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Journal Key:

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

"I got a sticker!" Owen told me when I came into the yard to pick him up.

"Where did you put it?" I asked, bending down with my hands on my knees.

"In da mulch!" Owen pointed. We went to look for it so that he could show me. Owen laboriously walked across the yard crouched down with his hands on his knees.

We did not locate the sticker, to Owen's astonishment. We did locate Scarlett. At first, all was well. Owen was to my right and she was to my left, playing with mulch. Just as I was thinking, gee, nothing bad is happening, I looked up and she had run around behind me and was grabbing Owen by the head! Her arms were quite mulchy, too.

Once I'd extricated him, I suggested that we get his lunchbox. "I get it! I get my lunchbox!" said Owen, pushing on me. Rather than staying in the mulch with Scarlett, though, I went with him. He was turning around to push on me periodically all the way to the stairs, where I promised that he'd get the lunchbox and I'd just check his mailbox. Grudgingly, he sort of let me come with him.

In his mailbox Owen had a Father's Day card that he'd made for Steve. Inside, a teacher had written for him the ending to the "I love you because . . . " prompt. Owen's ending: "you make dinner." When I asked Owen why he loves Daddy, Owen said it's because he "plays bears." Owen was very excited about the card, telling me and Cara that he'd made it. It had hearts on it. Who did he make it for? "Me!" Eventually we convinced him to give it to Daddy. I figured he should give it today, while he's excited about it. I got him out of the car and he went running down the driveway, waving the card in the air, until he found his daddy.

6/15/12 (Friday)

Owen and Audrey have been doing some cute things lately. Audrey may be the only other kid left from Owen's days across the street at the infant and toddler center. The other day, Audrey was wandering around being silly with a puzzle box on her head. Owen acquired the other half and soon they were standing next to each other, very happy in their matching box hats.

Today was Friday, and also graduation day for Evelyn, so I got the kids. Owen was busily pushing a toy lawnmower around when we arrived, and was very surprised to see Cara and I. We went to get his things and I discovered two objects in his mailbox. One was a very scribbly-colored person, upon which someone had written "for my mommy." It looks like Owen really did do the coloring.

The other thing was a painted, cut-out piece of paper with two loops of masking tape on one side, which I could only assume was a bowtie. We went back outside with Owen wearing it; he was very worried about it falling off, so he walked very, very slowly, with his head down looking at the taped-on bowtie. Audrey came over to see him, and walked all the way up the stairs until she was face-to-face. I think the teachers suggested that she say "hi" to him. Then Owen said, "Hi, Audrey. This is my bowtie!" Audrey rubbed his hair. Owen responded by also rubbing his hair. It was completely adorable.

I made Owen's love message from his Father's Day card come true tonight by making him dinner. We had pancakes and scrambled eggs. Everyone ate it, many of us in various phases. We would leave the kitchen, wander about for a little, remember our pancakes and return.

6/16/12 (Saturday)

I took Owen with me to the bank today. He was quite willing to go. I needed to deposit a check, so we went up to the counter. It was over fast, but Owen wasn't satisfied. The other times we've taken him to the bank, we've had to go sit at a desk with someone. He's gotten a coloring book. He's gotten to sit on chairs! There were a couple of chairs out for people to wait on, so we went and sat on those. A man, when I'd explained that Owen expected more from a trip to the bank than he had gotten, offered us a coloring book, but, hey, he's got at least three already.

In the afternoon I took him to the library. He was excited about going there, too, though don't think he can possibly have had any idea what it would be like. On the way there I suggested that we get a cat book and maybe some monster books. I can easily find Jenny's Birthday Book, and we read that and started our pile. We got a couple more from there, and then Owen wanted monster books. I had to try looking that up on the computer, but Owen could see no connection between that and getting books. He was not happy. I got one author's name and we headed to find a monster book. It wasn't there, but we found some other books, even some that were Halloweeny. Owen carried two of them to the counter to check out.

6/17/12 (Sunday)

Happy Father's Day!

The kids slept over in Middletown last night, and they'd been to the park already when Steve and I got down there this morning. We gave our Father's Day cards and presents: at the sale at school, Cara had gotten Steve a calculator and some "eau de parfum for men" called "Tattooed, by Inky." She'd thought it was a tattoo.

I had picked up a badminton set for Steve and a glow-in-the-dark basketball for Grandpapa, and so the men and the kids and I took them and headed out to the basketball court. Owen spent some time being very jealous because Cara had the basketball, but I'm not sure that he ever actually got to lay hands on it. He spent his time running around with a racquet, chasing a big pink spiderman ball that Steve had thought to bring along. He liked to hit it with the racquet, but a lot of the time he accidentally kicked it while he ran. Cara worked hard on trying to make baskets. That ball is heavy! Eventually, throwing underhand, she could touch the net or the backboard, and a couple of times she actually made the ball go in!

