| Previous Week | Back Home | Next Week |

Journal Key:

Green = Steve | George = navy | Janet = Purple | Evelyn = Black

5/13/10 (Thursday)

Last night, the child came to our room in the middle of the night again. The last time she did this, it was when Ev and Owen were staying overnight at the hospital for his surgery. Tonight we were all home but the child said she'd had a bad dream about "fire." Ev theorizes this is due to the book we have out from the library which teaches fire safety by showing what happens when a little girl invites a dragon for tea. We've actually had it out before. Cara wanted to have it read to her again tonight.

Today was dance night. There was a possibility last night that Cara would agree to have Mommy take her to ballet class. But then she remembered that Grandmama had promised her last week that they would go to Pizza Hut next time! "Victoria said they have games at Pizza Hut!" Cara confided to me. (I assume Victoria is from dance class.) As it turned out, Pizza Hut had only one arcade game, of little interest to small children. BUT, they did have little gumball machine things with toys in them. Cara came home with three little tiny "aliens" in tiny plastic bubbles, which are their space ships. She tried playing with them to amuse Owen--I'm not sure what he thought.

Owen and Mommy went in to Linwood today to scope out Mommy's class and see some people. Owen apparently spent a lot of time staring intently at the vice principal--I hope she was charmed. He also spent a lot of time awake today--a lot. He had a couple of small naps during the day, was awake for most of his time at school, and then pleasantly surprised Ev by staying awake for the evening. This left him nice and exhausted by the time I gave him his bedtime bottle, so it was quite easy to put him down tonight.

We have been thinking about what we can do to make our mornings go quicker, for the days coming very soon when Owen and Cara will have to go off to Yellow Brick Road and Mommy will have to go to work. I had very little ideas other than skipping my breakfast. But tonight we were able to plan Cara's lunch ahead of time, and pack it, too! If we can continue to do that, it would certainly help. (Though in the past, she has refused to talk to me about her lunch in the morning if she hasn't at least started on her breakfast yet.)

Our other plan is for me to make a huge batch of pancakes on the weekend. I can't imagine how many pancakes I would have to make to last out the whole week. You just don't know how many pancakes a little girl can eat, until you've seen it happen.

5/14/10 (Friday)

Last night Cara's three tiny aliens slept on her dresser. They really are tiny. I think they could lie down on nickels. She wished they had pajamas. Wouldn't it be nice if they came with pajamas? They would have to be plastic, she explained, and snap on. This morning, she brought them downstairs. Within five minutes, the yellow one was lost. It's still lost. The other two went with her to preschool, safely contained in the little plastic bubbles they came in.

Yesterday, Owen was awake for a long, long time and was easy to put down. Today, he was also awake for a long, long time. It was probably longer, because yesterday he took an hour-long nap in the afternoon. The three of us went out to dinner. A couple of weeks ago, we went to Baja Fresh. Owen came out of his car seat and sat on my lap, happily staring at everyone. Tonight, we went to a similar place. Owen was less happy. The poor kid was so tired, I think, he couldn't figure out what to do with himself. He finally fell asleep in the car on the way home and slept for ten minutes before waking up very unhappy. After an Epic Struggle with his father, he is finally really asleep.

Before we came back here, we stopped at TJ Maxx to try to pick up some summery clothes for Owen. He's growing into the 0-3 month size now, but PJ's 0-3 month clothes are all for cold weather. Owen needs onesies! I tried telling him that little boys love shopping, but he didn't buy it. I managed to find him two things, and we headed home.

5/15/10 (Saturday)

This morning Grandmama called to say that Cara was in the bath and didn't want to come out. We conferred a bit over how to coax her out. I mentioned that Grandmom and Grandpop were coming to our house today. I could hear Cara on the other end, hurrying herself out of the tub. She got to the house before the grandparents.

Last night Owen gave me a bit of a hard time from around 1:30 to 2:30. I was half asleep and he was yelling at me, and from time to time I would become conscious enough to realize that. We struggled with his bottle, struggled without it, and then I thought to make him another small bottle and he finally went down. The second time he woke up, at around 5, he was very sleepy and barely tasted his bottle before going back to sleep. Then he slept a bit late in the morning, which is somewhat unusual.

