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| Previous Week | Back Home | Next Week | Journal Key: Green = Steve | George = navy | Janet = Purple | Evelyn = Black 2/17/11 (Thursday) Today was Owen's first Early Intervention home visit! I like his therapist very much. He scooted around and chatted while we did some paperwork, and then she showed us some exercises to do. We have two things to work on this week. For the first one, we have to sit him between our legs on the floor and put some toys to the side. When he wants a toy, we have to twist him around so that he ends up on hands and knees over a leg. He can get his toy, and when he starts to complain we can tuck one of his legs under and pull on one hip to show him how to get himself back into a sitting position. The other exercise is similar. He sits next to the half-folded Elmo couch and ends up on hands and knees with his belly supported by the cushion. While the therapist was here, she did both of these things and watched me try them, too. This evening, I showed Steve. When he tried the over-the-leg one, Owen's bottom half kind of got away from him. Then Owen decided he was done and somehow went over the opposite way from how we'd have taken him, ending up sort of folded in half, facing Steve. Steve helped him get his torso upright, and he was sitting! I gave Owen a bath for the first time in a while. Steve had complained about it, but I was still shocked that I had a lot of trouble getting Owen to stand up to be washed. For almost his entire life, he's been against sitting down. In the tub, though, if I tried to get him to stand, he just thought it was jumping time and then he'd sit right back down and get back to splashing! 2/18/11 (Friday) Owen had his first YBR Early Intervention session today. The therapist has been there before, so the teachers were all happy to see her. Miss Sandi says that all of the babies were fascinated by her, and so they all got some speech lessons. She's going to communicate with us by writing in a notebook that we'll send with him. Miss Sandi says that Owen was playing with her hair while she wrote in it. She was very impressed with how social he is and how much he babbles. She gave us some exercises to do with him, such as saying "1, 2, 3, go," when we roll a ball. She's going to get us handouts about the first few signs to work on with him, one of which is "more," the one we know. She says that he has a good attention span and is interested in all of their activities. Miss Sandi is confident that Owen understands words, and she claims that they all heard him say "book" today. If I feel like it, that'd be a good first word to claim he said. This evening we went over and played outside (and then inside) with the Loefflers. Cara rode a bike up and down the street a few times, always with one of us helping her to steer. Owen got to walk around outside for the first time, which he thought was great. He really liked the storm drain at the bottom of their driveway; he walked over several times and sat on it or sat near it and scooted over. He also found out that he could scoot down their driveway as if it were a slide. I don't think his socks will ever be the same, but I hope that his pants may recover. 2/19/11 (Saturday) We all had a nice family day today. Cara, Owen and Mommy all went to dance class in the morning. Owen would very much like to hang out with all the dancers, but as this would no doubt distract some of them, he had to settle for an occasional passing visit. On the way to dance, Cara's loose tooth fell out! We were all very excited. Now Ev and I get to figure out how, exactly, the Tooth Fairy will manage to leave her little gift. Cara seems to be hoping that she will get crayons, but we intend to go the normal route and leave a few quarters. Now that Owen is transitioning to the toddler room at daycare, his weekday naps have been reduced from two to one. We sort of tried to work this at home today. He fell asleep on the way home from dance, and got put down, but his nap was very short-lived. He did nap eventually. He also had a lot of good playtime today. Ev and I have been noticing how much more mobile he is lately, and we finally realized that it is now a big problem that Cara has a playroom full of tiny little toys. So today, in order to make the playroom more baby-friendly, we did some major reorganizing. Cara's dollhouses and her collection of girls and their many, many tiny accessories were moved upstairs into her bedroom. At the same time, her books and many of the larger toys we'd been storing in bins in her closet were moved downstairs. This evening Cara and Owen had a nice long period of playtime in the room together, and the amount of times that we had to take things away from the boy was greatly reduced. In the afternoon Cara and I got to go out and buy a lot of birthday presents for various people. Fortunately for