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Journal Key:

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

7/20/06 (Thursday)

Well it's OK for me to do the journal tonight, because Evie's day with Cara was rather uneventful. They did go out a little, and play out back for a bit, but mainly it was muppets and nose-wiping all day. Cara napped, but not extra-long. I picked up some food for dinner and Cara ate pretty well of a mini-burrito and some rice and apple sauce. We went outside and Cara saw Julianna, so we had to go over and visit her. She had a bath, which she did not particularly enjoy, then got some advil or whatever in a dropper, which she also did not like, and then she became hysterically unhappy and we were forced to take her downstairs and show her TV. That's still going on right now. We had a rough night with her last night because she woke up and we had to show her TV then, too, for a while.

Now for the last few days I have had an eye infection (eww), and unfortunately we are now concerned that Cara may have picked that up to go along with her cold. She is rubbing her eyes a lot and squinting. True the whites of her eyes are not red or pink--yet--but the skin around her eyes is red. I do not look forward to putting eye drops into Cara's eyes! We'll hope that's not what it is.

7/21/06 (Friday)

These days really have not been one unremitting horror; there have been very nice parts. For one thing, we have gotten to play outside. Cara's fascination with straps has led to a logical development; she can now fasten the straps in her wagon, which she's long enjoyed playing with. Yesterday I tested this out by putting her into her wagon seat: she promptly strapped herself in.

I expected Cara's eyes to look terrible this morning. I wondered what I would do if one were swollen shut. When she woke up, though, they looked perfectly normal! Gradually they did redden, and they were a little bit puffy by the end of the day. I called the pediatrician, and the doctor, based on my description, thinks that the viral infection (the cold) is getting to her eyes. However, we get antibiotic drops to keep it from escalating into a bacterial infection. The doctor said to apply the drops three times a day for five or six days; the bottle says every four hours for seven days. The prescription label says three times a day for seven days. Listening to that, we have to do it 21 times. We've done it three times, so we have only 18 to go. It really is awful. I held her arms down with my elbows and pried her eyes open with one hand and put the drops in with the other! After doing that to her tonight after her bath, I felt so bad (and she was so loud) that I decided a treat was in order and let her come downstairs to watch (my favorite episode of) the Muppet Show. She felt better.

I asked whether we were now lepers, but the doctor said it was no more contagious than a cold and that I could take her out tomorrow and she could "go to school" on Monday.

I won't describe it in detail, but I will say that the astonishing need for tissues that Cara's nose presents is by far the worst it's ever been in her life. It may be worse than anything I've had in my life. On the other hand, it may be harder to tell how badly you need tissues, when you know how to use them.

We did spend a lot of time today just playing and hanging out. In fact, we've made big messes out of all three of the toy centers in the house. Cara got to pet Buster nicely. Cara ate some waffles and some yogurt. Cara is enjoying playing on the couch, and I predict that in a couple of months she will be climbing over the back of the couch and up the outside of the stairs. I know it's what I would do.

7/22/06 (Saturday)

Last night our little girl had a rough night. She woke up a few hours after her bed time, so I gave her some advil and we watched TV for a while, then we put her down; this did not take. Evie took martyr duty and stayed up late with the little girl until they were both exhausted. Cara slept very late this morning and I believe woke up at quarter to ten! Later in the day she had a long nap of 2 and a half hours. Evie rightly had the idea of making her run around a lot outside in the late afternoon (in between rain showers), and in the evening Cara and I watched a movie on the couch for a bit while Mommy made cookies. It is now 9:30 and the little girl is still up, after her bath.

In the morning I was trapped at a tire center getting my car serviced, but in the afternoon I tried to give Evie a break and a rest. First Cara had lunch, then had her long nap, then when she woke up (around 4, having gone down at around 2:30) I put her shoes on and we ran various errands out in the rain. We had to run through the rain a few times, which I think Cara enjoyed. She kept me occupied by constantly dropping her giraffe toys in various places--I had to wander about frantically in the parking lot of a Home Depot for quite a while before finding one lost giraffe by the tire of a parked car. Then in the supermarket Cara kept trying to stick the giraffes into a kind of cup-holder thing on the cart handle, and nine times out of ten the giraffe fell through it and onto the floor. Fortunately I was in a mood to find this amusing.

