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Journal Key:

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

10/18/12 (Thursday)

I had a heck of a time getting Owen into his jacket this afternoon. First he had to stand in a doorway dancing. Then he had to charge into me a few times. Then he had to run around with his jacket and put it on his head and things. One of the teachers told me, though, that they'd put it on him several times today--because he'd started taking it off! They'd actually had to put it on him backwards, to keep him away from the zipper, but that hadn't helped, somehow.

After much delightful fun I had to threaten him with a time-out to get him to stop and listen. Then we were off!

Owen told me a story in the car: he remembers that yesterday, there was a bug on his car window, so I opened the window and sort of chased the bug up it until it reached the top and flew away. This was a pivotal moment in Owen's life.

In the car, he was talking about watching The Wizard of Oz. At Lindeneau, though, he started talking about Harpo. Cara and I both considered him distracted enough to live with the Marx Brothers. In the end, though, we went Tv-free. Owen was talking about Harpo again after Steve got home. "Harpo hurt his head, and he got a band-aid. That's why he's funny!" Not sure when that happened. He definitely has some connection to reality, because he's also told me that Harpo stole someone's sock, which is true.

It was a Night of Many Books. When I got to YBR, there were five kids standing around the little table. Four were playing with Potato Heads, and Owen was looking at a book. He saw me and exclaimed, "I have to put this away!" He ran back from the bookshelf for a hug. At dinner, he found some books on the table and completely distracted himself with two of them. After dinner, I read him The Berenstain Bears Picnic. On the potty, we read Hand, Hand, Fingers, Thumb about six times. Literally. Then Goodnight Dragons. Before bed, I read Dooby Dooby Moo. Finally, he wanted Scooby Doo. By then, though, he was distracted and so I only read about one line from each page and was done and put him down. Still, Many Books.

10/19/12 (Friday)

Friday was our typical Family Fun Night, except that I was the one who picked up Cara and took her to dance, and then went and got Owen. This confused everyone involved, except Cara who was prepared for it. She got up and ran to get her stuff at ABC, while the teacher was still trying to figure out who I was. The teacher at YBR asked if I wanted to go upstairs to pick up one of the Lollipops, but I explained that No, I was here for this little guy.

Cara I had left at dance for her mother to pick up, but Owen I took home and we hung out. Having first said that he wanted to play downstairs with me, he instead was completely distracted by a book that I didn't particularly want him looking at. However, while he was engrossed, I went and put away some laundry without being bothered. We did play a little bit with guys, but Owen's main thing that he does now is take one guy or vehicle and have it do a clean sweep of the train table, pushing everyone to the back or side. This pretty much takes care of play time, and then he wants me to read him books. I was forced to read him several sickening Care Bears stories from our compendium hardback book before he became bored with that.

We were watching Snow White on TV, and I was beginning to get very pleasantly sleepy, by the time Cara and Evelyn returned with dinner. We were happily reunited and had some food.

10/20/12 (Saturday)

Saturday was an exciting cruise up and down New Jersey for me and the kids. In the morning, after some pancakes, we bundled into the car and drove down to see Uncle Jim and Griffin! It was interesting because we very rarely get to have a playdate with Uncle Jim. Cara had been talking about it for a while. When we stopped on the way there to get gas, Owen plaintively asked where Uncle Jim was.

The kids did all right playing together. Cara and Griffin have a nice relationship. Cara likes to play hide-and-seek with Griffin, which is good because Griffin has an almost endless endurance for that game. Owen lost interest in that very quickly and happily played by himself with Griffin's toys. He was excited because Griffin had some little plastic cars with DC superheroes in them (Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern), and he knows them! There were some sharing issues, but nothing major.

Near the end, the kids all went outside and we got out Griff's T-ball set and some soccer balls. They kicked them around and took turns hitting the T-ball; I was pretty amazed to find that, when Owen got hold of the bat, he was actually able to hit the ball off the stand very consistently! (Since we never really have a chance to do this with him normally, this is unusual.)

After that adventure, we went back in the car and drove back up New Jersey to get to Grandmama and Grandpapa! Owen had a pretty good nap on the way, woke up, and it wasn't long before they were back in the car again to go to the local high school for a Halloween party! I myself returned home without the kids.

Saturday evening began with a visit to High School North's "Haunted Woods," where we explored the "Happy Trail," a path through Tindall Park where the shrubs and trees had been decorated with spiders, jack-o-lanterns, bats, skeletons, ghosts and witches. Every few yards we were greeted by costumed teens: a witch and some fairy-tale princesses. At the trail's end were some simple games where all participants were rewarded with candy and trinkets. Cara quickly moved on to a pumpkin-painting table; Owen examined his loot and consumed his candy, thoughtfully and appreciatively, piece by piece.

We tried a second tour of the trail; this time, Owen realized, to his horror, that costumed people were greeting him. He hid his face in my shoulder, and we beat a retreat. Luckily there was a playground nearby with a slide that was just right for him; he went around and around and around, down the slide, up the steps, over the little bridge, and down the slide again. Eventually Grandpapa got hungry and we had to tear ourselves away from this delight. I am happy to report that on the way back to the car we met Superman.