Cara this meant that we got to go to Barnes and Noble, where we could share a chocolate cupcake. This treat seemed to really do it for her, and even though we looked at a lot of toys she didn't ask for any of them for herself. (Though there is one item that I am to remember to get her for her next birthday.) I really don't think I would have been so selfless at the same age. I think Cara really does like buying gifts for other people. Of course, while we were there, we did sit down and read every single Scooby Doo book that was sitting on the shelves. Then we had to go right home so that we could watch a Scooby Doo movie. Owen had a sort of a second nap in the late afternoon, but only in Mommy's lap, and he was crabby when it ended, so I took him out to the grocery store. He sat very still in the cart, looking rather shell-shocked, as I wheeled him through the store; but when we got back home he seemed re-energized and ready to play again. After he was asleep, Mommy really had to make more biscuits. Cara is now in the biscuit phase of her childhood (so the pancake phase has, for the moment at least, ended). It has been very hard going the few days that we had to go without biscuits. Now, at last, there are more. 2/20/11 (Sunday) The tooth fairy did indeed visit us last night. Cara has four quarters and my wife somehow managed to find the tiny tooth that was under her daughter's pillow. Today we had two birthday celebrations! The first of them was for Vinnie from Yellow Brick Road, who insisted on inviting Cara to his party even though they hadn't seen each other for some time. When she first heard about the party, it seemed like she was ready to claim that she had never heard of a person named Vinnie. However by this morning she could remember where his bathroom was in his house. Unfortunately she had to wait until nearly 3 in the afternoon to go there, so it was a long day for her. In the morning she insisted on going outside, perhaps for a scooter ride, having misinterpreted my reading of the weather forecast for today. When I finally threw clothes on, got Owen into a jacket, and we all piled outside, we found that the melted snow in front of the house had all turned into thick ice. Within minutes we were back inside. One of Cara's dolls has become "blinded." She informed both Evelyn and myself of this, and emphasized it by taping black paper over the doll's eyes. Fortunately even with the disability this doll is doing great, because she was running her own lemonade stand today. Then later in the day, Cara cured the blindness. But now she is running a hospital and all the dolls are in bed. This evening Cara confessed to me that even she is sick. I expressed my concern about the person running the hospital being too unwell to take care of her patients. But Cara assured me that she is only a little sick. During the birthday outing, it was decided that Owen would do better at home, so I stayed with him. After about ten minutes of screaming, and just as I was getting ready to go up and get him, Owen decided to take his second nap of the day. Once he woke up, we didn't have long to wait before Ev and Cara came back. In the meantime I read him one of his books, Owen's Marshmallow Chick. My parents got this for him because it has his name in it. This afternoon as I was reading it to him, he kept looking up and staring at me. Eventually I realized that pretty much every page in the book begins with "Owen," so maybe he does recognize his name. Earlier in the day I was working on getting him to walk along with his rolling push toy. He made a few very impressive passes across the dining room, before deciding that he wasn't all that crazy about it (he tends to angle himself away from the toy, and I also realized that it's very hard for him to turn). But it was very exciting and I hope to try him on it again soon. In the evening we had our second birthday outing of the day, for Juliana. Cara had had the idea of getting some things for her pet cat as a present, and that worked out well, since I found a card with a big cat head that sang "happy birthday to you" entirely in meows. Em, Casey and PJ came along with Owen, Cara, Ev, myself, and Juliana, so we were quite a big party. Owen got to sit in a sort of combination high chair/booster seat, which worked very well except for the fact that it left a small gap between the chair and the table, into which almost every piece of food we tried to give him fell. The advantage was that instead of falling on the floor it usually fell on the booth seat. Owen did well. He spent a little time being walked around the restaurant (which caused the bottoms of his socks to turn black!), and when dessert came he got to try ice cream. It was very funny to watch him, because he made a very upset type of face whenever he got a spoonful, but he kept leaning in for more. Cara and PJ were also both very silly about their