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Journal Key:

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

4/27/06 (Thursday)

Poor Buster the cat will be in her cast for another four weeks! The results are misery and boredom for her, as well as a lost room and some chores for me. Cara will not get to have two cats to chase just yet, and the game room will remain closed off by a baby gate. On the upside, the new cast is red instead of green, which is a big improvement in itself, and there is a pink heart on the side. Very cute.

When I got home today there was no one to be seen. As I walked up the stairs I could hear my dad talking in Cara's room. I came through the gate at the top of the stairs, and I heard babbling. Cara came walking quickly out of her room to greet me! It was a wonderful moment. Later, when Steve got home, the same thing happened for him. Cara hears us coming and hurries out to investigate, usually with a toy or two in her hands, arms above her head.

Cara and her daddy spent some time outside this evening, and we also hung around indoors after dinner. Cara seems very happy to just walk around with her arms up, carrying her toys. She likes to show them to us, sometimes to give them to us, and always to take them back. She can bend down to get things and stand back up. She sometimes walks over for a hug.

Cara took a little nap this afternoon. When she got up, she had no pants on. I was fairly sure that when I had seen her earlier, before my dad put her down, she had been wearing some. I looked all over the room; I found her socks on the changing table but nothing else. Hours later, when I went over to the tub to draw Cara's bath, I found her pants. Really, I should have thought to look there earlier.

4/28/06 (Friday)

I'm writing while Cara watches her Baby Einstein DVD, cuddled in Great-grandma's lap. She's a tired little girl right now, but smiling.

I was concerned that all my toys might be passe now that Cara is such a big girl, but she quickly seized a couple of troll dolls with delight and has carried them pretty much everywhere.

It's a picture-perfect day, so, naturally we have been to the park. The troll dolls came with us, and we brought them home again. Cara has had her first smooch, from a little guy named James (unless PJ has beaten him to it). James is 18 months old, and just a smidge bigger than Cara. He seemed to really like her, and gave her a big hug and a kiss. She seemed to enjoy having him around too, and she liked his big dog, a fellow named Dutch who sort of resembles Clifford the Big Red Dog, only not THAT big. Also, and not for the first time, she paid close attention to some girls who were practicing soccer. She played in the sand and in the dirt, climbed on the equipment and slid, in my lap, down the slide. On the way home we stopped for some happy time in the baby swings.

Back at the house, she seemed delighted when I pulled out her favorite book here, the Dinosaur Opposites. She sat in my lap to read through it three times. Her page-turning was limited by the fact that she had a toy in each hand. When Emily showed up, she brought a cute new book; it features a squeezy elephant that emits a sqeak. Cara sat in my lap again to read through that one several times as well.

Before we left for the park, we fortified Cara with about 5 ounces of peach yogurt and a drink of water. Later on, she ate a few strawberries, and at supper she had one of Emily's naliszniki, which she ate with gusto, and some slivers of lamb. Still to come are a bath, a bottle, and bed. I fully expect to find sand in every crevice.

4/29/06 (Saturday)

The baby slept through the night, and woke at about 7:45 when we let the Schmutz back downstairs. He had spent the night down there, then went out early in the morning without waking her. When he came in again, I went down with him and found her just sitting up.

I lifted her out of the crib, but she leaned back in again; her precious trolls were there. We have occasionally detached them from her grip in order to get clothes on and off, but otherwise they have been constant companions since about 3 p.m. yesterday. She didn't release them even to grab a washcloth in the bath; it's the first time I've bathed her without a struggle for the washcloth! Afterwards, I tried to swap a dry one for the wet ones she had, but no dice.

Anyway, she has been bottled and cuddled and dressed, and she is on her way home.

It was quite funny after having read about the troll dolls to have Cara appear in the house with one in each hand. It was a beautiful day today, and Ev and I spent a lot of time doing yard work. For some of the time we were doing that, Cara took a nice nap. Cara had a nice lunch which involved some yogurt and some fruit and some egg, and in the afternoon we all went to the Home Depot. While Evie set up a patch of our yard to become a little garden, I hung around with Cara. She walks pretty much everywhere, falls often, but picks herself back up again with alacrity. She can dependably get back to standing without any wall or support nearby, though this does seem to require her adopting a very wide stance, with her feet very far apart. She babbles in long syllabic strings but probably doesn't know what any words mean (except maybe kitty, though if so she cannot repeat it).

