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Journal Key:

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

10/21/10 (Thursday)

Today was the big kindergarten pumpkin-picking trip! Cara laid out her clothes last night: jeans and a long-sleeved red shirt to go under her Lindeneau t-shirt. PJ wanted to sleep with his Lindeneau shirt. "It's pumpkin-picking day!" Cara crowed to Owen this morning. I'm so glad he's pre-verbal.

Because of Em's forethought, PJ and Cara got to go on the regular school bus in the morning. It was fun, says Cara. They got to drive to other bus stops, and the kids were waiting in groups! On the trip, PJ and Cara were in the same group. They were with Johnny's mom. They went on three hay rides: one to the pumpkins, one to lunch, and one to see a talking pumpkin. It was just pretend. She has almost no idea what it said.

The fundraiser merchandise was available for pickup, so I went and picked up both it and Cara at 3:30. I was astonished that after I'd signed her out I was allowed to just walk down to the classroom and get her! Things are not done like that in Linwood. It was nice to get to see her teachers, and I got to say hi to PJ and to this other young man whom Cara and I had met at orientation. I'm flattered that he remembers me. He specifically explained that he did. Outside the school, it was neat to see that Cara knew several of the older children, probably because they help out with the kindergarteners. They all said hi.

We spent a little time at home and then went and got Owen and hustled up to Metuchen to try out the Thursday night ballet class. It was pretty cool. It's 90 minutes, and there's a jazz component. There were somersaults and everything! It was Owen's dinnertime, but he was remarkably good. In the car, Cara said that she'd really liked the nap part. They didn't go to sleep, though. I made sure she was talking about ballet. I think somehow she believes that the part where mats came out has something to do with a nap.

She was really exhausted after that long day. So was I. Steve gave Owen a six-ounce bottle, a jar of food, and another six-ounce bottle. I hope that's enough for him. About ten minutes from now, I think we're all going to be down for the night!

10/22/10 (Friday)

This morning I was horrified to watch Cara pick a filthy, squashed, blue object off of the street. We were in Highland Park dropping Owen off at Yellow Brick Road, and we had all just gotten out of the car. I told her not to touch things that were on the street, but she insisted that this very object was a ball she had lost yesterday. I admit it: I didn't believe her. I told her to leave it and we walked into YBR. When I explained to Miss Sandi why Cara looked so sad, she mentioned that Evelyn had been back into YBR yesterday afternoon, looking for a ball Cara had lost.

So I had to apologize to Cara and pick the filthy, squashed, blue ball off of Third Avenue. We put it in the floor of the car and, in the evening, Mommy washed it off.

This evening was to be a Date Night for Mommy and Daddy, but as it turned out, Lindeneau called Evelyn at around 2 to say that Cara had a fever and a sore throat. So the little girl stayed home with us tonight. We watched lots of movies and got takeout for the grownups and pigs-in-blankets for the little girl. (When asked what else she wanted with her pigs-in-blankets, Cara immediately replied: "Asparagus!") We had to convince Cara to watch something different after she suggested watching the same Blue's Clues movie over again as soon as it was done. At the end of the last movie, Cara expressed a wish that she had a TV in her room. Alas. Owen was a good boy through all of this. Ev gave him a bath and took him into his room, where apparently they both fell asleep, since she hasn't come out of there yet and it is very quiet.

10/23/10 (Saturday)

It's been very nice putting Owen to sleep lately. I hold him with his head on my right arm, and he turns his head to face me and nuzzles his face into my shirt. He goes to sleep like that, all snuggled in. Tonight, I was clever enough to put a receiving blanket there, so he could take it right to bed with him.

Grandmama and Grandpapa came up today, and Steve and I got to go out in the morning for a while. Cara and Grandmama painted pumpkins! We had actually already painted the one Cara brought home from her trip. She wanted to paint "Luke on one side and Leia on the other." I assumed that that meant Leia facing one way and Luke on the other side, but really it had to be one face, with Leia on the left and Luke on the right. On the other side of the pumpkin, Cara painted a flower. Grandmama brought up three cute tiny pumpkins, which, under Cara's direction, she has painted beautifully. Cara may embellish some parts of them tomorrow.

Owen and Grandpapa seem to have had a nice morning. They went for a walk, and Owen went to sleep. Upon arriving home, of course, he woke up. That was it for a morning nap for him, so he slept more in the afternoon, though we had to work to convince him to try it.

Later Steve was holding Owen upright, and he started to move him feet as if he were taking steps. The only times he's done that before were when we were shifting his weight for him, so that's pretty exciting. He also, sitting on the hardwood floor, managed to scoot forward on his tushie for a few inches. He's been bouncing a lot lately when he sits, so scooting is definitely coming.

Cara still, as she put it yesterday, has a hurting neck. Actually, she's learned to say "sore throat." She's not doing too badly. I've got it, too, and Steve and I are really hoping to get away without Owen joining in!

10/24/10 (Sunday)

Today was an uneventful day of just us at home. Owen's great accomplishment was taking in about 46 ounces of formula in twenty four hours. When I made those bottles, I really didn't expect him to finish them! He's either got a tapeworm or he's working on a growth spurt.

Cara came outside when I was doing some yard work and told me that I was doing a good job "barbering the bushes." This eventually led to a discussion of possible uses for the word "barbering": it can apply to hair or to bushes, but it really cannot apply to the faces of the customers in her face-painting salon. Once the bushes were looking decent, we worked together to plant the bulbs I'd ordered from a kindergarten fundraiser. Owen spent most of that time outside, too, bouncing and talking to the trees.

