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Journal Key:

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

6/8/06 (Thursday)

Evie was running a fever today and George stayed later than usual. When I got home Cara was safely corralled on the living room level of the house and Evie was relaxing with the muppets. I ordered dinner and gave Cara a snack of about half a corn muffin and most of a chicken burger. I experimented with our little kiddie forks again and I was very proud of her, because I think she gets the concept. The first time I gave her forks, she had one in each hand, and I think that she stabbed at the food on her tray only accidentally because she wanted to pick it up but didn't want to put down the forks. This time I got the sense that she understood that the forks were for picking up the food. She tried multiple times to scoop up pieces of chicken burger--to no avail. But she tried, and it was very funny to see her give up, because the spoon got tossed to the side so that she could snatch up the food with her bare hands.

After her snack we played a little in the dining room until dinner arrived. Cara had to go back in her chair, but also got some lovely lo mein noodles to play with. I laid a little pile of them on her tray and she flopped them all around and looked at the long dangling strands. Eventually Evie told me that she usually cuts up the noodles before giving them to Cara. Ha!

There was some more playing after dinner (Cara discovered that she could knock her playground toy over--oh, joy), and then it was time for the bath. I once again had to save a little stuffed creature from being doused--this time it was a little seahorse that she was determined to dunk in the tub. He made it through unscathed. Cara was very ready to drink her tub water tonight. We got her bath toys in the rising water and I got her undressed and left her in the bathroom while I went to throw away her diaper. When I came back I saw that she had managed to fish one of her stacking cups out of the water and was sucking at it by the edge of her tub!

After the bath Evie was sorting Cara's laundry (which George had done earlier). What luck for Cara, who clearly still had energy to burn off! She got hold of the laundry basket and pushed it around, sometimes with one or two toys in it, and when her basket came up against a wall, she reversed direction and pulled the basket. This was a new one for me: I don't think I've seen her pulling the basket before. It was very funny. She got hold of one sock from an incomplete pair and got into the bathroom again, where her toys were drying on the edge of the tub. With great thoroughness, she pushed all the toys into the tub, then threw in the sock. Later she came back and managed to roll the bath mat off the edge and into the tub, and as a final touch added one of her Roll Arounds.

She managed somehow to get hiccups when I put her down for the night, and I think this upset her, but now all is quiet up there.

6/9/06 (Friday)

You might suppose that when a tiny little girl hears thunder and feels raindrops fall, she might turn her face to the heavens in wonder. If you think that, you have totally underestimated the intense focus with which a tiny girl concentrates on moving her play furniture around on the deck. George took Cara outside to experience the onset of a thunderstorm, but the spectacle was lost on her.

I had no idea that Emily lavished this kind of imperial luxury on her children, but apparently when they were very small she used to peel grapes for them, and she brought a bunch with her so that I could do the same for Cara. What a success they were! She loved them, and for a while she was shoving them in as fast as I could peel them. Boy, were my hands sticky. However, we were able to move on to other elements of supper: the mashed sweet potato was also a big success, and she ate a few pieces of chicken, with some cherry yogurt for dessert. (There was some chopped broccoli on hand as well, but I figured she wouldn't go for it. Do grapes count as a vegetable?)

Earlier we went to the park. At one point the two of us were drumming on the end of a slide; we got a nice rhythm going and, sure enough, the tushie action started. She seems to know her way around the equipment now, and when she wanted to slide, she knew to walk around to the end where the stairs are. We went over the swinging bridge three times, turning around each time to do it again. On the swings she was interested in handing a toy to me and then getting it back each time the swing came forward; this was quite amusing.

She sat still in my lap this evening to read through the dinosaur book and the Very Hungry Caterpillar several times each.

I think she's getting tired, and soon it will be time for the bath, bottle and bed.

6/10/06 (Saturday)

Cara had a happy bath; at one point I sang Eensy-weensy Spider (a current favorite - she loves it when the "rain" patters down onto her head) and she did the tushie wiggle while seated in the bath. She was thoroughly washed from top to toe, because we did get ourselves kind of gritty out there at the playground in the afternoon. Then she sucked down her bottle like a vacuum and looked for more. She was asleep by about 8:30.

About 2 hours later I dreamed there was a police siren outside. The dream woke me and I got up to find that Claire had just come home and the baby was CRYING!!!! Luckily, Aunt Claire has an extensive repertoire of funny faces that can make a baby smile even through her tears. Aunt Claire also fixed another bottle, which, like the first, was sucked down with phenomenal efficiency and relinquished with regret. I tried lying down with Cara on the sofa, but she was wiggly, so I put her back into her bed, where she cried for about a minute and a half and then slept until almost 6 in the morning.

We played for a while. On this visit I found that Cara has the general idea of playing catch with a ball. We sat facing each other and tossed a ball back and forth between us. She also likes to chase me around the living room-dining room-kitchen area, and is clever enough to fake me out by switching direction when I can't see her. Then she just beams with delight! For breakfast she had a piece of multi-grain toast and a small amount of eggs with some bacon, and then it was off home to mommy and daddy again.

One other note about yesterday: it made me happy that when she got here, she looked around with a smile, made some happy sounds, and charged for the toys. Actually, she charged first for the yoga balls. She likes to drum on them and she likes to roll them around the house.

Evelyn unfortunately continues unwell, so for the morning I had Cara. I got her dressed and took her outside to go over to Lloyd Street, but it was so cool and windy that I turned around before we got there and took her back inside. We managed fairly well in the house until I decided it was time she had a nap, around 10:15 am. Evie was also having a nap, so when my parents arrived about an hour later, there was only me and the cats to greet them. Around 12:15 it was time for Cara to wake up and have lunch. She was actually not much interested in any food at that point. I had to go and watch my Dad perform a household chore, and while that was happening, Cara was playing outside and took an unlucky spill onto the sidewalk and scratched her nose up good. We could all hear her screaming right when she did it, but within five minutes she was back to herself, playing. We were probably more affected by the fall than she was, since she doesn't ever look at her own face and can't see the red marks! Like her skinned knee, this is one of those things that was bound to happen eventually.

In the afternoon my parents left and Cara was a bit crabby--partly I think she was tired. I sat down with her and we watched what is now I guess the old standby--the muppets. This satisfied us both. I decided Cara was probably hungry and gave her a cheese stick, which she ate. Then I got out some cantaloupe that had been cut up the day before and started sharing it with her using one of her little kiddie forks. I was feeding her with the fork and then eating some myself. I wasn't feeding her quickly enough, though, because Cara grabbed the fork and stabbed a piece out of the bowl and ate it for herself! She tried to repeat this remarkable performance several times, but it only worked once and she soon resorted to dipping her hands into the bowl and grabbing out pieces. Between us we ate an entire cantaloupe--most of it was eaten by Cara. She also had some puffs, and later in the evening had a tiny bit of banana and shared a piece of pizza with me, so this all probably made up for her lunchtime food deficiency.

I tried to give Cara her usual straw sippy cup with cold milk in it today--it didn't work. She made a face and though she did keep trying to drink out of the cup, I think it disappointed her every time because it wasn't water. Actually today was a bad day to try something new on Cara, because it's very tough for her with Mommy out of commission. It's hard for her to understand that her Mommy can't do the things that she usually does, and I have to try to do household chores every once in a while, which makes her even more unhappy.

However Cara continues to surprise and encourage us with her intelligence. She has begun reaching for doorknobs, which could quickly become dangerous if she figures out how they operate. She seems to understand things that are said to her. She knows how to say "no," though she probably doesn't know what it means. One of her lift-the-flap books features a boy looking for his Mommy in various locations, and when you lift the flap it usually says "No!" as in, Mommy is not there. Cara knows this is coming and will say "Nnooo." At one point in the day we were in the living room playing with a pair of her penguin toys, and Evelyn was saying how we had another little penguin upstairs. Cara got up, climbed the stairs, went straight to her room, found the third penguin and brought it back down! Cara also managed to push her big electronic playground toy from one end of the dining room all the way into our game room, and to the threshold of the bathroom!

Cara had a nice bath. As you may know, Cara has a bucket filled with all of her many bath toys. I decided that I didn't want to get all of them wet tonight, so I left some of them out of the tub. They were lying on the bathroom floor, in clear view of Cara who was standing in the tub. She pointed to one of the toys on the floor and reached for it. I obediently picked it up and gave it to her. She tossed it into the water and, undeterred, pointed to one of the other toys on the floor. This continued until all of her toys were in the tub where they belonged.

She's a very clever little girl, and I hope that tomorrow I can pay her more attention and keep her happier.

6/11/06 (Sunday)

In the morning Cara and I made it all the way to the park, because it was nice out and not windy and chilly. I took her in her wagon. Unfortunately it was around 10:30 or 11 am and no one was out at the playground to play with! It was just Cara and her Daddy, which was OK, but not ideal for my little girl. We went down some slides, mostly at my prompting since Cara seems to prefer going up and down the steps. She also wandered about the park area and picked up various objects. Her favorite were sticks, and in fact there was a set of about three which she collected and took all the way home with her. Before that, though, she found a small item of garbage which I believe was a gum wrapper. We wandered about with it until Cara came to one of the big blue trash cans that are scattered through the park. I was amazed to watch her try to reach up and put the trash in its place! I suppose this was just a symptom of Cara's putting things into other things, but all the same I was proud of her.

Anyway, we had a pretty good run out there and then got back in the wagon and turned for home. I got about halfway there and noticed that Cara's zip-up sweater (which I had put on her for the ride to the park, and which had subsequently been taken off and placed in the wagon) was no longer with us. It was back around again! I had to go back into the very parking lot of the park to pick up the sweater where Cara had discarded it.

On these long trips to and from the park, we met many people, including two little girls, a friendly collie, and our well-loved neighbor Ron (who held her for a few moments since she was so demanding of it). Because we were on our mission to the park (or to the house, or to find her sweater), we never got to stop and play with anyone for long, which I think was a bit frustrating for her. But as you'll see she had some good play time later in the day.

That was my morning with Cara basically, because she went down for her nap and by the time she woke up her Grandma Janet and Aunt Claire had arrived and I went out to a movie with Claire. Here's where Janet can pick up the tale:

I think Cara was a little surprised to see me in her house when she woke from her nap; I was in the wrong place. We thought she would be hungry and i had thoughtfully peeled a few grapes for her, since she had eaten them with such enthusiasm just two days earlier. No dice. She had no interest in grapes whatsoever, and not much appetite for anything else either.

We played outside for a little while, and then I put her into her stroller and we left mommy home alone while we two headed for the park. Cara had her purple ball in her hands for most of the trip; eventually, of course, it went rolling away on the pavement and I retrieved it. I am pretty sure Cara said "ball."

The playground was loads of fun, and she was eager to get out of the stroller as soon as it came in sight. I didn't want to abandon the stroller right away, so the two of us pushed it over the grass together until we were near the swings, stopping only to admire a friendly little dog. Cara spent only a short time in the swings, because there was so much else to see and do at the park.

It was very important to hurry over to the basketball court and try to join the great big guys who were shooting hoops. Then there were all sorts of interesting things to pick up. I figured I would never prevent her from finding every piece of trash on the ground, so instead we made a game of putting them into the trash barrel; I kept hoisting her up there and telling her "throw!" Which she did.

Luckily, another little girl came along with her own grandma. This little girl was 3 years old, and she helpfully led Cara by the hand to the steps leading up to the slide. We had a great time chasing each other up, down and around the play equipment. Cara should sleep well tonight. Then we wandered onto the grass to pick clover blossoms. About this time I thought Cara must be hungry. Ev had wisely stashed a packet of snacks in the bottom of the stroller. Sure enough, Cara got excited the moment she saw it. She was famished. However, we had to share with our new friend and the snacks were soon gone, so we got back into the stroller and hurried home, arriving just at the moment when Cara's daddy and Aunt Claire arrived back from the movies.

I should add a quick note about sticks: apparently in the afternoon Cara continued her stick-collecting and was gathering piles of them in the backyard--it was very difficult to convince her to let them go, and in fact I found one in the living room when I came back.

Not long after I returned it was time for Janet and Claire to go home; just like yesterday when my parents left, this was a time of crabbiness for Cara. I think that she gets tired in the afternoon and I was very tempted to put her down for a second nap, but restrained myself with the thought of her waking up in the middle of the night. Instead I took her out to the supermarket and to pick up some dinner, per my wife's suggestions. Cara got to see a bike-riding teenager do a trick where he jumped over some stacks of skate boards--I don't know how impressive this was for her. I was impressed. When we got home Cara did not seem interested in being stuck in her high chair (it was understandable, since she'd just spent a while strapped into her car seat and her stroller), so instead we once again pulled out the muppets and I watched them with her, and it went very well.

Later, I started eating and Evie was able to take Cara into her lap and feed her some mexican food while Cara peeked through the kitchen doorway at the muppets. It was very cute. Even when we took her upstairs to have her bath, Cara would occasionally stop at the gate at the top of the stairs to look down at the TV and her muppets. She was also very busy with her laundry basket; so busy, in fact, that she walked past a defenseless Shelby the cat several times. Shelby was lying right on the bedroom floor and could easily have been violently petted.

We have started to try to brush Cara's teeth with a toothbrush, and have so far been very, very unsuccessful. She dislikes it intensely, and has a very effective mode of resistance--she just shuts her lips up tight. Hopefully repetition will breed acceptance.

6/12/06 (Monday)

I am, fortunately, much better today. I stayed home to recuperate, though, and I'm glad I did. Cara, for reasons of her own, was up a little bit after six. Steve was dressed, so the family played together for a while and then we all sat in the kitchen and I fed Cara some applesauce, Cara fed herself some puffs and Cheerios, and Steve ate a little bit of breakfast and got ready to go.

When my dad arrived, Cara was glad to see him. We watched Cara's daddy drive away. "He spends all day driving around," Grandpapa explained to Cara. I know we played for a while, but what I remember is that my dad made us a really good breakfast. He and Cara eventually went for their walk, during which Cara went up lots of people's driveways and also picked up lots of trash, which Grandpapa helped her to dispose of in cans which fortunately were out.

Cara and I were alone from a little bit after four until a little bit after six, when Steve came home. I decided we would take a walk around the block. First, of course, it turned out that Cara was hungry. I stuck her in her chair with Cheerios and puffs and her water bottle, and she pretty much cleared her tray. She was enthusiastic when I picked up a banana and offered it to her, but when it was peeled and ready she showed no interest whatsoever. I ate the half I'd broken off and we set out. (Note: Cara ignored the other half during dinner.)

Our walk was interesting. Cara liked the unripe mulberry she ate off the ground a week or so ago, so I thought I'd give her a treat; I picked her one from the tree. She took it gladly but not enthusiastically. She did not realize that it was something to eat, so she just held it in her hand. I hoped she'd drop it when we picked some clover, but she carefully took the clover between her thumb and forefinger. Now, you have to understand that any actual progress in this walk, unless otherwise noted, was made by me carrying her. Any walking Cara did was counterproductive, with few exceptions. PJ wasn't out, but his gate was open, so Cara decided to join the men working on the air conditioner. She tried slapping her hands down in the back of the big bulldozer toy, but there was no water there to splash. This, I was glad to note, was the end of Cara's mulberry. She climbed on a few other toys, and then I toted her off.