ice cream, because at first both of them claimed that they did not want ice cream at all. "You don't have to eat it," we all found ourselves saying. Of course when the ice cream arrived they both fell to with a will. It seemed as though we got Owen home just in time, as he was just about done sitting at the restaurant. Unfortunately the poor guy seemed to get his second wind when we got home, and is not particularly happy about being in his crib right now. Tomorrow Ev's school is in session (they used too many snow days), but my office is closed, so I'll be staying home with the kids. Cara is going to go to kindergarten but not daycare, which will be interesting. At Cara's request, we are beginning to read The Wizard of Oz over again. 2/21/11 (Monday) Today was my chance to do some major parenting. Ev left for work and Owen, Cara and I got to hang out for a few hours. Owen got his nap at around 10:30 and Cara and I had a chance to color a fairy picture and have some lunch. Cara had me get out a few big pieces of blank paper, because she decided she was going to make a huge picture of a bunch of cavemen. Recently Cara was upset because she could not find her book about cavemen anywhere. Evelyn and I were stumped because we didn't know she had such a book. But clearly she's had it on her mind. I explained to Cara that early man did not live at the same time as the dinosaurs. She nodded agreement and then told me that the long row of beds she had drawn on top of the cave had blankets made of dinosaur skin. Her theory seems to be that the dinosaurs were hunted to extinction. Owen woke up at almost exactly the right time, and we all got ourselves ready and drove off to Cara's kindergarten. I have never had to drop her off there, so I wasn't sure what would be involved. Ron was there as well with PJ. In the event, the kids walked through the main entrance and that was that. I had gone to a lot of trouble to stick Owen into his stroller, with the idea that I might have to wait around until the classes were led to their rooms, but instead I was soon back at my car struggling to collapse the stroller again. Owen and I now had some time together, and we started it off by going to the grocery store. I just took Owen to the store very recently, and both times I was surprised to see how much of a lump he is when he's riding in a shopping cart. He hardly even put his arms up onto the handle. Regardless, all of the retired people shopping with us in the supermarket thought he was very charming. Back at home, Owen and I had a nice time together. I discovered several little things I could do that were very, very funny. I was lying on my side on the floor, and he was sitting next to me. When he leaned against me, I rolled over onto my back. It may not sound like it, but this was absolutely hilarious. Later, up in the living room, Owen cruised over to Cara's fairy coloring book. He found that he could lift a bunch of pages to reveal a picture inside the book. I expressed great surprise when the picture was revealed. We were both cracking up over this little skit. On the developing milestones side, today I convinced Owen to drink out of two different sippy cups, one with juice in it and one with milk in it. It turns out that he has already drunk out of a sippy before, but still--this is progress. Soon enough it was time to pick up Cara from her bus stop. She was very excited to see us. It turned out that not only was today Presidents' Day: since the school system used too many snow days and had to have school today, it also happened to be the 100th day of the school year. Cara's kindergarten class chose to celebrate this with a party! She got a special pencil, made a "100" hat, had a cute 100 snack (a pretzel stick and two cookies to represent the digits in the number), and got to do a cute 100-themed worksheet for her homework. Here are some of the fill-in-the-blank questions on the sheet, with Cara's responses: I wish I had 100 _____. [Polly Pockets] 2/22/11 (Tuesday) So this year we seem to do badly after three-day weekends. Right after MLK Day almost everyone in the house became sick and I was out of work for a week. Today I stayed home with Cara because she had a fever and a cough. As is usual with her in these situations, she was up and down. There was a moment in the morning when she was doing tap dance steps in the kitchen. But she also spent a lot of time on the couch. We did a LOT of reading today. The two of us finished The Wizard of Oz, and later in the day we picked up one of the chapter books that Cara had gotten out of the library and read that entire book. Then even later in the day we read the whole thing over again. The book is a simple mystery story, part of an alphabetical series (a la Sue Grafton, but with much less sex and murder), and I have a feeling we'll be reading other entries in the series. In the evening Cara's temperature