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Journal Key:

Green = Steve | George = navy | Janet = Purple | Evelyn = Black

4/13/06 (Thursday)

My first full day of Spring Break started when Cara woke up this morning, at six. I gave her a bottle and Steve and I took turns showering, and then he left and Cara and I walked out to look for deer. We didn't find any, but we both did a good job; Cara walked a lot, probably the length of three houses total, and I managed to carry her the rest of the way. We hung around until about 8:30, and Cara got cranky. My dad had said yesterday that his rule is, no matter when she gets up or how she's doing, she goes into her crib for a nap two hours after she gets up. I tossed her in the crib. She cried for about three minutes and then slept for about two hours.

I was lucky enough to get a visit from my in-laws today. Grandpa Jim and Grandma Janet and I took the baby to the diner for lunch, and we had a good time. We brought Cara's sippy cup and her snack trap full of puffs, but she also ate some French onion soup, chicken and rice soup, saltines, chicken, carrots, bread, rice pudding, and tapioca. She got a spoon to wave and enjoyed watching a bus boy at work.

In verbal development news, I have two pieces of information. The first one is something which Steve does not respect. However, this morning Cara said "Baa." I know that she babbles "baa" all the time, but I really think she was imitating me when I said what a sheep says. She did it a couple of times. Secondly, at the diner we were able to distract Cara from the bus boy by saying her name. She does seem to recognize it, though she may think it means, "here's some food." When she turned around in response, she turned with an open mouth. We were calling her because we had something ready to feed her, so it worked out. She ate and went back to watching.

After the diner, we walked to the park with our wagon. Cara had an okay time on the swings, and she had a better time on the playset. We took her down the slides a couple of times, but it emerged that what she really thought was fun was to climb the stairs, walk around on the mesh floor (she liked looking at her grandma through it), and climb back down the stairs. It's a good thing we took her to the park, since we certainly don't have enough stairs here!

Cara was tired. After her grandparents left, I got my book and a bottle and the baby and we settled in the glider. With some squirming and a little bit of crying, Cara fell asleep in my arms. When she finally settled down, she was upright with her head on my shoulder. It's wonderful to feel that I'm comfy, since I feel that the top half of me, at least, is quite bony. I finished my book and napped with her for about two hours. She slept in various positions, draped over my arms. I started waking her up a little bit after five. She woke, reached down and got her magic wand out from between the chair and the seat cushion, looked up at me, and fell asleep for the next twenty minutes. She didn't really waken until I got up and walked around. It was so nice!

I bought a container of mixed melon chunks at the grocery store so that Cara could try a few before I committed and bought a whole melon or anything. Tonight we tried honeydew. I cut up a chunk and gave Cara a piece. She ate it and reached for another, and another, and another, and so on. She also had a banana, to complete her dinner.

This evening we hung out in the living room and watched a slide show of photos from Cara's first year that Grandpa Jim put together. He had lots of pictures we'd never seen! He also sent photos from today that are pretty good. Cara looks very happy on the slide, though I do not. Cara walked around while we watched, demonstrating the differences between herself and the tiny baby on the screen. She also got me to pick her up and then climbed over my shoulder to stand on the back of the couch and hold onto the stair railing. That part was quite interesting.

4/14/06 (Friday)

Today Cara went down to see her Middletown Grandma, and the girls (including Mommy) visited a farm and a park. Cara saw lots of interesting animals, such as peacocks, pigs, sheep, and chickens (the latter of which she chased). She also got her first pair of grown-up shoes! To her, they are currently new, strange, and uncomfortable, but she'll get used to them. She was already climbing the stairs in them when I got home, and they came in a cute little shoebox!

For the evening George came up and nicely watched baby (apparently even giving her a bath single-handedly, which I find quite impressive) while Ev and I went out to dinner and a movie. Now we are back and baby is nicely asleep (for how long, who can say??). Tomorrow we head south again to see Cara's other set of grandparents. That's all for me!

