| Previous Week | Back Home | Next Week |

Journal Key:

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

1/26/12 (Thursday)

Owen and I had breakfast together this morning. He had some yogurt. It mostly goes into him, but some always goes onto his bib. When he ran out, I saw it as an opportunity to get the spoon and clean that up.

Owen: More HO-dirt!

I asked for the spoon.

Owen: NO! More ho-dirt!

Me: Spoon first.

Owen thought about it really hard.

Owen: No, Mommy! Get more yogurt here!

Eventually I did get the spoon and tidy him up and then, yes, I got more yogurt there.

This afternoon was Owen's second annual IFSP meeting, regarding his Early Intervention services. He is officially graduating, but it feels a little anticlimactic and odd. We'll still see Karen next week, for one last visit. He's totally done with PT, which I think is his weaker area, but he's going to see Robin for another three months, twice a month. I don't think he needs her; I think speech is his strongest skill, but she suggests that he could use the support. Basically, we figure it can't hurt him to have a little more therapy. He's definitely on target or advanced, though, cognitively and linguistically. Robin showed me the criteria she used to assess him, and based on what I know he's doing, he's fine.

1/28/12 (Saturday)

After last weekend's snow day, Owen and I were back at gymnastics this week. He did all right with his circuits, the highlight being that he was able to step onto and across a series of low mats that were set out on the floor. (Technically he was supposed to be jumping from one to the next, but that's still beyond him.) He tried a little messing around on the mini-trampoline in the kid room. He was intrigued also by the ball pit that's in there; but I vividly remembered having to rescue him the last time he went in there, so we skipped that.

None of us has yet tired of He-Man. We tried during the week to keep from watching the show too too much; and even today we managed to exert a certain amount of restraint. What we did do was play a lot with the action figures, which is a lot of fun for Owen, Cara and myself. Owen makes a fairly creditable imitation of my Mer-Man gurgling noise, and for some reason has taken to saying "beanie, beanie, beanie" a lot when he's playing--not sure where that's coming from. Fortunately today we found other things for the characters to do besides bludgeoning each other.

Owen still wants to see "rhino, hippo" on youTube when we're at the computer. Today I thought to bring up the hippo ballerina scene from the Disney movie Fantasia. That was a big hit! First there are hippos dancing, then alligators, and later even elephants. When Owen says "elephant" it still comes out sounding kind of like "i-red-it," which I find very endearing. (Ev's current favorite is his pronunciation of "diaper," which comes out like "die-peer.")

1/29/12 (Sunday)

Owen woke up at four this morning, and we could not get him back to sleep. Poor Steve--it was his turn to be up today! When I came down Owen was playing, He-Man was on, and Steve was sleeping on the couch.

I took him with me later to do groceries. Owen helped me pick out apples. First we found a bin of apples that were really not very good-looking, and Owen selected several which I thanked him for and put back. Then I told him we'd done a great job and moved on. I was kind of surprised to find a better bin, and I let him really pick out apples for Daddy. These were a lot larger, and he found that he could not actually pick them up with one hand: he delicately lifted each by its stem and handed it to me. He was very satisfied when we had a big bag of apples next to him in the cart.

After lunch we went to Grandmom's house! There are a lot of great toys there, but Owen spent most of his time playing with the five or six He-Man figures we'd brought! They included the actual He-Man we have, who has no legs. He doesn't let that slow him down. Both Mermen came, and so did Beastman, whose arm keeps coming off.

Owen does a lot of talking with them. They say things like, "I am a Merman!", "What are you doing?", and "I don't know!" Then they slam each other. Sometimes there are announcements like, "Oh, no! Merman hurt!" I have suggested to Owen that when they get hurt they need kisses. Steve doesn't feel that that's kosher.

We'd gotten there late, and we stayed late. Owen got to have a bath. Needless to say, he enjoyed it very much. He got to have a washcloth! It was Owen's turn with the washcloth for a long time. Afterwards he got into his Spiderman pajamas, and he slept happily the whole way home.

1/30/12 (Monday)

Owen's toys are really developing exciting lives. Batman was reminiscing this morning about how all those people hurt him that one time. Skeletor and Beastman were riding horses together this evening. Well, neigh-neighs. They had kind of a tough time with that. Skeletor, who was chuckling a lot, also was telling us all that he was "not nice." (That's a line from the Christmas special.)

When we were driving up Woerner on the way home from YBR, Owen started speculating: "Maybe Daddy home!"

1/31/12 (Tuesday)

We survived another ballet night! Owen got to watch Cara go into her class, but he was still calling for her as I hauled him out of the studio. We went over to the grocery store. Because I was only getting a couple of things, I let him walk and took a basket rather than a cart.

Sometimes I got to decide where we would go, and sometimes Owen did. He took several trips through the bakery, because it was more interestingly decorated than the regular aisles. Running up aisles was fun, though! Eventually we had to get down to business, and I managed to lead him across the entire store by promising him that we were in search of yogurt. By then, he was tired. I carried him to the register. He knew we were on our way out, so he was calling "ga-bye!" the whole time. I had to put him down to actually make my purchases, which really was the major flaw in my plan. Fortunately, he took off not in the direction of the candy, so I just had to keep an eye on him and keep calling him so he'd stay in range, rather than having to disentangle him from anything.

Then we were done. Ga-bye!!

2/1/12 (Wednesday)

I wish I could remember whether Owen ate a good dinner Saturday night, because I know he didn't last night, and he was up at 4:45 this morning. Argh! We'll see whether there's a pattern, maybe, because he didn't eat well this evening.

I've been letting Owen walk outside a lot lately. Today I parked a block or so from YBR, and he was trotting down the sidewalk yelling, "Yah! Yah!"

We went down the block for playdate. I was in the kitchen helping Em, when Ron asked whether I'd seen what Owen was doing. He was standing on a chair at the table, helping himself to salad from the big bowl. He'd gotten some red pepper, too, and he was very happy to have some berries, of which there was a great variety. He was triumphant about being up there, but ten minutes later when we had to bring him back to the table to actually eat dinner for real, he was less enthusiastic.

He was tired, when we brought him home. Steve got him ready for bed while Cara sat in the glider in his room, and so he wanted her to read to him. They sat together while she read a Little Critter book, All By Myself. Because of all the things he'll be able to do when he gets older.

| Previous Week | Back Home | Next Week |