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Journal Key:

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

10/5/06 (Thursday)

Cara is really enjoying daycare, and it's great for her. Today she brought home an art project. On a piece of paper, Susan copied "Three Men in a Tub." The kids (PJ had one, too) colored on a boat-shaped paper, which is glued on, and three colored popsicle sticks are glued on to represent the men. Cara may have helped with the gluing, though I can't say I see how. Every time she sees this masterpiece, Cara is very excited and wants to pull the men out. Daycare is great for me, too. The ones having a hard time with it are the cats. They are now alone all day, twice a week, and they're not used to it. I came home briefly without Cara to change my clothes, and they followed me, wherever I went. It was sad.

I picked Cara up and we were planning on going to the mall; I need sneakers. However, Em showed up to pick up PJ, and she and Susan convinced me that there would be sales this weekend and that it was a little bit insane to try to shop for shoes alone with a toddler. Instead, we went to play at PJ's house!

Cara headed upstairs and ran around while PJ got changed; she carried lots of his toys about. When it was time to go downstairs, I brought her into his room to the toy farm. She had a rooster in her hand, and I told her to drop it. Strangely, she did! When I looked around to see which hand she had it in, it was already on the floor. Downstairs, we had a replay of last night, except for the chocolate. Cara enjoyed her box and gave several creatures rides on the ride-on.

Our next adventure was outside; we all headed over to a house down the street. It's for sale, and Em and Ron are looking at it as an investment property. Both toddlers found lots of things inside which they oughtn't to have had. Cara put lots of plastic beads into her mouth, but she didn't get any batteries in there! (Now, that's good parenting!) In the back yard, they found some nice, brown water in the collapsed pool. That was fun. When we finally left, Cara picked up a little net, the kind you use with goldfish. It was sitting in the shrubbery outside, and I let her keep it.

The first thing she found to net was the grass clippings in Julianna's bin. She even scooped a mushroom out of there! We headed up the driveway, and PJ found a puddle. Cara joined him. Julianna offered to sweep the water out of the hollow it had collected in, but we thought it was easier to just let them play. That way, we knew where they were! There was stomping and finger wiggling and net-scooping, and the puddle was a lot shallower when they finished than it had been when they started.

The kids tried to run away together, and they made it all the way to our back yard before Ron hauled PJ away. Mentioning her kitties motivated Cara enough to get her into the house, and soon Daddy got home and I made dinner. Cara sat in her booster seat between us, which I like a lot. She's much easier to reach! She are tortellini and asparagus. I think she may prefer asparagus, though both foods are favorites.

This evening, we went to Sears to start looking for a new camera. Cara and I did some running around, and we found the Curious Buddies farm video, which is the best one and which we don't have. It was eight dollars, so we got it. Cara wanted to play with the lawn mowers and climb on the exercise equipment, but I dragged her away. She did, however, have fun walking around and around, going under a little sign that was standing on the floor. It was cute.

10/7/06 (Saturday)--Cara's Eighteen-Month Birthday!

First, I just want to point out the irony that the same man who chooses a pink shirt and red pants for Cara also insists on lovingly brushing her beautiful hair in the morning.

Secondly, I want to mention a wonderful new habit Cara has learned; she cleans her place when she is done eating! Has she learned this at day care or at home? She did it both last night after dinner at the MHoP and this morning after breakfast here at home. She took her paper napkin and vigorously rubbed the area in front of her. When I praised her she applauded herself.

Friday afternoon seemed too wet and raw for outdoor activities, so we tried a gymnastics meet at the high school. Cara watched the girls perform on the uneven parallel bars and applauded each one (probably because everyone around her was clapping) but the indoor bleachers did not afford her much opportunity to run around and when the action moved to the balance beam she got bored and we went back home.

I hadn't planned on a trip to the park, but she insisted she wanted to go out and soon the four of us (Cara, George, the cat and I) were running across the grass and among the trees. It wasn't really wet at all. Cara loves running now that she is so good at it. We chased each other across the basketball court, laughing all the way. By now she knows where the playground is and she led us right to it. I found myself reflecting on the contrast between this visit and our first ones back in the spring. Then everything seemed difficult for her and I literally went with her up every stair and down every slide; I even crawled through the tube with her. Now she attacked the equipment with confidence, climbing up, sliding down and running around to do it again! A friendly girl about 10 years old turned up and ran around with us. Cara did a lot of running on the grass; she can cover a lot of ground now and she loves it that we are running with her. She dug in the sand for a while too, until finally we decided she must be tired and hungry, so we hiked on back to the car for our visit to the MHoP, where she polished off an entire grilled cheese sandwich and some fries, which she dipped in ketchup just like Grandpapa! (Sorry about the ketchup on the shirt; we forgot to bring a bib.)

