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Journal Key:

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

8/31/06 (Thursday)

I go back to school on Tuesday, and Cara's going to daycare tomorrow, so today was our last free day together this summer. I wanted to make it a good day for Cara, and I think I succeeded. We woke her at seven, and we got her dressed very nicely; she had on pink pants and a green shirt with pink trim. She wore her pink socks and her nice sneakers. I doodlebopped her hair.

I let Cara relax in the morning, and we spent 45 minutes reading books and playing a little with the Weebles before I made her breakfast. There were three eggs left, so I figured I'd just scramble them all and we'd have leftovers to give her tomorrow. I had to give her some goldfish crackers to tide her over while the eggs cooked. I gave her about a third of the eggs, and that disappeared. She wanted more. I gave her three more bites. Then two more. Then two more. Then two more. Then she finished the eggs! Then she wasn't done, so she had some grapes. And some more grapes. We went out to the park and I brought a snack in case she hadn't had enough to eat.

I took Cara, Curious George, and the little stroller to Donaldson Park. There is no zoo, but Johnson Park has a goose problem that I really didn't want her little stroller to meet. I parked near the basketball court, and off we went. I walked to the playground; Cara pushed. She got distracted by the man mowing the lawn, but fortunately didn't go over to make friends. We took a sort of roundabout route, but we got there. We were only actually on the playground for about twenty minutes; it was a cool, autumnal day and Cara was more excited about exploring with her stroller anyway. She did have fun on the swings. We mainly walked on sidewalks and paths. There was a big octagonal roof that was fun to run under. She pushed her stroller off several of the sides, headed out into the grass, and then turned back around. We ignored the stroller for a while and played chase around the picnic tables. Cara picked up several pieces of trash and put them in the trash cans.

Another thing Cara did was to dirty her diaper. I toted her, Curious George, and the stroller back to the car for an exciting backseat diaper change with limited supplies. It all worked out okay. It was cold, as I said, so I had intended to leave, but when I stood up after the quick-change operation it seemed nicer out. I thought we'd run on the basketball court. I plonked Cara back behind her stroller and somehow steered her by the giant puddle on the parking lot. It was really almost a small lake, and she can't swim yet. Neither can Curious George. She kept wanting to go back to the puddle, so, to distract her, I carried her out to see the river. The Raritan flows right by the park, of course. I told Cara a little about it and pointed out some landmarks, but really she wanted to get down to the river itself. I'm a sucker, so I carried her along until I found a gentle slope we could handle. I showed her a crab (just like Nipper, the title character from Clumsy Crab, which Steve and I have read a combined twenty times in the past three days). Cara had fun picking up rocks. Now, I anticipated, and I'm sure you've predicted, that it was very muddy down there. Well, neither of us fell in it. We did get much muddier, though, than Cara has ever been before. Don't worry, when I picked her up to carry her away she was able to wipe her hands nicely on my shirt.

I put her down on the basketball court. She left muddy footprints much longer than I had thought possible. We ran around for a while. After five minutes, she happened to step on my foot. She left it brown. The bottoms of all of our shoes were caked with mud. I do try to dress Cara sensibly, but I have to confess that I, as usual, was wearing sandals. Cara was tired. She ran around, but she also sat down fairly frequently. I used her stroller, standing on a path nearby, as an incentive. It wound up on the court with us. Cara was excited by a puddle. She stuck her hands in. At some point, I just gave up. She was pretty muddy already, so I let her go to town in the puddle. It was a nice, normal puddle, unlike the behemoth in the parking lot. Actually, the puddle was helpful. I got her to stand in it and stamp her feet for a while, which helped to clean her shoes. I tried to get her to leave by reminding her about the stroller. She ran to it. She grabbed poor George and headed excitedly back for the puddle! I rescued him from an ugly death.

Her sleeves were soaked. Her pants were waterlogged. She was muddy. Her shoes were unspeakable. I caught Cara. I took her shoes off. I took her socks off. I pulled her shirt off. I got her to stand up and restrained her from running back to the puddle. I got her pants off. She was down to her diaper, which wasn't even the diaper that she had worn into the park. She was ready for more action, so I had to carry her back to the car, strap her in, give her a book, and then go get her clothes, Curious George, and the stroller. I could see her sitting in the car, naked, reading.