When we got home, Cara was happy to be there. She ravenously chomped on some puffs and happily wandered about the living room and kitchen babbling. We decided she must be feeling better. She continues with her runny nose today, but the sneezing is down to a minimum and she has not been nearly as touchy.

Cara learned a lesson yesterday, Evelyn tells me. It had to do with her book about Lucy Lamb, which is shaped like the head of a lamb and has a woolly cover. Cara learned that it may not be a good idea to stick the woolly lamb head into one's mouth and bite down on it. Today she learned that it may not be a good idea to eat crayons. We were trying to do some scribbling, but mostly what happened was that I drew animals with various colors that I was able to keep away from Cara, while Cara was busily alternating between sticking crayons into the box and shaking them out again. Evie explained to me that when they had tried crayons before, Cara had not been allowed to have the box--clearly she was missing out on all kinds of fun. As seems to happen with the crayons, Cara had them for quite a while before the idea of sticking them in her mouth occurred to her.

I had been a bit worried lately that Cara had gotten out of the habit of saying "Daddy." Today she picked it back up with a vengeance. It was related to her playmobil toy set, which we were able to get her to bring over to me so that I could open it up. The "Daddy" figure in there was identified, and then Cara's babble was nothing but "daddy, daddy, daddy" for quite a while.

Cara is still up at a quarter to 10 tonight. We'll see how the night goes.

I'd like to jump in to describe my experiences putting Cara to bed tonight. After her bath I got her into her pajamas and we spent some time playing peek-a-boo. It's just amazing what small things Cara can hide behind. I couldn't find her at all, but it turned out she had one of her stacking cups in front of her face. She can also disappear by crouching behind the bars on her crib. What Cara doesn't realize is that this is one of those games that is really fun the first twenty times and somewhat less fun afterwards.

I gave her her eye drops (15 times left!) and she calmed down pretty quickly afterwards. We sat in her glider to read a book. Cara has a shelf in her closet where we keep books, and the ones on it are all ones she's never really seen. We had a good time with Clifford, the Big Red Dog. Cara can find the dog. We have also started to enjoy Pat the Bunny! Cara seems to really like to pat that bunny; it must be softer than the other furry animals she has in books. She can feel Daddy's scratchy face and put her finger through Mommy's ring. She can play peek-a-boo with Paul, but he's the one who gets to hide, so it's less exciting. Poor Cara probably cannot smell the flowers. At the end, she waved good-bye to Paul and Judy.

We spent a good half hour reading Cara's books. Sometimes she got down and walked around. She wasn't upset, but she clearly knew that she didn't want Mommy to catch her, because she avoided me politely but with determination. Eventually, I always caught her. Cara picked up her bottle and drank it herself, with breaks because she can't breathe through her nose. Halfway through she let me take over. We did some more reading and then Cara decided to play with her stacking cups and I decided that 9:50 was late enough, brushed her teeth, and popped that active little girl into bed. She yelled, but she certainly stayed lying down! Even her little head didn't come up.

7/23/06 (Sunday)

Cara had a long and wonderful day today. She was up bright and early at seven and had pancakes with her parents. We gave her one and then another and another, and then a couple more. Now, they weren't huge, but she ate much more than I anticipated. After some playtime, I took Cara to the A&P with me to pick up some important supplies. She spent her time happily turned around in the cart and waved nicely to the cashier and then to several people who weren't looking at her.

When we got home, Cara very much wanted to go for a walk. I had to go get us ready to go, so I sent her out with her daddy. They were gone a long time! From what I hear, they went and played on Julianna's porch, Cara's favorite place. Cara had brought a little rubber ball, and poor Julianna had to keep stopping it from bouncing down into the ravine. Then they went to PJ's house, where PJ demonstrated for Cara how to go down stairs without any help, like a big boy. Cara proceeded to politely show PJ that she could walk down stairs upright, like a big girl, as long as she could hold Daddy's hands.