Back home again we were having a great time playing with the Learning Zoo when Grandpapa asked, "Is it time for Cara's bath?" It's a good thing I got out of her way or she would have had to climb right over me in her rush to the tub. As soon as the water was running she dumped in all the toys and tried to climb in after them fully dressed. Lots of learning was going on in that bath. For one thing, she had brought the quail and the nightingale from the Learning Zoo and was delighted to find that they would pop back up to the surface if held and released under water. For another, she got hold of the basket the toys are stored in and found out that if she submerged it and lifted it out of the water, water poured out of all the interstices in its woven surface. She was very busy, walking around, catching toys in cups, playing make-believe, but we did manage to get her clean and shampooed at the same time.

After the bath she enjoyed some bedtime stories but rejected her bottle. I have two theories about the bottle: she rejected it because it was 2% rather than whole milk, or she rejected it because she knew it was the presage of bedtime. As we did last week, we let her take a few zoo toys into the crib with her, and we firmly laid her down (she stood right up again), turned out the lights and tiptoed upstairs at 9:07. Once again she cried, pausing to listen for succor, for about 7 minutes. Then there was peace and quiet.

Peace and quiet were broken at about 1 in the morning. I guess she really needs that bedtime bottle because, once we had rescued her from her crib, she climbed the stairs, wailing all the way, and went straight to the high chair, where she wolfed down almost an entire container of vanilla yogurt. After that we had a rerun of our bedtime routine: some stories, and dash for the toys and the cruelty of being returned to bed, where she cried briefly and went back to sleep. As did we, without the crying.

She slept so late in the morning that we finally tiptoed downstairs and stood over her watching her sleep. "Aw," I said, "she's sleeping," and the sound was sufficient to stir her. George opened the blinds to let in some light and she woke. She had some cheese omelet and toast for breakfast followed by a few farewell stories, and then it was off to return to her own home, her own toys and her own mommy and daddy.

Cara got home a little bit after nine, by which time Steve and I were both waiting for her. Our adventure of the morning was going out to the library and the Office Depot.

Here's where I take over. There was a fight over journal rights this evening. Yes, we went to our local library at Evie's insistence to get new kiddie books for Cara. For the first time Evie had a good look at the collection of little kid books there--it seems to be nice. I didn't actually get much of a look because I was following the child around. She was pointing at the large inflatable parrots hanging from the ceiling, and the large inflatable horses resting on top of the bookshelves, and the fake fountain with real logs around it and paper lilypads which she insisted on stepping on. It was a well-decorated section of the library. Anyway, I did get to see that the library has more Curious George books than we have, which is impressive. Evie got out some great Richard Scarry books about pigs and cats and dogs doing things that people do, and some more Berenstain Bears books, and a nice Dr. Seuss book about a boy with a lot of hats which has far too many words in it for Cara but was a very enjoyable read for me.

At the Office Depot Cara found a nice red bag which she probably could have packed herself into, and she wanted to carry it all around the store, but we decided it was time to go. We went back home and Cara had some lunch while I did something or other. Then I managed to eat some lunch while Evie read to Cara, and then the other way around. We were going to put Cara down for her nap around this point, but somehow she was happy and we read some more books for a while, and she didn't end up in the crib until something like 1:15. However, she slept until after 4! When Evie went in to get her Cara was still sound asleep. It was impressive. I worry that her sleeping pattern still hasn't settled down since we started getting her up at 7 during the week. Anyway, we got her and her things together and stuck her in the car for a ride down to Middletown.

Cara got to see her grandparents, but the main reason for the event was her Great Aunt Theresa's birthday party, which was held at a fancy restaurant. Now we should have thought beforehand and perhaps not taken Cara at all, because fancy restaurants are not exactly the best place for her at this point in her life. Cara is very antsy and we knew she would not take well to having to sit for the whole time in the little booster seat she was given (with no straps of any kind to hold her in!). So Cara took a lot of trips out to the parking lot to run around and pick up nasty trash. She found outside stairs that she could go up, run over, go down another set of stairs, and then run around and repeat the process. As the evening went on Cara seemed to get crazier and crazier. The sun set and I came out to the parking lot to find Cara running with her Mommy in the dark, laughing maniacally at nothing in particular.

When she was in the restaurant, Cara was actually pretty good. She was not very loud, and when she gets food in front of her she generally gets down to business and sits still. There were many things on the table that we had to keep moving away from her grasp--she very much wanted to stick spoons and forks into full glasses of water. She got under the table at one point but decided she did not like it down there. The other option was to climb up and stand on top of her booster seat, grab onto the back of her chair and stare at the other people in the restaurant. She did some good waving to a few nice women sitting behind us. She ate a lot of pasta and got to smear some cannoli filling on her hands.

Eventually it was time to cram our hyper girl into the car for the ride home. She was not thrilled about being strapped into the car seat for the ride, and gave us some screams from the back seat. She could have been much more miserable, but she was very happy when we got back home again and she was in her play room.