At home, I carried the naked child into the house and went back for our belongings. She was chasing cats, but she was lying down on the floor when I came back. She was quite tuckered out. I got her dressed again and changed my own clothes. We both wore different shoes. We headed out to the mall. In the car on the way to the mall, Cara undoodlebopped her hair. I'm not sure what to think, so I'm not thinking about it. I got my last favorite lunch ever for the summer, and Cara got to ride the escalators. Up, up, up. She also got to play on the rides. There are two that are new, or perhaps we just never noticed them. One is a strange taxi with pictures of strange babies in it. It shakes when you sit in it and bounce. The other is a fancy car. Cara went from one to the other, back and forth. Then a nursery school class went by, and she had to go follow them. On that note, I carried her away.

After Cara's nap, she didn't start to cry. She was up in her crib, talking to herself. I went up. She was talking to her baby doll. It's a weird little thing a little bigger than my hand, and it's wearing a pink bunny suit. Cara gave it to me. I let her have it back. We repeated this a few times, then I took her out and read her a book. Then we had a weird interlude. Cara got up, opened her dresser drawer, and got out an old pair of footie pajamas. She sat down with her baby. I took the pajamas, laid them out, and kind of wrapped the baby up in them. I swaddled it. I gave it to her, and that made her happy. I got out a receiving blanket, and I put the pajamas aside and used that. Quartered, it fit well. Cara liked that better. I showed her how a couple of times, and I think she was trying to do what I did. She can't lay out the blanket flat, though, so she had no luck.

We went downstairs and spent the next 45 minutes reading books. Cara has many nice, new books now from Julianna, so it was fun to explore them. I'm sure I'll tell about some one day, but not today. We went and played outside and generally had a good time, Cara-style. I am reminded of Nicholas, the boy down the street who has now moved away. He was a toddler, and I would see his mother every day, walking after him as he pushed something up and down the street, on and on and on. There I am, following Cara, Curious George, and the stroller, on and on and on.

At dinner we let Cara have a jar and a half of meat sticks. Then she had some grapes. And more grapes. She ate her grapes running loose, and she returned to the kitchen to throw away the stems. We took Daddy downstairs to show him the highlights of the new books. This includes a book about a giant canary. It's sort of like the author wishes he could write about Clifford, the big red dog, but someone else got to that first. It's really awful. There are many very good books, though. Cara got to play on the bed for a while and had a nice bath. She sat up on her changing table for several minutes, playing with the straps and going "bbb-b-b-b-bb-bbbb-bb-b-b-bb," before I could diaper her. She had a nice bottle, brushed her teeth, and read some books with daddy, and now she is happily in bed.

9/1/06 (Friday)

Last night Cara woke up before midnight and had us all up for a little while. I think after today we have to admit she is probably getting a little sick again. We gave her some tylenol when she woke up (she has a new flavor of tylenol which she actually doesn't detest! this is good!) and we looked at some TV and then we gave up and she had to go back in her crib and cry for about an hour. Then she went to sleep and probably got about six hours. I got five, because I was up to go to work. We went in to fetch Cara at her new wake-up time, around 7 am. I went to work and had a half-day. Cara went to daycare today and at a little after 3 pm we went to pick her up. I met Susan and saw the house for the first time. It's a nice big house and the yard is very pretty and has lots of interesting toys (before we left Cara showed us the slide in the backyard--she went up the ladder and down the slide many successive times, and we had to pull her away to get her into the car). Cara was there with a cute and verbal little boy who unfortunately is on the totally reverse schedule as Cara will be, so they will probably never meet each other again! But there is still PJ. In fact when we returned to the house PJ was home from his vacation! We went to meet him and Cara and PJ chased each other around a car.

Susan had informed us that Cara was running a bit of a temperature and had been fairly crabby. But she had at least had a nice nap. She was sneezing today, and her nose is a bit runny. We played with her for a little while in the afternoon, but it was soon time to get the girl back in the car for a trip to Middletown. Cara went to visit her Grandma while the rest of us stepped out on the town for a bit. When we returned, the child had been bathed and was in her fairly typical up-late high spirits. She was running about and laughing and giving people hugs. Evie reports that Cara correctly identified her own belly button today. Janet said that Cara enjoyed saying "no" very much this evening. The speech is really developing, though more in the area of understanding what we say than in the being able to say anything herself category. Still, her babbling has progressed and consists of a large variety of very interesting word-like sounds. I have not yet developed the parents' ability to translate these into words. Sometimes with some wishful thinking we can make out a possible "kitty cat" or some such.

The poor little girl fell asleep in the car on the way home. Then we had to wake her up and run her through the chilly rain and into the house, where she was happy to play with her dinosaur Roll-Around playset thingie, until Evie gave her a bottle and read to her for a bit. I assume that books were viewed, though I heard the noises of the dinosaur coming from the bedroom. Now Cara is down, we hope for the night.

Even though it was cold and rainy out and we couldn't go anywhere, we had a good time. Among my observations:

Cara has begun to use a word that is essential to every toddler: no. Occaionally she can be heard admonishing herself, "no-no-no," apropos of nothing.

She is also advancing in the practice of make-believe. When I suggested that a doll was hungry, Cara promptly held some toy food to its lips. She also seems to understand more of what we say. When I offered to wrap her baby doll for her, she handed it over and watched carefully.

In the culinary arena, she was initially mistrustful of green beans; when they had been dreadfully overcooked (oops) and allowed to cool, though, she ate quite a lot of them. She also worked on feeding herself yogurt with a spoon (after which the bath was really worthwhile). It may have hurt her technique that she was also watching the fish at the same time; she craned her neck around so much that I finally just turned the high chair towards the tank.

She enjoyed pointing fish out to me, and I heard a lot of her version of "There it is," which sort of slurs into one word without consonants. She also said "sit" when sitting a toy on a chair.

Cara used to be cuddly and sleepy after a bath; these days she seems to get a second wind. By the time everyone got home, she was running around in her pjs, laughing and charming us all.

9/2/06 (Saturday)

Cara slept in today, and also had a good nap. It was very rainy and very windy outside all day (our lawn is strewn with fallen leaves and dead branches), so we stayed inside all day and played. At one point Cara went into her room and started going "baaaaaaa" in a sort of happy kind of way she has, so I went in to see what was happening. She had climbed bodily into the large basket filled with stuffed animals that is tucked behind the glider. She was sitting in it quite happily. By the time I came back upstairs with the camera, she had already tipped over her lamp in an attempt to get out again, but I took a picture of her anyway.

Evie surmises that soon we will have to start spelling words that we don't want Cara to understand (like "o-u-t-s-i-d-e," a place to which Cara could not go today!), because her language knowledge is really getting up there. Cara also helped us play with her pretend food extensively. I forgot to mention yesterday that Evie bought a huge bucket of very nice pretend food, including hot dogs, hamburgers (with fixings and buns), tacos, various breakfast foods, tacos, and vegetables. Cara has already enjoyed dumping out the bucket several times and messing with the food. Today we cooked various items. A hamburger was put into the plastic skillet, and then Cara improvised a meal by adding the unlikely combination of lettuce and one other food item that should not be cooked in a skillet (maybe Evie will remember what that item was when she reads this).

As for actual eating, Cara forced us to feed her a jar of meat sticks for lunch today. Nothing else would do, not even the lovely grilled cheese her Mommy made for her. Later, since our supplies were mysteriously running low, Mommy went out to the grocery store and bought a dozen more jars. Cara found the bag and started bringing the jars up to the kitchen and looking hopeful. This was after dinner, and she hadn't eaten much of the pasta and other things that we'd tried to give her then, so we broke down again and Cara had another jar of meat sticks. Well, they're high in protein!! ....sigh....

In the evening we tried to watch some movies, but Cara kept getting up and leaving. She continues with her sneezing and runny nose, but she does not seem too miserable and the stuff coming out of her nose is not that gross. She certainly had enough energy today for a perfectly healthy child.

I've been staying away from the squirty bath toys for a while because Cara just adores her sharks, and doesn't really need much of anything else. For whatever reason, she wanted the squirty toys tonight, so I gave her a couple. Now, she's never really fully understood how to work them before, but tonight she got hold of the octopus and started squeezing and squeezing him, and he squirted in various directions, not all of which were predictable. I did warn Cara to watch where she was pointing that octopus, but she went ahead and squirted herself in the eye. Ah, learning. She learns so much in a day.

9/3/06 (Sunday)

When I got out of the shower this morning, Cara was up with her Mommy. We went downstairs for breakfast, and Cara and I watched some TV while Mommy made eggs for us. Then we ate. Then more TV. But after the nasty storm all day yesterday, the sun was finally out, and I knew it was a good time for us all to go outside. So I got Cara's shoes and out we went. Evie did a lot of clean-up involving raking up leaves and throwing sticks down the hill; Cara and I helped intermittently. Cara put some things in the leaf bag and tried to throw some things down the hill, but the best she could do was fit some sticks through the railing.