Cara had brought out her American flag, which she used to push a ball around. She also used it to flap at Owen, and she showed us the Pledge of Allegiance more than once. Inside, she rode it around like a hobby horse.

It was a really beautiful day, and we decided to end it with a cookout. It gets cooler in the evenings, so we thought it would be nice to sit around the fire and roast marshmallows later on. First I found a four-foot stick that Cara decided she wanted, but then I found one with three useful prongs which she decided would be better. It got dark out, so she brought a flashlight. Steve let her borrow his Dr. Who one, which is blue. She used it for everything. Steve brought Owen inside, because he was fussy, and I sat by the fire while she explored with the flashlight. She found our two cars. She found the window on the house that says "Happy Halloween." She found some Halloween pictures drawn with chalk on our sidewalk. She'd drawn them herself an hour or so earlier.

Also using the flashlight, we walked around the block three times. I tripped a little once because I wasn't watching the sidewalk, and Cara moved over and had me come and walk next to her. She held my hand and explained that I could look at the light from the flashlight or that I could follow her feet. The flashlight was fun for the entire walk. When we finally came home, she went inside before I did. When I did come in, she was using it to look under all of the furniture. She came upstairs. "Mommy," she said, "I just used the flashlight to look in your shoes, to see whether anything was in there." Fortunately, nothing had been. I told her I had more shoes and sent her upstairs.

10/25/10 (Monday)

When we got home today, there was a package for Owen and Cara! It was their Halloween treats from Grandmom. Besides a cool card with holograms on it, Cara got a new Polly Pocket girl! She's a Halloween girl. She's wearing an orange-and-black dress, and she comes with a little black cat and a pumpkin-shaped treat bag. She is different from every other Polly Pocket girl because she has orange leggings painted on. None of the other girls have leggings. Therefore she is now designated to wear all of the shorter dresses. Owen got $5, which he will be using to buy his first sippy cup. It will not be a Halloween-themed sippy cup.

It was a really beautiful day today, so we went outside for a while. Owen lay on a blanket and talked to the trees and laughed at me and Cara while he stuck Playmobil people and shape-sorter shapes into his mouth. Cara brought out our little tray table to work on and her markers and a coloring book, but she also brought her new girl, her new girl's accessories, her bin of other girls, and three houses for them. Oddly, she also took off her shoes at some point during all of these trips in and out, and left them on the grass. When it was time to come in, I offered to bring them for her. She was indignant at the thought of walking on the grass in her socks, though I know she'd just been doing it twenty minutes before.

I made the mistake of giving Cara an artichoke with her dinner, which completely distracted her from her dinner. Owen ate most of his dinner while I was getting ours onto the table, and then he happily sat in Steve's lap while we ate. He really loves a very old toy; I'm not sure where we got it. It's got two circular handles and a round thing spins between them. He was holding that and another hard plastic toy and had a lot of fun banging them against the table and each other. My biggest laugh of the day came when I walked in on Steve changing Owen and trying to convince him not to hit himself until the diaper was back on. He does tend to just hold things and slam them down, regardless of where they may impact.

10/26/10 (Tuesday)

Yesterday, when I picked Owen up, I noticed that the jeans he was wearing were not the ones I'd put him in in the morning. Those had been far too big; I'd cuffed them generously. These fit very nicely! Miss Carol claimed that those were the ones he'd come in, so I guessed that Steve must have changed him before he dropped him off, probably because the pants really were too big.

Steve, when I asked him, denied having changed the pants.

Today, I asked again at YBR. Apparently yesterday all of the little baby boys gave Miss Sandi a hard time about putting their pants back on. At one point they'd had five little pairs of jeans lined up, waiting to have babies put back into them. They'd done their best, and, really, the ones Owen ended up with must have logically seemed like his, since they fit better than his own! Tomorrow we will attempt a switchback.

10/27/10 (Wednesday)

Today I took off, so I not only dropped the kids off, I picked them up, too! I found Owen in the tiny people play area at Yellow Brick Road. He was just sitting there, minding his own business. He was a bit surprised when his daddy came up behind him and lifted him up into the air.

Lately it has been pretty easy to make Owen laugh like a lunatic. You just have to look at him and start laughing. Cara discovered this, of course, and now Mommy can do it as well. The comparison that I thought of is the typical scene in a cartoon or action movie where the big bad guy laughs at something, and his henchmen have to join in and laugh really hard, too, even if they don't see what's so funny.

Tonight was playdate/dinner night, and the Loefflers came over to our house. Cara was very happy to see PJ, but ran out of the playroom so quickly that she actually scared him. This must have pleased her no end, since she has been jumping out at her parents for days, yelling "Boo!" and not getting much of a reaction (the exception is when she does this to Owen--he thinks it is hilarious). I tried explaining to her that it's not very scary when she jumps out from somewhere if I already know she's there--it would be better if I could muster up some faux fear, but I'm not very good at that. Cara and PJ did a lot of running around and loud playing this evening, which I think was very much an extension of what they do when they're at Discovery Time together during the day. I think Cara may be managing to be a more agreeable playmate than she has been in the past--less sensitive and bossy, perhaps. It seemed good for the two of them but it left an awful mess in our downstairs room!

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