This is a blog about life with Owen – my son whose mischievous grin captured here (with difficulty because he doesn’t sit still for photos) is much like the Mona Lisa’s. Each of them know something good, and neither one is telling.
Some days you can’t see that liveliness burbling up inside Owen. Some days he is foggy and withdrawn. We love the Owen grin, and the Owee laugh (which is kind of a gurgle of joy)
even though it often means trouble is brewing.
When Owen was much younger, and we were on vacation with family in the Poconos on Lake Wallenpupack, Owen laughed and began to climb up the steps from the water a little ahead of everyone else. Owen’s Uncle Rob and Aunt Jane heard the laugh and noted the purposeful movement in a boy who usually seemed out of it, nonverbal, and draggy, or low muscle tone. They decided to follow him up the hill and see what he would do.
Up the long flight of hand built stone steps he trotted giggling. Past his family’s cabin. Past the middle cabin. Up he charged to cabin number one, at the top of the hill. Owen rushed in through the screen porch, and across the stone floor of the tiny kitchen, to the table with three or so large boxes of blueberries on it, the product of the Simons clan’s picking in the hot sun that morning. Owen reached up, grabbed one, and dumped it out onto the floor.
Then he started stomping in them with his bare feet!
Aunt Jane and Uncle Rob were there to save most of the berries — but they were impressed and amused. Evidently Owen had been plotting the wonderful feel of squashed blueberries all the way up the hillside.
Embracing Chaos 