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Journal Key:

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

5/16/13 (Thursday)

In the car, I asked Owen what he had done today.

"I played with Audrey," he said. How normal! I was delighted. ". . . and I hit her on the head and I got time out!" he finished. Then they had played and he had "bumped her on the nose." And gotten time out. Sigh. I don't think any of this is actually happening, but it would be nice to hear about a peaceful day!

On a positive note, he announced that he had gotten stamps on his hands from gymnastics. What had he done at gymnastics? He had played. Who had been there? His friends and the Lollipops. Not the other Munchkins. They had left. I tried to find out who had actually been there.

Me: Was Audrey there?

Owen: No, she was not there. She left.

Me: Was Leila there?

Owen: No, Leila left.

Me: Who was there?

Owen: No one. They all left.

Me: When you got stamps?

Owen: At gymnastics . . .

Me: Who was at gymnastics? Were the Lollipops there?

Owen: No, they all left.

Me: Were you there?

Owen: No, I left.

That's not what the stamps on your hands say, Buddy.

When we got to ABC, Cara was not ready to leave. Miss Amanda was about to return with cold apple juice. Cara does not drink apple juice at home. However, apparently, she does at school. There were only a few kids left, so there were two drinks per child. Owen and Cara each got one. He came right over to the table and sat there, swinging his legs, enjoying his juice and clearly thinking he was the coolest thing around, with his Spider Man sunglasses, having apple juice with the big kids. I was even able to get him to whisper "thank you" to Miss Amanda, with his hands over his mouth lest she should hear him. It's progress.

5/17/13 (Friday)

Owen and I had another Highland Park adventure. I parked by the grocery store and walked over to get him. Walking back, we made very slow progress. On the sidewalk, there's a very lovely and fairly large deep-set garden. Owen pulled away from me to run over to crouch down by the railing. He looked at the flowers (and told me about them), and then he found that there were some tiny bugs on the sidewalk. They weren't coming to him! They were coming to him! They were going to make a house.

Eventually, I coaxed him away. Next to the garden, there was a tree with a metal grating around its foot. Owen jumped on and went stamping around. "Mommy!" he cried, "do you want to come on here?!" Well, not really.

Next, there was a set of metal arches sticking out of the sidewalk: it's a bike rack. Owen could stand between two of them and put a hand on each. I had to do the same. What fun!

Fortunately, after that we made better, though not swift, progress. We did eventually reach the grocery store. We had to pick up goldfish crackers, because we were low on them and I figured that the things I wanted wouldn't have motivated Owen much. Last of all, we found the goldfish. I picked up the biggest container, 30 ounces, and put it in Owen's arms. He proudly carried it down the aisle: "I am the strongest to carry this!" When we got to the register, he gladly consigned it to me. He was not the strongest, he confided.

5/18/13 (Saturday)

I hung out in the playroom for a while this morning, while Owen played around me. He was over in a corner with his little guys and Cara's LaLaLoopsy school bus.

Guy: Are you ready to go?

Other Guy: Where are we going?

Guy: School!

Other Guy: Okay!

The bus was loaded and drove aggressively across the room, leaving tracks in the carpet. Near the door, Owen dumped everyone out. Then I could see who he had.

Blue Guy: Now we are at Daniel's school.

Captain America: I am the sister. Are you ready to go home?

Blue Guy: No. We are at Daniel's school.

Kilowogg: I am the driver.

Captain America and Kilowogg got into the bus, while the blue guy went and sat alone on the step stool by the door, apparently ready to learn in Daniel's school. The bus drove off.

5/19/13 (Sunday)

Owen is getting braver. Up to now he has been an enthusiastic proponent of pillow fights so long as he himself maintained a non-combatant status; he has adopted a new strategy. Now he vigorously flings his lion at me, and then does a dramatic seat-drop style fall (sparing me the necessity of reciprocating). He also allowed Cara to coax him into the shower this morning, where, to my alarm, she enthusiastically shampooed his hair. I was sure we would have to send him home with a head full of lather, but he actually played under the spray of water so much, it all got rinsed out.

Both kids took advantage of our souvenir coloring books from Italy; as a result, Cara would like to visit the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. Luckily, we also have some good, simple jigsaw puzzles from the Philadelphia Museum of Art, which is much closer. :) Owen's major accomplishment was to line up his crayons in a lovely, rather geometric arrangement on the floor.