4/15/06 (Saturday)

Cara had a nice time with her grandparents today and played at a local park and watched some other kids. Unfortunately, though, my main news for today is that the journal is going to have to go on hiatus for a little while, as it did last year, because my computer is once again screwed up. Sorry! I have no idea how long it will be gone, maybe a week. Until then...!

4/16/06 (Sunday)

Cara was cute on Easter Sunday in a little pink dress. She got an Easter basket full of little plastic eggs which mainly contained socks. Since I'm writing this on the 20th, I can report that the socks are comfortable and quite handy, since they fit without squeezing her poor little ankles.

Cara played her put-your-head-on-its-side game with several of my relatives and snuggled nicely with my grandma Emily. She also ate some things and threw others on the floor; she liked playing with the cheese and she liked eating the finger noodles (with onions).

4/17/06 (Monday)

On my break, I have steadfastly followed my father's routines. Cara gets her walk to look for deer every day (we have not been successful, but we've talked to several Lloyd Street neighbors) and also gets a look at her bush, which is growing leaves as we watch. Two hours after she rises, she gets put back down for her nap. There's some crying, but then she goes to sleep and I get a couple of hours off.

After Cara's nap, we went shopping, using a gift card Cara got for her birthday. I got a big vinyl mat to put under her high chair when we go visiting, so that it doesn't matter when she throws strawberries on people's white carpets. I got a faucet cover for the bathtub, and I got a big, light sleep sack. I also got some toys, an elephant pull toy for Cara's peek-a-blocks and one of those thingies where when you press a button a character pops out a door. It's a Sesame Street one, and Ernie sings "Rubber Duckie."

During dinner, Steve said Cara looked tired. Personally, I can only tell for sure when she rubs her eyes, but he thought her lids looked heavy. Sure enough, she fell asleep in her high chair! We finished eating very quietly and then snuck away. Twenty minutes later I woke her, since it was kind of late for a nap. She stayed upset the whole time she was awake, while we hurriedly put her to bed. Steve was sick and zombie-like, so when I came out after putting Cara down, he was already in bed and unresponsive. I got ready for bed and hopped in. I looked at the clock. It was 9:10.

4/18/06 (Tuesday)

I had plans for Tuesday that resulted in Cara and me spending about three hours out walking around with the stroller. Some of that time was spent in the park, so Cara didn't come off too badly. She had a great time walking around in the playground, picking stuff up and climbing stairs. I was a little bit nervous about going down slides at first (not about the baby going down, just about me), but now I've gotten to enjoy it very much. We also went to the farmer's market and bought half a watermelon, which Cara enjoyed for dinner.

Having a baby really brings people together. We talked to everyone at the polling place (it was school election day), a little old lady we met on the way, and a man who was watering his lawn. He just grunted at me, but he said "zdrasvuye" to the baby, and so I said "zdrasvuyte" back and we tried to talk in Russian. I failed miserably, of course, since it's been almost ten years since I studied, but I wouldn't even have gotten to try if people weren't always so friendly to babies.

It's Spring Clean-Up week in Edison, which means that people are throwing away large items. I saw a plastic house on the curb, and Ron (PJ's dad) took me out in his truck to pick it up. It was gone. While we were away, Em got to watch the two babies--oops! They're toddlers now! They had a fight over PJ's little ride-on toy. Em won. I'm proud of Cara for being good without me.

4/19/06 (Wednesday)

The poor baby had to spend much more time than she really would have liked in cars and strollers today. However, it is a Wednesday, so she got to go over to PJ's house in the evening. The babies went down the little plastic slide and (kind of) played with BJ the dog in the back yard. Inside, they had a few near collisions; this is really inevitable now that they are both walking. They also either shared or fought over a few toys and generally had a good time hitting things but mostly not each other.

Earlier, we had gone to pick up the computer. In the Mac store, Cara was allowed by her father to do something she is not allowed to do under any other circumstances: she was allowed to bang away at the keyboards of several computers. She enjoyed this to no end and managed to somehow get one to panic and reboot itself. I confess that I was mildly anxious.

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