Between surgeries and general life, Grandmom and Grandpop hadn't visited for a while, so we had a nice time. They got to see our new used car: Grandpop opened the hood and Cara came outside to see what the insides of the car looked like. Owen got held by many people. He was mostly very good. Grandmom got to help color a picture in one of Cara's birthday cards. Also the magazine that Grandmom got Cara for her birthday had arrived in the mail just yesterday, and they were able to read a lot of it together.

In the afternoon we were somehow able to watch a new DVD. We convinced Cara that she could try my DVD of Pixar animated short films. She loved them all and immediately wanted to watch them all again. So that was successful. Later on, Cara was invited to go play with PJ and Casey. She got onto the swingset in their backyard and was swinging away all by herself, with no assistance! Very grown-up of her. Meanwhile, Owen and I napped in the glider with a bottle, but managed to get ourselves up at around 7 when Mommy called. We made dinner.

Owen is very good at smiling, especially at his Mommy. He is also very good at looking at people and tracking things with his eyes: this evening I was holding him underneath the ceiling fan in the living room, and I found that if I sort of circled around, his head and eyes moved to follow the pull chains dangling from the fan. Tonight Cara came down to hug him good night while he was sitting in his bouncer in the kitchen. It was a somewhat awkward affair, and the child's hair ended up draped over his face for a couple of seconds. When she pulled away, he was smiling goofily--I guess that tickled!

5/16/10 (Sunday)

Yesterday Grandmom and I went through the box of clothes that we'd put away a couple of months ago because they were much too big to ever fit, and we found lots of things that are just right for right now or a month or so from now. I'm astonished. It's also astonishing to look at pictures of Owen and compare them to the ones we took a few weeks ago. He certainly fills up his bath tub more!

Today was Cara's much-anticipated playdate with Emily from school. I am pleased that last night I told her that it would happen after lunch, because that meant that we didn't spend the entire morning asking whether it was time to go. Cara made many plans for this. For instance, she had a bath this morning so that she could be nice and clean for her playdate. (Steve: "Girls are really different!") We brought a bag of Barbies and a bag of girls with us, but of course seeing Emily's toys was more fun. Next time, Emily will come over here. "Mom, tomorrow night, after school, will I . . . have a playdate with Emily at my house?" No, not tomorrow. But one day.

One cute thing was that Cara called Emily's mom Miss Camille, which is what she would call her at school. She works there, across the street where Owen will be in a couple of days. It reminded me of something from yesterday, when we were outside with PJ and Casey, in their back yard. Casey wanted to be pushed on the swings.

Casey: Cara's mom! Cara's mo-o-om!

Cara: Casey! Don't call her Cara's mom! Call her Diane.

Later in the afternoon, after we'd made enough of a big deal about Cara being able to swing by herself, Casey wanted to learn. I explained it to her the way I've explained it to Cara. It helped! I'm very proud.

Casey was wearing Cara's old pink monkey T-shirt.

Cara: Casey, I have the same shirt!

Em really enjoyed imagining what would happen when Cara started looking around for her pink monkey T-shirt. Speaking of outgrowing clothes, though, it must be two years ago that the twins outgrew some Hello Kitty pajamas and passed them on to Cara. They've been great favorites. Cara's wearing the pants tonight. They've become skin-tight capris. No, I'm not sure why they've still been in her drawer.

Inspired by playing in Emily's back yard, we spent a couple of hours outside cleaning up our back yard and getting things out of the shed. Owen sat in his bouncer and watched. Cara helped me scrub things. She started because she wanted to try wearing the rubber gloves I'd brought out. Those were quickly abandoned. At one point, she asked me to trade brushes. I was impressed by her industry, but it was really because mine made a better scrubbing noise.

5/17/10 (Monday)

Today Aunt Claire came to play with me and Owen! She got his nose, and I assured her that Cara regularly performs that duty. When we went for a walk, Owen sat very awake in his stroller, watching her as she walked beside me. When she switched to the other side, he turned to watch her on the other side.

Cara was thrilled to have Claire here, of course, and immediately she planned out the night. It involved Claire playing girls with her and doing some crafts. Claire eventually snuck to the kitchen while I was making dinner, and of course Cara followed. We found her a job: rip up the lettuce for salad. It went better after Claire showed her that the lettuce didn't have to be tiny. Actually, Cara's been eating more lettuce lately. This may be partly because I explained my coworker's theory that The Very Hungry Caterpillar had an important point about eating nice green leaves being good for your tummy. She likes to eat things that are good for her. This evening, she made cucumber sandwiches, holding slices between two pieces of lettuce.