We also got to meet Julianna, who was cleaning up outside and had already gotten her leaves into nice piles. Cara took her rake and made a valiant attempt at using it in what was pretty much the correct way. Also when we were out back Cara went over to her wet slide toy and went down the slide many times in succession.

Mommy eventually had to go out and get some food; Cara and I stayed behind and eventually jumped in the car ourselves and went up to the mall. I took Cara to Tinytown, USA, which is the name of the play area where Cara has been many times before in the Woodbridge Mall. She enjoyed it very much. There are several slides in the place which she hasn't really been able to go down before, but this time that was pretty much all she did. There is a bridge over a fake river which has steps on one side and a slide down the other, and Cara went along this many times, and then on another similar structure. I was surprised while there to hear several other parents say to their children, "Watch out for the baby" when Cara was nearby. Cara is not a baby! I wanted to say. But compared to most of the other kids there, I guess she still is.

On the way to the mall Cara had almost fell asleep, but I gave her her water bottle on the way back and she nursed this all the way home and stayed awake. When she got home, Aunt Claire was there! She and Mommy were making all kinds of food. Cara got put in her chair and had lunch, which I think ended up involving meat sticks, but was largely cheese and grapes if I remember right. Then Claire and Evie went upstairs to put Cara down for her nap. They were up there for a very long time, I believe because they were tricked into reading Cara a couple of books.

After Cara's nap, she awoke to find her grandpapa and grandmama in the house! She was very happy to see them both. She showed them her books and toys. We all sat down to a big meal centering on seafood. We gave Cara a shrimp, but she was not interested. She ended up eating some pasta, some bread, and some meat sticks. I had planned on giving her meat sticks, anyway. We were eating in the middle of the afternoon, which is not when Cara expects her dinner, so she was not really at her best.

After we ate, my mom and I took Cara (and Curious George and the stroller) over to Donaldson Park. After yesterday's rain I shouldn't have been surprised that it was crowded; everyone wanted to get out of the house! I stopped at the near playground, not the one I went to on Thursday. Cara pushed Curious George in circles in the parking lot for a little while, but then we headed for the playground. We went on the swings, but that really only lasts a few minutes these days. Cara wants to go up, up, up. What a difference from only a few weeks ago! She runs around on the equipment now. There are big-girl slides, and Cara can go down them all! One is a twisty, enclosed slide, and she absolutely loved it! I was at the bottom to catch her, which she doesn't need, really, and her face just lights up when she goes down the big slide! She must have gone down that thing twenty times.

There was another slide, which was open, with high sides, and which was kind of curvy. That one was good, too. Cara wants to go up the slides, of course. She tries to crawl up them, which doesn't work at all. She watched the other kids walking up the slides on their feet, and eventually she tried it, too! The open slide has sides tall enough for her to hold onto, so she managed to climb up it by herself! My hand was behind her little tushie the whole way. We were all thrilled, of course.

We met lots of other kids, including two girls almost exactly Cara's age. One was born April 3, the other, I think, April 8. They both seemed much younger than Cara, who was racing around, throwing herself down the slides. They were cautious, they stayed with their mommies and didn't look nearly as steady on their feet. They walked, they didn't run. It just goes to show you, everyone's different. Most of the kids we know are very dynamic, and it's kind of nice once in a while to put Cara's achievements in another perspective. She's very advanced. She's advanced in her slide technique. I never thought I'd be able to say that!

Cara went to see a frisbee. The little boy who owned it was happy to throw it for her; it was almost like playing fetch, except that she wasn't fast enough to get to the frisbee before he did. So he threw it, she went after it, and then he threw it again. It's a wonderful game.

Cara took her grandma for a walk. They headed out into the grass after a basketball, but the owner also was after it. Cara said bye-bye to the basketball and went on. She explored and picked up some acorns. Then she walked off, and though she seemed purposeful, we couldn't determine her objective. Eventually it became clear. Someone had left a gallon container of water sitting open on the grass, far from everything, with a couple of inches of water in it. Cara approached it and, though we tried to dissuade her, carefully put her acorns into it. She had lots of them, it turned out! She put them in, and then she couldn't get them out. We didn't feel like letting her spill the water on herself. We let her put more in. Then we decided it was time to go home for a drink.

