us how we picked her name. We considered a few family names, but choosing just one person to be named after felt limiting, and we didn’t want her to have too many names! We also wanted something that was not too girly, and not too trendy, and didn’t end in “a” (this last so as to avoid the introduction of an “r” sound between first and last names – a potential problem for our half-English, half-American offspring). Once we came up with Zoe, we settled on it quickly. We liked the way it sounded and we liked what it meant – it’s Greek for “life.” The last step was to get Owen’s input. Having ruled out his preferred “hyphen,” we gave him the choice of Zoe or one other name, and he instantly smiled and said “Zoe” in the sweetest little voice. That was that - and here she is!

First impressions

Before Zoe was born we really had no idea how Owen would react. It was hard to even tell how much he understood. When we took him on a hospital tour designed for older siblings a few weeks before she was born, he started yelling at the tour guide to "take the baby out NOW," but he also told everyone on the tour the story of getting a cast on his broken leg (the last time he saw a hospital bed, I guess), and cried "It's Owen!" when he saw the babies in the nursery (we must have overdone showing him pictures of himself when he was a newborn, swaddled in those hospital blankets).

When Nana brought Owen to the hospital to visit us and meet Zoe, it was clear he definitely understood. As soon as he saw Zoe in her bassinet he said, "it's baby Zoe!" Then we gave him an etch-a-sketch as a present for being a big brother and that was pretty much the end of his interest in Zoe.



Before the end of the night he did manage to "pat her gently" a few times. Surprisingly, her crying actually piqued his interest, and he came over to help Mike rock the bassinet to calm her down. Mercifully, it worked, and he beamed with something that looked a lot like brotherly love.

Since coming home he still hasn't shown much interest, but what interest he has shown has been positive. He really doesn't like it when she cries - "Don't want Zoe to be sad again!" he yells - but he does occasionally ask about her if she's not in plain sight and he smiles whenever anyone says her name. He was a little afraid of the boo-boo on her belly button, but then who can blame him? And though he doesn't want to interact with her much, he has also shown almost no signs of jealousy. All in all, we're counting it as a big win.

That Orglet look

I've been thinking that Zoe looks a lot like Owen, but even I'm surprised by the remarkable resemblance upon direct comparison:
Zoe, left, Owen, right. Owen was 11 days old for his picture, Zoe just 5 for hers.

Happy 3rd Birthday, Owen!!!

She's here!

We're excited to announce that Zoe was born on Feb 11th, 2010 at 4:03pm. She weighed in at 7lbs 6oz and 20 inches, with a perfectly reasonably sized head. We're all doing well.

...or maybe John Hancock

Sometimes progress is fast and furious. On Sunday I was really proud that Owen had scrawled his name on the back of an envelope in almost-recognizable, only slightly out-of-order letters (see last post). Just one day later at school the kids decorated their own placemats. Much to everyone's surprise, Owen wrote his name on his: