Week of November 26, 2003


"It's beautiful"
"I want picture"
"I like Roo" (as in, I'm like Roo, being washed)
"Jacket off. Mummy jacket off. Bella Jacket off"
"I want coffee"


Scott's grandparents searched high and low for a large cardboard box to replace one that Owen and his cousins demolished. It was in an empty room, and became the entertainment focal point for Owen, 2, Keara, 9 and Heather, 13. So many hours of joy came with that box, and it was sad when the edges finally let go.

The new box isn't perfect, the edges are high enough to be harder to get into and it's smaller overall. But when Owen opened the door to the room and spied the box, there was a little gasp and the comment "it's beautiful!" He was thrilled.

Thanksgiving day he spent a lot of time upstairs in the box room, with a few trips down the carpeted stair for rounds of "lie down Mummy" and "shh, sleeping" on the steps. Our stairway is gated so these carpeted stairs are his best practice for climbing up and down. Plus it's fun to bump down on your bottom on soft carpeting all the way.

Scott made the mistake of having fudge in front of Owen, who quickly pieced together where it was located. I was hoping to entice him with a date filled with peanut butter, but he wasn't interested. Dates are so last year. We gave up the fight that he'd eat very healthily on Thanksgiving Day, and given that he passed up chips, we suspected his throat was bothering him a tiny bit. He had sherbet for dinner.

I felt a bit guilty that Owen spent so little time around people we were there to visit with. There were only 8 of us, so I don't think he was hiding from the crowds. I think he was just more interested in what was upstairs, and exploring with the undivided attention of either his Mom or his Dad. For whatever reason, he's been a little clutchy of us this week. My Mom had a little trouble with this, hoping as she was to get a chance to see her grandson. She followed us around at times, but in the end, saw him less than she would have liked. His Grammy, hosting the meal, saw Owen even less.

Because Friday was rainy, we opted to accept his Grammy's invitation to come up for Thanksgiving Part 2, so that Owen could replicate the wonderful time he had running around on Thursday. Rainy days are hard with an active toddler. It was nice to be able to focus on Owen, and in spite of his sore throat and mediocre sleeping, he's been in amazingly good moods during the day.

I remember in the early days, the Pediatrician would have a questionnaire that asked "is your baby easy to be around?" - I figured this was just a code to find out if you were dealing with a colicky child and in need of a pep talk of dealing with stress without taking it out on your child. Owen has always been wonderful; it was just our stamina that seemed wanting, most of the time. But when he's smiling and charming and curious and affectionate, he truly seems "easy to be around." In spite of his lack of sleep, and boundless energy, Owen has been a great joy to spend time with, and we felt engaged and delighted with one another.

We were happy that Ed and Winnie got to spend some time with him being his happy self. Best of all, having done our grocery shopping Friday morning, we had two full days to kick around.

Owen this week likes:


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