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Journal Key:

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

8/22/13 (Thursday)

It's been an eventful day. I woke up around a quarter to two, because Owen was yelling something. It turned out to be that he needed to go to the bathroom. (He wasn't quite dry.) I took him there, and we tearfully got through peeing. I read him a story. I got him a drink. I tucked him in.

Back in bed, I couldn't really get back to sleep. Half an hour later, Shelby started crying. I got up and fed her.

Twenty minutes later, Owen was calling. I went in. Could he get up, he wanted to know. No, it wasn't time. I had to read him another book. I had to get him another drink. I tucked him in.

Almost as soon as I got back to bed, I heard him talking. I went back. He was pretty sure his bunny had fallen. Hah! It had fallen an hour ago, and I had picked it back up. It was on the bed. I explained this and added that I was not coming back. It was past three.

I snoozed until seven. Owen slept until eight.

We had a pleasant morning, until it was time to put shoes on and go to school. Owen freaked out because he wanted me to put his shoes onto him. Eventually, we'd gotten them on but not strapped. He refused to strap them. I threatened to do it for him. After giving him a chance, I did. He immediately began melting down even more intensely, screaming that he had wanted to do it himself.

Then when I took him to the potty he wet himself (since he was freaking out) and I ended up just putting new clothes on him and putting his shoes on him. Argh!

However, he was perfectly happy when I dropped him off, at ten twenty, and he was perfectly happy when Cara and I picked him up to go to the dentist.

Cara loves going to the dentist. I am pleased that Owen does, too.

One of my favorite parts happened in the waiting room: I asked whether Owen needed to go to the bathroom. He did not. Thirty seconds later, he cried, "Mommy, I have to make pee-pee!" He dashed into the bathroom and had his shorts off before I could get in after him and shut the door.

When it was time, we followed the dentist back to the examining room. She was very impressed at how verbal Owen is. She let him pick out a toothbrush right away, and then she showed him the chair. He got in, and she gave him a hand mirror to hold, mainly to distract him but also so that he could see what was happening a little bit. She examined his teeth and brushed them and got a little bit of tartar off. She used the tube that sucks spit out: she showed him how he was making bubbles go up the tube. At the end, he got to pick out a pencil. He took the one closest to him. He also got to pick a page of stickers. He took the one on top. He was very happy with his dentist experience.

It was a pleasant evening, in which Owen had first Cara, then Daddy, then me read to him. I am now in a position to report that it takes slightly more than half an hour to read The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins.

8/23/13 (Friday)

It was Family Fun Night and I'd had a long day working from home. So we all went to pick up Owen from YBR and go out to dinner. Evelyn and I both noticed as soon as we saw him, being now attuned to such things, that he was wearing different shorts than when we'd dropped him off. Yep, the accidents continue. The plus (kind of) was that he hadn't pooped yet.

We asked, before we left, whether he had been to the potty recently; and one of the young ladies there said he had gone "ten minutes" before. Whether or not that was completely accurate is debatable. The fact of the matter is, he wet himself not once, but twice while we were in the restaurant, and we were completely unprepared for it. After the second time--which followed hard on the first--we made a quick exit. Potty training sure is exciting the second time around.

I had decided I needed a drink at the restaurant (because of a long day at work, not because of anything my children did), and ended up ordering Houlihan's famous "Blue Whale," which includes a giant plastic whale. We were very familiar with the whale because Claire and Casie used to decorate their houses with them. It was exciting to have one of our own, and when we got home we took it right to the tub and he joined my old large plastic dinosaur/lizard toy, recently rescued from my parents' attic. Both creatures have large, gaping mouths and long, hollow insides, good for holding bathwater or little guys.

8/24/13 (Saturday)

Today was our long-delayed summer party with the Loefflers at Grandmama and Grandpapa's house. Usually we do something for the Fourth of July, but our respective schedules delayed the thing until it became a "Back-to-School Party." Grandmama and Grandpapa had a great setup for all the kids. They had a cool little thing attached to the hose with all these little waving fingers sprouting off of it that spit out water, and the big kid pools set up, and later a slip 'n' slide thing. We finally got to try the water-propelled rockets that we'd brought out to the Poconos with us and never got a chance to use (I enjoyed them thoroughly). For those of us who didn't feel like going outside, there was plenty of Scooby, and also the Wii, which PJ was happy to take advantage of. And at the end all the kids got to take home little bags of school supplies (even Owen)!

We managed to keep Owen dry for a good portion of the day. We still can't trust him to tell us when he has to go, so we just have to make him go every so often. At one point, all the kids and Evelyn and Janet went out to the park behind the house. Owen needed a potty break, so Evelyn told him that he would have the chance to do something that only boys get to do: pee against a tree. He did this, and it was so thrilling that he just had to do it again, not long afterwards. And later, he was very happy to tell me about it. "I'm so proud of you," I replied.

Because we wanted to have our party earlier in the day, we ended up skipping his nap; but it turns out he really still needs his nap. After a little bit of fun, Owen was slumped in the loveseat staring vacantly at Scooby-Doo. He seemed to fall over more than he usually does, and literally told us several times that he was tired.

On one of his last trips to the potty, a stuffed animal disaster occurred. While arguing over which potty to use, and being picked up to move to the downstairs one, Owen dropped his Lion into the open upstairs toilet. Ew. He is currently enjoying a spin through our washing machine, stuffed inside a pillow case.

On the way home, Owen of course fell asleep, and then also peed in the car. At home, he enjoyed a forty-minute visit to the potty while he (mostly) pooped on there for what may be the first time ever.

The summer seems to be ending with a whole lot of bodily function mishaps.

8/25/13 (Sunday)

In the spirit of bodily function adventures, I will add that Owen asked the teachers at YBR for chocolate after he peed in his pants the other day. Similarly, yesterday, when I was trying to get him to come to the bathroom, he protested that he didn't have to go: he hadn't made any in his pants yet! Today has been far less dramatic. He did tell me that he had pooped on the potty "and that was, like, awesome!"

Owen was up at quarter to four. His diaper was dry; we went to the bathroom. On the way back, he discovered his lion, whom I had set up facing his door when he came out of the drier. He swooped it up and loved it. In his room, he found his little kitty. He swooped up the kitty with his other arm and loved them both. He climbed back into bed, where he put the kitty on the pillow and the lion on top of it and got ready to sleep.

For Grandmama and Grandpapa's anniverasary, we took the gang out for Thai food. I was nervous about taking Owen to a restaurant, given what had happened on Friday, but we were well prepared this time and very aggressive about taking trips to the bathroom. Owen packed his own bag of toys. He enjoyed that. He brought a lot of little guys. Throughout the meal, he was playing and singing. The guys were talking. When I took him to the bathroom, Hulk came with us. "I love it here," said Hulk. He meant the restaurant, not the bathroom. I checked. Hulk threw out the paper towel after Owen dried his hands.

This evening, when I gave Owen a bath, he got out the mermaid toys and the Playmobil people and their boat. The daddy Playmobil guy is Daddy Boo. The mermaids speak in a very silly falsetto voice. The two sharks were in the bath, too. They're a lot more ferocious than they were when Cara was three. It's nice, though, that I really barely need to be there: Owen conducts full conversations between his toys.

8/26/13 (Monday)

Miss Grace says that today she told Owen he was a fabulous boy. He replied, "Thanks . . . so are you!"

For a long, long time, Daddy has been Owen's favorite parent. If we offered him a choice, he'd pick Steve 19 times out of 20. For the past week if so, though, things have changed! I've been reading to Owen night after night (I think). I've given lots of baths. I've been the one he picks to take him to the potty. When he wakes up, he calls for Mommy. It is, predictably, both lovely and somewhat tiring.

There is, I believe, a reason for this, though. When I have Owen wash his hands after he uses the bathroom, I crouch down in front of the sink and let him stand on my legs. I reach up and put soap on his hands. This is, apparently, far superior to Steve's technique, which is to have Owen reach as far as he can and then wash his hands for him. So, because of this, I have had to read some really horrible library books a whole lot of times. It's a seriously bad crop.

This evening, after I read to him and put him down, Owen started calling me within sixty seconds. I went back to him. He was starting, he said, to make pee-pee. Ok, I would take him to the bathroom. And then, he cried, another book! Well, no. He peed, and I tucked him back in. I figured the three books he'd just heard should be enough. I'm kind of proud of him for thinking of it, though! Maybe we should have used books as prizes for going potty all along!

8/27/13 (Tuesday)

Around one in the morning, Owen woke up and wanted to go to the bathroom. While he climbed out of bed, he asked whether he would get a book before he went back to sleep. I said that he would. "Not like the last pee-pee!" he remarked bitterly.

I wonder how much of the progress our children make is due to our laziness. After I took Owen to the bathroom this morning, I didn't go up and get underpants for him; I sent him instead. He brought them to me, and I showed him which side was front. He went off to the living room to put them on (I was eating breakfast). "Is this the front?" he called. "Mommy, is this the front?" I tried to explain it to him, but eventually I had to ask Cara to step in.

Soon it was time to get really dressed. Cara went running upstairs, and I explained to Owen that he'd find clothes in his top dresser drawer. He gleefully went running up. He returned with a disappointingly appropriate and matching outfit. I showed him the front of the shorts and put him to work. He got those on. We've been working on taking shirts off, so he kind of tried to help getting out of his pajama top. He put his shirt on. "I'm a big boy!" he told me.

He's also been lovely about being dropped off at school. We go in, we put his stuff away, and then he waves at me and basically kicks me out: he's busy.

Really, it's been a busy day. Owen's been taking off his own sneakers when we get home, and I've told him he needs to put the sneakers away and the socks in the laundry. Generally he'll remember to do one of those things and I'll remind him about the other. Today, he did both!

8/28/13 (Wednesday)

Today was a thrillingly eventful day . . . for Owen's underwear. He had some sort of accident at school and was wearing someone else's jeans when I arrived to get him. As we headed back to the fridge, he offered to show me his Superman underwear. He started to pull down his pants. I convinced him that I had seen and was impressed before he could completely strip.

We made a pit stop before we went home, and Owen managed to pee all over his underwear and jeans (he doesn't really aim, it turns out). He still had some Batman underwear there, so that's what he wore home. Just that.

PJ and Casey came over (their imminent arrival had been a very helpful argument on my side when we discussed whether he had to put pants on), and Owen immediately offered to show them his underwear. "Wait! Show Em!" I called. He did. As soon as she arrived, he went running downstairs to make his offer. Then, since she was game, he pulled his shorts down to his knees to show her. She was very impressed.

Later, when they went home, Owen stood at the top of the stairs waving. "Thank you!" he called. "Thank you for . . . thank you for . . . thank you for coming for my underwear and showing it to me!!!!"

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