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Journal Key:

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

2/13/14 (Thursday)

Snow day. I decide to go to the bathroom.

Owen: I'm coming with you!

Me: Um, I'd rather you didn't!

Owen: No, you need company!

Me: No, I really don't.

Owen: Yes, you do, because you will get scared all by yourself!

Me: Why don't we play hide-and-seek? I'll find you when I come out.

Owen: Yes! (runs off)

Cara joined in. When I came out, I heard him counting. I counted nine and ten and walked past his room, where he was crouched on the floor.

Me: Where could Owen be?

Owen: (shrieks and jumps up)

We went to find Cara. We checked in her room. There is a small tent in the corner.

Me: Is she in her bed?

Owen: No, she's in the tent!

He lifted the flap. She was not in there; it was full of stuffed animals and pillows and a blanket.

Owen: She's in there!

Me: I don't think so.

Owen: Yes, she is!

Me: Why don't you crawl in there and see whether you can find her.

Owen: (crawls in, emerges) She's in there!

Me: Why don't you check in the closet?

Owen: No, she's in there! You come in with me!

Cara: (from in the closet, in a spooky voice) I'm in the basement!

Owen: What?

Cara: I'm in the basement!

Owen: Where is she?

Cara: I'm in the basement!

Owen: I think she's in the basement. Let's go check!

So, we had to go down to the basement. Surprisingly, she was not there. We went upstairs, in case, as I had suggested, Cara had managed to sneak upstairs past us. We got to the top of the stairs.

Cara: (still in her mysterious voice) I'm in Mommy and Daddy's room!

Owen: I think she's in Mommy and Daddy's room.

We had to check there. Nothing! We went back to Cara's room.

Cara: I'm in the closet!

Owen: Oh! I have to go check my closet! (runs out)

This time I just waited.

Owen: She wasn't there.

Me: Try this closet.

Owen: Maybe she's in here. (jumps into Cara's bed)

Cara started to shake the closet doors.

Cara: I want to be found.

At this point, he had decided he was going to go to sleep in her bed. It was all over.

We also played with the doctor kit today. Owen has sort of mastered the stethoscope: he puts the earpieces in his ears, but it goes over his head like ear muffs. He likes giving (and getting) medicine, which he identifies, disturbingly, as barium. He has been reading Curious George Goes to the Hospital,in which George must drink barium before his x-ray. He has been diagnosing us. We have bratwurst. We all have bratwurst. This, I think, is because of an exchange in the Superhero Squad in which Ms Marvel accuses a villain of having "a bad case of bratwurst breath."

This evening, we've been working on Owen's Valentines. We had him write his name on all of them. Many names were quite illegible, though I had written his name out as a model for him. He also wrote EMON, OMEN, and, after he started adding X ("Mommy, you forgot to write X on here!"), OXMEN. At the end, I also wrote his name on all of the cards.

On Tuesday, Owen believed that it was Valentine's Day. I told him, no, that's Friday. "My teachers don't know that!" he protested. On Tuesday, he had made an elephant with harps for ears. Or hearts. Today, we have harp stickers to put onto his Valentines.

"It's hearts," I told him, "with a T. Hearts."

"I know," he said.

Idly, thinking of Audrey, who moved away and whom I'm sure he has forgotten, I asked Owen whom he would marry when he grew up. "When I'm big???" He raised his hands toward the ceiling. "I will marry you, Mommy. Because it is love."

He's putting a lot of harp stickers onto these Valentines. "I love harps. I love harps as much as I love you, Mommy!" He also did some rambling about harps not always being just for girls.

I had to get him a new sheet of stickers. "Smells like harps!"

2/14/14 (Friday)

For Valentine's Day, I got each kid a card and a book. Owen's is about a monster who is sad because he lives in a land populated by very cute creatures. He sets out to find love, which proves difficult. At the end, the driver of the bus that arrives to take him back to Cutesville, defeated, turns out to be a very compatible female monster. We had to go right to Owen's beanbag to read it.

We gave Miss Vina the "OXMEN" Valentine. She was impressed.

