When it was still winter, I would have to urge Owen to go outside in the cold with me for some exercise. Apparently he was listening to what I said, since one day when we asked if Sean wanted to come and Sean said no, Owen said to him: “You don’t want to turn into a blob, Dad!” And: “don’t you want roses in your cheeks?”
We were on a walk one day with Owen in the stroller and were talking politics.
Owen: What are you talking about, guys?
Me: Government and money.
Owen: The Government? Are those the bad guys?
Me: --
Owen can be a bit of a klutz these days (let’s face it, he comes by it naturally, since I myself can barely go through a doorway without hitting one side of it). When he hurts himself, he doesn’t want us to kiss the hurt or anything like that. No, he wants us to scold the object that hurt him. He’ll say, Mommy! Tell that bush not to hurt OwenMartinGares! And then when I do, he’ll prompt: Tell it, “Owen is my little buddy!” And I do.
One of his favorite outside games is to play “Shiver Me Timbers” on the back deck. He pretends that he’s a pirate and the back deck is his pirate ship. Dorothy, who is often lying in the grass chewing a stick, is the shark that might attack the ship and steal the treasure. This was fine until one day I went in for water and came back out to see Owen chasing Dorothy with his large plastic bat, trying to smash the shark. Sigh.
I was getting Owen ready for his bath one night and gave him a little pat on the butt in the direction of the bathroom. Owen started lecturing me: “The teacher says, keep your hands to yourself, Mom! Keep your hands to yourself! Unless you are going to hug and then you can use your hands.” Well alrighty then; good to know.
I have a book which I read to Owen on occasion about a little boy raven named Edgar who always is telling his parents, “Nevermore!” Sometimes I wonder if Owen is paying attention to my reading, as more often than not while I am doing so, he is jumping on the bed and/or bouncing around his room. But I know some things sink in, because when he gets mad now he will bellow at us, “NEVER!!!” in the same tone I use to have Edgar say, “Nevermore!”
I’ve always said that I’d like to raise Owen to be a chivalrous feminist, and I’d say we are headed in the right direction, as he is very protective of his mother. He likes to chatter (nonstop) about how Dorothy is a guard dog, and he, Owen, is my guard boy. Sometimes Dorothy’s a watchdog and Owen a watchboy. This pleases me until he starts talking about punching burglars in the face and then I feel we have to tone things down a notch.
We were reading a book about an astronaut and I said to Owen (always trying to push the Jean-Luc Picard lifestyle on the boy), maybe one day you will be an astronaut and go to the moon. And Owen replied, “Can Mommy and Daddy come too?” I said sure, why not. And then he said, “Can dogs go to the moon? Can we bring Dorothy?”
He is VERY into action figures right now – mainly the Avengers and other superheroes. I admit to not being able to keep track of who is who. He also has some old green army men, and the other day he asked Sean to help him find a certain one, “the one with the thumb”. Sean had no idea what he meant by that, and offered him a few different ones, all of which were turned down by Owen. Owen explained further, “No, I want the one with the thumb sticking out!” And finally, Sean realized that the one he wanted was holding and pointing a gun. Ha! He let him think that it was the man’s thumb. Peace out!
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