| Previous Week | Back Home | Next Week |

Journal Key:

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

3/27/14 (Thursday)

Owen is really enjoying being a lollipop. Today was the last day for one of them, and the kids all wrote their names on a good-bye poster. The teachers put Owen's name in parentheses underneath what he wrote so that no one thinks there's a lollipop named OMEN. Sophia wrote his name at the top of a picture she drew. She copied what he had written on another picture. At the top of her page, above a rainbow, it says OMEN.

We had time to play with toys today. Owen's bad guys decided to steal the Green Lanterns' headquarters. He set the bad guys up with their arms in the air, ready to carry it away. I suggested that he might need more than two. He got the whole troupe out, and, to our surprise, they were able to hold up the whole playset. I could not take their picture, because Owen didn't let them last long.

3/29/14 (Saturday)

We drove down to see Grandpop today; he's by himself because Grandmom is out in New Mexico. Owen got out many Legos and Star Wars guys and did lots of things that I really don't understand with them. He also got us to read books to him. At first I picked ones I thought were good, so I got to read Where the Wild Things Are. At the end, Max goes home to someone who loves him best of all. I asked Owen who loves Max best of all. "His mommy, and his daddy, and his sister!" said Owen. Later, after Owen had rejected the other books I'd picked and we'd had to go and get others, Grandpop got to read him a book in which Popeye and Olive Oyl go on a picnic and Popeye refuses to eat anything that poor Olive has packed because he only wants spinach. They have been accompanied by baby Swee'Pea, who is less picky than Popeye.

After lunch and a couple of cookies, Owen was still hungry. I generously offered him some apple sauce I'd noticed in the fridge. He ate three bowls of it, comparing it to ice cream. Both, I guess, are eaten from bowls, using spoons. Owen likes eating things from bowls with a spoon.

Halfway home, some of us became very hungry. It was late, but we stopped at the Chilis way down Route One. Owen was tired. At the table, he wanted The Circus McGurkus. I obliged, feeling that I had possibly made a serious mistake in showing Owen that I could recite books. I performed the stirring conclusion as food arrived, but Owen wanted me to keep "reading" while we ate. Cara, who should really have been on my side, requested The Circus Ship. Soon Owen wanted a snuggle. He wanted to sleep in my lap. He sat in my lap and ate my broccoli. He was willing, then, to go to the potty, but he wanted me to carry him.

In the restautant potty, again, he had to poop. Cara missed The Circus Ship. After that, I did Ride a Purple Pelican, figuring that it would be easier to stop that partway through. I think I did the whole thing. We do enjoy our bathroom trips.

On the drive home, we finished the second Harry Potter. Owen has heard a decent chunk of these books, and he often claims to enjoy them. It's difficult to imagine what he thinks is happening.

3/30/14 (Sunday)

This morning, I think that both Steve and I found ourselves in the position of struggling to entertain Owen. In the afternoon, though, Cara decided to set up a "bear cave" with him under the dining room table. They surrounded the table with chairs, dragged the Elmo couch under it, put blankets over some chairs, brought in some books to read, and pulled the plastic drawer of plastic food out of the playroom to supply themselves. They were completely occupied with being bears for the rest of the day.

Claire came up, which was of course a thrill. She was invited into the bear cave immediately. She was invited to read to them, which she agreed to do as long as she could do it not in the cave.

The kids eventually took all of the plastic food out of the drawer and sorted it into piles, which they put neatly away on the "shelves" formed by the rooms in Cara's dollhouse, which was functioning as a wall of the cave. It was taco night, but Owen barely ate. He had a couple of bites, and then he went running back to the cave, where he lay and called Cara to come back and play with him. I eventually went and explained that we were all eating; he stayed downstairs long enough to pretend that I hadn't won, and then he came and ate a little more. As soon as Cara was done, they went back to the cave.

Bears like fish. They spread out a lot of blankets to make a river, and they went fishing. They caught many fish. Basically, it seems, any toy in the playroom could be a fish. They ran back and forth, piling things up.

Owen has a bit of a cough and his voice is getting hoarse. We haven't even tried to explain to him that he should try to rest his throat, as we don't think it would have any effect.

3/31/14 (Monday)

Poor Owen was coughing and hoarse at school, too! The teachers did tell him, eventually, that his voice hurt and he should be quiet. For them, apparently, it's possible to get him to quiet down by giving him paper and crayons. He was a little snuggly when I got there, and he felt a little warm. All evening he's been around 100, but he's also been running around like a lunatic and shouting and generally being himself. We'll see how he does overnight and tomorrow morning.

I did give him some Tylenol. I'd mentioned medicine to him, and he had suggested his "bedtime medicine," by which he meant his vitamins. He was impressed with himself when I gave him what he identified as "Cara's medicine." However, two minutes after he took the Tylenol, he was disappointed to find that his cold had not gone away. It takes a little while for medicine to work, I told him, and it will help, but it won't make it go away. "But it still didn't work!" he protested. Then he forgot about it and went on with his life.

I think we may need to set rules about how many books he can have in his bed. Right now, he's got about five. It's the ones he had yesterday, and all of today's. I'm not sure how many he "reads" before he turns off his light.

| Previous Week | Back Home | Next Week |