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Journal Key:

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

2/20/14 (Thursday)

Owen and Cara and I have a good routine going: when we pull up to the house, I give Cara the house keys, Owen unbuckles himself, she lets him climb out her side of the car, and they head for the door. All I have to do is carry all of my stuff and Owen's stuff. It took a little bit of effort to convince her to take him with her, but she's used to it now. Actually, it occurs to me that I'm really not doing an awful lot of work at this point.

We had a nice dinner, just the three of us. I spun Owen's pasta for him. I would spin it while he was busy, and then he would come back and take a bite. He was quite busy. One thing he had to do was to go and get a new napkin every time he had to wipe his face. We stopped him, with some difficulty, before he could get a third.

Later, Owen had captured Batman in Wonder Woman's lasso, which, Steve explained, was a lasso of truth. Steve had Batman confess to picking his nose. Owen had Batman confess that he got lots of napkins to wipe his face.

2/21/14 (Friday)

Yesterday was Juliana's birthday, and we went out for our traditional On the Border birthday celebration. The Loefflers couldn't make it, so it was just the four of us. I was concerned about getting Owen to leave the house, once we had gotten home, but he was excited about the birthday. He can't possibly remember her, so I'm not really sure what he thought was going on. As we were leaving, though, he announced that we didn't need to take the car, because we could just walk next door.

We did take the car, though. It was a little crowded, so I let Steve out and went to park.

"Mommy, what are you doing?" Owen asked.

"Well, I'm parking the car. What are you doing?"

"I'm just sitting here, waiting."

Dinner was nice. Owen ordered a corn dog, which he did not finish. I don't think Cara ever didn't finish a corn dog. As we walked out into the night, Owen was concerned that we had not gone to the party. We had to explain that that had been the party.

2/22-24/14 (Saturday-Monday)

Saturday afternoon George came to pick the kids up for a sleepover and Owen chose the perfect time to poop on the potty. While he was doing that with his mommy, Cara played Candyland with Grandpapa. It also gave me some time to very quickly pack Owen's sleepover bag, which I somehow never remember to do ahead of time.

On Sunday it was just so nice out, at long last, that we took the kids out and we all spent some time hacking at the huge snow bank piled along our curb. The sun was doing its work and things were getting slushy, but chopping off bits with shovels helped things go faster. The kids enjoyed themselves picking up little bits of ice and managed not to throw them at each other. I found a tiny plastic giraffe in my pocket and showed it to them to distract them from a potential squabble; then Cara built a little tiny snow-fort for the giraffe. Then the kids found an earthworm who had unwisely decided to come out of the ground and onto the sidewalk. Cara was philanthropic and may have managed to coax it back into the soil.

Evelyn went out to the grocery store, and Cara got bored at last and went inside. Owen was not quite ready to come in yet, though. He found that he very much enjoyed getting a little bit of snow on Evelyn's ice scraper/brush and then whamming it against the back bumper of my car.

In the evening Aunt Claire came to visit! We always have to show Aunt Claire everything. Owen wants her to come to the potty with him. But he also showed her his new bookcase, which we got from the Loefflers. There were several moments when we had the TV on, but couldn't hear it at all, because Owen was in the same room loudly smashing his toys together.

Today was Monday and the beginning of a new week. The kids did fine. We have started reading Harry Potter to Cara. Her parents would like to read the books aloud, and so far we're sticking to that; but it means that we can only really do it after Owen is in bed. We started the first book on the weekend at lunch, but Owen interrupted frequently.

The boy has shot off some pretty weird strings of words lately, but unfortunately I can't remember particularly what any of them were. He made some kind of outrageous claim about being a monster and eating something or other. He had me show him an alphabet book while he was on the potty this weekend, and I was impressed at all the letters near the beginning of the alphabet that he correctly identified. When we got to "M," he called it "W," so now I am imagining that he has a very interesting form of dyslexia.

2/25/14 (Tuesday)

Steve told me that Owen had identified the letters correctly up to F, and then after F had just found a lot more Fs. My experience was similar, but I corrected him on G and he actually made it, with a little bit more help, through the rest of the alphabet! I'm not sure whether he would have identified M and W correctly.

I asked him, in the car, what letter he was studying at school this week. I thought it was R week, but he claims that it's S. He volunteered that snake starts with S. I suggested several other specimens, but I didn't try testing him with wrong words.

He told Cara that Miss Vina had, in honor of the week, been playing Simon Says with them at school. Both kids found that exciting, and when we got home they played Simon Says. Cara got to be Simon. She had decided that Simon would say everything, so that Owen would never get "out." They kept themselves quite occupied while I got dinner ready.

2/26/14 (Wednesday)

Owen and I went on an adventure today: I brought him back to the pediatrician to get two more shots, because they figured five was too many for one day when he had his well visit last month. He was not enthusiastic about going, although I had promised him a treat afterwards. Disappointingly, I did not bring toys or books for him. Fortunately, things went quickly. I had reminded him that shots are over very quickly. For both, I counted to five--actually, I never got past three. He was very brave.

When he'd gotten his band aids and we'd rolled his sleeves down, I picked up our coats and we headed for the exit. I was very amused because he was holding his arms out in a way that I can only describe as bow-legged, except for arms. It didn't last long.

We stopped at Dunkin Donuts. Did you know that they have letters on their doors? It's the letter D. We got a donut and apple juice and got to sit at a table, and Owen got to throw out the trash afterwards. All in all, it was a good adventure.

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