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Journal Key:

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

12/5/13 (Thursday)

My father pointed out recently that, no matter what he asks Owen, Owen's answer is "no!" I have to disagree. No matter what I ask Owen, if the question starts with "Do you know," the answer is "yes, I know." Well, really, no, he doesn't. I'm not sure that it's actually less frustrating than his automatic "no" answers!

This evening we got out some of our Christmas decorations. Well, two. Cara got the string of lights that goes in her room, and Owen got one for his room, too. It's pretty.

12/6/13 (Friday)

It was cold and rainy, but we went out for Family Fun Night. We used a coupon at Chilis (good thing Owen was there--he spotted it from the highway, or we might never have found the place), and then we were unable to, as Cara would have preferred, go home and get into cuddly pajamas: we had to go to Barnes and Noble. Instead, we had to make our way, through the dark and the cold rain, picking our way between the puddles, to the book store. Owen does not walk quickly. He was too wet to pick up.

Fortunately, inside the store, I was clever enough to take his wet coat off of him before I let him sit in my lap. There was an event going on; I'd heard about it at school. Children were there in pajamas to hear Polar Express read aloud. Owen had no interest in that whatsoever, so we sat and read books on our own while they sang songs.

He and Cara and I went to the bathroom, which is past the books for teens. There is a book in that section with Mickey and Goofy on the front. Owen has been pointing it out to me for a while, and this time, when we came out, he wanted to stop and read it. I said discouraging things. It turns out to be some sort of manga. I'm not sure why Mickey and Goofy are there; they are not the main characters, I'm sure. Owen sat and read it for quite a while, and Steve came along and helped. I read a different young adult book.

12/7/13 (Saturday)

We've been sort of in a rut for the past . . . well, while, spending all of our free time on schoolwork and chores. Today, we decided to be different: we got into the car and drove down to Point Pleasant and went to Jenkinson's! We used to do things like this all the time when Cara was little, and it feels like we haven't done nearly enough of it since Owen was born.

We got there a few minutes after opening, and there were only a few other families ahead of us. We could run anywhere we wanted. Owen loved running around and showing us things. Upstairs, Cara washed her hands and explored the touch tank. Of course, Owen had to, too! She managed to pet a little ray; he waved at it.

Over by the seal tank, Owen and I got into a classic parent/child disagreement: he felt that the short-haired woman cleaning the tiles was a man, and I did not. I felt as if I were in a Family Circus cartoon, or perhaps Dennis the Menace. After that he went bumping down the stairs on his bottom, trying to convince me to join him. I walked.

We got to see the penguins have breakfast, the seals have lunch, and the sharks have whatever you call it when you only eat every few days. These three feedings followed the same pattern: Owen ran off. The most fun was the seal one, because everyone sat down to watch the seals do "behaviors" (not tricks!). The kids all clustered up by the glass. Two babies sort of petted Owen's head, and he had to flee. he spent his time, instead, inching under the bench on his back.

Before the shark feeding, we were upstairs. Cara was ready to head down, but Owen was still busy. I suggested that Cara and Steve go ahead, and we would "catch up." Of course, then Owen went with them. "You catch up, Mommy," he told me. I moseyed slowly along. I caught up downstairs, but Owen wasn't ready. "No, Mommy!You can't catch up!" He pushed me away. I let him push me, with much difficulty and a lot of giggles, all the way to the stairs. I went up the two stairs to the landing and came off of it the other way. When I came back around, I didn't see Owen. The woman and girl who had been about to use the machine to press a penny had a little boy with them, though. It was Owen, who had gone right in front of them and started messing with the machine! I removed him.

Somehow, then, I got to watch the shark feeding alone, because Steve and the kids went upstairs. I think they had the better view, though! I joined them at the end, and when Steve and Owen had headed to the potty, the manager, passing by, invited us into the back to see the keepers and their equipment and identify the sharks for us. You aren't allowed to feed the sharks, she says, until you can ID them from above. We got to see the chart they use to keep track of how much each individual has eaten. The keepers put the fish onto prongs at the end of long poles, which they use to basically put the food right into the mouths of the sharks.

We haven't been giving Owen naps on the weekends, but he does sort of still need them. He was tired. He even told us so. He wasn't too tired to need to stop to read a book in the gift shop. You have to walk through the gift shop to get out, and both times we did (before lunch and at the end of the trip) Owen had to have a couple of books. That was the souvenir he picked out.

12/8/13 (Sunday)

I traumatized Owen today by suggesting that we go to Target and pick out a new string of lights for his room, so that we could use his on the tree. He didn't feel better about it, really, until we'd managed to decorate the tree without stripping his room.

It was cold, so we chose the tree quickly. Owen made the most of the experience. There was a lot of string on the ground, so he picked up a nice blue piece and whipped it around as he walked, making noises like a laser gun or a whip or something. He whipped his way along while we found a tree, looked at it long enough to decide it was the best one there, and hauled it back to the front to pay. I'm pretty sure the string is downstairs somewhere, tied around the furniture.