We got into the car and drove to Grandpapa's house! Cara's grandmama ran around with her, and Cara got to play with all her Middletown toys, which she hadn't seen in a long time. After only an hour or so, though, we went to put Cara back into the car. She cried! She didn't want to go home. We let Grandpapa take her in his car over to her Great-aunt's house, where we all went to celebrate Grandmama's birthday (Cara helped beforehand by scribbling a bit on her Grandma's card with crayons).

After a quick babyproofing, we let Cara run around the house. She had fun playing with a nice dog toy; I tossed it down the hallway for her just as I used to do for Max, its owner. The best part for Cara was playing outside. She toddled around and around that pool, investigating all of the equipment and toys. We took her in the water. Cara let Grandma hold her and bounce her around. She loved to spin. She liked to be moved through the water on her belly, and she kicked her legs as if she were swimming. She wasn't ready to get into her own little float, but she was very interested in investigating it; she loved to be held on top of it and see what it would do. If it went far away from her, she got anxious until someone brought it back. Cara played with everyone and ran herself ragged!

There was a lot of eye-rubbing and even some yawning. She had had a very short night's sleep and a very very short nap in the car, so she really needed to go to sleep. We were afraid she would nod off during dessert, but she made it. Cara snored all the way home, then slept while we brought everything but her into the house. When Steve brought her in, she seemed a little woozy but generally friendly. It was eight o'clock, so I put on a movie we had rented from the library and we took it easy.

7/24/06 (Monday)

Strangely enough, that exhausted child did not fall asleep easily last night. Her stuffy nose made it hard for her to breathe while she was prone, so finally around eleven we brought her downstairs. I put her on the couch, and she quickly began to fall asleep sitting up against the cushions. I stayed up with her, thinking she would fall asleep soon, but I brought her upstairs to sit with me in the glider. I thought I could sleep there, too, for a while, but she was quite upset at being near her crib again, so we had to go back downstairs and watch a little bit of the muppets. We were back in bed by midnight.

We went to the gym in the morning, and when I put her down Cara lifted her arms to be picked up and cried. When I came back for her, she was busily washing dishes in the sink of the play kitchen. She didn't notice me for at least a minute, and then she soon got bored in my arms and had to get back down to play. I am sorry to report, however, a domestic disaster. When I dropped her off, Cara had her little mommy and daddy in her hands. I had forgotten about them. Naturally they were soon dropped, and the women at the gym could only find the mommy, who is now a single parent. The daddy is off philandering with the wild toys at the Kids Klub, and I don't know whether she'll take him back, if and when he does surface. It is unfortunate that Cara lost the only one she could reliably identify.

Today I was waiting for a phone call from a doctor, so poor Cara had to play inside all day! Somehow, we had a great time. We spent quite a while playing on the bed, and we have scattered all sorts of toys all over the house. We blew bubbles, and Cara got to play with her balloon.

We also read a lot of books. We read all the ones we've been into lately, and we got out some new ones. None of these are board books, so they will not be permanently available to Cara. We read Little Bear, Bread and Jam for Frances, Duck Duck, The Twelve Dancing Princesses, and the fairy book Cara has that has puzzles in it. We also went through The First Thousand Words, and I'm proud of Cara. She identified by pointing at the horse, the cow (moo moo), the bear, the ball, the slide (I was amazed), the penguin, the elephant, the giraffe, the dog, and the balloon. She could not identify the zebra.

Here are a few things I've been forgetting to put in. On Saturday I made cookies. Sunday morning, we came downstairs. I held Cara, and she used her arm to direct me into the kitchen and not to her high chair but over toward the stove. She reached out her hand and pointed very precisely, with one finger, to the cookies. She was ready for breakfast. Later, we were playing downstairs. Cara picked up a roll of coins. I distracted her with something, and she dropped it. She then crouched down, picked it up, and put it back on the table where she got it!

