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Journal Key:

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

10/26/12 (Friday)

We bring to you a special Friday edition of the journal, because I have the time and because we skipped Thursday night. Thursday was a "we're all tired" night. Honestly, I don't remember much of what happened that was particularly interesting.

Tonight was Friday night and Family Fun Night. It was also Cara's dance class. And in another also, it just happened to be the Halloween Boogie Bash at Lindeneau! In actual fact, Cara and Evelyn are still out at the Boogie Bash as I write this. Owen and I picked up dinner for us at a local Mexican restaurant that just opened up. Our timing was good, since Cara and Evelyn just got home as I was coaxing Owen out of the car.

Earlier, he had gotten annoyed with me because I'd stuck him in his car seat in one of those rare moments when he decided he wanted to climb in himself. As we were getting out, Owen managed to slide out of his seat by himself. "There!" I said, "What a nice treat for you." "A treat!" said Owen, now convinced he was going to get candy or something. Evelyn fixed this by finding a box of raisins in the house, which Owen was quite willing to believe was a treat.

Neither of the kids really ate much: Owen didn't eat because sometimes he just doesn't, and Cara didn't mostly (I think) due to excitement. She had to go and get into her costume, which really is a very pretty witch dress, and then she bounced around asking Mommy whether she was ready to go yet. Owen and I hung out and watched some of Snow White, which he is really into lately (in book form and in movie form), and I managed to get him to eat a little more than raisins.

Then it was Potty Time. We have not progressed with potty training at all. We have backed down from pullups because they were not cutting it during the day, and he continues to sit on the potty only in the evenings. He's had a few lucky moments where he's happened to pee while sitting there, but that hasn't happened for a while.

However, he does have a sheet of paper absolutely covered with stickers from all the times he has sat on the potty, so I figured it was a good night to give him a prize. I found a pair of horses, presumably a parent and its baby, with which he played while in the bath. The horses had a strange relationship. I believe they had at least one exchange like this:

Horse 1: Hello, I am nice. Are you nice?

Horse 2: No! PSH! (Horse 2 hits Horse 1 with great force.)

Other times they were more friendly.

Owen always used to be very good at bed time; once you were done with stories, he would quietly be carried and placed in his bed. Nowadays, it is getting a little harder. He always claims that he wants to read the story, which of course holds things up. Then he will stop a book partway through and ask for a different one, which is a clever way of circumventing the "when this one is done, you're going to bed" concept. Last night with poor Mommy, he decided he simply must be the one to turn off his own lights, and flipped out when that didn't happen. Tonight, he decided there was something on his thumbnail that needed to be trimmed; once we'd taken care of that, I thought we were done, but I still got some flipping out. Eventually I was able to get from him that it was because his night light was on, and he had to be the one to turn it off. Thankfully we worked it all out.

10/28/12 (Sunday)

Saturday Grandmom and Grandpop came up! They had brought lots of nice things, the most exciting of which was a batch of cupcakes which Cara helped to decorate with enthusiasm. Dad helped me outside, packing some things away in preparation for the coming storm. Then we all had a nice lunch, and the buddy had a nap. We had some time to hang around, and the grandparents had a chance to see Owen when he woke up from his nap, and then they had to go.

We spent some time hanging out for a while and then, even though we knew he was coming, were completely surprised when Grandpapa George arrived to pick up the kids for a sleepover. We scrambled to pack bags and the kids waved goodbye and were off.

I'm sure the kids had a lovely evening.

This morning we learned that Owen really, really likes showers. Really likes them. I think he enjoyed the shower more than the water park last summer. To encourage thoroughness, we tried singing The Hokey-Pokey - I think he has a vague notion that it involves turning around. So, if he starts singing The Hokey-Pokey, now you know where he learned it. (He did have a bath Saturday evening, too. He is super clean.)

The kids got back in the afternoon on Sunday. Everyone reading this "contemporaneously," as it were, will know that Hurricane Sandy will be hitting the East Coast in the New Jersey area tomorrow. So Evelyn has purchased a lot of storm supplies for if the power goes out. We already know that Evelyn and Cara's schools will be closed Monday and Tuesday, and Owen's school and my office are closed tomorrow. Tonight we all took a look at some of the exciting supplies Mommy had gotten (some of them will remain surprises, until the right moment of boredom). We also spent some time gathering candles and flashlights. We are pretty prepared, and hoping that the worst we experience is a temporary power outage. We are toying with the idea of perhaps sleeping downstairs tomorrow night, like we did during the last big storm. Cara remembers this. Back then, though, Owen was younger, and we didn't have a big train table in the playroom!