We did, by the way, have a very nice time playing with her toys in the morning. She really thinks it's absolutely hysterical when you play with puppets. She loves feeding them and watching them react to things. It's great. I love playing with her when she's into her toys like that.

After Cara's bath, which we managed to give her, I read her her nightly books. It's interesting how the first time I read her a book, she can barely sit still, but once I figure out how to read it to her in a good exciting way, and she starts getting the story, and if you can turn the pages at a brisk enough rate, a story which seemed boring at first becomes one of her favorites. I don't think that was very grammatically correct, but hopefully you follow me. I think I gave a very convincing performance of Kitten's First Full Moon just now, with lots of amusing meowing and expressive gestures. Cara barely cried at all when I put her to bed--maybe that was just because there was a duck in her mouth.

10/8/06 (Sunday)

This morning we knew Cara was awake when we heard laughing upstairs. Investigation revealed a standing Cara holding onto her stuffed horse and giggling. We suspect a cat had come to visit her.

Cara had some nice eggs for breakfast, some of which she helpfully decided to put in our margarine tub using her fork.

I notice lately that her play has evolved--she will take toys and move them around and make noises and have them interact with each other. She has been watching us and is starting to use her imagination.

Evie took Cara grocery shopping after some morning play outside, which gave me the chance to mow the lawn and do some other general tidying. They returned and Cara had some lunch with us, then it was time for her nap. After I put her down, Evie left to do some shopping for herself. Not long after she left, our neighbor Em rang the doorbell to tell me she'd dropped off a hand-me-down tricycle for Cara. Unfortunately, this well-meaning visit awoke Cara, if she was asleep at all, and she was very unhappy in her crib. I gave her a few minutes, then went up and gave her a toy and read her part of her Sesame Street bedtime book, then put her back down. By the time Evie returned, Cara had only really been asleep for about fifteen minutes!

She did eventually get a nice nap, and when our friend Wayne arrived at a little before 4 she had barely woken up. She was a bit shy of him at first, and rather clingy to her parents, but in a little while she was happily handing Wayne anything she happened to be carrying, and before dinner he even got the chance to read her part of one of her library books about Oscar the Grouch. I found this cute to watch, because Wayne read her the book while running his finger along the lines of text, as if encouraging Cara to follow along.

It was interesting to have Wayne see her again, because the last time he'd come over to our house Cara had barely been walking. This time he got to see her go down her slide several times out back. She also took one of her big bouncy balls up the slide with her and it rolled down before she did, which we all enjoyed. Cara ate well at dinner and then we all watched some Wallace and Gromit. This is a British claymation thing with a bumbling inventor and his dog--I think I may have mentioned them before on the journal. If Cara has seen them before, it was long enough ago that now was like the first time again. It was surprising how engrossing she found the short films. She sat still and watched them for a good long time. It was nice. Then we ended up watching the A-Team a little before Wayne had to go. I don't think Cara paid much attention to this, which is probably for the best.

For some reason today Cara latched upon a pair of pens as her most treasured toys. One of them was a toy pen with a boxing frog puppet on one end, and the other had a poseable donkey on the end. These she carried everywhere, right up to the point when it was time for her to go in the tub. When she wasn't carrying them, she was going for the carrots that were part of the vegetable tray Wayne brought. This was kind of odd, because the carrots were very hard and she didn't seem to be able to chew them. Basically they would stay in her mouth for a very long time, bulging out her cheeks, until the wonderful moment when she decided she had waited long enough and the nearly-whole carrot came tumbling back out.

Cara seems to have picked up a new word: "Eewwww." She said it several times today, possibly at appropriate moments. I think she must have picked this up from me, as I do say that much more often than my wife. She also has begun saying "Hi," as in hello, and may possibly understand its correct usage. At the end of lunch, Cara said "out." Though it was probably a coincidence, we obediently took her out of her chair. Her climbing abilities are always increasing; today we left her alone to play for a bit in the downstairs room and, like George, checked in on her and found that she had climbed all the way into the bay window by herself. She also successfully climbed onto the coffee table and into the glider today. Oh, boy!

10/9/06 (Monday)

Our morning went by quickly. Cara actually sat still for a couple of new books and then ran herself silly downstairs. In the kitchen, Cara showed that she's very capable of climbing into a chair, but her conversation continues to improve. Of course, while she says the words, I'm not quite believing her all the way at all times. For example, during our near idyllic afternoon visit to Johnson Park, I ask Cara "Do you want to visit the goats?" And Cara immediately replied "No." Her voice is conversational and fits directly into the flow of the day. Just now as I write this, Evelyn asks Cara "Do you want to read this library book?" Cara replies "No." I think I won't start to believe her until she sprinkles in a couple of "Yes" into her speech.

