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Journal Key:

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

11/28/13 (Thursday) Happy Thanksgivukkah!

We had a lovely Thanksgiving at my parents' house. The kids were not awful, and Griffin, X and Lily were there too! Owen actually kissed the baby, I think, and Owen and Cara sat at the separate kids' table. Owen has gotten into the habit of talking on the phone a lot. It doesn't require a phone, just any object that is relatively phone-sized. Then he starts yelling to whoever is on the other end for a while. It can be quite interesting.

11/29/13 (Friday) Happy Thanksgivukkah 2!

We had a second Thanksgiving in Middletown. Janet made some wonderful fried chicken, which was a bird and had been fried in oil, so it kind of fit for both holidays. The kids watched a lot of Scooby in the downstairs room and eventually we grown-ups played a game that I'd gotten as a Hanukkah gift. Cara came up a lot to watch us and was attracted to the game more than I would have expected.

Owen really likes lighting the candles for Hanukkah. He loves lighting the candles and singing the song. It was what convinced him to leave my parents' house to go home on Thanksgiving; then he was worried for a good part of the ride that it would be "too late" by the time we got home. We all got to do it tonight, though Owen had decided to be off in a huff about something or other and ended up missing a good bit of the song.

We parents were lucky enough to get a sleepover, so we left the kids at the Smuga house and went off home after our second day of feasting.

11/30/13 (Saturday)

Today Evelyn decided to go and visit her Aunt Theresa, who is sick. So when the kids were dropped off at home, they were stuck with Daddy. It was about lunchtime when they arrived, so I got out all of our many leftovers and we scrounged. Owen didn't really eat all that much.

The afternoon, as I remember it now, was basically a long battle with Owen about pooping on the potty. He very clearly exhibited all the signs that I have come to recognize of a little boy who needs to poop. But he was convinced that it was going to hurt, and so tried using every alternative that he could think of: he wanted to take a bath, to get into his pajamas (it was about two or three in the afternoon), to cuddle, to go to bed, etc., etc. After two or three instances of sitting on the potty, a lot of negotiations, and one or two near-accidents, he did, at long last, poop on the potty. By that time, certain promises had been made, and I was forced to hand over a new action figure in payment. Honestly we were all so relieved by that point that it seemed the least I could do.

In the evening, dinner was the big question. I was willing to get takeout, of course, but what did the children want? I listed some options: Chili's, McDonald's, pizza... We actually never eat McDonald's, but Owen almost immediately said, "I want Old MacDonald's!" It seemed at first that he had made a rather critical error of understanding, but in fact he knew what he would get there: chicken nuggets, apple juice, and french fries.

In the event, since none of us actually wanted to have to drive anywhere to get dinner, I called for pizza, and ordered Owen chicken fingers from the pizza place. He was completely uninterested in eating them, and then spilled an entire cup of milk over himself and was convinced to take an early bath. In the bath, out of desperation, I brought up his plate of chicken fingers. I then proceeded to feed him his entire dinner of chicken fingers while he was sitting in the bath. He seemed quite excited by the chicken fingers once he was immersed in water and I was delivering forkloads to him. I really hope I did not set a precedent.

It was an early bath, so we went back downstairs, where he proceeded to eat all of his remaining french fries. Then he claimed that he wanted a piece of pizza! He is a crazy little boy.

Now I am left in a little bit of a predicament. We have been giving him stickers on days when he stays dry, and if he gets five stickers he gets a prize. Today he stayed dry and would have gotten his fifth sticker. However he already got a prize due to my bowel movement bribing tactics. We did not discuss his sticker at the end of the day. I'm considering bringing it up again tomorrow night.

12/1/13 (Sunday)

A very lazy day with lots of TV. At some point, though, Owen declared that he wanted to play tee ball. He had gotten this idea in his head on Thanksgiving, because he mistakenly thought we were going to Uncle Jim's house, and the last thing he'd done there was play tee ball. So eventually one of his parents got him all sneakered up and put his coat on and got the key to the shed and went outside to unlock the shed and pull out the tee ball set.

