Hellplantation

I need some reassurance. Either reassure me that it's normal for an angel child to have an occasional demon possession, or reassure me that the stage we're entering is "not so bad".

Last night we met Gary and Kim at Souplantation. Kim is 20 weeks pregnant and we haven't gotten together in awhile, so we figured we'd meet at Souplantation for some dinner, some parental advice, some good times. The good times were really no where to be found - Owen was just a total joy (or, wait, no I mean the opposite of joy) and poor Gary and Kim - it wasn't their fault. Or was it? We tease them that Owen is a hellion only around them, and I must admit that I've yet to be convinced otherwise. You see, when Owen was 7 weeks old, Gary and Kim came over for dinner and Owen cried for about 30 minutes straight that night. Inconsolable. His crying, up to that point, was easily squelched with a boob or a diaper change. After that dinner, he cried for ~15-30 min nightly for a few weeks, and we've since read that it's really common for very little babies to do that - as a kind of letting-go-of-the-day kind of thing - but it was the first time they'd met Owen so I'm sure they thought he cried like that all the time. It was so out of character for him at the time that both Keith and I were completely bewildered and it totally stressed us out.

So, let's return to last night. Remember how I was saying that Owen was an angel this weekend? Last night - not so much. He wouldn't eat anything (unheard of!), would throw whatever we gave him (the poor cleaning staff, honestly), shook his head "no" to every offering, screeched a good portion of the evening, didn't want to sit, didn't want to be held, only wanted Mama (that's pretty normal) but then didn't really want Mama. Gary and Kim laughed and we all joked about it. But Owen was acting like a maniac, and I have to admit that I'm just not ready for this. I know we've been lucky and I realize that this is largely a brag-blog, but honestly - I don't know how I will deal with it if my sweet boy becomes a normal toddler. Sigh.