| Previous Week | Back Home | Next Week |

Journal Key:

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

11/24/11 (Thursday)

It was a long drive to Pennsylvania for Thanksgiving Dinner at Sally and Ron's house--and Owen barely fell asleep at all. Ha ha! He still had a nice time there. He got to play with Lily, who is much bigger these days and talking adorably, and he also got to play...in the same vicinity as Griffin. Both boys became enamored of a pink stroller that they took turns pushing around. Lily very nicely shared toys with Owen, and we let Lily play with the Playmobil toys we'd brought. Owen still knows how to say "Grandpa," and also "Grandma." He found his "Grandma" Playmobil toy and showed it to his grandma. He had the grandma at the table at some point, and he would take her and turn her around so she was facing away from him, then say "Where Grandma go?"

We were so sure that Owen would fall asleep finally on the way home. But did he?? Nope. He was pleasant enough, though, and it gave us a chance to change him and actually read him some books when we got home. In his Muppet Dictionary, there is a definition for the word "knight" that shows a picture of a knight in armor on a horse. Unfortunately Owen was introduced to C-3PO before knights, so he looks at the picture and says, "Robot!" So I had to try to explain that to him, and now he seems to know the word "armor."

11/25/11 (Friday)

Owen's addiction to watching animal videos on youtube has really become a problem, and we spent a lot of time today not showing them to him. When we do let him watch, he doesn't find them as satisfying as he once did. I hope that he gets over it and stops asking for them, rather than turning to a life of crime to support an expensive habit of seeking better and better animal videos.

Claire came up today, and both kids immediately wanted her attention. Usually she picks up a cat or two first, but today Owen wandered over the second she was in the door. He picked up a nearby book, a board book shaped like a bunny, to show her. Then Cara called her over to see an art project. Owen watched her go. He tried hard to make his book look interesting. Soon he was dramatically dropping it to the ground and then picking it up again to attract attention. The three of them ended up going off together to the playroom, where the children were apparently able to share Claire.

This evening I was tidying the playroom while Owen marched around with a tiara. He worked hard to put it on himself, but eventually he admitted that he needed help. I put it on him, and off he went. He kept repeating something, and eventually I started to get suspicious. "Happy Thanksgiving," I said. "Happy Thanksgiving," he answered. Just as he keeps on wearing tiaras because he knows we think it's cute, he figured out that this was an exciting trick. The thanksgiving-ing went on and on and on.

I feel I should point out that Owen tends to drop syllables when he has a lot to say at once, so his "Happy Thanksgiving" was a lot more like "Happy Giving," which actually came out sounding to me more like "harbor kitchen."

11/26/11 (Saturday)

There was no physical therapy this week because of Thanksgiving, but I sort of wish there had been--I'm looking forward to showing Karen how much progress Owen's making! He's definitely interested in walking down stairs rather than scooting down; he holds a hand and puts his other on the wall. He's not doing quite as well woth walking up, but that's because he's a lot better at crawling up than he is at scooting down. Our other therapy goal was for him to make sentences, and he's doing lots of that, too.

We've been timing family get-togethers to start after Owen's naps, and today we were desperately glad to get into the car because he woke up very screamy. The drive, of course, rebooted him, and he was his usual charming self at Grandmama's house for our second Thanksgiving.

I was nervous, but Owen reached right past the bowls of salsa and guacamole to take chips out of the big bowl in the middle of the table. Once he had a chip, he would get Steve to pick him up onto the couch. He'd lounge and hang out for a while, and then he'd go get a new chip, leaving part of the old one on the couch. His goal seemed to gradually amass a large collection, and Grandmama got him a container to put them in. We distracted him when he began to transfer large amounts of chips from the big bowl to him own.

He continues to like to shut doors, and there is a door at the top of the stairs into the kitchen. Owen's been shutting it on us for weeks, but today he added a new step. He'd come up, shut the door, and then say goodbye to the people who were still downstairs: "Bye, Cara! Bye, Grandpa!"

At the table, Owen liked to contribute to conversations. He held two forks on his head and announced, "Hat!" He pulled his shirt up, found his belly button, and said, "Beep!" He played peek-a-boo.