At 4:30 she had her regular bottle and we packed her in the car down to Middletown. Cara had a big, big dinner with us, eating pizza and lots of yogurt, and then we left her with Aunt Claire while we went off to a local production of Cats. Some day we can take Cara to see that show, but she is a bit too young yet to understand why a bunch of people on stage wearing nothing but spandex should be singing at her.

When we returned to our baby after 10:30, she was still awake! She had given Aunt Claire a very hard time when it came to falling asleep--apparently there was an incident of water splashing which required a change in Cara's pajamas. Anyways, she was glad to see us but was clearly exhausted, and could barely hold herself up. Again we packed her into the car. When we arrived home, Cara was out, out, out in the back seat, and did not take kindly to being rudely awoken and stuffed into a sleep sack. But I gave her a bottle and she went to sleep on me, and then got put in her crib.

Some time during Cara's adventures this evening, the troll dolls mysteriously disappeared.

4/30/06 (Sunday)

In case any of you were worried, the troll dolls have been found.

I think Cara is developing her walking skills. Previously I might have mentioned her indifference to any obstacles that might be ahead of her on the floor, but today my sneaker was lying in the middle of the living room and Cara, seemingly without looking directly at it, steered a course around it. I was proud. Of course, later in the evening she tried to walk through her rolly horse toy and ended up falling over in a way that would be considered classic slapstick if it had happened in a movie.

Cara is getting quite good at throwing balls, specifically an inflated purple one that she has. Tonight she was going over to the game room where Buster is penned in and was throwing the ball to the kitties. Later she placed it carefully in the seat of the jogging stroller.

I have a silly thing that I have been doing with the halves of plastic Easter eggs we acquired ("spitting" is probably a better description, but that would sound downright uncouth!). I've been sticking the open end in my mouth and launching them into the air for Cara's amusement. Today she picked up one of these egg pieces and marched over to me with it held out, as if requesting I do my trick. So I did, and then she picked it up again and tried to stick it into my mouth for me.

Today we took Cara to our local park and I finally went down a slide a few times with her in my lap. We both enjoyed it. Cara also enjoyed climbing the stairs of the jungle gym, and she has developed her own method which is probably what she perceives as the "grown-up" way of climbing the stairs. She wants to walk up them in a standing position instead of climbing up them, but she can't really do this unassisted since pretty much all stairs are too big for her. So we hold her by her hands and she takes biiiiig steps. The problem is that sometimes she seems to want to plant her foot on the riser, not the step. Also, sometimes she seems to be concentrating so hard on raising her leg as high as it can go that she doesn't aim correctly with her foot and her legs end up tangled. Needless to say, it's exciting watching this process.

Cara very much enjoys saying "baby" or variations on it. Sometimes it ends up coming out like "bee-yuh bee-yuh bee-yuh," and sounds remarkably like Porky the Pig. I'm beginning to wish that I hadn't referred to her as "the baby" so often--it's fantastic to listen to her make noises, but I'd rather she had latched on to a less self-referential word.

Lately I think Cara has been getting more physical in her attachment to us. She will sometimes just run over and into us, and get a hug. It's such a nice experience to have with her, as is seeing her light up when she recognizes us from afar.

I've been realizing that my journal entries have been somewhat short lately, and I think it's because I've gotten bogged down in talking about what we do in the day, instead of talking about how Cara is changing and developing. It's strange how we'll notice things that Cara is doing, and see how she's changing, and have these games that we play with her, but will forget to mention them in the journal. I have to try to pay more attention to journal-worthy things.

5/1/06 (Monday)

On another gorgeous New Jersey day (73 degrees, 20 percent humidity, blue sky, the occasional cloud) I took Cara to Johnson Park. I took the camcorder with me, figuring that I would try to catch Cara toddling about--I certainly did that! I have maybe too much film of Cara examining sticks, Cara walking toward her grandpapa, Cara playing in dirt, Cara holding on to things.

We took most of our shots right at the edge of the Raritan River, then we walked toward the zoo and the swings. On our way past the goat enclosure, one goat in particular screamed and cried in distress and then lo and behold, a tiny, slimy infant goat appeared. I whipped out the camcorder and caught the infant's first few moments of life as her mother licked her and did other things. Cara, of course, took little notice of these events.

At the swings, Cara met up with several toddlers all of whom took a great interest in the attractive blond in their midst. I had conversations with mommies and grandmommies while Cara had plenty of conversations and interactions with all sorts of children. This had to be our most pleasant trip to Johnson Park ever. After quite a while of this, I noticed Cara getting tired and so, once all the other children had gone, I put her into the jogging stroller and she really didn't want to go. She was most adamant about wanting to stay so I put her down on the ground again (oops! I rewarded her for crying, some would say) where she played with sticks and found a few rocks to move around.

