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Journal Key:

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

1/3/13 (Thursday)

In the car, Owen was asking about what Steve and I do all day. He knows we both go to work, but I wasn't sure whether he thought that meant we were together. I told him what I do for a living. I work in a school. I am the teacher for big kids in their school. Owen was elated. "Me, too, Mommy! We have big kids in my school!"

I cut up an orange pepper for dinner, and the kids and I snacked on it when we were done. Owen decided somehow that we had to "clink" our peppers together. We all had to clink with him, and we had to say "cheers!" every time.

Among the little guys that Owen brought into the bath was Commander Cody, who, as far as I can tell, is a storm trooper from Star Wars who has orange stripes on his white armor. He also has a gun. He and the yellow guy (he's a yellow guy) stood on the rim of the tub, and Commander Cody shot the yellow guy. Then the yellow Iron Man came, and Commander Cody shot him, too. Then Captain America met the same fate. I asked whether he'd be ok. Yes, he would. An ambulance was coming to get him. Owen took him out of the water, where he'd fallen, and lay him on the edge of the tub near Commander Cody. Then the other two guys wanted to have an ambulance, too. They would all be ok. Then Owen knocked them all, including the triumphant Cody, back into the tub.

I'm hoping this is a normal boy thing.

1/6/13 (Sunday)

On Friday I picked up Owen and we went home for a tiny bit of playing with guys. Then it was back out again to The Restaurant (in this case Houlihan's) for Family Fun Night. The poor buddy suddenly admitted, on arrival, that what he really wanted to do was go to "the book store" (Barnes and Noble). We didn't have time for that, sadly, but he still managed to enjoy himself at the restaurant.

Saturday we had a nice breakfast, but then I left to go to the dentist. When I got back the kids were having lunch. Soon Owen was sequestered for story time and went down for his nap. He had some time after he woke up to play a little before Grandpapa arrived to whisk the children away for a sleepover.

Evelyn's graduate class has started up again. She worked away that Saturday afternoon into early evening, and worked some more in the morning, before the kids returned after having had a light lunch. Owen had fallen asleep in the car on the way home, it being his usual nap time. But we didn't think it would work to put him in his crib in the house at that point, so he just stayed up.

There were a lot of screens being viewed at the house this afternoon. The Nooks were out, plus Owen watched his "DC Super Hero Friends" DVD multiple times (it came with his Bat Cave toy and features one enjoyable five- or six-minute cartoon with the DC Super Friends, and about five more completely awful Imaginext cartoons based on the more generic toy lines sold by the same brand that carries the DC characters--even the children won't watch them!).

I took the boy out eventually to go grocery shopping. We had a nice time together. In the car, for some reason, something struck him as funny and he was just laughing. I find his laugh to be very infectious. He seemed very invested in going to Target, our first stop, but was convinced we were at the wrong store when we arrived. I suppose he wasn't disappointed when we got inside. Our next stop was the A&P. As we passed the seafood counter, Owen decided he wanted to go back and see the "slobsters." He called the lobsters that because of a funny library book we have out now that has a lot of punny animal names (the slobster has a very messy way of eating soup). I was reminded of little Cara wanting to look at the "hamsters," an even less appropriate name for the shellfish.

In another case of mistaken identity, when we passed a coloring book featuring the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Owen insisted that he wanted to go back and see "the dinosaurs." We had brought two little guys for him to play with, but he became much more invested in playing with my keys (which admittedly have a little bear attached to the ring whose mouth opens and has a light inside), or in drawing in the notepad which had the shopping list written in it.

It may be because I prompted him earlier, but Owen readily admitted that he was tired before we were done. Both kids exhibited signs of being spent before the evening was over, though we managed to all have some dinner and the siblings did not get into any big fights. Owen seems to have a somewhat unhealthy addiction to his Nook, which results in a lot of piteous wailing of "My Noooooook!!" We may have to find a structured way to control its use--by everyone in the house.

1/7/13 (Monday)

The YBR teachers report that Owen has been frequently breaking out in apparently causeless laughter. Yes, I said, we see the same thing at home!

Poor little boy! Dinner was easy tonight, so I actually said no to him and didn't put the television on. It was tough for both of us. We managed to play guys instead, but once in a while he'd be reminded and ask for the DC Superhero Friends again. I was disappointed in myself when he found the Nook, which had been charging and which I ought to have put away. However, the internet wasn't working (the router needs to be reset), so he couldn't get Netflix to work! Hah! Playing games on it isn't as bad.