Daddy here. It is getting much easier to do Cara's eye drops now, Evie reports. I was in the bathroom draining the tub, and there was some quiet time, after which Evie said, "Guess what I did?" Somehow she had put eye drops in the baby without any screams at all. This evening, she brushed Cara's teeth with Cara standing up on the changing table and looking out the window, and that went very well also.

Really Cara just seemed to be in a good mood this evening. I got home and Mommy and Cara were out back, so I came out and Cara came over to be picked up. Evie tried to warn me, but I went ahead and picked her up and discovered that my daughter was very, very moist, having sat in her toy carseat which was filled with rainwater. We went up and changed her clothes. The family went out on some errands and Cara was given a snack trap filled with puffs, which by the time we had returned was totally empty--I could barely strap her into the carseat, because her hands were always occupied stuffing puffs into her mouth. It was amazing. Naturally, her dinner ended up being rather light. Then Cara ran about outside for a bit and saw Julianna, and led me a merry chase around Julianna's car. She is an expert at the double fake-out: she'll run in one direction around the car, stop halfway and turn around, and just when you think you've got her figured out, she'll turn again! She also went up and down Julianna's driveway, giving each of her little outside lamps a pat on the head.

Cara has developed a habit which I think I taught her, of saying "Aaaahhhhh!" when she is done drinking something. She doesn't say it in a normal, refreshed kind of way, but in a silly growling kind of way. She is very good at using the word "hat," though she applies it to anything that is worn on the head or face, so eyeglasses are also hats. Tonight in her bath (she had an enjoyable bath tonight for the first time in a while), she stuck a stacking cup on top of one of her fish-shaped bath toys and started saying "Hat, hat..."

7/25/06 (Tuesday)

Today was a very long day. My colitis has suddenly come back, so I'm very tired and I'm not doing the best of jobs of playing with Cara, I think. Cara slept through the night, but she woke up early and joined me for breakfast. We had a little oatmeal. Cara likes it, mostly. We watched part of Sesame Street and then hung around and played until about eleven, when my parents came up. I had a doctor's appointment.

While I was gone, Cara had a great time. She got to go to BJ's with her grandparents, who let her run all over the place. My dad shopped and my mom chased. I can imagine Cara squealing and running all over the aisles. She also got to show off all her new toys. My dad tidied up Cara's toys, which to my regret I have not had the energy to do for a few days. When I got home, we went out to lunch at On the Border. Cara had had some cheese in the morning, so I ordered her chicken strips instead of a cheese quesadilla. Big mistake. Cara had no interest in her chicken and wanted my quesadilla. She got some of it, though it had things in it she couldn't handle. She had a good time drawing on her placemat, dropping things for her grandmother to pick up, and getting to run around the restaurant at the end of the meal. The really impressive thing that happened was actually when we arrived at the restaurant. We unbuckled Cara, and she helpfully, quickly, and efficiently maneuvered both of her arms out of their straps! We tried to get her to do it again when we got home, but there was no repeat performance.

It was late, and Grandpapa put Cara down for her nap. My folks left and I put myself down for a nap. I woke when Cara did, but I really didn't want to get up and I left her for a few minutes. She did quiet down somewhat, but when I went to get her she was mad. She cried and wouldn't let me comfort her; I eventually had to put on the Muppets. That really seems to be a cure-all.

Outside, we saw a little praying mantis. I pointed it out to Cara, who was in my arms, and she was fascinated. I put her down, and she yelled at it. I can't imagine what she was saying. She tried to touch it, but I forestalled her and she wasn't too annoyed.

Later in the afternoon, we went over to PJ's house. Cara and PJ climbed the stairs and played upstairs. Cara found a sponge and eventually shared it with PJ. They both enjoyed banging on the toilet lid, which had a soft cover and couldn't have been very satisfying. They had a good time picking up and shaking things they oughtn't to have. Back downstairs, Cara sampled the dog food and had no objection to it (alas). Outside, she found two little matchbox cars in a forgotten corner of the garage and played with them, running them around on the ground!

