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Journal Key:

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

11/3/11 (Thursday)

I think now that when Owen says "D-A-D" he is just talking about letters. He knows that there are such a thing as letters, and he may know that they make words, after having been subjected to so many alphabet books. Tonight he was pointing at the cover of a book and sort of saying "D-A-D." It was interesting to think about what might be going through his head.

11/4/11 (Friday)

We went out for Family Fun Night for a change, and we had a good time at On the Border. They have these little high chairs there, which sit on the bench in the booth and come up a good inch or two above the table. Owen loved it! He could get his feet on the bench and almost stand up, so there was a lot of vigorous bouncing. When the chips arrived, he essentially dove at them. He seemed to like to have three or four big pieces on the table in front of him. He immediately dropped them when his quesadilla arrived; he went at that two-handed. Cara, of course, was planning on having part of it, and it was good that she grabbed a slice quickly! He could just about turn around in his seat, and we were somewhat concerned at the thought that he might attempt to put a piece of half-eaten quesadilla over the back of the bench next to the people sitting there. Fortunately, either he couldn't quite reach or he wasn't interested.

He reached over and investigated my plate of salad, eventually. He ended up with some little strings of carrot, which he seemed to like. I gave him a few more. He amused himself and snacked for a few more minutes, and then he apparently decided that the meal was over. He insisted on putting the carrot back onto my plate and the broken chips back into the basket--oops, there was a carrot on the chip! That went back to the salad. Soon everything was very tidy, and he got hold of my used napkin, which I really didn't want him to have. He wiped the table and spent some time ripping up the napkin.

11/5/11 (Saturday)

For Aunt Claire's birthday, the family gathered at Grandmama's house. Owen was, of course, a busy boy. He surprised Grandmama and me. I was about to bring him downstairs, and he saw the cake, with candles already in it, which Grandmama was carrying. "Appy bir," he said. I'm so glad we both could hear it, because I don't think I'd have trusted myself! Later, Claire got to be the first person he wished happy birthday. He didn't sing with us, but he liked giving high fives after the candles were out.

11/6/11 (Sunday)

Owen had a sippy of milk this morning, and later, before we left for Grandmom's house, it occurred to Steve and me that we'd better find it. It wasn't on the computer desk. It wasn't in the living room. It wasn't in the play room. It wasn't on the high chair. Finally, just to be sure, I checked the drawers where we keep the cups. There it was, with a good inch or two of milk left. He'd cleaned up.

Grandpop is prepared for Christmas with a new train set! It runs around the carpet on a track that's, well, I guess around the size of a coffee table. The kids had fun with it. Owen and I were in the middle of the track, and I started the train. Owen leapt into action and crawled around the inside of the oval next to the train. He made pretty good time, too.

At dinner tonight, Owen was playing with his rhino and leopard toys. He likes to put his toys to sleep; he has a very dramatic snore. Tonight was the first time, though, that he said "wake up!" and stood them up. We weren't sure whether he'd really said it, the first time, but certainly within a minute he was. They kept on waking up and waking up, sometimes without even going to sleep.

11/7/11 (Monday)

Daylight savings hasn't affected us as badly as it might have; Owen slept until about 6:40 this morning, which is fairly normal for him. This evening, though, by seven twenty he was acting as if it were eight twenty.

He was certainly getting plenty of attention. It was a very literary evening. While Steve cleaned up from dinner, Cara and I looked at Meet the Animals with Owen. We were looking at the pictures, pointing at things, when Owen surprised us both by pointing out and identifying Dora! He definitely knows who she is. Cara surprised me by reading pretty well upside-down.

Owen is a very fluent imitator. He says "oh man!" just like Cara. He's become quite the parrot, even imitating inflections. This evening, while he was getting into his jammies, Cara was calling, "Owen, Owen!" "Oh-ee," he responded.

All four of us were in his room, and he sat with Cara in the glider while she read to him for a while. Then he decided he wanted his mommy. I got cuddled up with him, and Steve and Cara started to clear out. When he realized that Steve was going, poor Owen wailed. He got his daddy to stay and read to him tonight.

11/8/11 (Tuesday)

On weekdays, when I'm going to work, I get up a little after five. I put in my contacts and go downstairs to exercise (a very little bit) and then I come back up and shower and get dressed. I'm down in the kitchen before six. Owen rarely gets up before six thirty; sometimes he's still asleep when I leave a little after seven. On weekends, he gets up earlier. Today, I had off. Owen got up, and so I had to get up, at five thirty. I'm toying with the idea of getting a white noise machine on a timer to go on around when I'd start making the noise that apparently keeps him asleep. We did have a very nice morning, though.

Cara and I picked Owen up around quarter to five this evening because they were getting flu shots. I was excited about having him in my car, because that's where we have a Dora doll. I've been calling it a baby, so that's what he's been calling it, but now that we've pointed out who she is, she has her proper name. The shots went well; Cara went first and didn't cry (!), and then Owen cried but got over it fast.

Cara decided to play with Owen's door toy with him. He was on one side, and she would say "knock-knock" and then come through the door. I tried it, too, when they were both over there, but, honestly, it's a little small for me. While I was fitting through, Owen crawled around to the other side. Eventually, he and I were on one side and Cara could "knock-knock" and I could try to get Owen to say "come in." I'm not sure how well that part went, but he was just now saying "knock-knock" in the bath.

It was taco night. Owen had some quesadilla, but when he decided he was done with that I pulled out what's become our go-to food: applesauce. Owen feeds himself. He'll get a third of his bowl onto his shirt, and this evening we saw him trying to scrape it off and eat it, having noticed that that's what we do when he asks for help. His attempt was only moderately successful.

11/9/11 (Wednesday)

It was playdate night tonight. ("Ron! Em!") After dinner the kids went downstairs and Owen found his tiara, which he happily put on so that he could get us all to admire him. Then Ron got out a stack of disposable cups so he could show Owen the old shell game trick. Owen was pretty good at keeping track of the little toy hat that was hiding under the cup. Then it turned into cup-stacking. Owen was surprisingly patient while Ron built a big wall out of all the cups, and only when it was done did he go ahead and knock it down. Owen tried his hand at stacking the cups as well, but somehow his method putting them one on top of the other didn't work out.

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