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Journal Key:

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

9/5/13 (Thursday)

Today was a day off for Cara and me, and I decided not to get up early and work out (which I had been doing all summer and all week). Of course, Owen, who had been sleeping past seven all week, woke up before six. However, Steve got up with him! They went to the potty and Steve cleverly did not explain to Owen that it was basically wake-up time; he read him a book and put him back to bed, then went and showered. I snoozed. It was lovely. Owen got up around six thirty.

At YBR, the ladies are sending Owen in to the potty on his own. We're working on doing the same here. Pulling things up really does seem difficult for him. He ends up with the waistbands folded in, generally. We're also working on getting him to dress and undress himself. That's going fairly well! He's very pleased with himself about it.

The kids and I stopped at the playground at Lindeneau on the way home. They went on the swings and then over to run around and slide. They chased each other and used the railings to pretend to be in jail and laughed about the static in their hair when they went down the plastic slide. Owen and I discussed whether it's ok to pretend that sticks are guns (YBR has taught him no, thank goodness--I don't want him to be one of those kids who gets suspended from kindergarten because he decides his finger is a firearm!) and whether it's ok to throw mulch. When he eventually needed to use the bathroom ("Mommy, let's go potty at home and then come back!") we headed home. He was, to my surprise, basically able to hold it!

9/6/13 (Friday)

This morning, the kids were watching Aloha Scooby Doo when it was time for Owen to leave for school. We promised he could finish it when he got home.

When he got home, we were outside playing and doing yard work. The sun was shining. The shed was open. The possibilities were endless. Owen insisted on going straight inside to finish his movie before coming out to play.

I went to pick up dinner, leaving everyone outside and happy. When I got back, Owen was running around with a purple fairy wand.

9/7/13 (Saturday)

Today we did some bike riding. Mainly, Cara would ride her bike around the block. Owen and I would ride around until we came to the part where we had to turn back onto Nancy, and he would insist on going straight along Meeker instead. We left his bike and walked. We were, he explained, looking for bunnies.

After naptime, Grandmama and Grandpapa were here! The same bike-riding scenario replayed itself, but Owen took Grandmama for a ride. There was also a lot of chalk-play on the sidewalk, which now looks very cheerful. We got out the old 3-D chalk glasses, which was fun. I do wonder whether Owen can see the 3-D effect. he definitely likes wearing the glasses and seeing "rainbows" around things. He brought them to dinner.

In the middle of the story-reading process, this evening, Owen sat up and asked me to clip one of his toenails. I did. "Hey, that didn't hurt!" he exclaimed. He seemed astonished. I had to do all of his other toes and his fingers, too. None of them hurt!

9/8/13 (Sunday)

This morning Owen and I went out. We took two books and his transformer and drove down to the mall to get his hair cut. As usual, he sat and ignored what was happening on his head. Afterwards, his lollipop occupied him enough to let me take a quick walk through the shoe store. Then we headed for Barnes and Noble. That was a long walk. He's much slower when he has a lollipop.

In B&N, I was very happy because the display of Halloween books was so attractive that I got to read four of them before we had to go to the superhero section. In the superhero section, I searched hard and found a book we hadn't read that looked inoffensive. The Joker took a joyride in the Batmobile. I bought it, partly because I liked the stickers. Owen read it again on the way home.

When we sat down for dinner, Owen told me that if he ate a good dinner, he could have a popsicle. "Oh," I said, "ok, eat up all of your chicken!" I assumed that Steve had made this arrangement with Owen, but it had not actually been discussed. It was a pretty decent deal, though. He ate a good dinner, and then the kids and I went outside and they had popsicles and rolled down the hill. It was a cool evening, and they got very silly and wrassled on the grass. It was a beautiful day.

9/9/13 (Monday)

I picked Owen up after I had dropped Cara off at dance, and I explained to him that we would have dinner at home and then go and get her. I had to explain this a few times, including when he mentioned that we'd passed the turn to get to her school.

Owen: Mommy, is Cara nice to her teachers?

Me: um . . . yes.

Owen: Well, I'M not nice to MY teachers!

Me: You're not? What do you . . . do?

Owen: I'm not nice to them. Well, I didn't take toys from nobody. And I didn't hit anybody. And I didn't punch anybody.

So, because of accidents at school (I'm so ready for that part to end!), Owen ended up spending the afternoon running around outside, in the mulch, wearing his sneakers with no socks. When I took his shoes off, a shower of mulch fell out. His feet were, of course, filthy. They were also blistered. Each of his big toes has a perfectly circular little blister on the side of it. A filthy blister.

All of this was discovered between five thirty and six thirty, while Owen and I were at home alone having our dinner before we went to get Cara from dance. I wiped his feet a little, but we really had to wait for the bath. Rather than put sandals on him, I carried him when we went out. He was pretty nonchalant about the whole thing.

Later, though, when he was in the bath, he became nearly hysterical at the prospect of having his feet washed. I tried everything in my parenting arsenal, including having Cara come upstairs during her dinner to tell him that it wouldn't hurt and that band aids wouldn't hurt. "Buddy, when I had a boo-boo on my finger," she said, "I washed it . . . even though it hurt!" Thanks, Cara. Then she told him that band aids hurt a little.

I sort of got near his blisters with soap. I rescued him from the bath. In his room, he sat on his bed, covering his feet with his towel. He would not let anyone see his feet. I was almost willing to retreat, at that point, until I found that he was also refusing to let me put a diaper or anything onto him because then his feet would be uncovered.

I got out the band aids, and I ended up putting one on myself, one on Cara ("Look, Buddy, it doesn't even hurt!"), one on Owen's toy donkey's face, and one on each ear of his lion. Steve got home. In the end, Steve had to hold Owen's feet to let me put band aids on them.

He lay there, then, in a diaper and two band aids, convinced that he was now completely incapacitated. Incapable of walking. Unable to rise. When I tucked him into his bed, he was pretty sure he needed to have his feet sticking out. Then he wanted another band aid, on top of one of the ones he already had.

9/10/13 (Tuesday)

This morning Owen was going to bring some guys in the car, as he usually does. Then he changed his mind and brought a book instead. He looked at the book until we got to Yellow Brick Road, then announced that he wanted to bring it inside. I had to be mean and tell him no, because I know it would have just been the thin end of the wedge. He was very upset at having to leave his book behind, but managed to wave goodbye to me nicely before I left.

As it happens it was Back to School Night at Evelyn's school, so she was out for that in the evening. I got back to YBR just as they were closing, and Owen was the last kid there. "There's my Daddy!" he said. I just realized as I wrote this that it was probably the only time that he has ever spotted me before some other kid did and yelled to him that his daddy was here.

We had to go right over to Cara's dance class and get her. When we got home, it was dinner time. Owen ate a strange yogurt-heavy meal that also featured chicken parmesan and some spaghetti--and a bagel. This is what happens when you let the child's whims carry you along.

Cara has to get back into the rhythm of doing homework again--tonight it was hard anyway because it took so long to get ourselves home. But then once Owen was in the bath she had to try to write her vocabulary sentences--which has never been an easy task for her. It might have gone on well past Owen's bedtime, except that fortunately Mommy got home and shepherded the child through her last few sentences.

Owen still has his little boo-boos on his feet, but we had all completely forgotten about them until I took his socks off and he could see them again. Then suddenly it became difficult to walk, and he was afraid to be put into the bathtub. He didn't want to get into bed, either, apparently feeling that having the sheet on his feet was going to be too much. He was laying sideways, with his legs off the side of the bed. When I told him that people just don't sleep that way, he disagreed, citing the precedent of Snow White. I remembered that Snow White had indeed fallen asleep lying sideways in the dwarfs' house--but that was because she was so tall that she didn't fit lengthways on a dwarf bed, and so was lying across several of them at once.

9/11/13 (Wednesday)

So, Owen is . . . upstairs screaming. I think it's because he wants a bath. And he doesn't want a band aid. And he doesn't want to go brush his teeth. And he basically wants what he wants and not what he is told is what has to happen. So, yes, screaming in his room. Long term. With an invitation to come out when he's ready to be nice. It's ten of nine. I really hope this is a big breaking point in Owen's relationship with being told what to do. I hope. I hope.

. . . well, it was sort of good progress. I went up and had to pick him up, and he stopped crying. I carried him to the bathroom and brushed his teeth. I carried him back to his room and read him one superhero book. He wanted water. I told him I would get it, but that when I got back I wanted him to say thank you for the water and sorry for all of the screaming and crying. I stood up.

"Sorry," said his little tiny voice.

I came back with the water, and he drank it. "Thank you for all the screaming and crying," he said. He was definitely chastened.

That was not the way I'd hoped to spend the evening.

This afternoon, I got to see Jack-Jack, a new Munchkin I've been hearing a lot about. Owen told me that Jack-Jack is from the baby school. I reminded Owen that he, too, is from the baby school. He denies it.

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