A Boy and His Blog

Archive for November, 2008

Owen is three and half.  He is going through a difficult time lately.  He is very emotional and angry.  He seems to have a permanent scowl on his face.  He is having a hard time getting adjusted to his cousin Lyric being over so much.  I am now watching her almost full time.  It is very good for Owen, and Lyric is teaching him so much, but it is very challenging as well.  He is getting much better and more used to it.  At first he would have a melt down pretty much anytime she touched one of his toys.  He is learning that it is more fun to play while she is here then to try to protect every single one of his toys.  He still walks around clutching about three or four toys that he wont let go of the whole time she is here.  Sometimes I offer to put them up on the fridge for him (because his point in holding them is to keep them away from Lyric), but then he just grabs about three or four more toys and holds on to them.  He is playing more of the time now and rarely has a melt down.  It’s getting easier and easier and sometimes they disappear into his room for long stretches of time.  Lyric is a very good influence on Owen.  He used to never touch his pretend play stuff, but now when she is here he will walk out with a hat on and a sword in his hand.  Every day they play “mermaid and pumpkin head” and this game entails them having a play silk tied around them like a cape, and then running in a circle so their cape flies up in the air.  Lyric will repeatedly say “I’m a mermaid, I’m a mermaid” and Owen will repeatedly say, “I’m a pumpkin head, I’m a pumpkin head”.  We also constructed a fort for them out of cardboard, and a sheet that we throw over the top.  They love it and they play in it every day.  They have colored it with crayons, and Daddy put a hole in it for a large tube to go which they talk to each other through or roll balls through.  Owen is starting to be tender to Lyric.  He will say “Oh, you did a good job Lyric” or he’ll say, “I’m gonna go check on Lyric” then he will walk into the room and say “how’s it going Lyric?” then he will say “just call me if you need me” before he leaves.  It’s very good to see some protective nurturing feelings coming out in him.

Owen’s anxiety is still present and showing itself often.  Having Lyric here has really shown me just how atypical Owen is.  She falls asleep at nap time after about 5 or 10 minutes of me sitting at the end of her bed reading a magazine.  When Owen would nap, he would not fall asleep for 30 minutes to one hour of me singing to him or sitting right next to him.  When Lyric is sad she accepts comfort and snuggles.  When Owen is sad he tries not to cry and if I talk about it or try to hug him he yells at me and pushes me away.  Lyric dances, she sings with inflection in her voice, she plays pretend.  Owen is actually dancing and singing now.  He “sings” the words to a song in a completely flat way.  He will dance a bit every morning when Ellen dances on her show, but he will tell me to stop before she is done dancing.  Owen is surely unique, and we respect his individual personality.  It is sometimes hard to know how to handle things in a way that he will be okay with, but we are learning as we go.

Owen is doing amazing things with letters though.  He figured out that certain words start with certain letters and he is constantly asking us now what words start with “O” or “L” or “M” or ay other letter he can think of.  He can identify every letter and he will read them off when he sees them on t-shirts or signs.  He will sometimes even say, “what does mmm-mmm-mmmonster start with” and then he will proclaim, “oh, it starts with M!”  He can figure out a few words by himself as far as what they start with.  He argues with us that “Ellen starts with L” and “Emmaline starts with M” not “E”.  The other day he asked us in a very puzzled way, “what does ch-ch-chair start with?”  We explained that a “C” and an “H” together make a “ch” sound.  I’m really amazed that he is doing this at three and half.  It isn’t really that amazing that a three and half year old can do this stuff, but what I am amazed about is that we haven’t taught him any of this stuff.  I mean sure, we play with alphabet blocks and he watches “Word World” but I’ve deliberately not pushed this kind of thing in favor of encouraging pretend play, which is the area he needs more work on.  I really don’t understand how he knows so much about letters and their sounds when I barely ever expose him to that stuff.  I think Daddy does more letter games then I do with him, but still, it’s not that much.  At a restaurant the other day he had his little menu with crayons and James said “here Owen, you can write your name on this”.  I then laid into James about not pushing him to write his name and how he is too young to be using that small muscle set and that even though his brain is ready his body isn’t, and as I’m saying all this Owen was actually WRITING HIS NAME!!!  I had no idea he could do this, and I don’t believe it’s appropriate at this age, but holy crap!  He wrote an “O” in one corner, then a “W” in the other, then an “E” under the “W”, then an “N” under the “O”.  Each letter was hard to identify but it was possible.  The menu got ruined with water or I would have saved it, but it was amazing.  I don’t want to ask him to do it again though, because I don’t want to encourage something he isn’t physically ready for.  I am hoping he does it again on his own so I can save it.  He is one smart child, and the way he picks up on concepts that we never introduced him to is just crazy.  Like the whole gravity thing.  He walked around saying “gravity pulls me down” and every time he would fall he would say “gravity pulled me down”.  I asked James why he was introducing him to the concept of gravity already because I’m not sure he is ready for that and James said he didn’t know how he learned it.  Well, later I realized there is a line in one of his books that says “gravity holds you to the earth” or something like that.  He seems to understand concepts that he shouldn’t be ready to learn yet.

Daddy took Owen Bowling the other day.  I was told that Owen loved it.  Here is the evidence:

Owen became interested in the election during the debates.  As I wrote about here, Owen expressed his interest in voting for McCain.  I wasn’t even aware that Owen knew who McCain was, but apparently he had decided to vote for him.

When it came time to vote, James and I were very excited to be a part of this history making vote.  Daddy came home from work early and we grabbed the video camera and I said, “yay, let’s go vote for Obama!  Obama, Obama, Obama!”  And Owen started dancing back and forth saying “McCain, McCain, McCain!”  Ugh.  We said, “this is why three year old’s aren’t allowed to vote.

When we went to the voting booth, James and I filled out our ballots.  Then Daddy and Owen stayed behind because they were signed up with “Video to Vote” and were hoping to get some footage of the voting.  We live right across a parking lot from the voting booths, so I walked home.  That is when they noticed that there was a kids voting booth.  This was a great thing, because Owen had it in his head that he would be voting too.  James told me that after I left he said, “wait, I forgot to vote”.  I am really glad that our district had this set up.  Owen filled out his ballot, which had pictures of each candidate on it, and he clearly chose McCain for president.  Daddy made sure he understood who he was voting for, and Owen agreed that he wanted to vote for McCain.

When they got home, I opened the door and watched them walk up the apartment hallway.  Owen got very excited when he saw me and said, “Mama, I voted for McCain! I voted for McCain!”  I was excited for him that he was so enthusiastic about voting, even if I wished he had chosen the candidate that we were backing.

Later that evening as we were watching the results come in, it appeared that Obama was going to win.  Of course James and I were very happy, but I felt a little bad for Owen.  I’m sure when he voted for McCain, he didn’t realize that one was going to win and one was going to loose.  I asked Owen how he would feel if McCain didn’t win.  He thought for a minute and then he said, “well, I still voted for McCain.”  Daddy said, “that’s right Owen, and that is the most important thing.”  I then showed Owen the map and explained that all the red states were people that voted for McCain too.

The next day, I told Owen that Obama had won, and I showed him Obama on Tv.  Owen said, “no, that’s McCain”.  I thought this was a temporary thing, and soon he would refer to Obama as Obama.  However, he is still calling Obama, “McCain”.  Yesterday, Obama was on Tv getting into an airplane.  Owen said, “look Mama, I saw McCain getting on a airplane!”  I said, “oh yeah, that guy is getting on an airplane.  Do you know that his name is Obama though?”  Owen said, “no, his name is McCain.”  I said, “Why do you call him McCain?”  And he he said, “Because, I voted for McCain.”

I’m not sure how long his self delusion will last.  I think he voted for McCain because he is having a lot of fun being contrary lately.  He is finding his independence.  A lot of kids go through this in a different way when they are around two, but my child is a late bloomer on the social side of life.  In an intellectual way, he seems a bit advanced, which I imagine is why he asserts his independence in unusual  ways.

So, for this most historical election, my child voted for the old white guy, while his parents ushered in a new age, and hopefully four to eight years of a better life for little Owen.

Owen and Daddy, after voting.

Proud little Owen with his “I voted” sticker, and his “Kids Voting USA” sticker on.

First, a few days before Halloween we took Owen and his cousing Lyric to the nursing home that my Grandma volunteers at. They frosted cookies with the old people and paraded around for them to see their costumes.

On Halloween we dressed Owen as a cowboy. At first he wanted to be Wall•e, then he wanted to be a Telletubby, but those costumes were lots of money. I finally told him he could either be a cowboy or a pirate because we already had those costumes. He chose a cowboy. Later he asked to be a princess or a fairy, but I told him maybe next year since we already had his cowboy outfit ready. However, he did add his own spin to it, because he wanted to have pink hair. Why pink you ask? As he tells me almost daily, pink is his favorite color.

We went trick-or-treating at a nearby mall. We didn’t go to the mall this year, because it is just too big and they give out cheap candy. The mall we went to was the perfect size and they gave out better candy. Owen was very business like about it again this year, but he was more interested in eating the candy this year too. When we got back to our apartment we went around to some of our neighbors places. We just went to the really obvious places. It was the first time any of us had trick-or-treated in the traditional sense, by going door to door, and it was a bit nerve wracking. I much prefer the mall. Maybe I’m just not used to it enough yet. Owen didn’t like it much either. He kept saying, “no more neighbors”, “that’s the last one” and “I have enough candy now”. We went to one door where an older couple lived. They invited us in and gave Owen three pieces of candy telling him “take one for mom and dad too”. Then the next place just had their candy sitting outside their door, and Owen reached down grabbed three. James said, “only one buddy”, and Owen said, “I’m getting some for you guys too.”

After we got back home, we propped our door open a bit and waited for any trick-or-treaters. None came, so I gave Owen a bath and washed the pink out of his hair. While we were in the bath, one boy came to get some candy. Owen was disappointed that he missed it and he kept asking if more kids would come. Unfortunately none did, but at least we got that one so I didn’t buy that bag of candy for nothing.

So, this was our second year celebrating Halloween, our second year trick-or-treating at a mall, our first year trick-or-treating at our neighbors, and our first year of getting a trick-or-treater at our house.

Here are some photos of Owen and Lyric at the nursing home, and of Owen on Halloween: