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Journal Key:

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

I've noticed lately that Owen seems to be very solicitous of Cara. We had ordered pizza the other night, and as soon as Owen realized (he'd requested and been eating yogurt) that we had something good, he wanted some. We got him a piece and he got to work. Cara was eating mozzarella sticks. "Can Cara have a piece?" Owen wanted to know. "Cara needs a piece!" Things have continued in this vein. This evening, she got up during dinner to get herself some water. She got a cup. As she was filling it, Owen asked, "Can Cara have some water?"

I'm very tickled because I got him to come upstairs for his bath by declaring that he couldn't get me. It was far more effective than announcing that I was going to get there first, because I was able to set the pace. He did get me, in the end. Then he got to go up on my bed, even though it was covered with the kids' folded laundry. He did a lot of exciting bouncing and flinging of himself, but he didn't wreak havoc. He found a drier sheet and I asked him to put it in the trash in the bathroom for me. Getting off the bed, he knocked off a lot of socks and underwear. I figured that was par for the course, but he stopped to pick it all up. It's clearly the result of good parenting.

7/20/12 (Friday)

Friday afternoon we drove to Cara's camp, picked up our happy camper, and went on to YBR. There we found him exactly as he has been described in these posts: while the other children sit for story time, Owen stands right next to the teacher, totally focused on the book. It was a rainy evening, so we all went straight to Casa Smuga for a cozy supper, some Scooby Doo, bath time, stories, and bed. Grandpapa and I reversed our usual roles; I gave the bath, and he administered the bedtime stories and got the little guy tucked in. Once he was in bed, Cara had some time to join us grown-ups over a jigsaw puzzle; being big has some perks.

7/21/12 (Saturday)

On Saturday morning, shortly after 6, both children came to wake us. Cara had lifted Owen out of the Pack'n Play, and they both seemed quite pleased with themselves. After a pancake breakfast, we drove over to Holmdel Park to see the animals, throw pebbles into the pond, and play at the playground. Cara can pump impressively high on the swings; Owen was moved to emulate her by sitting on a big swing and gripping the chains tightly while he was gently pushed to and fro. Other than that, he chiefly loved racing around the hedges only to discover that I had found him again!

After a great deal of debate about the weather, we all agreed it was warm enough for a visit to the water park, so we went home to eat lunch and change clothes. We were sure Owen would nap on the way down to Asbury, but he cheerfully sang Scooby Doo and Spiderman songs all the way there. At the water park we discovered what we have come to call the 1-hour rule for Owen: he needs an hour to acclimate to a new environment before he is willing to participate. So, for a little more than an hour, while Cara frolicked, Owen sat sedately eating goldfish crackers. Once he decided to experiment, though, he loved the place. He ran under water that poured down on him, and put his foot over spots where fountains leap up. He ran around laughing, his hair plastered to his scalp. He was having so much fun, when he did fall flat on the composite surface, he got right back up and kept going.

George had a grand idea of staying for supper, but I was pretty sure the little guy needed to sleep. Sure enough, by the time we got home he was so deeply zonked out, I lifted him out of the car seat and carried him into the house as limp as a rag doll. He slept for perhaps another hour, and awoke in inconsolable misery due to no cause we could identify; he just had to cry himself out, and then he was his happy self again, able to eat some supper and enjoy Spiderman. As I flew him into the bathroom, he announced, "I am the Green Gob-e-lin!"

7/22/12 (Sunday)

Sunday morning after a breakfast of scrambled eggs, ham and toast, we packed the car, put on our swimsuits, and headed back to Asbury, this time to enjoy the beach. Owen confirmed the 1-hour rule; for an entire hour he resolutely ignored the vast ocean and focused only on a bucket of water and his toy horses. First the horses got dirty in the sand, then they went into the bucket to get clean, and then they got dirty again, and... you get the picture. Once he did consent to approach the water, he loved it! First he walked along between me and George, and every time the water lapped his feet, he laughed. Eventually, he was sitting in it, digging in the sand, wallowing in it - this had to be the grittiest little kid on the beach! Even when a small wave bowled him over, he went right on.

All too soon, it was time to clean up, eat some lunch and head for home. This time Owen did sleep in the car, and woke at home in his mommy's arms at last.

We parents had our last day on our very, very nice vacation and then drove home. Within minutes, we were reunited with our happy children. But we had very little time to sit and chat, because we had to go to a birthday party! One of Owen's YBR friends, Leila, had her party this afternoon. It turned out that The Fun Bus was at Leila's house! It was a converted school bus that all the kids got into, and there was a whole gymnastics routine they got to do. The parents didn't get much of a look inside--we didn't fit! and the windows were tinted--but the kids were running laps, punching a punching bag, doing the limbo, dancing, swinging on a rope (no lie!), jumping on trampolines, and sometimes sticking their faces against the windows to wave at us. At the end, they all got to slide out the back of the bus--it looked like lots of fun.