We went home for dinner, and Daddy got home! Cara ate some puffs, her favorite, and part of a chicken patty. It's kind of fake chicken, but I enjoy them so I have them around, and she actually ate it! Then daddy and Cara played while Mommy ate and rested.

Upstairs, Cara insisted on playing on the bed. She loves to have her head dangled over the side; when you pull her up, she uses her arms to pull right back down. I set up a mirror so she could see herself, and that seemed to be fun. Unfortunately, Cara got very rowdy and excited; not the way you want a toddler to be at bedtime. Daddy gave her a fun bath, but when had her in her towel she squirmed until I put her down, naked. She ran right back to the bed, and I put her up there so I could diaper her. This of course led to another rough session, which we really should have tried to avoid. Poor Cara was not happy about going to bed tonight.

7/26/06 (Wednesday)

What a busy day! I'm feeling a lot better, so I was quite human. I made Cara an egg for breakfast, which she enjoyed very much. She saw me beating it and helpfully blew on it, knowing that eggs are hot. She eagerly ate every bit.

We went to the gym pretty early, and there Cara was reunited with her daddy. That is, she was reunited with her little plastic daddy. That is, I put her little plastic daddy in my bag to give her later. Anyway, the whole family is home now. When we got there Cara walked off toward the toys. She cried, as soon as she realized I was leaving her, but then she was fine and had a good time playing and watching the other kids.

From there, we went to play with the twins! Cara had a fabulous time. She played on a ride-on toy, sometimes standing on it, sometimes sitting in the storage bin, and sometimes sitting on the seat. She watched with astonishment when a twin jumped on the other one and took off! She had no idea they could move! Cara got to pet the nice doggy nicely, and she was excited to see a new puppy who was also excited to see her but who was not allowed to play yet. We all enjoyed some puffs, and Cara drank from a cold bottle of milk, sometimes holding it up by herself to an angle that made it drinkable. For lunch, Cara had her first McDonald's hamburger, of which she ate about half. She then helpfully upended the container of fries, but she did industriously put a few back.

After her nap, which came very late, Cara and I headed out shopping. Steve and I got some money for our anniversary, and I decided to spend it on some good play furniture for Cara. She had a wonderful time when I let her loose in the toy section of Babies R Us. She first found a little tricycle in the aisle and started pushing it very industriously. The handlebars were turned to the right, so she just kept making big clockwise circles! Then she spotted a shelf of dolls, which she identified as babies. There was one which I ought to have gotten her, which was very cheap and had zippers and buckles and snaps and buttons and things on it to practice with. In the furniture aisle, she was fascinated by a bright red, furry Elmo chair, which I had to get down for her several times. It vibrated, though, so she was scared of it! I was glad, because I thought it was scary, too. A very nice man got the furniture for us and brought it out to the car. Cara had a great time with him. She laughed and laughed at both of us, and I'm not really sure what the joke was. I bought Cara exactly what I planned to get her. I got a fold-out foam couch like the twins have, which has Elmo and his goldfish on it. I knew she'd like that. I picked out a classy armchair for her, too, not knowing how she would react to it. Fortunately, she loves it! It is pretty colorful and has a hippo on it. I got a matching table and chair set.

While Cara and I went over to PJ's for playdate, Daddy built Cara's furniture. Unfortunately, one of the chairs is faulty and I will have to deal with that tomorrow. When we got home, Cara ran to her table and climbed right onto the chair! She really loves it. Unfortunately, she eventually climbed onto the table, too. We'll have to be careful.

Steve took Cara up for her bath, and it turns out that she thinks that playing on the bed is her nightly routine now. Being responsible parents (some of the time), we did not indulge her. She had a fun bath and was very good going to bed. Her daddy read her some nice books and brushed her teeth, which she didn't think was horrible. She got to bed pretty late, but she went quietly.

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