went up very high, so Ev decided to take her to the doctor. What followed was a pretty crazy logistical adventure. First Ev left work, picked up Owen, brought him home. We quickly ate dinner, then Ev left with Cara. I put Owen to bed, then Ev returned with Cara, dropped her off, and went off again to go to the parent/teacher conference at Lindeneau. I had almost managed to put Cara to bed by the time Mommy returned. The visit to the doctor went well--nothing serious is going on and we got no prescriptions. Still it will be a Mommy-Daughter day at home tomorrow. Cara is doing just fine at school also, and the teachers have plans to get her to write more instead of drawing pictures. Ev explained her theory that Cara often responds in grunts or squeaks (what the teachers call her "muppet noises") because she watched too much Curious George. (This may make it sound like she is barely verbal--that's really not true. She can speak very well. She just also makes lots of noises.) Owen and I had a fun time in the evening when the girls were out at the doctor. We played on the kitchen floor with his toys. He thinks it's funny that he can push his garbage truck toy forward on its wheels. He has a habit of shoving a toy away and behind him, and then rotating to find it again, shove it again, and rotate, moving his toy and himself in a circle. He found that when he did this with one of his wooden puzzles, he sometimes managed to spin the puzzle. I encouraged him to work at this and he determinedly fiddled with it and managed to spin it quite a few times. I really feel like he is understanding more and more about his environment and his interactions with it. For instance, he understood just how funny it was when I put one of his shape sorter pieces on my nose. 2/23/11 (Wednesday) Cara and I had an uneventful day at home together. She was still feverish, though she never got as high as yesterday, and she was still not eating. She spent a lot of time being pretty limp and miserable, but she did have periods of liveliness. In the morning, we played store. We'd planned it out yesterday as a way to review the coins with her. (She's got a test when she goes back to school.) I cut out squares of paper and she wrote prices on them, using the cent symbol, which I think may only be relevant in cases like this, where small children are learning about coins. She picked out sixteen toys and books, and we taped the prices on. She lined them all up in her playroom, and I got her a laundry basket to use as a shopping cart. She brought a doll with her to be her baby, I gave her a little cup full of coins, and she went in and bought everything. I was the checkout lady. I pushed buttons on my phone to make it beep like a scanner, but I don't think Cara was impressed at all. Item by item, Cara paid for all sixteen. It made me realize how much math is really involved in using money. She knows--or, rather, she should know--the values of the coins. That doesn't really necessarily help her with adding big numbers! Some parts were kind of complicated. As a review of the values of the coins, it was really good. When she'd bought everything, I offered her a new game. I had her bring me two toy bowls. I put some coins into each, and she had to tell me which had more money in it. If she was right, she got to keep what was in that bowl. We worked on that for a while. I do wonder how much is in her bank right now. She was able to see that a nickel and four pennies was worth less than a dime, but remembering and recognizing the coins was still kind of tough. We need to review with her more when she's feeling better before she goes back to school. One cool thing happened: last night, I told Cara's teachers that she'd been reading an A-to-Z mystery. Today was library day, so they took out two A-to-Z mysteries in Cara's name and sent them home with PJ! Cara was limp on the couch all afternoon, and I didn't want to take her out in the cold to get Owen. I called, and Juliana came over to stay with her. As I was leaving, I realized what wonderful role reversal it was! I've been thinking back a lot lately, now that we've gotten to the part of the year when Owen was in the hospital, and this made me remember those weeks when Juliana would stay with him while I went and got Cara. Having Juliana over and then Owen home seemed to perk Cara up. Both kids had fun playing with their dad when he got home. He used a nutcracker on a walnut that had come in a gerbil toy, and then Cara played with the nutcracker. Owen wanted it. Luckily, he thought it was really funny when she snatched it out of his reach. All eighteen times. Cara ate some dinner and her temperature has gotten under 100, though now she's back to 101. Steve and I still aren't sure how we're going to handle tomorrow, but it seems that there's a decent chance that that'll be her last day home. | Previous Week | Back Home | Next Week | |