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Journal Key:

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

8/15/13 (Thursday)

This was an exciting evening! Aunt Claire helped me pick up the kids. They captured her as soon as we got home and all played in the playroom while I got things together for dinner. She was ensconced in there for quite a while. While we ate dinner, Grandmama and Grandpapa arrived. Grandmama stayed with the kids and put them to bed while the rest of us went out.

I was relieved, when we got home, to hear that the kids had not been difficult. I do think that their bedtime routine is something they're pretty reliable about. They had a colorful bath tea party, briefly interrupted for some washing, and then Cara read Owen one book and Grandmama read him two. Everyone went happily to bed. Well, everyone who was supposed to.

8/16/13 (Friday)

Owen is learning, perhaps. Before dinner, he was asking for some goldfish crackers. I said no. (several times) Finally, he asked for Cheerios. I'm willing to say yes to Cheerios.

After Owen's bath, I carried him to his room. There have been several times lately when the kids have started sentences that make me apprehensive but then turn out to be fine. This was one of those occasions. "Mommy, can I," Owen started. I started to plan how to say no to whatever he was going to want. ". . . put my pajamas on now?" he finished. Well, I guess so.

He put on his Batman pajamas and his knitted Batmask from Aunt Casie. We took his picture. Then he picked out his books. Batman wanted to hear the Disney Princesses' Neat and Sweet and the I-Can-Read Tangled book.

8/17/13 (Saturday)

We had a great time today because Grandmom and Grandpop came up and brought Griffin to play! This was exciting in many ways. No one fought over toys, and I don't think anyone cried. Owen liked to show things to Griffin. Griffin liked to play with a lot of things. Owen got both grandparents to read to him. That was because after, I think, two stories Grandpop had reached his limit on the horrible Disney Bedtime Favorites storybook and Owen had to go look for another sucker.

In the evening, PJ and Casey came over. We divided neatly along gender lines, for the most part. Cara and Casey worked on creating a storybook about two superheroes they had invented. Steve and PJ played Donkey Kong in the basement. I got dinner ready, and Owen mostly hung out on his own, really. He did get me to read a He-Man comoc book to him, but he left partway through to play with blocks, perhaps having discovered that it's not a really great story. Not that I was really trying to make it entertaining.

8/18/13 (Sunday)

This morning, somehow, we decided to have an Easter egg hunt. I got out the plastic eggs, all 45 of them, and hid them all over the house while the kids waited in the basement. When I was done, they came running out and searched gleefully and collected eggs.

Cara very considerately left the easy ones for Owen. The first time through, he really needed her to. I could stand next to an egg and clear my throat, I could say, "hey, Owen, look by the truck," and he'd still have trouble. I noticed, though, the second time through he was definitely looking around more, and he found some interesting ones. I hid all the eggs twice, and then Steve hid them once, and then Cara hid them. I had forgotten the danger in letting a child hide eggs: we could only find about 40 of them. It took a lot of searching and a little luck to find those final five.

Owen has a slight cold; his nose is runny. I'm delighted to find that his nose-blowing skills are much better than they were last time he needed them. I've been prompting him by taking a deep breath through my mouth, and he follows suit and blows out through his nose. He'll get me to hold the tissue when he can, but otherwise he'll do it himself. Throwing things in the garbage, fortunately, is still a novelty that he enjoys.

We've been reading We Are In A Book, in which Elephant and Piggie are charmed to discover that they are being read. I've read this to Owen at least three times today. It's a laugh-out-loud riot. However, a serious misunderstanding has been created. "We are being read!" the characters celebrate. Owen is very concerned because they are definitely not red. Well, he says, Piggie is pink. Elephant is in no way red. He agrees if I point out that, for instance, we read several books today, but in the next sentence he remains unconvinced that we're not discussing the color.

8/19/13 (Monday)

Owen "had a snot" several times this morning, but when we picked him up this afternoon the faucet seemed to have turned off. However, he had gotten himself what appeared to be a dirt moustache. I admit that I was hoping that it was crumbs from a cookie or something, but Owen explained to Claire that he had been playing in the dirt. When we got home, Cara took him upstairs and washed his face. It seemed to go well.

Well, she cleaned the parts she could reach. When I got Owen into the bath, I attacked the rest of the dirt, which was actually up his nose. I showed him, to explain what I was doing with that tissue. He agreed that that was not something he wanted in his nose. After the bath, I finished with a Q-tip.

It was library book day! I read one to Owen before the bath, and afterwards I asked him to pick three. He picked four. Okay, I said, which three? He picked three more. It helped when I just put a large pile aside.

8/20/13 (Tuesday)

Once again, I'm so glad we missed Owen's swimming class that one time. I took him with me to Cara's class again, and he was quite satisfied by the idea that we'd missed his. Poor thing. I'd brought along a Sumerman sticker book that I thought we could work on, but he wanted to use the color wonder markers and paper that we always use at the Y. I put us in an available chair, but Owen noticed that a nicer one was open and we had to mive. I sat in the chair, and he stood at the little table and colored. A little girl was watching us from the other side of the railing, and I invited her to take a page. She very meticulously colored Donald Duck the closest approximations to the right colors that she could find, while Owen colored random blue splotches all over several different partly done pictures.

He eventually settled on a picture of Goofy. Goofy is very blue. He's a few other colors, too. Owen insisted that we show that one to Daddy. I'll have to dig it out; Steve will be so proud.

Back at home, while I cooked dinner, Cara worked on her Lego sets in the living room and Owen played with his Legos in the playroom. Everyone was happy for a long, long time.

Right now, poor Steve is suffering from the Curse of the First Library Books. Last night, I read three books to Owen. One was The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins. I got it out because I remember enjoying it; I did not remember how LONG it is. It takes at least 15 minutes to read it. At least. Even though we have about a dozen new books, though, Owen insisted that he wants the same books again. We had to really twist his arm to get to read the new Douglas book to him! Now, Steve is working his way through all of those hats.

8/21/13 (Wednesday)

Miss Vina took Owen aside when I got there to pick him up; she was cleaning his face with a wipe. She showed me and Miss Minal how filthy the wipe was afterwards. It was impressive. It was especially impressive when I noticed, once we were out of the shady back yard, that a good deal of his forehead and nose were quite dusty. There wasn't an awful lot of dirt up his nose this time. I had him take his shoes off in the yard, to keep that dirt and mulch out of the house.

I was musing about whether he might be eating dirt, but actually I'm pretty certain that he doesn't. We had a conversation about sand-eating in the Poconos. He's very much against it. He related to me that when they'd been at a beach before, Grandpapa had tried to make him eat sand, but he had refused. "That's goss!"

As soon as we got into the house, Owen went off to play with his guys. When I announced that it was time to go to PJ's house, he didn't want to go. His guys were about to battle. We had to really work to get him to come along. He was happy there, though. He ate a lot of chicken for dinner, and then he urgently wanted to go home to eat more. He had a yogurt, a cheese stick, one Hershey kiss, and a lot of Cheerios. He would have eaten more. He woke up very cranky this morning; I wonder whether it's a growth spurt.

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