| Previous Week | Back Home | Next Week |

Journal Key:

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

1/31/13 (Thursday)

Steve and I were home today for Juliana's funeral.

Miss Vina called us around five to say that Owen's tummy hurt him. When I got to YBR, he was sitting in a big armchair, with his blanket form his nap bag, with a stuffed animal and a book, crying. Poor little guy! At the pediatrician last week, they pointed out that he hadn't had a sick visit since June.

I picked him up and got him home (Steve was getting Cara and stopped to buy juice and Jello), and he and I sat on the couch snuggled together until after dinner, when I gave him to Steve so I could make sub plans.

2/1/13 (Friday)

The poor little guy woke up a few times in the night, and there were times when he was crying, so I went in, but he didn't wake up--it's so sad when he cries and no one can help! His tummy really hurt him yesterday, but today that felt better. His temperature had stayed around 100.4, give or take a little, since last night.

He spent all day in his Batmans. We watched the beginnings of many shows and movies; rarely, we'd watch something through to the end. Sometimes we stopped and read some books. He was a lot less limp than he'd been last night, though. Sometimes he'd declare I was evil and shoot me. I didn't have to be holding him all the time.

He wasn't really eating, but in the evening he started to snack a little bit. We'd collected things on the coffee table, so he had a bowl of goldfish, a bowl of Kix, a dish of Jello, and a bagel left from the morning. Sometimes he'd optimistically hold a piece of bagel. He did eat some Kix and goldfish. He asked me very nicely to get him more Kix, although there were plenty in the bowl, so I made sure he stayed in the living room while I took the bowl into the kitchen, opened and closed the cabinet, and brought it back. I do that to the cats sometimes, too.

When Cara and Steve got home with dinner, Owen was quite perky. He did a lot of running around and shouting about things. He was very happy to see his daddy, and they had a good bath and read stories together.

2/2/13 (Saturday)

I am somewhat mystified as to how Owen, who had a bath last night, spent today in the same pajamas he wore all day yesterday. I noticed this around 5:30 in the evening, when I went to get him dressed. He'd had a perfectly normal day for a little boy with a cold, which is what his virus has settled down to be. Tonight, though, we went out with the Loefflers, to commemorate Juliana by having dinner at On the Border. At least one of us had enchiladas, which, as Juliana often told us, she used to make for Jim.

As we were getting ready to leave, Steve did some tidying. He decided we'd have to just put Owen's "small guys" (that's what Owen has decided to call the little MUSCLE toys he got from Grandmom's attic) into a tupperware container. There are a lot of them, and they are quite small.

Before we stepped out the door, though, Juliana's daughter, Chris, came by with some clothes for the kids. She'd also brought a little porcelain box for Cara as well as a little music box with porcelain kittens on it. For Owen, there was a bedside light that is a model of what she claims is a pirate ship, though I don't see that it's particularly piratical. For him there was also a little box, just the right size for the small guys! It's cloth covered and looks like a castle. The small guys have moved in happily.

"Mommy!" exclaimed Owen as we went out the door, "that is my ship! That is my box!"

Just as exciting as those was the Spider-Man hat that he got. It is shaped to go over his ears, and it makes him look like he is Spider-Man, with his eyes up above his face. In the restaurant I discovered that it is reversable: the other side is blue and says "spider sense" on it. Owen "read" it to me several times.

There were eight of us at dinner, and there was a crowd. They predicted a 45 minute wait, and we were getting ready to sit in the bar. We'd barely been there five minutes, though, before there was a table ready for us. It was an evening of good fortune. Owen sat in his chair and colored, and PJ picked up any crayons he dropped. The two of them played with some of Owen's little guys. Owen announced, with astonishment, that he had pockets in his pants. He enjoyed his hat, and we all enjoyed how funny his hair looked when he took it off--and how funny his hat looked when he put it on himself. Eventually he noticed the brick wall behind him, on which someone had done some coloring, and he was fascinated for the rest of our time there.

2/3/13 (Sunday)

We had little to no plans for Super Bowl Sunday, until the previous evening, when Em seemingly spontaneously decided to have us over for a Super Bowl party. So, after a mostly inactive day, we wandered down the street in the early evening to have appetizers and pizza and things and vaguely glance at the football game every once in a while. The children ran around the house and enjoyed themselves. Owen tried to keep up. I spent some time with him downstairs; he had become interested in PJ's large football card collection, and randomly chose different guys to show me. He also enjoyed a large container of marbles, which got dumped out and distributed on the carpet (though thankfully were not very widely distributed).

2/4/13 (Monday)

The plan was to send Owen back to school today. He was still sick, but he didn't have his fever and it seemed like a pretty normal cold. However when he woke up (around 8, much later than usual), he just seemed too miserable to me, and we ended up staying home together. Poor little guy: he has managed to develop an icky rash all over his face, from having smeared stuff on himself while he was sleeping. His eyes are runny, his nose is crusty--basically he was a mess. I guess one of the simpler definitions of parenthood is that, even with all that, I still just wanted to hug him. We spent the day basically doing everything Owen came up with to do: coloring on the Nook, playing with guys, and watching various shows on TV. In the afternoon I bundled him off to the doctor, where they decided to throw three prescriptions at him. He now has a cream, an oral antibiotic, AND eyedrops.

In the evening I think we both got tired. Owen didn't want to go to bed, but I didn't want to deal with him anymore. The result was that he was unceremoniously planted in his bed by his father, quite against his will. I'm not sure what that says about parenthood...

2/5/13 (Tuesday)

We had all the kids (Loefflers too!) for this evening. We had a fine time. Busy week!

2/6/13 (Wednesday)

I missed most of the evening because I had to attend a rally for work, but I did get to read to Owen before bed. Steve and I worked together to give him his antibiotic, put in his eye drops, and smear ointment all over his face. He's amazingly good about lying down for the drops, but then he squirms and twists and wrassles and does his best to avoid them.

Reading to him was nice. He picked out Go Dogs Go and a Richard Scarry book. I find Richard Scarry a little bit hard to read, because there's so much going on. (Well, it's hard to read quickly, at least!) On the page about trains, Owen began counting all of the large animal characters. He did really well up to about ten, and then I prompted him a little and he went further, until he got to "fourteen, fourteen, fourteen, fourteen, fourteen!"

| Previous Week | Back Home | Next Week |