Cara walked to the corner, eventually, but then she wanted to get down the curb and retrieve a piece of plastic piping that was there. At some point in the afternoon, driven to desperation, I dropped it down the storm drain. Cara was mainly interested, however, in collecting sticks. She had about four or five, and then she found a nice big one almost as long as she is tall. She wanted to take it back to the corner, but a puppy came out up ahead and I convinced her that meeting the puppy was more important. The puppy likes sticks. Cara likes sticks. The puppy doesn't always go in the direction that is expected of it. Neither does Cara. The puppy likes to investigate things it finds lying on the ground. So does Cara. They were really too busy to notice each other. I picked up Cara and we all made a circuit of the block together, a puppy on a leash being more directable than a little girl. Cara had her sticks and was happy to be carried, the lady with the dog had company and was happy to talk, and I was happy to hear Cara laughing somewhat inexplicably at the puppy.

Having made a quick walk of the block with our company (and shared a few sticks), we continued at our own pace. At the next house, another puppy came out. It was a tiny greyhound and it was quite beautiful, and Cara looked at it but was really too busy with her sticks. When the puppy walked away in the direction of our house I was happy to let Cara follow it, laughing, but I ended up carrying her the rest of the way when our guide dog was diverted.

After dinner we collected some more sticks and met a third dog, for whom Cara really was too busy as well. She had a nice bath and then wailed in her crib until I let her down in her diaper to push her laundry basket around. She's tried and tried, but it just will not fit between the toilet and the tub. Earlier, by the way, I had it in our bedroom full of her clothes and I told her to push it to her room. She did. The odds that she'd be right were pretty good, but I was pleased anyway.

6/13/06 (Tuesday)

Yesterday, Cara had her first encounter with a bully! A three year old boy approached her in Johnson Park with bad intentions. At the last second, just as he was going to knock her down, he saw me and swerved away. His mother was also watching and knew her boy--she pulled him away and tried to tell him what he'd been doing wrong. As she was gaining control of him, he picked up two little stones and threw them at Cara. Both missed, but not by much. The boy was led away by his mother and Cara continued, oblivious to all the action around her.

Yesterday's highlight: Cara has a tiny soft-toy dog. You pull its tail and it bounces along. At one point, Cara is going up the stairs. To keep her hands free she has the toy dog in her mouth, a variant on the man-bites-dog story.

Today, in Johnson Park we came upon Ashwin, an old friend who is a month older than Cara. She and Ashwin pretty much ignored each other as they hovered in the orbit of their keepers. Cara got to watch a group of four and five year olds race around the playground. She also went down one of the smaller slides with only a minimum of help.

On this very hot, very sunny day, I put lots of sunscreen on Cara but I'm not sure it is enough. It would help her very much I think if she would keep a hat on, but that is a forlorn hope.

Cara has been quite interested in the things we keep on the floor of her closet for a while now, but none of us have helped her to gain access to anything interesting. This afternoon, however, she finally found two of the old fish from her crib mobile and brought them out with her. She intimated to me that she was very hungry. Despite the snack we had just had, she insisted that she was about to perish from hunger. I got her puffs. She could not take them from me and feed herself, because she was holding her two fish. I had to feed them to her. I had also gotten out her snack trap, which was quite useless. In the end, Cara was willing to be reduced to her old expedient of just bending her head down to get her mouth to her food.

I thought that this was the time of year when everyone went off on their summer vacations and didn't clog up the Parkway on a weeknight, but it seems I was mistaken. I did not arrive home until almost 7 pm, by which time Cara's Mommy was on her second "killing time until Daddy gets home" walk around the block with Cara. They had many sticks, which was nice for Cara, but fortunately we were able to get them away from her with a minimum of discomfort so that we could all go inside. While Mommy tried to finish up dinner, I gave up on trying to play with Cara (she wanted to be carried around and given anything she pointed to) and just sat down with a Baby Einstein video (World Animals--I hadn't watched it before, though I think Cara has it at her grandparents' house). We watched it once all the way through with Cara sitting in my lap enjoying it nicely. Then we watched all the special features, and then we started watching it again. By this time Cara was starting to climb up the stairs, but it was OK because dinner was ready. Cara had an interesting assortment of foods, including lo mein noodles, some barbecue pork, cheerios, and cheese. By the time dinner was over it was time to stick Cara in the tub!

