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Journal Key:

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

12/8/11 (Thursday)

Robin saw Owen today at three, and when I got there to pick him up later, Sandi said that Robin had had him sitting at the big-kids' table in a big-kid chair; it's something Sandi hadn't been doing with him, but Robin said that we had the same thing at home so he might as well. Sandi said she'd been amazed to see him sitting there, coloring, so grown-up. It made her think about the time when he'll be moving up into the next phase of him YRB life, when he becomes a Munchkin. He stayed in the baby room later than most of the kids, but he's going to be right on time this time! He's ready for bigger things. Not until his birthday, says Sandi.

Steve and I were amazed when we took out the pictures he'd been coloring; they're all scribbles, but they're very deliberate scribbles on very specific areas of the pictures. Robin definitely helped him some--he told us as much himself, when we showed him the pictures and asked him about them!

12/11/11 (Sunday)

I guess it's been a busy weekend, since the journal has taken a vacation. Friday we got Cara to watch The Princess Bride, and she liked it. On Saturday Owen and I had our little morning together. He was excited to be at gymnastics, and spotted their Christmas decorations on the walls: "Hanta!" He wanted to run off to the equipment instead of doing warm-ups. For one of the warm-up exercises, the kids are supposed to sit down on the mat and then bend their heads over towards their feet. This week, Owen bent his head all the way over until his face was hidden in his feet, and then stayed that way. He cracked me up. We had some good circuits and on the trampoline, Owen sort of tried to bounce by himself for what I think was the first time.

Saturday afternoon we drove down to Middletown to make graham cracker houses! Em and PJ and Casey came, too, so it was a house full of crazy kids. Owen always enjoys these type of occasions. He spent a little time decorating his own house under supervision, but mostly spent the visit wandering through the house, screaming, wearing hats down over his head, playing with neigh-neighs and animals, coloring, or dumping crayons all over the floor. In the evening he had a bath and his Grandpapa sat with him for a few minutes--then left to change his shirt. Owen is a very energetic splasher nowadays.

Owen has had some unusual days the past weekend or so, and this one was as unusual as ever. He seemed to have a harder time than usual going to sleep, though, and even woke up twice during the night, which really never happens. On top of that, he still woke up early this morning. He doesn't seem to be sick, and he finally took a nice long nap in the middle of the day today, so maybe he is getting back on schedule.

Today Aunt Claire came to visit and we did some Christmas-y things. We got a tree, trimmed it, put up some lights around the house, and baked some (Star Wars) cookies. (Owen was a bit alarmed to see the tree when he woke up from his nap, since it hadn't been there when he went down; but eventually he decided it was pretty okay, and he knows the word "tree," so now he gets to say it a lot.) In the morning before Claire came, I spent some time at the computer with Owen in my lap. I ended up looking at a lot of photos from his daycare, and then a lot of photos that I'd taken yesterday. For a while Owen identified people and was engaged, but then he got sick of the whole thing and said "No more Owen!" He was tired of looking at pictures of himself, which hopefully is a good sign that he won't be too vain when he grows up.

In the evening it was time for another splashy bath, and afterwards he was in his room, naked. He grabbed for his favorite book, the Muppet dictionary, and started paging through it. I'm not absolutely sure, but I think that as he stood there naked paging through the book, he was saying, "I love you, Kermit," over and over again. (Ironically, the love affair with the dictionary may be starting to wear off--we didn't have to page through it all the way to "Z" tonight, but switched to a different book after getting only partway through.)

12/12/11 (Monday)

This morning Cara went upstairs to get dressed, leaving her coloring things on the kitchen table. Owen went over to her seat and petitioned to be allowed up.

Me: Cara's sitting there. That's Cara's seat.

Owen: Owee turn!

Well, he made a convincing argument!

This was a hard evening for me, because GiGi passed away this afternoon. Owen, of course, has been unaffected. Having heard us talking about things, he would like to go to Grandma's house.

Owen had some yogurt with dinner, which left him somewhat, well, less than desirable as a person who might flop on the couch. We stripped him before we let him go. He seemed somewhat concerned about it. "Na-did!" he said. "Na-did!" We both guessed for a bit before we realized it: naked! His speech is becoming more and more helpful. When I was getting him into his pajamas, he put in a request for "Cu-Ju Mah-Du," Curious George Gets a Medal.

12/13/11 (Tuesday)

Today was Owen's haircut at YBR! Miss Sandi said he sat in her lap and was very good. He was very excited to see Cara and me when we got there to pick him up. He was handsome. We went to Wendy's for dinner (Evelyn was with her family this evening), and ate back home. I gave Owen his nuggets and fries like a big boy and let him handle it. Eventually, of course, he dumped all the french fries out of the container. But then he started saying "Clean up! Clean up!" and putting them back in the box.

After dinner, the kids were in the living room and Cara decided to try a little Santa-style hat on Owen. Even though it ruined the effect of his new haircut, Owen seemed very pleased with his hat and kept it on for quite a long time.

It was a very screamy bath. Cara came up with us to help pick out color tablets for Owen to drop into the water. Then what ended up happening was, Owen splashed and yelled in the bath while Cara ran up and down the hallway screaming nonsense. It was very stimulating for us all.

Owen's talking, as Ev mentioned last night, is getting really sophisticated. He's constantly saying sentences with verbs and people's names in them. Tonight when he was on our bed he was saying something about "Cara" and "read," which I thought maybe meant that he wanted Cara to read a book to him (though he immediately denied it, this doesn't necessarily mean it wasn't true).

12/14/11 (Wednesday)

While we were cleaning out GiGi's pantry yesterday, Claire and I found two Hantas! They're little rubber Santas, with flexible limbs that have wires in them, just like the one that Owen loves so much. I brought them home, and Owen found them this morning. He was delighted. He can count to two, too! That's all he can count to.

We went down the block for playdate tonight. After dinner, the big kids went downstairs to play and Owen ran back and forth from the kitchen to the dining room, yelling "Hurry up!!" over and over. He was very pleased with his game.

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