2/15/14 (Saturday)

Steve and Owen spent most of today together, because Cara and I were at her dance team kick-off event. The guys did make it down to see Cara's number. They arrived as the number before hers started; it was a group of older girls. I held Owen up and he watched them. "Which one is Cara?" he asked.

Before dinner, Owen was running around with a monkey from his barrel, pressing "buttons" on it, beeping, and holding it to his mouth while he shouted, "Calling all Mommies! Calling all Daddies! Calling all sisters! Calling all kitties! Help!!"

This evening, we opened the kids' Valentines from school. I can see why Miss Vina was impressed: none of the other Munchkins attempted to write their names. It was fun to open all of the stuff. Owen was excited about getting two pencils. He was excited about showing Daddy his projects. He was excited about his treats.

He also was thinking about marriage. "Hey, guys!" he announced, "I am going to marry my Mommy!" Cara tried to explain why this was not a logical idea. Daddy pointed out that it's illegal. Owen was indignant and insisted.

We herded him upstairs to get ready for bed, and he did a lot of stalling and not a lot of listening. Finally, we left him, half-dressed, in his room, screaming. After quite a while, he calmed down and Steve went in and supervised while Owen took off his shirt and put his clothes in the laundry. Owen came out, snuffly. "I am not going to marry anybody!" he said.

In the bath, feeling better after a book or two, we had a confusing conversation about whether guys marry women.

Me: Huh?

Owen: Do guys want to marry women?

Me: Um, what kind of guys?

Owen: Like Daddy!

Me: Daddy did marry a woman!

Owen: No, another kind of Daddy! Like, an alien!

Me: I have no idea.

He's finally in bed. I have to finally admit, even to myself, that he reads in bed. He has his night light, which works as a flash light, in his bed tent with him, and when I left he was sitting up with his great big Babar anthology in his lap. I'm really not sure how to feel about this. I have no idea how long this goes on.

2/16/14 (Sunday)

A stay-at-home day--mostly--for us. Owen played around the house and watched lots of screens. Cara went out to play in the snow and got pulled away to the Loefflers' house, where she stayed long enough to be given lunch before I went over to get her. In the afternoon, I decided I really needed to do a little workout on the Wii. Owen said he would come along with me. It was very fun and cute when he ran along with me, or tried to do some lunges. Things got a bit more exciting when I was trying to do a step aerobic routine and he was running around behind me, pulling cushions off the couch. "I don't want to kick you in the head!" I said, repeatedly. Fortunately we managed to avoid any trauma.

In the evening we all escaped from the house and went to Chili's and Barnes and Noble. Owen got Mommy to read some super hero books to him, including what appeared to be a really terrible Iron Man book which was basically an encyclopedia of Iron Man's many different outfits. I got to read him some pleasant Spider-Man stories before we got ourselves out of there.

2/17/14 (Monday), 2/18/14 (Tuesday), 2/19/14 (Wednesday)

Owen has been waking up in the night for a couple of nights. One night, he wandered quietly into our bedroom and climbed his way into the middle of the bed. Then he commenced flopping around for a while. He had decided that it was time to get up because it was "orange" outside; but in fact it was just bright because it was snowing. It was around 3 or 4 in the morning.

I read him a book and put him back to bed one night, and he got a story from his mother on another night.

Tonight was playdate night, and taco night. The older kids were playing a stuffed animal scavenger hunt game, which involved hiding a lot of animals throughout the house. I don't think Owen really participated in this; instead, he pulled a lot of stuffed animals out of a basket in the living room and then put them all on the kitchen floor. Periodically, he would bring one to us and say, "Look! I found [name of creature]!"

He was difficult in the evening; it all started when he suddenly decided he wanted to finish the taco he had started eating twenty minutes earlier and given up on. Needless to say, by then it was too late. Eventually he got over it. Now he is in bed with his Babar book and his night light, which he uses as a flashlight. He's called me back into his bedroom a couple of times over the past few nights and when I go in the light is always off; I'm not sure if he's trying to hide it, or what.

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