Week
of June 23, 2004
“Where Daddy go?”
“Let’s go now”
“Let’s get Pooh bear crackers for Owey!”
“I want bunny pasta”
“Happy Birthday, Grampy”
“Bobby mowing. He has lawnmower”
“I have baseball”
“Mummy, you sit there.”
“You be horse”
“Where is Kristen?”
“Presents! Cake!”
“I want water.”
“Mmmmm, that’s good!” (Yoohoo)
“I want to go inside Rao’s”
“Daddy frustrated”
“Mummy, you light candle. I cut cake. “
“I have yellow decoration. Mmmm.”
“I have wet PJs”
“Wake up, Mummy. I want to read this”
“I like it….I don’t like it.”
“We feed birds”
“All done. Can I have chocolate cake….please? Please, chocolate cake?”
“What’s Ben doing?”Singing: Twinkle, twinkle. Happy Birthday.
The Taste of Amherst was on the common this week. Although this is something I would normally shun (eating on the go, with crowds? Ew), I thought Owen might enjoy it. Particularly since he’d been gazing at the tents in the few days before, and was curious what the fuss was about. Owen, like Scott and I, is not a big fan of crowds and busyness. I suspect he likes the idea of hustle and bustle more than he likes the actual experience, and when faced with tight space and the overstimulation, he retreats and feels anxious. I can’t blame him. It’s also possible that the timing was just poor – it was a little tense getting us all out the door and I admit, I wasn’t exactly feeling my festive best either.
We asked Owen if he was hungry, he shook his head “no.” We asked him if he wanted to try the bouncy house or toddler frolic “ride” and again, he shook his head no. He acted a bit stress when we offered to take him out of the stroller. We were stuck, this was our “plan” and we figured he’d be bummed if we left, as much as he was kind of unhappy to be there at that point. Guessing he was hungry, we strategized solutions. Or rather, since we were a bit tense, we hissed comments at each other trying to figure out how to salvage our outing. We resorted to a low solution: we got him a sundae cup at Friendly’s – eating ice cream would at least get something in his tummy, we reasoned. And you know what? It really helped. He happily ate the ice cream as we veered off to a seating area, with a fistful of napkins. Other pedestrians looked at our fudge-sauce wielding toddler and shook their heads. Yes, it was messy. Perhaps unwise. But it made us all happier! Scott fetched some food, and Owen rejected the hotdog he returned with more because it was tepid and unappealing, more than because he wanted only junk food. He did try some sesame noodle. Scott and I scarfed some satay (and later some scallops).
With our now-happy-but-fudgy Owen, we were able to venture over to the “rides” – if you can call low foam shapes a ride, but it was a godsend. Owen was one of the older toddlers, and had coveted the over-4 bouncy house, but he settled for some frolicking and I think doing something active helped as much as the ice cream. He settled back into his more happy self, and even tried the under-4 bouncy house, although I don’t think he found it all that great.
Still, as we stood there watching Owen frolic around the other babies and toddlers, I mentally thanked the event organizers for giving respite to the parents out there. When we were sitting at the food tables, there area a number of parents who looked worn out with trying to manage unhappy critters, and I think they probably found this corner a godsend as well.
The only downside, other than the fact that once there, Scott and I would have had more for lunch, was my forgetting to put on sunscreen. Our departure was hurried and tense, and I’d sacrificed time for my sunscreen for getting Owen squared away. A tactical error, for later I found myself with a painful burn on my arms.
As we walked back to the car, Owen looked rather red from his exertion so we stopped at Bart’s for a chance to take a break in wonderful air conditioning. You could see Owen relax and get happy in the cool air. Scott and I split a smoothie which was exactly what we needed; sweeted out from the ice cream, Owen wisely rejected our magnanimous cookie offer. Owen was smiley and happy, and as a woman got up to leave, she went over to Scott and bent down, whispering in his ear. To tell us what a beautiful child we have. I think Owen was flirting with her.
We finished up the day with spaghetti – what else to do with a shirt covered in fudge? Owen was the picture of red-sauced splendor by the end of the meal, having reveled in his pasta. Normally he prefers to stay tidy, but it’s hard enough to eat spaghetti with a utensil as an adult. Ah well, this is what weekends are all about.
Owen’s been enjoying doing our laundry with us, and is so cute about participating in the process. He likes to take the lint from the filters and toss in the trash, and he’ll help move the small stuff from the basket to the dryer, and out again. He likes to help with the big stuff too, but we’re a bit reluctant to have him dragging everything on the floor. Although he’s better than we probably want to admit.