5/18/10 (Tuesday)

Today was Owen's first day at Yellow Brick Road. I brought him around nine thirty and picked him up early, so he'd be able to start with a couple of short days before the real thing. I carried him in in his car seat and got to fill in his name and the date on a piece of paper that would become his progress report for the day. I also filled in the "at home" section with when he'd gotten up, when he'd last eaten, and when he'd been changed. Several teachers came out to meet him and talk to him, and he was full of smiles for them. They carried him away into the back room, where bigger babies were already playing on the floor. A big part of me couldn't really see why I couldn't stay and see him have his first day at school without me. Leaving was hard.

I went to pick him up at three thirty; he had had a great day. Lots of people had wanted to hold him. He's the littlest baby there by a few months. The woman in charge had tried taking pictures of him, but he'd been shy of the camera. His progress report showed that he hadn't eaten much, just one or two ounces four times. He also hadn't slept much; it had been hard to keep track of that because he kept tricking them. They recorded that he'd slept from 9:45 to 10:25 and then from 10:30 to 10:45. It was sort of an hour-long nap.

When I got there, he was being changed. I had to go back and back to find him. When he saw me, I got the easiest, best smile ever!

I carried him across the street to get Cara, and the teachers downstairs encouraged me, as they often do, to leave him there so I didn't have to lug him around. But, I protested, mightn't he think I'd abandoned him again? Mightn't he be upset that I was going? He'll be fine with us, they promised. As I was making my way through the Munchkins to the stairs, I could hear them exclaiming over his big smiles. He's a sociable little guy!

He really was tuckered out, though. Over stimulated. And so on. We had to go to swimming lessons, which was tough for him. He did take a whole bottle, gradually. I think he really needed to be at home. When we finally got home, he was happy for a while to just sit in his bouncer. Cara wanted him to come downstairs, so he went and watched her play girls. Eventually, though, he fell apart and was very very unhappy, just because he was so overtired. Finally, having tried everything else, I gave him a popper. He usually just pops them, but I'm finding that in moments of great stress they're a real help. That got him to sleep. (Last time he took one like that was in the hospital when he couldn't eat before surgery.)

Today was assessment time in swimming class. Cara did great! She got a check mark in every box. She can: enter and exit a pool safely, unassisted; release the wall, paddle, turn around and grab the wall unassisted; float for twenty seconds on her front or back; submerge her face while blowing bubbles; swim across the pool unassisted; kick across on her back with a kickboard unassisted; and jump in and swim to the steps unassisted. She knows the pool rules. They assess them at the 8th week because they're opening registration for the next session. If we signed Cara up, she'd move to the next level and be an Eel rather than a Pike.

5/19/10 (Wednesday)

Steve took both kids to daycare this morning! The mornings seem like they may be survivable after all. I think we can handle this. Probably. We'll find out tomorrow!

Owen napped for almost two straight hours in his crib in the morning and for one hour in the afternoon. He took a lot more of his bottles. He was being held when I came in; the entire staff seems to be enjoying him as much as he is enjoying their attention. Just as he's liked having all of the nurses around in the hospital, he's loving having all of these women (maybe four or five at a time?) looking after him! He's also watching all of the other babies. To him, I guess, they're big kids!

I picked him up at three and we walked to the pediatrician for his four-month checkup. He's eleven pounds, seven ounces, which is fine progress. In weight, height, and head diameter, he's on the charts and holding his own. He'd been getting antsy and then sleepy in the waiting room, but he perked right up when he was on the examining table in his diaper. That always seems to make him happy! He liked the doctor and the doctor liked him; Owen seemed to think it was very funny to be examined with a stethoscope. I gave him a little tummy time, because he seemed to like crunching up the paper on the table last month. It was still fun.

It was almost five when we got back to YBR to get Cara, and Owen was asleep. I left the stroller and carried him through, sleeping on my shoulder. I'd told Cara I'd be early to get her, and I wasn't. She didn't remember! Also, Miss Grace explained, I'd gotten there before Aeshna and Emily were picked up, so, in a way, I was early.

Even though I'm going back to work tomorrow, tonight was playdate. I figured we needed to stick to our routine, since we've missed so many in the past few months. One high point: PJ runs into the kitchen, "Cara, come see what I did with your swoozle pet!" I hope we remember to call it that from now on.

| Previous Week | Back Home | Next Week |