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Journal Key:

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

2/24/11 (Thursday)

Happy 6th birthday, PJ!

Today I dropped Owen off and Steve stayed with Cara for the morning; I came home before noon and he went in to work. It's really fortunate that he's been able to do some working from home. Cara is somewhat better today. Her fever is down; she had some tylenol in the morning but has stayed under 101 without it since then. She's under 100 now. Still, though, she's not eating and she's not drinking enough. I don't know any more tricks to try!

She was almost herself for a while this afternoon. We did some schoolwork together; I graded things while she did her homework. She read the tableful of sight word sentences that Steve and I had put together last night, and then she wrote sight word sentences in her packet. Last week, she'd really enjoyed writing "I have a robot dog" and then a robot cat and boy and girl. This week, she wanted to do that again. However, she was supposed to use her new sight words, "they," "if," and "what." I convinced her to write "What if I have a robot boy?" That filled a good deal of the paper. "What if I have a robot girl?" followed. She had intended to go through her entire imaginary menagerie, but she was running out of room. She concluded with "What if they are robots?"

She also had to do a journal entry. Her journal was in school, so she made her own paper. Surprisingly, she made a relatively small area for drawing and a lot of lines for writing, complete with dashed lines along the middle. The instructions had included a suggestion for kids who didn't have other ideas of their own, but Cara latched on to it as what she was supposed to do. It was to write about her favorite station. Cara's favorite station is art. A few weeks ago, when they picked stations, art was full before she got to pick. She took Play-doh. She was very bitter. Two or three days after I heard about that, I she told me how much she loved Play-doh and that it was her favorite station.

Today she drew the art station and the Play-doh station, both from above. I'm assuming that the teachers will be able to recognize them. Cara was very concerned about whether it would be ok for her to include both stations. She wrote "I like Art. Art is fun. I like palybo. Palybo is fun."

Juliana stayed with Cara again while I went to get Owen. When I got back Cara was asleep on the couch. She's still there, sleeping fitfully.

Owen had a wonderful day. We didn't get his sheet yesterday, so today we got to see that he's spent two days eating with the toddlers and sleeping on a mat with them! A teacher told me that he really loves being up there and is offended when they bring him back to the baby room. He feels that he's a big boy.

Sometimes this evening he seemed willing to be put down on his front. When I put him down, he immediately flips himself over, from front to back! He can finally roll over! I had to cancel his EI visit today because the house is a sickroom, but his therapist will visit him at YBR next week to give him an extra session and teach the teachers there what they can do with him. I showed them how to give him over-the-leg tummy time, and I know they've tried that and seen how well he can get out of it. I can't wait to see what we can teach him next!

2/25/11 (Friday)

I stayed home from work today with Cara. She finally came down at nine (though she claimed afterwards that she was awake in bed for a while before she came down), with a totally normal temperature. She was still running a little hot later in the day, but she finally started eating today. She had a few small pieces of things and then some chicken nuggets in the afternoon, the closest thing to a meal she's had in days. So we managed to have ourselves a Family Fun Night with takeout food and a movie. Ev and Cara barely lasted to the end of the movie--now they are both in bed--but I think it was a good night. Tomorrow hopefully Cara will actually put clothes on again (instead of pajamas). She is excited about PJ's party!

2/27/11 (Sunday)

Yesterday Cara was a little feverish in the morning, so she had to miss the party after all. It was very sad, but she really wasn't up for two hours of jumping and running around. To help make it up to her, Grandmama came to visit! The two of them read together and did some drawing, of course. Owen flirted with Grandmama, but he also spent a little time napping and some time being cranky.

Last night we started reading Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle. We loved it! It's great when books work on the children's level and the adults' level as well. We stayed up kind of late with it, and then Cara slept a little late. When she came downstairs to the kitchen, we played with Owen for a minute and then she suddenly leaped up and ran upstairs. She came back with the book, which we finished.

Today, everyone was fine. In the afternoon the kids and I brought PJ's birthday present over to him, and I walked Owen around while the three big kids played. He did spend some time sitting with them, and they played with him, too. The hit of the evening, though, was when we played hide-and-seek. The three of them hid, and Owen and I walked around searching very ineffectively for them. It was thrilling for everyone. Later Owen was playing peek-a-boo with me while I changed him, and I was thinking about how exciting that game is for babies and how at Cara's age the bloom is off the rose. I hadn't put those two events together, though: I think I was wrong.

Owen made two possible remarkable achievements this weekend. Yesterday, we were sitting in the living room and I started reciting one of his books to him. He scooted over to the table and started to take books off the pile, very possibly to get that book! This afternoon, Steve was holding him and he was looking at Buster when Steve and I both heard him say "kittycat!" We have done our best to encourage a repeat performance, to no avail. I tried very hard while he cruised around the rim of the papasan, reaching in to touch the cats' paws while they lay there being somewhat less than pleased. I was very pleased with them for not doing anything awful to him. Altogether, I was pleased with everyone.

I got a new laptop today! We're all excited in varying degrees. It's sitting on the floor downstairs, downloading software. Owen really likes walking around the house, of course. There are two places where he is very willing to sit down, and those are the only two places where we don't really want him to sit down. One of those two places is in front of the new laptop, where he wants to push buttons. The other is in the basement, where he would be delighted to play with the cats' food.

2/28/11 (Monday)

Today was a big day: it was Cara's first day back at school, and Owen spent the whole day in the toddler room for the first time! Cara did really well. She took the math test she'd missed and got 100, and she's doing fine with the work they started while she was out. Owen had a great day, too. He slept on a mat like a big boy for two hours. Theoretically, they should both have been exhausted. However, they managed to find some energy for the evening!

Soon, fortunately, chores should be done and Cara should be ready for bed, so we can have an hour to read. It's either Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle or Pippi Longstocking; I went to the library!

3/1/11 (Tuesday)

Miss Sandi says that Owen is doing very well with all the toddlers. At home I've noticed that he makes a whole lot of different consonant sounds. One of his current favorite noises sounds something like this: "Baahhhh-dnnnn." Not sure what that means. I should mention that the other weekend I somehow ended up feeding him a jar while we were both sitting on the kitchen floor. Usually when Owen eats he is stuck inside his high chair so it was funny to watch him eat with freedom of movement. He would take a spoonful, rotate 360 degrees, and then take his next spoonful.

His throwing skills are developing. It used to be that he would pick up an object or a toy and just sort of drop it over his shoulder. He added a swinging motion to that, and tonight he was taking out big wooden animal puzzle pieces and chucking them. He was also managing to do some entirely unintentional clean-up by tossing a lot of his Weeble toys back into their bin.

Today Cara had an author come to the school and read two books aloud to the kids. Tomorrow is Pajama Day! Lucky girl.

3/2/11 (Wednesday)

Owen got Early Intervened at school today! His physical therapist went there and showed his teachers all sorts of things to do with him. Her notes say that he did well and that he actually did better when the teachers tried things with him than when she did, because he was more used to them. She's very impressed by YBR. So are we!

Tonight was playdate, which was very nice. Owen enjoys the novelty and having the big kids to watch. They got out Cara's Cranium game, with the pads on the floor, and Em held his hands and let him try playing with them. Soon, though, he ended up scooting around on the floor, finding things to mess with. At the end of the evening, I told the big kids I thought I could clean up Owen's mess faster than they could clean up the mess they had made. Really, I don't think I could have. He spread a lot of small toys around. Fortunately, none of the kids had any idea who had done what, so they very competitively cleaned up the same things I was cleaning much faster than I was. They won. So did I!

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