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Journal Key:

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

3/13/14 (Thursday)

So, someone at YBR has lice. We have taken Owen's nap bag home and washed everything. We washed his bedding. We washed his lion. I found one dead louse in his hair. Tonight, I brought home some cream rinse lice treatment to use on him, which will protect him from them for a couple of weeks, on top of making us a lot more confident that there's nothing on his head right now.

After dinner, I got him into the bath. He's been playing with the tea set for a couple of days now. He very solicitously makes cups of tea for anyone he can get to attend his party. One of the big containers we use for rinsing his hair has become his "dishwasher"; he puts things into it when he's done with them. Tonight he made me porridge in his sugar bowl.

When I could drag him away from all that, I got him snuggled up in towels on the floor and put the stuff into his hair. He had to sit for ten minutes like that. I'd been worrying about it and planning on having him sit in front of the tv, until I realized that a couple of books can hold him just fine. We only got through one of the four I'd picked out before time was up. Rinsing was the hard part. Steve held him up over the sink while I poured water through his hair. It wasn't fun for anyone. It's done, though, and we're glad! I used the lice comb (I felt so prepared because I already had that!) on him again tonight, and I didn't find anything.

3/14/14 (Friday)

This evening I took the kids to the Key Club Carnival at North Brunswick High School. It was loud and crowded, but once we got used to it we had a lot of fun. I got to say hello and show the kids off to several former and current students, and Cara and I got henna tattoos on our hands while Owen had a snack. The kids got to play a lot of games, most of which were variations on the ring toss. Owen did very well on one that involved tossing plastic rings so that they landed on the necks of soda bottles: he ignored the ilne he was supposed to stand behind, walked up to the table, and carefully placed his rings on the bottles. There were about ten rings, and I let him use three. Cara tossed the rest, legally, and couldn't hit anything. Each kid got one ticket. At the end of the evening, we traded in our pile of tickets for two little plastic slinkies, and everyone was happy.

3/15/14 (Saturday)

It's Puma's birthday! Thanks to Facebook, we remember that.

We went down to south Jersey, to Grandmom's house, to do our taxes. Coincidentally, she had made a cake. She also had candles.

Oddly, Owen referred to Grandpop as "that guy." He may have become confused in some way, as he was for a while about the Loefflers. We had made him come to the table to eat his lunch, and he had ordered Steve to go and play with his Star Wars toys. He had another toy, and he wanted "that guy" to go and play with it. The Star Wars toys were very popular today. We had out a lot of guys, plus a very few vehicles. Owen decided to play gas station: "Fill it, regular," said the elephant creature, driving its round piano around.

On the way home, we broke up the drive by stopping at a Chilis. After we'd ordered, Owen announced that he needed to poop. At home, this means we'll read him four or rive books. It goes on and on and on. I brought him into the bathroom and locked us into a stall. He wanted a book. I didn't have any. I offered to recite a book for him. This was acceptable. I recited The Circus Ship, The Circus McGurkus, and several poems from Ride a Purple Pelican. We were in there for a long, long time. Other people came and went.

Owen: Someone's making pee-pee.

Me: Shhh!

Later, I was reciting away.

Owen: Shhh!

Me: What?

Owen: Shhh! Someone's flushing! We don't talk while someone's flushing. You told me that, but then you did wrong!

Me: Um, no, I told you we don't talk about other people making pee-pee.

He doesn't believe me.

Several times, when I came to a break in my "books," I asked him whether he was done. No, he wasn't. Eventually, I thought he really must be. He denied it. I asked whether he was just saying that because he wanted more books. Yes, he was. I promised more later, and we were able to go and wash our hands.

Steve had put a plate over my food to keep it warm.

3/16/14 (Sunday)

Today our big task was hanging all of the stuff back up on the walls of our living room, now that it has been fixed up and painted. But we waited until the afternoon to do it. In the morning, the kids had a lot of time to sit around the house and watch shows and play around. Owen was showing off his knowledge of letters at one point, resulting in him saying "W is for monkey!" He's still working on that whole W/M thing. One thing we did was switch around some furniture in Owen's room, moving his bed to the other side. He seemed excited about it.

Aunt Claire came to help in the afternoon and was almost immediately drawn into being shown things by Owen. Then Grandmama and Grandpapa arrived. Owen got a lot of attention from his Grandmama. He got out a lot of his animal/critter toys and decided they were at school--a well-built working horse was the teacher. He re-created a Berenstain Bears book about teasing. For a while he was doing this right in the living room where we were working, but he was tempted away to a less obtrusive place.

Now he's in bed, where hopefully he is not too disoriented by his repositioned bed.

3/17/14 (Monday)

It's Saint Patrick's Day, so Owen wore his green shirt. He also colored a nice green hat with a clover stuck in it, and another picture, on which he wrote his name, which came out "ONME."

Poor Cara was sick today, so she stayed home. Owen doesn't seem to have noticed, and hopefully he won't catch her stomach bug either. I was busy when he got home, loading CDs back onto our shelves in the living room. He felt my absence and so contrived several things to try to get me into the kitchen. He wanted me to come and read a book to him while he ate; he also wanted me to serve him more yogurt, and definitely not Mommy, who was already in the room holding the spoon.

3/18/14 (Tuesday)

We're definitely in a Daddy-is-the-awesomest phase. This morning, only Daddy was good enough to take Owen to the potty and to supervise him in getting dressed. This afternoon, though, I took Owen to Barnes and Noble while Cara was at dance. ("I hate dance!" said Owen. This was surprising, because, for several weeks, he has loved dance.)

We settled in and read several superhero books, but when we started to head for the potty and the cafe, I stopped Owen to point out the title of a book we were passing: C A T. That spells cat! We had to read that book. Well, Owen had to page through it and comment on it. Then we also "read" MOO. Then DOG. Then we read a completely unrelated but similarly shaped alphabet book, and a counting book with tiny rubber ducks stuck to the pages, and then a counting book with sliding panels. It was a busy afternoon.

I bought Owen a treat, and, for the first time, he picked it up in his hand and ate it. It was much quicker and easier than using a fork! I wonder whether it was a fluke.

3/19/14 (Wednesday)

Conversation got a little bit slow in the car on the way home. "Cara," said Owen, "tell me about your day." She didn't, but it was a nice thought.

At the Loefflers' for playdate, the kids played their current favorite game, which involves taking turns hiding a fiarly large number of stuffed animals all over the house and then finding them. This time, they cleverly made a chart that listed the animals (by name) and had boxes in which they could keep track of who had found what. The game keeps them very busy. The three older kids were very involved in it, and Owen, who was ostensibly also playing, kept coming to them, saying "Ok, we got a mystery on our hands!" and "Hey, guys, I have a mystery on my hands!" They had no reaction.

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