While we were wandering about upstairs preparing for the bath, Cara pulled a diaper out of the place where we keep them. She's done this before--she is really starting to get into everything. She opened the diaper like a book and looked at the inside, then wrapped it around her face. She took off down the hall, and every once in a while would return, perhaps wearing the diaper around her neck like a mink stole. Charming. The other charming thing I found today was a length of ribbon sitting in our toilet bowl. I'm not sure how it got in there, since the seat was down.

Cara woke up early (around 6:15 am) for the second time in a row this morning. It now qualifies as a habit and shows particularly bad timing on Cara's part, as this is the time when her Mommy leaves and her poor Daddy has to hurry and get dressed before he can pick his daughter out of her crib. On the other hand, if we start taking her to daycare once a week, she is ready for that.

Cara continues to hate having her teeth brushed--we are considering various re-organizations of the night time routine, because right now the teeth-brushing is the very last thing we do before Cara goes in her crib, and it's a terrible way to end her day.

"Daddy" is a very popular word, but somehow we have given Cara the wrong association for the word. She may know that I am Daddy, but to her, this is just the tip of the iceberg. She seems to say it the most when pointing at pictures of people--a painting of Evelyn, say, or a family photo, or a picture of a Nascar race car driver on the box of Cheerios (his name is Bobby Labonte--not Daddy!). She has also started saying "No," because we have been using that word so much with her lately: she gives us so many reasons to use it! It's too bad that there are so many fun things in the world that little girls shouldn't do: ripping up books, throwing their clothes into the bathwater, pulling hunks of fur out of cats. If she combines both of her words, "Daddy, no!" it will be just like having a teenager already.

6/14/06 (Wednesday)

Some highs and lows today. First the lows: In the morning I locked Cara up on the lower level while I did some important work on the mid-level. Yesterday, she seemed content for the few minutes I did the same thing. Instead, today she cried every second that I was away from her. Later, I was up in her room while she contentedly played around with her things. I was a giant doorstop--but the moment I moved away she became upset.

The highs: At Johnson Park, Cara kept her hat on for more than a few seconds. I'm wearing my own hat these days and perhaps my good example affects her. Also at the park, a deer came over to us. Then Cara put out her hand and actually touched the deer's nose through the fence.

I don't know if it's just me, but Cara has seemed more clingy yesterday and today than she has been lately. She does okay upstairs in her room or downstairs in the dining room, but in the living room or kitchen, it seems like she starts crying to be picked up the second I put her down! Actually, I hadn't realized until now just how localized this phenomenon is; except for having to make dinner in the kitchen, perhaps I can work around it.

Cara and I hung out in her room and had a good time. I had a little nap on the floor for maybe 15 minutes, but we also looked at books together. Cara requested her alphabet book, and as soon as I took it from her she started bouncing to the rhythm to which I read it. We did that one a couple of times, but we skipped a few pages each time, so it balances out.

I thought yesterday that Cara's life would change forever. She was playing with her dinosaur toy upstairs, and she found out that if she sticks her hands into the openings for the balls, she can press the little levers and make the music play. The wheels in her head really seemed to be turning, but today she just likes to play with it the way she always has. The only new thing is that she likes to push it around, like all her other toys.

Cara really loves to push her stroller. We went shopping and she rode in it, and when we got home I let her help push it to the door. While I was opening the door, Cara and the stroller went off-roading and got all the way to the tree in the middle of the front yard. She didn't notice, but she managed to truly scare away a deer who had run from the front yard just to the top of the gully, thinking we'd just quietly head inside.

I bought Cara a kiwi fruit, and I got it out at dinner even though I figured she'd reject it. I peeled and sliced it, and I gave her a slice in each hand. When I looked up, they were gone. She ate almost the whole thing that way!

I had to go back to school this evening, and when I got home Shelby was also in the doorway. I thought we'd finally find out whom Cara loved better, but Cara went right past both of us to my open purse, where she found my keys. She had them for about ten minutes; she set off the alarm once, but she turned it right off.

Gene was not out tonight, but Cara stood at her window, naked, yelling, "Da! Da! Dadda!" and so on.

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