Father’s Day I had him sign a card for Scott at 6, and it’s just as well I waited until then. He did one squiggle and declared “All done. Let’s go upstairs! Let’s go now! “ and then we had to race upstairs to give Daddy the card. He was so proud (though I suspect too, he likes the visits upstairs to our bedroom because he’s found things we’ve hidden poorly, and because we keep his Thomas Travel Case up there). Owen found the presents I had for Scott, and he was thrilled to help him open them. Although I think he preferred the “Land Without Time” DVDs, to the stuff that was actually for Scott. Our errand completed and Scott awake enough to be unable to fall back asleep, we were content to return to the living room to watch our DVDs. I think Owen enjoyed them, but I found them kind of primitive and overly scary. Whenever I see children on screen now, I constantly wonder “where are their parents?” and when parents die, I think “why are they putting that in a kid’s show?”
Owen’s been getting up at 4:30 again, for a month or more now. We’d enjoyed 5 and 5:30 when it lasted, but he’s like clockwork again, waking between 4:30 and 4:40. It doesn’t matter when he goes to bed, and often if he’s put down at 8, he’ll chatter to 8:30 or even 8:45. The boy is not getting enough sleep. This is especially hard if he has a very short nap, or even no nap. Sometimes I wonder if we should just break and put him down earlier again.
Owen is pretending to be a T. Rex more now, with growls and fierce faces. He’s also been pretending to be Diesel 10, with Pinchy, the claw. I’m not sure I like having him role play with an aggressive, not-so-nice creature, but I guess as far was models go, these are pretty tame.
At one point, Owen was hearing us have a tense discussion (and mind you, while tense by our standards, it was still pretty low key. All of a sudden he offered up “Mummy, Daddy fight” and we felt horrible. I know kids pick up on subtle stuff, but it makes me wonder if too many of our tense discussions carry through to Owen. Although we also wonder what that phrase means to him. One morning, after Owen offered up “I want to sit down in Rao’s!”, Scott used a serious but kind and supportive tone to thank Owen for telling us so clearly what he wanted to do. And hearing Scott use that careful, warm tone, he said to Scott “you no fight!”
A package with new Lands End socks arrived, eliciting from Owen a happy gasp. These are the only socks that fit well and stay up. Owen loves packages but doesn’t care much about clothing, but these were a very happy find. I’m not sure what it is this year, but Owen is totally fixated on his socks. We’ve shown him pictures of last year, him sockless and in shorts, but this year he wants no part of it. He will not take them off, and melts down when we try. We were hoping the warm weather would help encourage him to take them off, but I can see it now, he’ll swelter all summer just to keep them on his feet. Sigh.
We’ve been spending a lot of time lighting pretend candles, singing Happy Birthday, blowing them out, and then doing pretend cake cutting. The party at Scott’s parents (shared with Father’s Day for three days, and including 3 other birthdays besides Owen), really got him into high gear. He loves the ritual. And the cake. And the presents.
We got three Percy characters from various stories, for Scott’s parents to give to Owen, and he was enthralled with “Chocolate Crunch Percy.” The big favorite this week, he’s been going from house to car to house to car. We’ve been doing getting scrambled eggs, or going to the fountain to feed birds most morning. Owen continues to be devoted to Domenic, imitating for much of the week, but we wonder how it will go with Domenic walking. That seems to be a pivotal stage, and the older kids definitely stop seeing the babies as cute once they’re upright. These lose all the slack and doting they get with their baby status, once they can walk on two legs.
Owen ended up bitten at daycare on one of these days. It’s strange to have Owen reporting events to us, or perhaps it’s more that we can’t get over he can accurately report things. Although it’s hard, stuff that didn’t happen can creep in and you wonder what does and does not take place. This was pretty easy to confirm, there were teeth marks on his hand. Later that evening, we were watching a dinosaur biting his Daddy, and Owen bit Scott fairly hard through his jeans. Scott pushed Owen away from his leg, a bit too hard, and Owen ended up sobbing. Perhaps it was fear at seeing an always-gentle Scott act like that, or perhaps he was just started to be remonstrated (and didn’t mean to really bite so hard). In any case, I had to be the comforting parent, and Scott felt like a speck. I think pushing him away was the right thing to do, but Scott acted on instinct and used more force than he intended.
Owen had been pretending to be horse quite a bit, and he likes to be fed carrots. “Mummy, you be horse!” and on he hops. Or he’ll do it to Scott. A few times I’ve had to feed Daddy pretend food while he’s a horse. It’s amazing how much more fantasy play there is now. Owen has been engaging in fantasy with the Thomas trains for ages, but the level of fantasy grows more elaborate now, and definitely has branched out away from trains at times.
There have been lots of wet diapers this week. Owen wakes up and we have to troop down for new PJs and a new sheet. Owen’s getting big, and I think the old size 5 overnights are just too small. The size 6 diapers he normally wears just are helping when he’s lying on his side. We’re trying to limit his fluid intake before bed, but I can tell we’ll have to investigate other diaper options. Toilet training is at a stand still, and we’re backing off rather than push him to dig in his heels. Montessori is definitely out!
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