Owen whacked one or two balls and then lost interest. Instead, he had found his kiddie tricycle. I asked him many times to try putting his feet on the pedals, to no avail; he prefers to shoot himself along by pushing his feet off against the sidewalk, somewhat in the style of Fred Flinstone. Although mainly I was strongly reminded of the way he used to scoot himself along on his bottom before he learned to walk. I thought he would run out of steam fairly quickly, but I followed him out of Nancy Circle, around the turn, and all the way out to Silver Lake. He would have kept going but I pointed out that there was no more sidewalk on which to roll his bike. He decided that what he needed to do was find some money on the street. Fortunately he located some imaginary money and then we were able to turn around and go home.

The week had been really quite good for potty trips, but today just went to heck. I seem to remember this happened last Sunday as well, so maybe there's something about Sunday that affects his bladder. Anyway we went through a lot of pants and no prizes were given out. To end the evening, after a tough afternoon, I obtained Mickey's Christmas Carol and we all watched and enjoyed it.

12/2/13 (Monday)

Back to the old grind! I thought that the children and I were doing all right in the morning but somehow or other we ended up running quite late, and I forgot to bring Owen's nap bag to school (fortunately they are well prepared for these eventualities). Ev came home feeling all done-in, and I was working from home with no class to go to tonight (my first class is all over now), so I got Cara and took her to dance and then got Owen.

Owen was busily making a plastic bridge for some plastic bears. I convinced him to put it away and we went home. He wanted Mickey's Christmas Carol on again. The actual Christmas Carol part of it is very short, and it is filled out with a lot of other Mickey cartoons. I now realize that we have been doing Owen a real disservice by not showing him any classic Looney Tunes cartoons, which he would absolutely love. He finds some of the old Donald Duck ones worthy of many screams of laughter.

12/3/13 (Tuesday)

Today, for one of the very few times I can remember, Owen saw me arrive at Yellow Brick Road and knew it was me before anyone else told him. He was sitting right inside the front room and could see me through the window on the inside door. "It's Daddy!" he said, very excited. In fact, he was so excited that he literally wet himself, right then and there. That's just how exciting I am. Sigh.

On the way home, Owen decided that he had to tell me some things. Unfortunately, since he's still not even four, most of the things he told me were incomprehensible. There was a girl at school, though, who didn't get what she wanted because she was crying. He also seems to be very confused about when normal people eat different meals. You see, on Monday nights when Owen and Evelyn get home, Evelyn makes him scrambled eggs for dinner. We also occasionally all have "breakfast for dinner." This seems to have Owen firmly convinced that when "it's too late" at night, you have to eat breakfast. I made several attempts to explain that, sometimes, on special occasions, people eat breakfast at night, but normally it is eaten in the morning. At night, we eat dinner. "No!" Owen said.

Chances are that some day we'll get through to him. On this, and on several other things.

12/4/13 (Wednesday)

Tonight when I came home Evelyn was trying desperately to get the kids out the door. It's playdate night! And thanks to the fact that I am no longer taking classes on Wednesday nights, I got to go too. But first we had to convince Owen that he needed to stop working on the big jigsaw puzzle he had gotten out, and insisted that he had to finish. Finally he had a wonderful idea: "We can finish it later!"

Everyone had to get into their coats. Owen also needed his hat. Not his winter hat, but the pilgrim hat he had made out of construction paper at YBR. Outside, as Evelyn and Owen and I walked along the sidewalk, the streetlight projected our shadows in front of us. "Hey look!" said Owen excitedly. "My shadow is wearing a hat, too!"

It was nice to see all the Loefflers again and have a nice dinner. Clearly it's been too long because when I went downstairs to play Mariokart I was really terrible at it. Tonight is the last night of Hannukah, so each of us had a chance to light one candle--even Owen, who was allowed to direct Ron's hand towards the candle as Ron held the shammash.

Back at home again, Owen really wanted to take a bath, so he got to have a quick one. One of his current hobbies is to go to our bedroom instead of his own when he comes out of the bath. Here, he happened to notice the bag of cat treats lying on a piece of furniture. "Munchkins for the kitties!" We had to give them some.

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