Then the kids got to play around in the back yard. Owen's special friend, Audrey, was there also. Owen spent a lot of time coloring on some paper that was outside. He also played in the sand box--as if he hadn't already had enough sand on him today! There was a big jug of bubble solution, which somehow never got knocked over, but all the kids kept sticking bubble wands into it that were much too small and would get stuck swimming inside.

Fortunately there was a good enough age range that Cara had some kids to play with also, in between helping with Owen. They both had a very nice time, until it was time to go home. Everyone got a nice big plastic bucket with things in it as a party favor; Owen proudly stomped along with his, banging it loudly against the sidewalk with every other step.

7/23/12 (Monday)

Cara and I arrived to pick up Owen, and Miss Minal wanted to show him off. "Who's the boss, Owen?" she asked. I believe there had been some discussion of Mommy being the boss. However, according to Owen, Audrey is now the boss. At dinner he was willing to say that I'm the boss, but he decided that Cara is the boss, too.

We gave Owen a plastic kids cup of water at dinner, mainly because I was too lazy to get out a sippy and also didn't want to give him juice. He was delighted and drank it with no problems, thanks to all the work YBR has done! Fairly soon I think he realized he'd never gotten the juice he wanted, but we managed to distract him.

I've hung up a chart in the bathroom, and every time Owen sits on the potty he gets a sticker. Once he's put a sticker on each of the twelve or sixteen stars on the chart, he gets a prize. There are several issues here. One is that I let him choose which sticker he wanted, which took quite a while. Another is that he really wanted to wear the sticker. One side of me says, why not? Instant gratification for him, no having to buy a prize for me. The other side is very OCD.

7/24/12 (Tuesday)

As soon as we got to YBR, Miss Minal came over to explain that they had just had popsicles and that was why Owen was kind of messy. We really hadn't noticed any popsicle mess, because Cara and I were both impressed by the sheer amount of mulch he had in his hair. Audrey was mulchy, too, but Owen had more. Eventually we noticed that it was also all over his shirt. Later I looked into his diaper and found lots of much bigger pieces. On the way to the car, I asked him who put the mulch on his head. "Not Audrey! Not Leila! Not Andrew!" Again, I asked who did. He admitted that he did it himself. After the amount of rinsing I had to do to his head in the tub, I hope he'll show more restraint next time.

There was much drama in the car on the way home.

Cara: (whimpering noises, sitting as far away as possible from her brother)

Owen: I can't play with Cara!

Me: Why?

Owen: I did something.

Me: What did you do?

Owen: Sorry, Cara! I say, "sorry, Cara!"

Me: Cara, what did he do?

Cara: Well, it's a little weird. He was just . . . wiping his nose.

Me: Well, now he's confused.

A little while later, he hit her.

Me: Owen, what did you do?

Owen: I hit Cara!

Me: Was that nice?

Owen: No, that wasn't. Cara, that wasn't nice . . . to hit . . . to hit Cara.

Somehow, a large number of Playmobil people have found their way upstairs to be bath toys. The daddy is there, the mommy is there. The mommy's sister is also there, the lady with the magenta shirt and the same hair as the mommy. Tonight, Owen explained to me that that is Miss Sandi. Then Miss Sandi had a fight with a shark.

7/25/12 (Wednesday)

Tonight our normal playdate was cancelled, so we went out to dinner instead. Owen was convinced to eat quite a bit of dinner, even after he claimed to be done, as Mommy kept pointing the loaded fork at him while he was playing with his little guys.

Our evening ran late and I read him only two books before bed. The second and last one was Ferdinand. Owen and I had a disagreement about how to pronounce the word, because I say "Ferdinand" and he says "Ferdimand," and refuses to be corrected. In fact, he appeared to be logically trying to convince me of the error of my ways, by comparing the pronunciation of "Spider-Man" to "Ferdimand." (He has, by the way, taken to pronouncing "Spider-Man" with a very definite "-ahn" on the end, the kind of "a" sound you hear in "ham," for instance.) Clearly, if it's Spider-Man, it must be Ferdimand. He also displayed a potential noun problem, because as we were looking at the first page of the book, which shows a beautiful picture of a landscape with castles in the background and a field dotted with bulls and cows, Owen pointed out the animals and said, "Look! There's Ferdimands!"

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