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Journal Key:

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

It has been a hard few nights for Owen and his parents. For some reason he has been waking up in the night. Last night I sort of heard him in my sleep, but didn't think it was particularly important until Evelyn suggested that it was my turn to do something about it. So I got up and read Owen The Fire Cat, which I had read to him just a few hours before, and put him back to bed. Then he was up again in the early morning, so that we parents had to swap off watching him to be able to take showers.

Not sure why that's going on. He doesn't seem sick, particularly. But he was also difficult with his mother this evening, before I got home from work. Evelyn resorted to opening his bag of Gettysburg soldiers, which we had purchased at the Civil War event we went to last weekend. It didn't really work. I took him out of his mother's arms when I got home, and we played with the soldiers a little until dinner was ready.

I was very surprised to find that Owen strongly, strongly objected to having the soldiers standing or lined up in any way. It seemed that any kind of ranks or organization seriously offended him. As soon as I started doing it (because what else can you really do with a bunch of army men?), he told me "No, Daddy, stop doing that!" and knocked them over.

The phrase that I heard most often today was "Daddy, can you play with me?" I heard it many, many times at breakfast, where I had Owen sitting next to me with some He-Mans while I tried to eat cereal. I heard it many times while we were playing with army men. I heard it in the tub, also, where we took some of the army men to play. They all floated in the tub, which I thought was a nice feature. I think it's funny that the one weapon Owen has identified among all the weaponry is a "light saber." It's really just the ramrod that the guy who fires the cannon is holding.

I do actually try to play with Owen, fairly often. But it never seems to be concentrated or consistent enough for him.

8/10/12 (Friday)

Three conversations:

One. In the car, on the way to YBR.

Owen: Mommy, can I be a pirate?

Me: OK.

Owen: I'm a pirate. I'm an orange pirate.

Two. On the way back to the car after YBR.

Me: Owen, we're going to go get Wendy's. What do you want?

Owen: I want . . . the Wendy's.

Three. In the car, heading home from Wendy's. I hand Owen his fifth or sixth French fry.

Me: What do you say?

Owen: Can I please have another one?

8/11/12 (Saturday)

This afternoon we went to Grandmom's house, where Cara and Owen were reunited with Griffin! Everyone was delighted. Cara was a big hit. When Griff left the room, we'd hear Owen calling, "Giffin, come back!"

The boys are sort of starting to play together. They love running together. For a while Owen and I were on the couch, and Griffin would run down to the end of the hall. Owen would peek at him, and he would scream and run back screaming. Then all three of us ran up and down the hallway, with varying amounts of screaming.

Jim, Griffin, Owen, and I were downstairs. Owen liked getting onto the exercise bike; he'd sort of straddle the body of it. "I am SpiderMan," he said, "on this roller skate."

The boys found a set of foam balls, one each for baseball, soccer, football, and basketball. They did a lot of throwing; mainly they can sort of throw the balls four feet in front of them, and then they go rolling along. I don't think either of them can catch. They can both carry the balls around, though, which is fun, and it's excellent that there were four balls, so we never ran short.

There was a rainstorm as we left. From the car, we saw a rainbow.

8/12/12 (Sunday)

The weather was beautiful, and we took advantage of it. In the morning we hung out outside; I trimmed the bushes, and Owen and Steve drew with chalk. A lot. At the end, when I brought him inside before lunch, we had a fierce disagreement because his shorts were covered with chalk but he really didn't want me to change them. He hasn't really made much progress with taking his shorts off by himself, but he understands absolutely how to hold them on!

After Owen's nap, we all got in the car and went to Johnson Park to feed the goats. The first few times Owen held bread out towards the fence we held his hand, but soon he was ready to feed them on his own, and he was thrilled. He'd give a goat some bread, make a victory lap around me, and reach up for another piece.

Cara and I took Owen down to the mall to get his hair cut. He'd been getting it done at YBR, but this summer they hadn't done hair cuts, and he was very shaggy. We hung around and had a snack and then moseyed down to the Kids' Cuts place, where Owen got to choose which vehicle he wanted to drive. He sat in a taxi. He didn't mind getting that robe over him. He didn't mind the hair cut at all! The woman did a nice job: she got the buzzer-thing and went "tickle, tickle, tickle," at him. He was tickled. His hair is shorter, I think, than we'd ever had it. It had gotten very long, too: she must have been cutting off over an inch of hair. It's nice. Afterwards, he went with Cara to tip his stylist and then both kids got lollipops.

Owen was delighted to come home and tell Daddy he'd gotten a haircut.

8/13/12 (Monday)

Owen slept until ten of eight this morning. Clearly, his hair had been waking him up in the mornings.

Today Owen told lots more people, including me, that he'd gotten a haircut.

Claire came up, and we bought lots of dumplings at the Asian supermarket for dim sum night. We also, by way of a bribe, bought some treats for dessert. The biggest hit of the night, kid-wise, was pocky. Pocky is long, thin sticks of a mild cookie, dipped in chocolate. Cara understood that the undipped part was the handle. Owen did not. He went for a two-handed approach. Many times, over the past few years, I have been thankful that we opted for stain-resistant couches. Tonight was one of those times.

8/14/12 (Tuesday)

It's really nice when something Owen learns is actually helpful. He's been working on getting out of his car seat. All I have to do is unbuckle him, and he gets his arms out, slides down to the floor of the car, and steps to the door. I've been holding his hand as he jumps down or, if he feels like he needs me to, picking him up to get him out. Just a few weeks ago, he couldn't even get his arms out of his straps!

Lately he's been saying some things that I thought were pretty impressive. He's mastered the word "after." "After I eat this, I'm going to eat this," he'll tell us. We were playing on the bed this evening, and Owen fell down dramatically and cried, "What happened to me?" (This is a game Cara has been playing with him.) I told him I knew what was going to happen to him and moved to tickle him. He scrambled away, stood up, and told me he knew what was going to happen to me. Then he head-butted me. "I am a superhero!" he announced. He head-butted me again. "I know what's going to happen to you, other superhero!" he said. "You are a superhero, too!" Then he head-butted me.

8/15/12 (Wednesday)

Thanks to children like my son, Miss Vina says she may have to get out crayons instead of markers when it's coloring time. He came home again with various self-created tattoos running up and down his arms. Fortunately today there were no smudges on his face. It was playdate night, so we were at the Loefflers'. Owen managed to eat pretty well, then wandered downstairs with the other kids, where--for a while, at least--we didn't actually have to be with him. When I went down, he was playing with PJ's Transformers. They are actually Transformers that don't transform, which as it happens was probably for the best, because Owen was playing with them in a very violent fashion. There was a lot of throwing them down and smashing them into each other. It's a good thing they are sturdy robots.

At home, Evelyn spent a very long, but ultimately fruitless, potty time with Owen. There was water to play with, and songs to sing, but there was no pee-pee. He is getting used to sitting on the seat, which is good.

For storytime I read him Babar. He has taken to pointing at various things and asking "What's that?" even when he knows the answer. But there were also very confident comments like "That's a camel."

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