We had some dessert and sat around for a while; Cara had some cookies and maraschino cherries, making a nice red addition to the pink of her shirt. We all played and roughhoused with Cara while we watched Star Wars. Aunt Claire is willing to read Cara some books that Mommy and Daddy are really tired of! Eventually company went home and little girls went to bed, where they are still talking to themselves.

9/4/06 (Monday)

Happy birthday, Grandpa Jim!

Today we woke up at our normal times, which means we let Cara sleep until eight. It's probably not really wise, but we were lazy this weekend about getting her up. After a morning of playing outside and in and a nice breakfast of a waffle and some grapes, we put our little girl in the car and headed for south Jersey.

Cara hadn't seen her grandma in three weeks! Did she remember her? I think she certainly did! They played together and had a wonderful time. Cara hugged and cuddled her grandma. She also finally got to play with her grandpa. He's seen her fairly often these past few weeks, but he was always working in the basement and didn't have time for reading books, playing ball, or just running around. Cara loves the toys she has at her grandparents' house, which include old Fischer-Price playsets and people and animals. She stays occupied with them for what is a long time, for her.

For lunch Cara had a hot dog and then another hot dog, as well as some melon and some bread. We gave her corn on the cob, but she gave it right back. The hot dogs were the big hit, really. Cara had some juice in a sippy cup, which she steadfastly refuses to learn how to drink from. She can suck from her straw cup or she can tip back a real cup and drink, but she cannot tip and suck at the same time. She convinced her poor grandpa to hold the cup up for her so she could drink! She had a nice fork to work with and I reunited her high chair toys with the high chair they came from. She liked spinning the rattling ball and putting things in the parrot's mouth. The best part of the meal, though, may have been feeding Rusty. He has learned to hang around, and Cara has learned to give him things. For them, it seems like an ideal arrangement.

Grandma took Cara outside, and, after dessert, I joined them in another foray. Cara loves to watch Rusty run. She laughs and laughs! She tries to run after him, but there's really no comparison. She holds his ball out to him, because she can only throw it about three feet. We tried to convince her to throw it for him, but it just doesn't work. When Grandpa came out he brought Rusty's squeaky toy. Cara can hold that out to Rusty, who can take it from her hand. She was thrilled. Grandma and Cara had collected a bucket of acorns and a big pile of sticks. Cara lost no time in dumping out the acorns and taking the bucket. (I started collecting acorns, too; they were all over and I got a good big pile.) She went to run around among the bushes in a landscaped section of the yard. Grandma joined her and Cara had a great time exploring and finding ways to weave among the bushes. Then, a dream came true for Cara. Everyone she has ever met has discouraged Cara from playing with lawn ornaments--everyone except her grandma, who deliberately showed her the little rabbit she hadn't noticed and let her carry it around. She fed it acorns. It got a ride in the stroller. Grandpa got a cute picture that makes it look like Cara caught a bunny.

Rusty was tired. Eventually Cara got tired, too. I then jinxed myself by predicting that she would sleep in the car. We played inside for a long time, and then Cara had a nice piece of pizza. She ate part by hand and part by fork. She got to play with Grandpa some more, and then Grandma carried her out to the car. It was late! It was after seven when Cara awoke in the car and proceeded to cry for the rest of the way home.

When we finally got home and got out of the car, we saw that there was a party at PJ's house. We went over, and Cara and PJ got to run around a little. We had brownies and came home. Cara got a present from PJ, a souvenir from his vacation. It's a bath toy, a dolphin that swims around and squirts water from its blowhole. It squirts several feet in the air, and it upset Cara. I think she feels that it threatens her sharks in some obscure way. However, she was feeling fairly delicate this evening, which I attribute to teething. Em suggests that Cara has also not napped well today. I'm sure that the dolphin, which is inherently cool, will eventually be a hit.

9/5/06 (Tuesday)

This is probably going to be the first of what will be many short journal entries. It was my first day back at work, and it was Cara's first full day at daycare. I didn't see her until I picked her up, around 4:30.

I can only reconstruct Cara's morning on what Steve has told me. He went into her room at seven and started picking out clothes. She peered at him and went back to sleep. A few times. He got her up and got her dressed. He put her in her highchair and made her a waffle. He set up the chair in the living room and let Cara watch TV. They watched the episode of the new Curious George show that we taped yesterday; it was good. Cara took a bite of her waffle. She was in a zombie-like stupor brought on by early rising. Steve brought the waffle with him to daycare.