We wound up at the Monmouth Diner for supper. Owen LOVED being in a booth; I can't say he loved sitting there, as very little of his time was spent sitting. He wiggled, he squirmed, he disappeared under the table. Occasionally he ate a little. Occasionally he fed me a French fry. Eventually he noticed that the dishes had been cleared away: "Where did my food go?" Buddy, if we had known you wanted it, we would have kept it for you.

Back home I tricked him into his bath with a ploy I use every week: I declare I am going to put him in the bath with his shoes on. He gets so invested in explaining to me that he has to take his shoes and socks OFF that eventually we demonstrate. Once the shoes and socks are off, everything else comes off too. It was a VERY vigorous bath. I have the impression that dangerous enemies were vanquished. As for me, I sat with a towel over my lap.

10/21/12 (Sunday)

Owen and Cara both woke at about 6:30 in the morning. Owen was quite clear about wanting pancakes until he got them and realized he wanted eggs. He ate the eggs all up. We ate the pancakes.

After another hilarious pillow fight, Owen took Grandpapa outside to color with chalk. By the time Cara and I were ready to join them, they had vanished into the park to look for horses. They found horses! At about this time, I went off with Claire, and Grandpapa spent a pleasant morning in the park with both children.

The kids got home very happily in the middle of the day. We scraped together some lunch in the house, having tried and failed to tempt Cara with a short trip to a new local restaurant. Owen, as is becoming his habit, was fed in a sort of roaming capacity in the playroom, while I also tried to read stories to him. I finally coaxed him up to his room for one more story, which he tried to read to me. He likes to make these claims.

Cara went off with Evelyn to do some errands and go to the book store. When Owen woke up from his nap, he entered a period of hysteria in which I was unable to get him to communicate any of his desires to me, even by suggesting that he forget about using words and just walk to the place he wanted to be. We finally decided that what he wanted was to have a drink and watch "Toy Story." I'm not actually sure that Owen has ever watched the movie Toy Story, but lately we've been watching a related short movie on the web. Instead of that, I found our DVD of Toy Story 2 (we don't seem to have the first one at the moment). We have been watching it ever since. It's still on now! It didn't help keep Owen at the table during dinner time.

The buddy has been off-and-on this evening, sometimes being completely crazy and happy, and sometimes being completely crazy and unhappy. At one point after I took him upstairs for a requested pillow fight, which somehow didn't happen, he freaked out and decided he wanted to walk in the stroller (as Evelyn had suggested a few minutes earlier--but now it was his idea). So we went out and walked around, and came back. In the house, he spent a lot of time yelling nonsense with jackets or blankets over his head. At one point he and his mother had a conversation in which it was determined that we were all Captain America. Owen was Captain America Boy and Cara was Captain America Girl. Evelyn asked them for help, and they defeated several monsters. Now he is in his pajamas with a wrestler figure from Grandmama's house, whose name, he claims, is "Mister Hamson" or possibly "Damsen."

10/22/12 (Monday)

The mystery of Mister Hamson has been solved! Grandmama and Grandpapa have been referring to that particular wrestler, who has long, blonde, flowing locks, as "Samson." Ha! Mister Samson took a ride in the car this morning, since Owen brought him along. Then he stayed, uncomplaining, in my car all day while I was at work. I gave him to Owen when I got home, who was overjoyed, and who immediately put him down somewhere or other, and we never saw him again.

In the afternoon when Evelyn was picking Owen up, Juliana called. It was decided that Owen would say hello to Juliana. He did, but then tried to show her a stick he had found, apparently by waving it in front of the cell phone. Oh, well.

Tonight we were all very tired and I understand that every one of us (except perhaps Owen) had a headache, so we were all going to rest and relax and be quiet. So naturally we put on Scooby-Doo and baked chocolate chip cookies.

10/23/12 (Tuesday)

Owen was happily running around the playground at YBR with his jacket on backwards, hood bobbing on his chest, this afternoon. This is far better than yesterday, when he was running around the playground with his jacket in his hands, whipping it at the ground, rubbing it in the mulch, and putting it onto his head. I was considering whether to send him two jackets, one to wear and one as a toy, but I much prefer this straightjacket method. I saw another little boy sporting the front-hood. It's all the rage.

As he often does, Owen had something to tell me about his day. "When I was upset," he said, "Miss Vicky said I couldn't go under the table!" I thought about it and have decided he misplaced his "when." It works much better that way. It also fits better with the other pieces that I eventually heard: Audrey was upset, too. He was under the table with Audrey. Audrey wanted to go under the table, too. Miss Vicky said no to him!

Steve is just putting Owen down. Last night, he told Steve he didn't want his mushroom (his night light) on. He has curtains that make the room fairly dark. He slept through the night with no problems. Tonight, he's going to try it again!

10/24/12 (Wednesday)

In the area of night lights...Owen did make it through the night again with no light, so far as I know. But tonight he decided he wanted it on.

Evelyn had conferences tonight, so I had the kids for the evening. It was a typically lazy evening with just Daddy. The kids ate various things, watched some TV, and I let them eat cookies, too. There was at least one moment where I had both kids crying at the same time. But we all made it through okay.

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