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Journal Key:

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

6/15/06 (Thursday)

Evie had a bit of a rough time trying to make dinner with a needy little girl trying to push her away from the kitchen counters, but somehow she managed it and dinner was ready when I got home. Then Mommy had to rush off to go to the gym, so Cara and I hung out for a little bit. We mainly wandered about, and I took some pictures of her for the first time in a while because she was wearing cute little short pants.

Tonight Cara had a little stuffed bear, which I repeatedly referred to as a bear. Then while I was sitting near I asked Cara to give Daddy the bear. She reached over, picked up the bear, and brought it to me. Ha ha! I thought. I tried to make her give the bear to her Mommy, but no dice there. Still--language is happening.

While I was taking pictures of Cara, I stopped to switch the camera to the mode where you can see little versions of the photos on the screen. I showed them to her, saying "There's a baby, and there's a baby, and there's a baby..." Later she returned to the camera's screen, saying "Baby, baby, baby..." That's one of the words she can say.

In her tub, Cara played with her toys. One of her toys that probably shouldn't be a toy is a big fish thing that is really a cover for the tub faucet. Lately it hasn't gotten onto the faucet, and instead I have been using it as a kind of pouring cup for rinsing her head. It is also a great toy for Cara, because not only can she drink the water out of it, but she can also stick her other toys into it. This really held her attention, as she tried to insert her little purple crocodile (whom we refer to as "Snuggles") into the fish, and then tried to get him out. She very much enjoyed it when I shook Snuggles so that his head was peeking out of the fish.

6/16/06 (Friday)

Since this is my first real day of summer vacation - the first day I did not have to get up early and go to school - we broke with routine and got an early start to our visit. Cara got to Middletown at about 11 in the morning. Contrary to expectations, she had not slept in the car. We spent some time playing with our Middletown toys and she had a light lunch, consisting chiefly of blueberries, which she loved, and some peach yogurt. Then it was back into the car to pick up Great-grandma Emily and head for Jenkinson's.

Both Cara and I had delightful, refreshing naps on the way. She woke just as Grandpapa was parking the car.

Cara rode peacefully in her stroller while we walked up the boardwalk. We had to park a short distance from the aquarium, but the boardwalk affords plenty of interesting new sights and sounds, and she was content.

The moment we entered the aquarium she caught sight of the first tank of brilliant tropical fish; she leaned forward in my arms, cried "shee!" (Cara-talk for "fishie") and laughed out loud. For a while she was happy to be held and led from one sight to the next; then she seized the initiative. She took us upstairs - a lot of work for those little legs. We saw the creatures in the Touch Tank and observed the seals from above. She became filled with excitement at the wonderful space she had to run in, and we made many speedy laps around the upstairs and then the downstairs, pausing occasionally to look at something wonderful. She thought every stroller there, occupied or not, must be hers, so we finally retrieved hers from the place where we had parked it and let her push it around. She discovered the gift shop, and as a result we have a new bath toy. Actually, we had two new bath toys, but one of them abandoned us on the boardwalk somewhere. Oh well. At least both the trolls made it home, although, for some reason, both of them are as naked as the shoemaker's elves.

Suddenly all her energy was used up. She wanted to be held again. She wanted to sit in her stroller, not push it. We gave her a drink of water and went back outside to stroll down the boardwalk. Cara sat limply, completely at rest, only turning her head to examine all the interesting things there were to see. Soon enough the interesting sights included some kiddie rides. She loved the flying elephants, so I bought tickets for one ride for her and me. The ride was OK, but not so exciting that we would buy more tickets; I think she liked watching them better than riding one.

After so much running, we were sure Cara would conk out again in the car. Not a bit of it; she played with her trolls and talked to them all the way home. Since then we have been playing, mostly inside the house. The games that get her to laugh out loud are the ones where she chases me. We have had some supper and we are returning to our usual bedtime routine: a video, a bath, a bottle and bed.

6/17/06 (Saturday)

First, a few things I forgot to mention about Friday: One is that Cara, as can be seen in pictures we took, actually wore her hat while we were out in the sunshine! Another is that she very effectively communicated hunger by going to her high chair as supper time approached. By the way, I was smart enough to bring a snack for her to eat at Jenkinson's - a cheese stick that she consumed completely after she had tired herself out, and a small bunch of grapes she ate in the car. A third thing I forgot to mention: at home, she was dying to get into Claire's room, and once she had gained admission she went directly for the large plush cats on the bed. It's hilarious to watch her try to carry one or both of these; she had to sling one over her shoulder, like a caveman bringing home a sabretooth tiger after a successful hunt.

Bedtime proceeded much as it has each week lately; I feel so privileged to spend these initmate moments with her. She was sound asleep by 8:40, but woke at about 2:15. I gave her a dry diaper and another bottle, and it seemed as if she wanted to get down and play, but I set her back in the crib, clinging to her trolls, and let her cry for the few minutes - less than five, I think - that it took her to fall back to sleep.

We woke her at about 7, breaking one of my own personal rules, which is to let sleeping babies lie, but one of us had to get to the dentist by 8 and George was worried about beach traffic on his way home. We offered her eggs, bacon, toast and blueberries, but she only nibbled at them, and then I had to kiss her good-by and we went our separate ways.

I feel so vindicated: for weeks I've had a theory that when Cara went to the highchair she was telling us that she was hungry! I've been feeding her when she went near it, and it has been working out well. I'm glad to hear someone confirm my hypothesis.

Twice, while my dad was dropping Cara off, she looked at him and said, "baba." I think that this is her version of "grandpapa"; it's the best he's likely to get for a while. So now she has her Baba and her Dadda and . . . me. I'm also Dadda, I think.

The whole family went out for Cara's walk this morning. Cara went to visit Julianna, who came out to see her. Cara investigated Julianna's flowers, snapping off a small dahlia to take with her. Between that and of course her sticks, Cara was quite happy. The most difficult part of the walk was getting by a house that obviously has another small child in it; there was a stroller outside, and Cara clearly thought it was hers and wanted to go push it around. She has a long memory and is difficult to restrain. One house had sprinklers going outside. Cara went finger swimming in a puddle, and then she walked over toward the spray. She stood a few feet away, clearly surprised that she was getting misted. She went over to the sprinkler head, which we did not let her investigate too closely. It was pretty cool, but she was soon distracted by some nearby rocks. We visited her bush, which turns out to have buds on it. It will be a while, though, before it has flowers, I think.

Steve mowed the lawn while I fed Cara. She enjoyed some cantaloupe and Cheerios, and then we went upstairs to play. I scrubbed out the bathtub, and Cara tried her best to help. I had to keep trying to distract her, because I really didn't want her to get any horrible cleaning products on her. As a result, I can confirm reports that Cara knows many words. When I suggested that she go get her trolls, she ran off and returned with them pronto. She dropped the pink one right into the tub.

Cara and I went out to buy her some nice balls to play with outside. I got four: one little blue soccer ball; one big, clear, sparkly ball; one medium-sized pink kickball; and one giant pink kickball. I got a little bit carried away. Cara has "borrowed" other children's balls at the park, and I wanted us to have something else to do outside. I don't remember having any balls to play with when I was little, and I remember always looking at them in the stores; there always seems to be a huge bin of colorful, cheap balls. (Sorry, Mom) I know that I probably didn't ever ask for one, I never would have played with it, and I really wouldn't have had anything to do with it anyway. I also know that I probably had one. It was fun filling up a shopping cart with balls, and it was fun driving home with the back seat full of them.

Cara went down for her nap when we got home, but she had fun with them afterwards. She likes carrying them around, especially the big ones. We had a laundry basket out, and several of the balls have had rides. I'm looking forward to taking a couple down to Sewell tomorrow to play with in her grandparents' big back yard. They will probably drive poor Rusty insane; I'm pretty sure they're too big for him to bite.

Although she had a long nap today, Cara was tired at bedtime. It's really cute sometimes when we put her down; Steve says tonight that when he got her near the crib she pretty much dived in. She lay right down and pulled her toy bear over, happy to be going to sleep.

Evelyn remembered something else from the day that's worth mentioning: she was sweeping up from my lawn mowing outside, and Cara and I were also there. For the first time, I played with her on the hill of our front yard. It's a tough surface for Cara to walk on, so I held her hands and we ran up and down it, which she enjoyed a lot.

6/18/06 (Sunday)

Today we got up and ready to go a little early, and took baby out for a Father's Day breakfast. It was crowded but we had a nice time, and Cara enjoyed our breakfasts as much as we did. She also got to look and point at many people. After a bit of running around, we got back in the car and drove way down south. Cara had a great time at my parents' house as she always does, and in fact as Evie pointed out was less high-maintenance than when she's at home--all the different toys to play with, and Rusty to chase! She was a little hard to please during our meal, perhaps because we had some difficulties figuring out how to work the high chair. Then we went outside and tried to convince Cara to play with her various ball toys; she enjoyed this but most of the playing was done by us, as Cara has yet to develop the coordination necessary for kicking things.

Back inside out of the heat, we did some more toy-playing. We are trying harder now to identify the various animals that she has, and she may be starting to get it. (At some point in the day, we did tell her to go to her Grandpa, and she went right over to my Dad!) Soon it was time to get back into the car, and Cara got another little car-nap in.

We spent our evening having a light dinner (Cara enjoyed some cheese sticks, cheerios, and hot dog) and watching Baby Einstein DVDs, the ones that teach body parts and animals. Then bath and bed.

Cara's high chair has a main tray, and a thin blue one that snaps into it on top and is used for eating the food on. Then what you do is just slip off the blue part and wash the food bits off of it. There are little round indentations on either side of the main tray to help you slip your fingers under and take off the blue part. Lately, Evie and I have noticed Cheerios are getting under the blue tray. We have discovered that this is because Cara very carefully takes her Cheerios and jams them into the indentations. It's pretty funny. Tonight she got quite a pile in there.

6/19/06 (Monday)

A nice ordinary but very hot day. At ten in the morning we saw two deer in the front yard and the driveway, eating up the berries that had fallen from the tree. They took little notice of us as we went by.

Each day Cara evinces more growth: in the afternoon, she brought me her two socks which she clearly wanted on her little feet. Afterwards, her two shoes. And also she points to things she wants: water, cheese, bananas. She's becoming a better communicator every day.

I got home a little bit after four, and I stood Cara on her changing table to watch her grandpapa leave. He took a while, and her attention wandered, but eventually we got to wave from the window. I went into my room and sat on the bed; then I leaned back with my feet dangling off and my arms outstretched to either side. I could hear Cara running around, messing with things, and then I felt something strange. Cara had selected one of my shoes and was industriously attempting to put it on my foot!

I was tired, so we went to the gym. When I brought Cara into the Kids Klub, she turned to me, held her arms up, and cried! Callously, I abandoned her. However, when I peeked through the door five minutes later, Miss Jessica gave me the thumbs-up sign; she was holding a happy Cara on her lap. Half an hour later, I returned. Cara was in a toy car just like the one she has out back. She had one leg trapped under her, just like at home. Each hand had a different little toy in it, and both were clearly good to suck on. There were other kids around, one younger than Cara and the rest older, and she was sort of playing with them.

I got her out of the car and let her run around. She eventually put down her new toys, but she picked up two baby dolls and ran around with them, putting them on the bottom of the slide and swinging them by their hair. It took quite a while before I could convince her to leave. She was once again heartbroken.

At home, we took a walk around the block. Cara found lots of really good sticks, and she did much of the walk by herself. There are of course extended sessions of Cara running up someone's driveway, me catching her and bringing her back down and a little way away, and Cara running back, laughing. At the end of the walk we got to show our sticks to Julianna. Julianna reports that Cara made her stop mowing her lawn earlier, coming over and insisting that she come and talk to her. Julianna and a friend had just had dinner, and her friend had a little container of something German that Julianna had made; it reminds me very much of Grandma's finger noodles. Cara was given a bite. Then another. Then another. Then she got her own container to take home. Then she was upset at not having the original container, so we traded.

I took Cara inside and washed her hands. She was filthy. At some point in our walk she had picked up a clump of dried grass that someone's mower had left on the sidewalk; she had grass and grit coating her hand to such an extent that I saw her looking at it in some perplexity. She tried to wipe it off a little, I think. Anyway, I had to wash her hands, getting between all those little fingers, and then I let her dive into her dinner. She ate the whole container, getting oily up to her elbows and rubbing oil in her hair, which wound up about as horrible as I've ever seen it. She also had a peach and some water.

A few months ago, in the winter, I think, we saw some friends who have a little boy about a year older than Cara. I remember that Steve and I were both astonished to see him walking around under his own steam. I asked them about what the little boy ate, because we were in the phase of figuring out how and what to feed Cara, and she didn't seem to like anything and I was sure, deep inside, that she would never learn to eat at all. The dad reported that his son ate anything and had, in fact, just eaten the majority of his (the father's) French fries at lunch. I made the appropriate noises, but inside I was thinking that, really, kids his age shouldn't be eating fries.

This evening, I had Steve pick up fast food on his way home. Cara had already eaten, so I put on the Muppet Show. My little girl ran back and forth between me and the living room, eating my fries and watching television at the same time. Now, that is good parenting.

There are some scary parts to Cara's bath. While the water is running, she stands outside the tub and reaches in. Sometimes her feet both leave the floor, and Steve and I are both scared she's going to topple headfirst into the bath. When she's in the tub, Cara spends a good deal of her time standing up. We're used to this, but now she's trying to climb out, and she can get one of her feet all the way onto the rim of the tub. This is not particularly good.

Speaking of not particularly good things, Cara may be working out how to operate doorknobs. I would like to predict right now that the first time she gets one to work will be while I am in the bathroom and she is outside protesting.

6/20/06 (Tuesday)

I know little about Cara's day, but Evie did tell me that she gave Cara a little cup of water, which Cara dribbled out onto the floor and then tried to pick up.

In the afternoon her Aunt Claire came to visit. I have been told that Cara now knows Aunt Claire to be a "sucker" who will pick up Cara whenever she wants to be picked up--Cara would go to Claire, knowing she was an easier touch than Mommy!

While we were sitting down to dinner and Cara was eating some of the many tortellini she would eat, Ron and Em called and invited us to take a dip in their lovely pool. We agreed and after dinner got into our swimsuits and went over. We got to witness PJ's first try in the pool since he was a little baby last year--this time, unlike last time, he decided that it was among the worst things ever (though not as bad as having his teeth brushed). The cold water was awful and he screamed. I dipped Cara's legs into the water while standing on the side of the pool, and she quickly lifted them to get them out. Cara did like the duck thing that was floating in the pool (it was, I believe, a chemical dispenser of some kind, but it was tastefully disguised as a duck). Evie got into the pool and held Cara half-in the water, and she was not enthusiastic about it and made grumbling noises.

Cara much preferred running around the perimeter of the pool, picking up rocks and golf balls, and trying to get past Daddy's defenses and throw them in. Sadly, Daddy's defenses were not very good as he was much more concerned about Cara taking an accidental tumble into the deep end, and at least two rocks and one golf ball sank to the bottom (but were later fished out by some skillful skimmer work on the part of my wife).

Something Cara also liked to do, strangely enough, was get out onto the diving board and walk toward its edge! Ron managed to get some pictures of this as well as many other parts of the evening. Since the pool did not work out like everyone had hoped, Ron opened up the hot tub instead and this was more in the kids' style. It was more like their bath and they eventually were both wandering around in the water (which was turned down to a suitable temperature for children and pregnant women). It was eventually decided that little PJ was quite tired, and it was certainly time for both kids to get their bath, so off we went. But it was a nice adventure! I'm sure in a few years we won't be able to get them out of the pool.