Return of the Jedi was on, and Owen got to see it for the first time as a mature toddler. He was excited to see C-3PO, whom he has been identifying as "robot!" in a few books. "Robot!" he would shout whenever he came on. Steve was concerned when the scene with the rancor started, but when the big monster came out, Owen let out an appropriately loud growl.

11/27/11 (Sunday)

I had the day with Owen today. It turns out he's taken a liking to the movie Tangled, almost entirely because it prominently features a horse named Maximus. So he brought the empty DVD box to me, saying "neigh-neigh?" very plaintively. It's pretty hard to watch a Maximus-only version of Tangled. There's also a scene in the movie with a lot of very rough-looking guys in a tavern, one of whom is small and white-haired and has a beard: Owen thinks he is Santa. Another thing I tried on him today was Blue's Clues, which seemed to work pretty well.

I discovered that Owen knows how to say "hospital." This is of course because Curious George goes to the hospital (in the book of the same name). I thought for a little while that the obsession with George was over, but it isn't.

I had my timing off a bit today and didn't go to get lunch until past Owen's nap time. As a consequence, he fell asleep in the car and I had to wake him up when we got home to feed him. He had a nice lunch but didn't want to have his nap afterwards. He was a long time going down and a short time asleep. Afterwards he had even more to eat; then we had a very inactive visit to the park. Owen climbed up into the playground equipment and sat down. When I suggested he go down a slide, he was annoyed. Later he spent some time sitting on a park bench, barking at dogs. He did consent to go on the swings for a little, and with my support he climbed his way up a little climbing wall.

In the early evening I took him to the supermarket. Lately he tends to get noisy in public places, and he either doesn't understand or doesn't care when we tell him to be quiet. In the checkout line, I'm pretty sure he was loudly wishing the people at the Pathmark a Happy Thanksgiving.

11/28/11 (Monday)

Cara finished dinner first and headed out to play on the computer. When we let Owen loose, he went right out after her to try to get her to show him a rhino. It didn't work.

More Curious George facts: at the beginning of the original Curious George, George is eating a fruit which Owen very carefully identified as a "ba-na-na." Seeing that I was impressed, he went on repeating the word, but was more hurried and it ended up coming out different. Later in the book, when George is seduced by a bunch of balloons, we see a blonde-haired older sister buying a balloon for her little brother. Owen is quite convinced that the girl is Cara.

Tonight Owen wanted to go down in the basement--possibly because he'd seen a few other people make trips down there--so I took him down. Once down, we didn't know what to do with ourselves. Owen looked at the Wii balance board on the floor, and I suggested that he try jumping off of it. It's only an inch or so off the ground, so it was very manageable. Owen would step up, then prepare himself by putting his hands behind his back or saying "ready...ready!" and then step dramatically down. No jumping yet!

11/29/11 (Tuesday)

When Miss Sandi opened the door at YBR this afternoon, she greeted me with a "Happy Thanksgiving!"

Owen had a really pleasant evening, even playing more independently than usual. It's possible that it was because we ate earlier than usual, but it's also possibly because PJ and Casey were over for an hour. The three big kids were playing in the living room while Owen happily looked at books downstairs. When it was time to get him to go up for his bath, he didn't want to. We've been using bath colors for a couple of days, and he's been excited about them. Yesterday, mentioning the colors was enough to get him heading up. Today, I eventually suggested that he could show them to PJ. That was an idea a little boy could get behind. I had to make PJ come up and see while Owen tossed the tablets into the water.

11/30/11 (Wednesday)

At playdate this evening, the bigger kids were playing hide-and-seek upstairs. Owen and I went up and joined them, and Owen found something very exciting: PJ's lion! He loved it. I suggested that he put it down. No. I asked him to give it to PJ. No. He went around clutching it and saying, I think, "mine." Nothing bad happened, though, and soon I was able to distract him with the idea of finding Casey (who was hiding) and Daddy (who was not), and he dropped it.

| Previous Week | Back Home | Next Week |