Owen fell asleep in the car on the way home this morning. When Grandpapa carried him in and put him down, the first thing he said to me was that he wanted to take his clothes off . . . and put his pajamas on. He seems to have been somewhat mixed up about what time it was. He played fairly happily for a while (well, fairly happily for a tired three-year-old), had a decent lunch, and willingly came upstairs with me for some books. He was willing to let me take his shoes off of him. He was skipping his bath, he announced.

One problem we've noticed is Owen's unfailing devotion to his comforter. He insists on having it on, and with the weather getting warmer he's getting kind of sweaty. This morning I put new sheets on his bed and also put on a new, lighter blanket under the comforter. He was delighted by his new blanket, but he insisted on having the comforter, too. Oops.

5/20/13 (Monday)

I cleverly brought Owen's sunglasses with me when I went in to pick him up. We left YBR, each wearing the appropriate eye gear. Owen went running along the sidewalk, though, with his sunglasses in his hands. I noticed, suddenly, that they flew out of his hands and landed in the grass. I grabbed them and returned them to him. They flew out of his hands again. Then again.

I told him that I was not going to pick them up this time. We stood and looked at them. Owen picked them up. As we neared the car, he flung them again! I told him that if he did not pick them up, before I counted to three, I would take them and he would not have them anymore. I counted, slowly. I took the sunglasses.

Owen flung himself (carefully) down on the sidewalk, screaming that he wanted to pick them up. He rolled over onto the grass, screaming and flailing. I ignored him for a while, and then I picked him up, still screaming and flailing, and put him in the car. He was done by the time we got to Lindeneau.

He's always nice and snuggly after these episodes. It feels wrong to enjoy that.

It's finally going to be warm out all week, and the kids got the hose out to water the plants. And to water themselves. Cara got on her swimsuit, but Owen kept on his long pants and long-sleeved shirt. He was very very damp when it was time for dinner, and he was very very unhappy with Daddy for turning off the hose. How could he?! Owen was full of righteous indignation.

Aunt Claire is, as always, a great favorite. She is upstairs reading to Owen. I had to bring him some Cheerios to eat (having had a large dinner and then some Cheerios and pistachios, he was still hungry), and he was making his squeakiest voice so that his toy mouse could explain to Aunt Claire that she could not boop his nose because he has whiskers.

5/21/13 (Tuesday)

There was much hilarity at dinner tonight. I put some chicken on Owen's fork. When I looked back, it was gone! I tried it again, and it disappeared again! Where could it be? Did the cats get it? Was he putting it into his ears? This was an excellent game, and he ate all of his chicken. After a while, he actually just forked and ate it himself.

After dinner, since we'd all done such a good job, we went outside to have some ice cream. While the kids were ready and Steve and I were clearing up dinner and getting ice cream, Owen put his shoes on his hands. Cara took him outside, and I realized only later that he was running around with shoes on his hands. Periodically, he'd put his hands down on the grass like feet and sort of bear walk down the hill.

Steve went out with them and had to feed Owen, I believe, because of the shoe-hands. I came out with my own ice cream later. Owen was running around with shoe hands and a huge chocolate mustache. He saw my bowl. "Mommy," he cried, "I didn't have any ice cream!"

After many adventures, I gave Owen a bath, got him into his pajamas, and was settling down to read to him. He'd picked out books, and we curled up on the bed. Steve came up to say good night, and he saw that we were going ot read Tyrannasaurus Tex. "Oh," he said, "I love that book! I get to use my Texas accent. I've only gotten to read it once . . . " Guess who read to Owen this evening!

5/22/13 (Wednesday)

Owen wasn't up yet when Cara and I went upstairs after breakfast this morning.

"We should get that boy an alarm clock!" said Cara.

"No, we definitely shouldn't!" I said. (She moves a LOT faster in the mornings when he doesn't have the tv on.)

I looked back, and she was stopped in the hallway, looking at his doorknob. "It's moving," she said. "Look!"

It was! For the first time ever, Owen got out of bed all alone, turned on the light, and started trying to open the door! He was very pleased with himself. I only hope that he continues to do so when it actually is, as he says, wake-up time.

This evening, we practiced and found that he is actually able to open his door on his own.

In the car, Owen had his sunglasses on. He remembers, though, how I counted to three and then he didn't get to have them anymore.

Owen has, Steve has pointed out, entered a phase of turning back on us whatever we say. At playdate tonight, he asked me to throw a ball for him. I threw it. "Fetch, boy," I said. He ran after it. Then he threw it away. "Fetch, puppy!" he said to me. He was very enthusiastic about this and repeated it several times.

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