Susan reports that Cara was needy in the morning, not really herself. She did really have a good time when they played outside, but inside she was pretty whiny. After her nap, she was more dynamic, verbal (as far as that goes), and happy. We really need to work on changing her sleep schedule! Susan may try giving her a morning nap, like PJ. That would be cool.

Cara got to try sponge painting today! It's part of the curriculum, which I now have a copy of. The kids will be doing fun activities and learning shapes, colors, numbers, and letters. Cara got to dip the sponges, I hear, and Susan put them on the paper and then Cara pressed on them. Now I have a pretty picture on my fridge!

When we got home, there was a surprise. Cara got a package in the mail from her Great-aunt Linda in New Mexico. It's a lift-the-flap book like the others that Cara loves, but this one is Halloween-themed. The little girl is wearing a fuzzy cat costume, and on every page there's something else that's shiny or textured. It's very exciting, and Cara looked through it with a big smile on her face! Now I'm all hyped up about Halloween.

Cara was very proactive this evening in chasing the cats. She may have felt that she missed a lot of valuable chasing time, being away all day. She chased one through the kitchen, and I came in to see her disappearing under a chair. I thought that I was going to have to rescue and comfort her, but she mysteriously came out the other side. She did it again later; she crawls right through the chair rungs; it's like crawling over a big capital H from the side. It takes her a while and looks a little odd. It looks like it ought to be painful. It's not really an efficient way of chasing cats, but I guess it's not a bad way to spend your time.

We had fish for dinner, which I didn't think Cara would like, so I made her meat sticks. However, I also had made tortellini. Cara had some, and she liked them better than meat sticks! That felt nice. Now there are leftover meat sticks, in case Grandpapa wants to feed them to Cara tomorrow, on his first day.

We started earlier even than we had been, and we got Cara in bed by about 8:40. She's been sitting up there and talking lately; yesterday I heard her for at least an hour after we put her down, but today I don't hear anything. I hope she's gone to sleep! Strangely, now, after almost 17 months of parenthood, Steve and I will be having an hour and change to ourselves in the evenings! It should be exciting, but we just sit around and read.

9/6/06 (Wednesday)

A new semester begins and while I've seen Cara more than a few times this summer, being with her all day reveals the difference between a fifteen month old and a seventeen month old.

Cara is much more athletic now, she bounces and rolls without effort. She avoids bumps on the sidewalk easily, though she can be distracted and can be tripped up. For old times sake I took her out to Lloyd Street to look for deer and she walked halfway, exploring interesting things all the while.

When we returned we read a few books and played with her plastic food, then we went to the Muppet Dictionary where she pointed to words and I read the definition. Another difference is that now, it's very clear when she wants her nap. She dragged a pillow off a couch and lay her tired head down. Then she rolled over and spread out on the floor. I needed no more encouragement, dropping her into her crib at 10 A.M. She cried for oh eight seconds before she conked out.

Cara slept for two and a half hours, but she was clearly tired again when I got home at 3:30. She was in that state in which any fall is a disaster that requires comfort. Unfortunately, I had an appointment at the gym which I couldn't break. Cara did okay there, though, for about an hour. She played with several baby dolls and a nice kitchen set.

At home, we took it easy. We had an hour until Daddy got home, and I put on the Muppets and we relaxed. We read a couple of books, we had some water, and we had a nice time. Cara lounged on the couch with me and on the floor on her own, sprawling on and near pillows and almost going to sleep with her head on my sneaker.

It's Wednesday, and we've upgraded our playdates. I'd been thinking about this for a few months, but Em finally took the plunge and made dinner for everyone. Next week I get to try. I also have a class that day until 5:30, so it should be interesting. Cara and PJ were both a little out of sorts, but they ate well. Em cleverly waits until PJ gets cranky in his chair before she gives him a fork; this extends the calm part of the meal. We like this idea.

After dinner, we watched the Wiggles. We'd made it through Cara's life thus far without meeting them, but they are pretty cool. It's a nice show with songs and dances, but one of the Wiggles is narcoleptic and had to be woken up frequently. This is somewhat worrying for me and Steve. Both kids liked the show; PJ was mesmerized. His leg was terribly chafed, so he wasn't himself this evening. Cara did more running around, but they did enjoy chasing each other around the fireplace. Cara also showed off how well she can jump. Any week now, she'll get off the ground.

We took her home a little after eight and put that girl to bed. She wasn't happy about her bath, probably because she knew it was a precursor to sleep. Last night, she talked to herself for a long time up there, again. Maybe tonight she's actually asleep.

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