6/18/12 (Monday)

Today was a beautiful day, so Owen and I walked a couple of blocks to the car in the afternoon. Astonishingly, there was no cat perched on the fence where one had been the other day. As a special bonus, however, we got to both see a dog through the fence and hear it barking. At the next house, there was a pretty orange cat on the front porch. It meowed at us! Then it came down the steps to lounge on the sidewalk, clearly wanting attention. We were not delayed, though, because at the next house a young lady was sitting on the stoop and before I was done being distracted by the cat Owen was telling her, "I saw a kitty and a doggy!" He pointed to show her where.

We put his lunch box into the car. When Owen claimed that he had closed the car door, I accused him of promoting revisionist history. His response had something to do with the word "mystery." I've been realizing that, of all the things Owen says, a large percentage is comprehensible to us and a large percentage is comprehensible to him, and those percentiles overlap but definitely not completely. He says a lot of things he doesn't understand. I also think there is a certain percentile of the things he says that no one, not even he, can understand.

We played on Juliana's lawn for a while. Cara is getting good at cartwheels, and Owen is very dedicatedly working on his forward roll. I think that he physically cannot accomplish it, though, because his legs are shorter than his torso and head put together. He puts his hands and his head down and walks his feet in as far as they go, and then all he can do is sort of fall over. He may believe he's rolling. Sometimes one of us picks him up and flips him over, which he likes.

When I brush Owen's teeth, I like to sing him songs. I feel that it helps to pass the time. Lately, I've been using "You Are My Sunshine." Owen cracked Steve up this evening, after the bath, when he went strutting around, naked, brandishing a ruler threateningly while growling out a garbled and hostile "You Are My Sunshine."

6/19/12 (Tuesday)

Owen's day at YBR had the teachers predicting an exciting evening in our house. While they were playing outside, he hit Audrey with a stick. "Don't do that! Put that down!" she told him. His response was to tell her not to tell him that. (This, of course, is because yesterday he was hitting me with a stick. I looked down. "I hitting you," he said. "Sorry, Mommy!" Progress, I thought!) During inside play, Owen was apparently becoming genuinely angry at his toys.

On the walk to the car, not only did I get to carry the lunch box uncontested (yay?), Owen made me carry him. I suggested that he should carry me instead, and he put one hand on my back and one hand on my chest and tried. He mentioned looking for doggies and kitties, but I told him that on the walk over I hadn't seen anybody. Two women were getting out of their car. "There's anybody!" cried Owen, pointing.

The little buddy did seem a tad delicate this evening. He was not really into his dinner ("I want something else!") and wanted us to go down and play guys instead. Eventually when I was done, I went down to where he was already loudly playing guys. Someone had gotten out a piece of play food--a waffle that was totally out of proportion with the He-Mans--so I decided that the He-Mans would be cooking food. Mer-Man acquired a spatula, which Owen had him wielding exactly like a power sword. "I have the power da Grayskull!" he shrieked, with his spatula.

6/20/12 (Wednesday)

Today was Cara's last day of first grade! I picked her up first and we went to YBR together. We were astonished to notice a small turtle swimming in a tank in the front room! Owen and Audrey came to look at it with us, and we were soon joined by several other children. We heard conflicting accounts of whether Owen touched the turtle, but all of those accounts were from people less than four years old, so none of them can really be trusted. Owen claims that he touched it "on its nose, like this!" The turtle may be staying there for a couple of weeks.

In the grass near the car, we found a little plastic toy otter. He's standing up, holding a fish in his hands. Owen is delighted with him.

To celebrate Cara's last day, we went down to Barnes and Noble. I read Owen a few books while Cara picked out some to bring home (more of the fairy chapter books she's started to read on her own). After a while we all went over to the train table. For the first time, Owen was able to string two cars together and move around an actual train! He also put his otter through the tunnel several times. There's a big roundhouse for the trains, which Owen seemed to be referring to as "the bank." A lot of the trains "went to the bank." Cara pointed out that the doors, like the bank Owen likes, are green.

A little girl who will be two in a couple of weeks came to play, and then, coincidentally, Leila came! The three kids were all the same height, and though of course there were interludes of chaos they also once in a while would each take a train car and all go around the table one after another.

Leila and Owen seem to be great companions. They left the train table and ran off together, playing chase all around the toy section. Owen chased Leila. Sometimes he was a monster. She was running all over, shreiking with glee. For some reason Owen stopped to tell Leila's mom that he had a dinosaur on his shirt. He doesn't. It was a jaguar, which he knows very well. While he stopped, Leila stopped to wait for him. "Owen, I'm right here!"

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