The tree is set up and beautiful, and everyone got to decorate the house--I think even Cara is satisfied! Owen was allowed to hang ornaments, though a lot of the fragile ones are clustered at the top, out of his reach. He and Cara put the gel clings on the front windows. There's supposed to be a stocking, but Owen put the piece that's the top of it at the bottom, which, fortunately, Cara thinks is cute and not horrifying.

Owen got his hands onto our two Simpsons ornaments, which feature Bart and Homer in Santa hats. He really enjoyed them. "Alien Santa!!!!!!" Owen screamed, running around the house with Homer.

Everyone had hot chocolate and listened to Christmas carols and watched some (but not much) snow fall outside.

12/9/13 (Monday)

When I picked Owen up, he wanted to eat something from his lunch box on the way home.

Owen: I think I left something!

Teacher: You usually finish everything, Owen.

Me: Well, there's a little bit of cold leftover pasta . . .

Owen: Yes! Yes! I want that!

He finished the pasta on the way home. He ate half a pork chop, some rice, and some asparagus for dinner. He had a bit of a brownie as a treat, and now he's snacking on some goldfish. I wonder whether he'll want Cheerios after his bath.

12/10/13 (Tuesday)

It snowed today, the first big snow of the winter. Cara's school had an early dismissal, but Evelyn's was completely closed for the day. I decided to work from home. I took the kids out on some slippery roads to their respective schools. Ev picked Owen up just after he'd had his lunch. He claimed, however, that he would be perfectly happy to have a second lunch at home. He got a bagel, and he and I cozied up on the couch and watched some Batman while I also tried to do some work.

It wasn't long before Cara got home as well. She was pretty invested in getting out in the snow; Owen wasn't very motivated, until he saw her fully dressed in her gear. Then he was willing to go down and very slowly be enfolded in his snow pants, lining-zipped coat, mittens, boots, and hat. Evelyn and I dressed him in tandem and I thought of us as helpful scientists dressing an astronaut before his launch.

We finally all got out there and had a lot of fun in the snow. Owen has seen other people making snow angels, so he tried that several times; generally wherever he tried it the snow was packed down too hard for him to leave any print behind, but he didn't seem to mind that. I made a snowman with him, which he almost immediately smashed to bits with his tiny snow shovel. Cara spent a lot of time over with PJ and Casey but also came back to do some sledding and snowball making with us. She was a very good big sister and did a great job helping Owen to do some sledding, which he absolutely loved. If he was sitting on the sled, pretty much every time he would just fall over backwards and ride the sled down the hill on his back. Then he would roll over and get up to do it again. He also tried one or two on his belly, which was just as good. Evelyn got the idea of using the lid from our recycling bin as a mini-sled--it also worked pretty well.

I was glad we all got a chance to play in the snow--I don't remember doing much of that myself last winter, anyway. Owen certainly is a bit more able to actually do things for himself this time around. It was fun but Ev theorizes that we should really still be giving Owen his midday nap. We've gotten out of the habit lately on weekends--I seem to recall that one of the reasons we stopped was that Miss Mona at YBR told me one week that he wasn't napping anymore. But apparently that was just a momentary fluke, and he is still doing it at YBR. We didn't give him one today and he was really completely exhausted by the end of the day. He also gave us several traumatic episodes of wailing about one thing or another, and not listening. Maybe napping will help!

Still, I had a very nice time with him in the evening while Mommy and Cara were doing Cara's homework and such. He and I went up to his bedroom and just read a lot of books on his bed, until it was time for his bath. He even had another book in his bath.

12/11/13 (Wednesday)

Sometimes, when we go over to the Loefflers', PJ has designated some of his old things to give to Owen. Usually, it's mainly a lot of things we don't want. Last week, though, it was a bag of books. This evening, we were pretty sure Owen needed to go sit on the potty. He didn't want to. I went over and whispered, "I have some books you've never seen before." Then I had to get them and meet him in the bathroom.

I got out a set of twelve little Spider-Man books, like the Batman set we already had. I read him all of them. It was a very productive twenty minutes. They are mercifully short. Each is about five pages. They have lines like, "'Gosh,' said Spider-Man, 'that wasn't nice.'"

Most of the books have bad guys in them. "I don't like bad guys!" yelled Owen. "Because they're bad!"

Owen definitely prolonged his stay on the toilet to get to hear all of the books. Afterwards, we had many adventures while getting him into his pajamas and brushing his teeth. There was wrestling. His puppy-shaped suncatcher fought the Godzilla toy. We had to "sleep" on the shoes in the bottom of my closet.

When he was in bed, I read him six of the Spider-Man books again. I let him have another to hold in bed. When I first came down, I could hear him up there, giggling.

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