At some point during our outing I was showing Cara how I put on my flip-flops by wiggling my feet into them. Later when we were upstairs around bathtime, Cara found one of my flip-flops lying on the floor and tried to put it on. I explained that my feet were a bit larger than hers.

Cara loves to play with the volume knob on my keyboard. I love for her to play with my keyboard, and don't mind if she pushes every button on it, but I would really rather not have her crank the volume all the way up all the time. When she tried it tonight, I repeatedly said "NO!" to her and pulled her hand away. She was emotionally crushed and screamed and wanted to be put down, whereupon she ran to the bathroom where Claire was changing and tried to open the door--Aunt Claire will comfort me!

But later in the bathtub we had a nice time playing--she found it very very funny when I imitated her cough--and then she enjoyed looking at one of her books afterwards. Just a small ordeal with her toothbrush and now she is in bed.

NOTE: if you check the photos page remember to look back up at the 6/16/06 pictures of Cara at the aquarium, as I added a few more of those.

6/21/06 (Wednesday)

Grandpa Jim and Grandma Janet were up to play with Cara today. I hear that they all had a great time running around both inside and outside the house. Cara asked me to pick her up, but then, when we got close enough to her grandpa, she reached out her arms and went right over to him. The same thing happened with her grandma. She didn't want them to leave!

After a snack, we went to the gym. Cara was not awfully enthusiastic, but she went willingly enough from my arms and was heading over to a toy before I was out the door. I usually only take about half an hour, but today I stretched it out a little bit, and I got paged. Cara wasn't crying when I got there, and she didn't act as if I were saving her life by showing up, but she did come over to me promptly. She was doing that little hiccup that you get after you've been crying. The girls said she just seemed like she'd been having a bad day, or she was tired or something. She may have been over-stimulated. She was also wet, which must not have been pleasant.

We did a little bit of shopping and came home; Cara was fine. She spent about ten minutes lying around on her changing table, playing with the straps and the cords from the blinds. She must have been tired, to be so stationary! Julianna came over with gifts from her church's goodwill. Cara got a little plastic house-shaped pocketbook, which she took and ran around with, along with a cute plastic rolling suitcase, which is Hello, Kitty. Cara also rolls this around. It had some clothes in it; there is a nice pair of pants, a cute shirt, and an adorable pink fleece jacket that I really hope will fit next winter. I've been putting toys in the case, and Cara may have learned to open and close it. She put in her airplane toy all by herself; she also closed the case on her finger, which she decided wasn't pleasant.

We went outside and went over to Julianna's, where Cara climbed the front steps and enjoyed grabbing the two phones and the watering can that were outside. Eventually she ran off with one phone and fell on her face. Her daddy picked her right up; she had scratched her knee, which was bleeding, and had scratched her nose (again) a little bit, too. Her poor little nose bled a little bit from the inside, but she was quickly up and running around again and there was barely enough blood to wipe.

PJ came over and the two kids ran around, up and down the sidewalk, together, with Steve and Em after them. PJ, not one to be outdone, fell down and got his first skinned knee. We headed inside. I tried my "I'm gonna get you" game on PJ, who grinned adorably. Steve reports that Cara thought it was funny, too. I thought that she might be jealous. The kids fought over Ron's keys, Cara taking them from PJ, who took them back and ran away. Em divided them in half, clearly not understanding that Cara needed some for each of her hands.

Both kids played ball, with mixed results. Both kids chased the cats, with poor results. Both kids climbed the stairs. PJ can actually come down under his own steam! He sort of spirals, really almost gracefully. In four to six weeks, therefore, Cara should have figured that out. PJ also said "bye-bye" when he left!

We showed Em the really cool website that Claire found us. It's called Boobah. Cara was fascinated by it; it is very simple to operate, though not something that Cara will be able to do until she stops wanting to pick up the mouse and look at the laser underneath. It's all music and shapes and games that you play by moving the mouse and sometimes clicking it. We all love it.

In Cara's bath tonight I got to see her trying to drink out of her big bucket. She basically has to dip her head in, which I'm sure you can imagine has great humorous possibilities.

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