Week of May 7, 2003
Yikes, the last few weeks of entries have gotten away from me. I think it will be easier to write what's happening this week than to try and reconstruct my mind set from 2 weeks ago. I'll try that later, when even more time has elapsed!Now that the weather has been better, Owen's been spending much more time outside. His daycare has a nice big backyard, and he has lots of chances to run around, throwing and kicking balls. We feel a little less compelled to get him outside both before and after work. Most days, we got out for coffee and let him frolic. Our trips to the park tend to be saved for weekend, and nice days after work. Owen loves to swing, and he also enjoys the slides. There's a great curly slide he enjoys, and strangely, he can more easily navigate the equipment for the older kids than he can the toddler slide. He hasn't yet figured out how to climb a ladder to get into the toddler slide, although he does enjoy peering out the apple windows.
Owen continues to explore different foods. We're persistent and let him reject things a bunch of times without giving up. We know some things he may just dislike, but other times he'll devour something that he's clearly rejected 5 or 6 times. We offer him anything we have, and sometimes it pays off. Now we know he loves the beans in our jambalaya. And this week he happily ate the red peppers in our balsamic chicken. We're still doling out the remaining Easter peeps. I can't believe he taught himself "Peep" in nanoseconds, followed right behind by "cake." His favorite book this week is a soft Babar book, that has a picture of Babar eating cake. I think that's the whole reason he makes us read it.
We went away this past weekend to Swampscott, and this time on Saturday night, Owen woke up at 9:15 inconsolable. I don't know if the portacrib is too small, or he just is on to the fact that we're sharing a room, but he won't go back down once he wakes up. He stands there, crying his heart out. We took him into bed, as we did last time. Last time, however, he thrashed most of the night and it was kind of horrible. This time, he was THRILLED. He clung to me like a baby monkey, burrowing so fervently that I constantly felt like I was contorting, with an extra arm I had no place to put. When either of us moves over to give him more space, he just moves with us until we're on the edge of the bed. Now we just try to hold our ground. In response, Owen will sometimes wiggle sideways, and each of us will end up with one end of him jamming into our sides. Most of this time, Owen was pressed against me and Scott had lots of wonderful space. Ah, how I envied him. Although I suspect that I, being a heavier sleeper, have the better deal overall. Owen slept until 5, and woke in the best mood I've seen him in, in many a moon.
I think he felt the whole weekend was a great vacation. He didn't have to have an afternoon nap, we went to a park on the beach. And there was a dog. And a deck! And balls! There was a new, enormous tub, lots of rooms to explore, colored lights in the bedroom, and then best of all, a night of snuggling! I was a bit tired in the morning, but it was vastly better than our last trip.
We're still trying to puzzle what we'll do on our week away at the reunion. I do wonder how parents cope with putting their kids in a childbed, vs. the crib. I like the fact that Owen stays put in his crib (and I know we're lucky he's not a climber). Do you think we can keep him in there until he's 5? Cribs are handy for keeping babies pinned down. For our week away, we'll be staying on a little island with no electricity, with my brother and his family. They have a boisterous little girl just 5 month younger than Owen, so I guess we can call it Toddler Island. It should be interesting!
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