Then I put her into the stroller again and on our way to the car, past the goat enclosure, there were now three tiny baby goats, all fluffy and beautiful. But the camcorder's batteries seemed to be kaput so I have no pictures of the scene.

Back at the ranch, Cara had Cheerios, half a banana and a bowl of yogurt. Right now (it's 3:35), she's up in her crib, alternately babbling to herself and napping, hopefully reliving the events of her exciting afternoon.

Cara was asleep when I got home a little bit after four, and she slept until about 5:20. At that point I was in her room with her. She had her pants off (a comfort measure employed by my father) and her tushie in the air, displaying her purple-and-green striped onesie. I sat down in the glider to read, thinking that that would wake her. Eventually, I had to cough politely.

We played outside and had a good time with Cara's house. It seems silly to say this, since it's inevitable, but Cara's walking just gets better and better. She likes to bend down and pick things up. Today she selected two rocks carefully and brought them along; I told her she could bring them but they could not go into her mouth. One of the cats' jingle balls was out by the house, and we had fun with that. Cara liked to give it to me through the window and then, of course, get it back.

In the bath, Cara has many rubber toys that can squirt water. Steve has fun squirting, but we believe that Cara has discovered that she can drink the water by squirting them into her mouth. We are, of course, delighted. She seemed to be trying to refill her alligator by dipping him in the water, but she was sadly unsuccessful.

5/2/06 (Tuesday)

Cara woke up early again today and we had some time to ourselves in the morning, which was nice, but also I was trying to get ready for work! Better than her having woken up in the middle of the night. I hear tell that she ate a lot of food today, even some jar baby food!

Cara has always been a fairly cheerful baby. I think that lately her laugh has developed though. She's probably been listening to people around her laugh. I know I myself sometimes do a devilish little "ha ha ha ha," enunciating the "ha"s. So now she is laughing "ha ha ha ha," except hers is of course very high and rather loony sounding, but utterly adorable.

Tonight in the tub Cara displayed her knowledge of how her bath toys are supposed to work: she was sticking them underwater and squeezing them to try to fill them with water! She had the little rubber octopus bath toy (whose name, you will remember, is Dr. Shocktopus) and was shaking him all around and water was dribbling all over. She also managed to squeeze out some water.

Today in the afternoon Cara met PJ and they played. They walked up and down the driveway successfully, and were messing around with dandelions. Cara also had what may have been her first (couple) chocolate chip cookies, which she crumbled to pieces mercilessly, smeared over her face, and then crawled off with bits of them in her hands.

5/3/06 (Wednesday)

Today, another gorgeous New Jersey day, Cara and I have our usual morning, exceptional for two things: one is that I take a very brief video of her being cute in her high chair; second, she and Shelby have a fine time chasing each other around the living room and kitchen. Shelby would stop and Cara would catch up and then Shelby would move but to a place where Cara could move to as well.

I am very excited to hear that Shelby may be playing with Cara. It means she's a good kitty, after all! It makes sense for her to play with Cara, since nobody else is willing to pay her the attention she wants.

Cara had a great day with her grandparents and her great-grandparents from New Mexico, who flew east to see her! They all had a very nice lunch together and played all day. Cara had been put down for her nap at ten, and they arrived at ten thirty, so she got up as soon as she heard them and hasn't had a nap all day. She showed them how well she walks around, and she waved when they left.

I had a nap. I had a nap on the floor of Cara's room. I dozed off and on for about half an hour while she played happily around, over, and on me. We both had a good time.

I was thinking back to a year ago, when Cara was either asleep or mad (if she wasn't eating, that is). Things are so much better and easier and more fun! I can't believe that she's walking so well now. She just keeps going and going, and I keep being astonished.

Since it was Wednesday, we went over to PJ's. It was very funny to see them both walking around; twice they just walked right into each other and then seemed surprised when at least one fell down. Each of them had a sippy cup, and Cara wanted both. She chased PJ into a corner, and we're not really sure how he got out. He came out fast, with his cup hanging from his mouth! Later PJ was walking by Cara as she sat on the floor. He reached out and rubbed her head. She turned and reached up to him. She proceeded to grab his onesie and pull herself up, after which he fell over. As I've said before, these evenings are really helpful; we compared babies (actually, they're big kids now) and it turns out that neither of them is as interested in books anymore. They both used to love them, but now we can hardly get through one. I think it's because they can walk now, and the world offers them more opportunities.

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