I'd made stuffed shells, which he doesn't eat, so I had no problem with letting Owen have a banana, with broccoli, for dinner. I was somewhat surprised that he had me cut it up. For dinner he ate some broccoli, a little bit of pizza bagel, and two neatly sliced bananas, all with a fork.

1/8/13 (Tuesday)

This morning Owen had yogurt for breakfast, and Cara had three slices of toast. When we were ready to go, Owen suddenly cried out that he wanted a bagel. He tends to do this lately: suddenly and most piteously letting us know a spur-of-the-moment desire he has, as though we should have known. He ended up with some Cheerios, which he snacked on in the car. Owen has become very invested with being brought into Cara's morning class, so that he can hide his face from one particular teacher and flirt with her. She really gets a kick out of him and he knows it.

In the evening Evelyn had a class so I picked up both kids. I caught Owen pulling a whole lot of toys away from a little girl who also wanted to play with them. "Busted!" I declared. I don't think he got that, but I did try to explain, in passing, that what he had done was not nice.

We all had to go to the local supermarket to get something for dinner. Because we were only buying one thing, I decided not to put Owen in a cart. Nor did I carry him. This made for a rather slow, halting trip. We trudged at geologic speed through the parking lot. We slogged down the aisles (which actually helped because I didn't know where the taco seasoning packets were). But when it came to waiting on line in the checkout, Owen was very fidgety. He kept deciding that we needed to buy completely strange items that he would never actually want, like a Visa gift card. Or he ran his hand along the railings, almost colliding with other shoppers. Then, back in the parking lot on the way to the car, he broke into a trot and pulled me along. Then when he got into the car, he messed around with his car seat instead of sitting in it correctly. All in all, one errand at a local store to buy one thing probably added about a half an hour to our trip.

Since it was a reverse evening, with me setting up dinner, Evelyn decided that she would go watch TV with the kids. Now she is reading to the crazy little buddy.

I want to note that Owen has a lot of little guys, many of whom are actually superheroes. Some are alligned with the DC Superfriends show, and others are from the Superhero Squad. I have very little idea which are which. I was just thinking about how they just all sort of meld together into Owen's mind (I'm pretty sure he calls them the DC Superhero Squad), when he started dividing them up. Some went on one side of the bath tub and were declared to be the DC Superfriends. Owen put Wolverine and Ironman with them, but then he suddenly moved them to the other side. "I was mistaken," he explained.

1/9/13 (Wednesday)

Owen has been waking up in distress every morning because, every night, some of his guys fall out of his crib. I do wonder how he knows that some are missing. However, we manage to get them collected, and then they go hero up from the top of the stairs down to the living room. I was very pleased this morning when Owen was very upset that he could not hero the guys up because Buster was on the stairs. She was sitting halfway up, and I was relieved that he knew that meant he should not throw fifteen small plastic superheros down the stairs. They were stuck, though. He couldn't really stay away from the top of the stairs, because he was ready to throw his guys, and she couldn't come up the stairs because he was there. Eventually I had to go down to the living room, and she, who had been coming up for some special time with me, followed. Poor kitty.

As soon as she was gone, the barrage began. Spiderman heroed up so hard he ended up under the furniture, and I had to get him out. I handed him to Owen and asked him, "What do you say?" What did he say? He said, "Spiderman's dirty."

For some reason, we've been struggling to find good toys for Owen at the Loefflers'. There are some action figures we can dig out, but they never really were a hit. This evening, Owen discovered Casey's old Littlest Pet Shop toys. These are much beloved. I wonder whether Cara still has hers. (Actually, that might make for some huge fights!)

The girls played in Casey's room. They had two toys that looked like microphones but lit up almost like disco balls, which they alternately hung from the fan and used in musical numbers. They'd turn off the lights, and they could put on quite a show. They got me and Em to come up to see, and we were in there for a few minutes before I realized that Owen was on the bed, adding to the visual confusion with a pillow pet that had a hard plastic back with start cut out in it, which would project onto the ceiling in a variety of colors. He was fascinated. He kept picking it up to his face and shining it around and changing the colors and just kind of talking about it. This went on and on; he didn't care who was around him. I went up ten minutes later, and he was still at it. He showed it to me. He picked it up and put it right in my face, so that I could see it. Then he had to come all the way downstairs to get Ron, so that Ron could come up and see it, too.

We have been given a hand-me-down pinata for Owen's party. It's a transformer! It meets the eye. Speaking of Owen's birthday, he revealed on the walk home that he's 49.

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