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| Previous Week | Back Home | Next Week | Journal Key: Green = Steve | George = navy | Janet = Purple | Evelyn = Black 3/7/13 (Thursday) Today I got the kids and got them dinner, because it was conferences night! I usually get Cara first, but this sometimes annoys her, so tonight I decided to get Owen first. This confused, but did not annoy, him. Owen likes to hide when we go into Cara's ABC class. He hides behind me, and he turns away from people. Cara decided she wanted a hug from him and, as usual in these situations, Owen did not want to be hugged, so he chose to run to me and hide his head. I look forward to the day when his head is not at the level of my crotch. On the way home, Owen started asking what was there. He seemed to be concerned that the usual things might not be available. "Is there a movie there?" "Is my bed there?" and so on. I said that everything that was usually at his house was still there. Evelyn has noted, and I have also remarked, that Owen really likes to line up his guys now. He takes a whole lot of little guys and arranges them in a line. This shows that he has developed more patience than he used to. It wasn't so long ago that whenever I had two or three guys standing together, they had to be knocked over. I tried to figure out what Owen wanted for dinner (it was leftover night), but he denied wanting any of the things I suggested. As a strange sort of indecisive compromise, I heated up a little of three different kinds of meat, garnished with some fruit and vegetables, and told him dinner was ready. He actually did eat most of what was on his plate, partially because I told him he had to in order to get a cookie. We don't actually have any cookies, just some rather aged rugalech sitting on top of the microwave, which apparently looked like cookies. And, in fact, he completely forgot about this and wandered into the living room when he was done, so he didn't get a chance to try it and ruin his delusions. 3/8/13 (Friday) It finally snowed! (I'd really had my hopes up yesterday.) We got a couple of inches, enough for me to get a delayed opening, though Cara didn't. The whole family was up pretty early, though, and took things slow. I went out and cleaned off both cars, and then I took both kids to school, since Steve now works from home on Fridays. It was still snowing lightly. Owen and I dropped Cara off first. As I was putting him back into the car, he looked at my snow-wet hair. "Mommy," he asked, "did you take a shower?" I told him that I had. "That's pretty awesome!" he said. "I like you hair." I was very relieved, a few hours later, when I checked in a mirror and saw that things were fairly normal on my head. 3/9/13 (Saturday) We made a concerted effort and all went out to Home Depot in the morning to get paint swatches for the living room. Owen became very invested in this project and devotedly carried about five of them through the store. The kids and Steve wandered off while I was looking at paint; they found themselves among the household appliances, which, according to Steve's interpretation, means that Owen likes looking at machines. Feeling self-indulgent, we went out to lunch. We hadn't done that as a family in a long time, so even though it was late, we did it. Owen is getting older, and maybe we could be flexible about the nap, we figured. "Can we go home?" he asked. "I am very tired." He almost never admits that. After the poor little guy got a delayed nap, we went to Aunt Claire's house ("we paint there!" said Owen), which now has furniture and everything, to celebrate Grandpapa's birthday. The kids are not disappointed that they don't have as much room to run: instead, they want to have pillow fights on Claire's bed. We got them back downstairs eventually and hung out in the living room. Claire went upstairs "to check on something," I told Owen. He had to go check on something, too. All told, Owen checked on six or eight things. He liked going up and down the stairs. Both kids wanted to help Grandpapa blow out his candles. Cara blew two, and Owen, from his seat, blew as hard as he could. He was, however, about five feet from the flames. He did make one flutter slightly. Still, he puffed and puffed. Finally, Cara blew them out for him. "No one can ever prove he didn't do it," said Steve. "I did do it!!" cried Owen. 3/10/13 (Sunday) The kids got to go for their last sleepover of my Winter quarter class. The pack and play has been retired, and the mattress from under the bed has been pulled out for Owen. Cara, though, brought her sleeping bag. She slept on that mattress, and Owen slept on the bed. Mysteriously, he went all Pippi Longstocking and slept with his feet on the pillow. He does know how to use a bed. We went out to Monster Golf this afternoon to play and to book Cara's birthday party (April 6th, at noon!). Owen and I left Steve and Cara there and went to (oh boy!) do groceries. Owen is old enough that if you get him to do something by promising a treat, he knows that a treat should be candy, not yogurt. He is not old enough to remember, when you're standing in the check-out line next to the candy display, that ten minutes earlier he was asking when we were going to find some candy. I've been noticing lately that Owen seems to have decided that order is superior to chaos. Last night, before he became so incredibly silly that Grandmama and I could not get him into his pajamas, he cleaned up his toys by packing them all back into the bags we'd brought them in. He's been drawing with Cara's markers, and he's been carefully putting them back into their bag when he finishes. He had little guys in his bath this evening, and while the water drained I held out a big cup to put them in. "Thank you, Mommy," he said, cleaning up his toys. This is all, of course, in between completely irrational meltdowns and general obstreporousness. 3/11/13 (Monday) "Mommy," Owen told me on the way home, "when I had a dog, it got sprayed by a skunk." It's nice enough out that the kids wanted to play outside, and we went down the street to run with PJ and Casey a bit. They sort of played around Owen. He had brought a ball and wanted to play catch with me. This consisted of him handing me the ball and then walking most of the way down their yard. He'd get his hands up, ready to catch, and I'd toss the ball toward him. It would land and roll down the hill, while he ran to meet it, giggling. In a few minutes, he'd repeat. I had taken the liner out of his coat and let him wear just that as a jacket. It's lovely to buckle a jacketed child into a car seat with straps ready to accommodate a coated child. When I got Owen into his pajamas, he wanted to know whether I would get into my pajamas, too. I figured that would be ok. "And your glasses, too," he added. He was very interested in my getting into my glasses. Finally, after we'd talked about this for a while, he said (without prompting!) "You look pwetty in you glasses." 3/12/13 (Tuesday) By the way, Owen's story about the skunk was my story about a skunk that I told to the kids when I was driving them home the other day. Owen has been waking up in the night, and making unhappy noises in the night. We're not sure why, except that he told the teachers at YBR that his throat hurt after waking up unhappy from his nap yesterday. Otherwise he seems pretty normal. Tonight he was finally given the "cookie" he's been noticing on top of the microwave. At first it seemed like he was actually going to eat it, but then he just held onto it. 3/13/13 (Wednesday) Picking up the kids takes me at least twenty minutes. First, I get Owen. Once we get outside YBR, he asks me whether Steve is home. He tells me where Steve parked in the morning. (I do wonder how much of his information is accurate.) Then he asks me whether Cara is home. We get to Lindeneau, and I have to unbuckle him and then go around to the other side of the car because he generally insists on getting out on Cara's side. Furtunately, lately he has then turned into the Flash and run "so fast" to the school. Often, by the time we get there, since he takes his sweet time climbing out of the car, Cara is waiting at the door with her coat on. The teacher who opens the door understands that Owen is the Flash. He likes having an audience; he's even willing to tell her he's the Flash and to say hi to her!
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