10/29/12 (Monday)

Hurricane Sandy didn't give us much trouble during the day; we stayed in and basically played the whole time. While Owen napped, we moved his train table and took the mattresses down to get ready to camp out. Having two big mattresses on the floor is great for jumping. Like, really great. Great. Uh-huh. Cara and I made a really elaborate setup on the floor with thetrain set, and Owen barely cared.

Towards dusk the power went out. We had our candles and flashlights ready, and we ate dinner in the dim kitchen. The power came back for an hour or so, but then it was out for good. We settled in the living room to watch a movie on one of the laptops; we got ready for bed while it was playing.

All going to sleep downstairs was exciting. First, we read to Owen. Cara and Steve recited The Bears' Picnic while I turned the pages. Then we told him it was time to sleep, and I got out The Ordinary Princess to read to Cara. We told Owen to lie down. On his tummy. He lay on his back. We asked him to turn over. He sat up, turned around, and lay down on his back with his head where his feet had been. We gave up. Steve was lying on his tummy, and Buster showed up (since we were downstairs, in her territory, she was happy about being on the bed) lay between his knees. Owen climbed up and lay on Steve's back, then rolled off. This was great fun. He did that several times.

Finally, I finished our book. We told Cara, no, she couldn't read on her own, it was time for us all to go to sleep. We turned off the lights. I invited Owen to cuddle with me, and I lay on my back. He climbed up and lay on his back, on top of me. "Like a diamond in the sky," he sang. I had to try not to laugh, even inside, because he'd feel it and crack up. Eventually he turned over and I rubbed his back. I thought he'd go to sleep like that and I'd really be in trouble, but after a while he announced that he was getting off, and he did. He lay next to me and went to sleep.

10/30/12 (Tuesday)

Today was a long day with no power. We tried to stave off boredom and keep the kids from antagonizing each other. During nap time for Owen, Cara and Evelyn went over to visit PJ and Casey; when Owen woke up, I suggested we go over too. He was completely uninterested, which I found surprising. He may have been happy to have one parent all to himself. We played, and colored, and were reading when Mommy came back to fetch us.

When we got there, the kids had an activity: carving pumpkins! Our original batch of pumpkins which we carved near the beginning of the month had long ago fallen prey to hungry squirrels, so it was nice to get a chance to make new ones. Owen had nothing to do with this bit, and spent a lot of time downstairs. The kids have a Spider-Man themed target practice thing, sort of a fabric-tent-booth thing, which happens to be just large enough to fit a tiny chair into. Owen was amusing himself getting into the chair and gathering items inside. It seemed to keep him happy.

We returned home as it was starting to get dark, to have an early dinner and while away the evening. As the sun set, we got out our lights and tried to do some coloring. Owen and I played He-Mans in the dim light. In between, Evelyn and I tried to get cell phone calls to go through (for some reason with almost no success), and listened to the radio for updates.

We settled into the living room at around 7, with our laptop. It had around two hours of battery life left, and after that another laptop that we could drain. Owen was constantly being upset because he kept asking us to put things on the computer or on the TV, and seemed to think we were intentionally not allowing it. The laptop was our one functioning DVD player.

I think we were all pretty happy when, partway through the movie at around 7:30, the power finally came back on. Cara was crushed because it meant that we wouldn't all be sleeping downstairs again. But having electricity, internet, and phone back is a huge relief. Here's hoping it stays back on!

10/31/12 (Wednesday)

I'd say Happy Halloween, but it's been postponed until Monday because of the hurricane.

It feels very luxurious to have power again. In the morning we all bundled up and went outside to do some clean-up. The entire yard was thickly blanketed with leaves, both whole and in tiny bits, and the house and cars are still plastered with them. We got out our rakes and I brought a big tub for sticks. Cara taught Owen to rake leaves, but I distracted him by putting him on stick patrol. He liked picking them up, but soon he decided, instead, to stir the tub and "make dinner."

He and I went over and collected some at Juliana's house, too. Cara and Steve used the saw to cut up a big branch that had fallen on her driveway. Ron and the kids (Em was at work) came down to help and hang out. I got Owen a snack and he spent the rest of the morning happily munching chips and then Kix while he watched us work. With Ron's leaf blower and our rakes and tarp, we managed to get both yards into pretty good shape. The kids were all helpful--even Owen, if you count staying out of the way as helping.

After Owen's nap it was time to go to the Loefflers' for a Halloween party. Ron's sisters and their children were there, too, since they don't have power, so we didn't get our costumes on. The kids had dinner on a tablecloth on the floor, disaster-free, and after dinner Em and I made popcorn balls.

Steve took Owen home and gave him his first bath since Sunday night. It was late, and Owen was very upset that he couldn't look at a book in the bath. Finally, though, an hour after bedtime, he's down.

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