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Journal Key:

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

7/10/14 (Thursday)

Today Cara and Evelyn headed off to a hotel in Whippany for NADAA (which the internet tells me stands for the National Association of Dance and Affiliated Arts). It is a multi-day dance thingy where Cara got to take lots of classes, go to a fancy banquet, and have a pizza and pool party. What this meant for me was that Owen and I had Wendy's for dinner, and when he asked, "Can I have a Frosty?" I said, "YES."

When I came to pick him up at YBR, he had done a color-by-number of two flowers. They looked fairly normal except both had had some jagged-looking lines scribbled across them, in different patterns. Owen explained that he had made them "monster flowers": "One is a zombie, and the other is a mummy." The zombie one looks like it may have a scar, and the mummy one looks like it might have bandages.

7/11/14 (Friday)

In the morning, Owen woke up in his room and called for his mommy. He was displeased when he found I was still the only other person around. We had a morning together, which involved television, a bagel, and my having to pack a lunch for him for the first time in weeks (fortunately it turns out it hasn't gotten harder).

I was hoping that Owen might be willing to go out to a restaurant for dinner when I picked him up in the evening--it is Family Fun Night after all--but no, he wanted to stay home. Since we did Wendy's yesterday, the only option was pizza, and we were both happy enough with that. We took turns choosing our own episodes of Batman while eating delivery pizza in front of the TV.

Owen specifically requested that I draw a picture of Batman and Superman shaking hands. So I drew that and then we had to color it. Owen carefully put a different-colored stripe at the top edge of Batman's boots, which struck me as very considered and tasteful.

In the Batman cartoon that we watch, Aquaman is often featured, and one of his favorite sayings is "Great Neptune's Beard!" He has been saying this in many episodes, but it seemed to take until tonight for Owen to really notice; now he thinks it is very funny.

7/12/14 (Saturday)

I'm astonished to discover that today is Saturday. Cara and I have been on such a weird schedule that I no longer have any sense of what day it is. Otherwise, I certainly wouldn't be doing a journal on a Saturday!

Cara and I drove back to Whippany this morning at seven. She performed at 10:30. When we got home, after lunch, the boys were out at Chuck E Cheese. Lucky Owen! He got to have pizza, play games, and even, eventually, go up into the tubes. He was up there for a while, but eventually he came down a slide. "I showed him the way to get out," an older boy explained.

In the afternoon, I took Owen out to get his hair cut. I also got him a sticker book at Barnes and Noble. We found an excellent one. It's all about pirates. These pirates have an amazing ship: there's rigging, a crow's nest, a helm, a captain's cabin, a galley, a mess hall, a game room, a practice room, a fishing deck, a laundry room, a treasure room . . . . We've all been enjoying putting stickers in place. The guy at the helm, for instance, is lonely. We gave him plenty of animals for company. On one deck there is a chef grilling kebabs. Owen put a pirate sticker on the grill, though. "That guy wants to get cooked," he explains. There are also some cells where the pirates have bad pirates locked up. It took some serious effort to explain to Owen who are the good guys and who are the bad guys, and why anyone is locked up.

7/13/14 (Sunday)

Today Aunt Claire visited! She was supposed to be here to help while away another few hours when I would be stuck with Owen, because of Cara's continuing dance convention thing; as it happened, however, there were large delays in the convention which allowed Claire to visit with all four of us for a while. The children watched a lot of TV because it was overcast and somewhat rainy out for a lot of the day. Somehow or other, eventually Owen got me to put on the old Super Nintendo console and play a fighting game. Even though said game was entirely inappropriate for him, I let Owen get on a controller and allowed him to pummel my character a bit in VS. mode. After we'd done that a few times, we tried a racing game.

It was interesting to try the games, because though Owen has certainly tried his share of touchscreen style games, he has never had much of a chance at console games with controllers like the old Nintendo. It takes quite a bit of getting used to. Most of the time when he won at the fighting game, he was too busy looking at his controller to notice what was happening on the screen; and in the racing game, it was very difficult making him understand that he had to hold down the accelerator button while also trying to steer his little cart.

We had had a big lunch--at least us grownups had--so Claire and I hemmed and hawed in the evening about what to do for dinner. Owen needed to have one, but in the end we decided that neither of us did. So I made Owen scrambled eggs and waffles. We tried to tempt him with the excitement of getting to watch me make his scrambled eggs--this proved completely untempting. He was too busy running and screaming around the living room. He also spent a lot of time having a pillow fight up in his room (mostly with Aunt Claire, because I begged off). Mostly this involved Claire throwing a pillow or two at him, which he immediately punched away. It was a very violent game, and it's a wonder no one was seriously injured; but Owen didn't even fall off the bed. At least, he didn't fall off the bed without landing on top of me.

Tonight Owen remembered that we used to have crayons that you could draw with in the bath; but unfortunately for him (and fortunately for me), we don't seem to have them anymore. Instead, he settled for a tea party with the last two color tablets from the container. It made a very red-colored tea which I thought looked bloody, and he decided looked like fruit punch--which was much better.

7/14/14 (Monday)

Owen was not particularly excited about going to school today. I mentioned that he would get to show everyone his haircut. "I got a haircut, and it was shorter, but now it is back to the way it was," he told me. Um . . . ok.

7/15/14 (Tuesday)

It was raining gently when Cara and I picked Owen up. When we were home again, Owen had a question.

Owen: Why did you not wear a raincoat when you came to pick me up?

Me: Well, it wasn't raining when I left the house.

Owen: No, when you came to pick me up!

Me: Yes, when I came to pick you up. When I left the house, it wasn't raining.

Owen: No, why did you not wear a raincoat when you came to pick me up?

We do get ourselves tangled up sometimes.

I read him The Billy Goats Gruff this evening. He interrupted me basically once a page. When the littlest goat was crossing the bridge, he referred to it as "she." I confirmed that he had decided it was a girl. He explained that the other two were boys, so this one was a girl.

Me: Well, I guess that makes sense. You have boys; it's fair for one to be a girl.

Owen: . . . Yes. In Finding Nemo, when he had friends, there were a bunch of boys and one girl. There should be one girl.

Me: Yes . . . oh!! Um, you've discovered a problem that happens a lot of times. There should be a few girls. Like at your school. You have a bunch of girls.

Owen: Yes: there's Lauren, and Julia, and Sophia . . .

Then I remembered his old best friend who had moved away. I couldn't remember her name. I asked him. He remembered: Audrey. It was so sad when she moved away! Now, though, he points out, he has a new friend: Sophia.

Owen: Sophia's my friend; she loves me a lot. She comes right at me when I come in, because she loves me.

Me: Do you love her?

Owen: Yes, we love each other, because we are so funny.

Right now, even though it's kind of late, Owen is working on a sticker book in bed. He has agreed that he really should not read anything afterwards. I think I should go enforce the sticker limit we had discussed.

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