Well, I think it is possible that Cara has begun to say "yes" or "yeah." I've heard it several times in the past few days, but I'm still trying to decide whether she does it deliberately and with meaning. She certainly does say "no" very well now, though she occasionally uses it when she doesn't mean it at all. However, Steve is upstairs reading to her right now. In the book, Curious George escapes from the zoo. All of the keepers are looking for him in various places. "Is he in the ice cream cart?" "No," said Cara. "Is he in the tree?" "No." After several other places, Steve asked whether George was with the elephant. Although it is not evident on that page, the next page reveals that George is in the hay of his friend, the elephant. Cara remembered this, so, instead of saying no, she pointed and laughed.

Cara and I went to the park today. She did a great job climbing up a plastic wall, and she went down the big slides with no problem. There was a big girl of six who was rolling down the hill near the playground. Cara pointed and laughed; she thought that was great. Up the hill we went. At the top I told Cara to lie down. She did, lying perpendicular to the slope rather than parallel to it. I had to turn her. She was ready; I tried to roll her, but she just sat up on her other elbow when I tried to raise just her left shoulder. I'm sure you're all thinking that I ought to have just let her find her own way, and that's what I eventually had to do. Her own way was to scoot down the hill on her tushie, moving herself with one arm and her feet. I'm certain that she believed that she was rolling, like the other kids. She did that a few times and got a nice grass stain on her jeans before she was done. One fun thing for me was to lie down, lay Cara down on top of me, and roll down the hill. She thought it was hysterical and went right back to scooting on her behind.

Later another eighteen-month-old arrived. Cara and she were interested in each other. They shared a deep interest (no pun intended) in the wood chip mulch that lines the playground. Cara happily sat in it and poured it over her legs, and the other little girl picked up a handful and offered it to her. Cara was thrilled; she scooted over to get it. The little girl's father said that Cara was the first person who had ever actually accepted the gift of wood chips that his daughter had been offering to people.

We got home only a few minutes before Steve, and we were hungry! Dinner would have taken a while, and I didn't really know what to make, so we went out to Baja Fresh. They have really nice high chairs there! They are molded plastic and they have trays just like at home. Cara enjoyed a cheese quesadilla, some chips, some guacamole, some tortilla soup, and some pico de gallo. She was good throughout the meal. Her dinner came with a juice box, which I was very glad that Steve put himself in charge of. We got through most of the evening without her squeezing it, which was almost miraculous.

Back at home we read some books, chased some cats, and had a nice bath. She's still working on that soap dish, but it seems to be stuck to the wall for some reason. After the bath, we had some nice playtime. Cara's new thing is to climb onto the ottoman in her room. Unfortunately, it glides. This makes things interesting. There is a little stand that kind of stops it from moving, and Cara likes to put that down and then climb up, get down, climb up, get down, climb up, and get down. It's fun.

10/10/06 (Tuesday)

Picking Cara up from Susan's was interesting. The kids were both running around outside having a great time. Susan reports, though, that Cara tried to bite PJ! I believe that it was in response to his grabbing her, and she stopped when Susan told her to, before she actually bit him. This should be interesting; we'll have to watch them and see how things develop. Though biting isn't good, it's certainly time Cara stood up for herself. In the morning Casey was at daycare, and Cara enjoyed having her there. She played as usual, but she also came over to see the baby frequently. While Susan and I were talking, Cara sat down on the stoop and began playing with her shoes. She stood up and ran to me with all of her Velcro straps open! Susan explains that the kids don't wear their shoes in the house after they've been outside in the sand, and Cara must have thought they were about to go inside. She was helpfully taking her shoes off. Before we left, Cara put her arms around PJ and then let go and started crying. She may have been trying to hug him and accidentally bopped heads, or she may have been trying to wrestle him.

At home, Cara headed straight for the back yard. We played back there for a while, and then we went up to the driveway so that Cara could ride her bike. She used it like a regular ride-on, though, unlike her other ride-ons, it has handlebars the turn. I held the handle in the back and pushed a little, and we got all the way up the driveway and over to Julianna's. Cara did try putting her feet on the pedals; I think she may get the idea. I'm not sure whether her legs are long enough. We went in to see Julianna and her friend Barbara. The last time Cara saw Barbara, Julianna was sending her home with leftovers and Cara ended up taking them from her. This time, they had finished eating some lo mein and Julianna fed Cara some vegetables. They were a hit. Sure enough, we took home the leftovers.

All four of the Loefflers wandered over, and PJ and Cara were thrilled to see each other; it had been so long! They played with the bike and with the neighbors' empty recycling container, but pretty soon Cara had to leave. As usual, she took off running for PJ's house! We just stood and watched her go. Ron went after her and let her play in the garage for a few minutes, which seemed to satisfy her.

Cara and her daddy were both hungry for dinner! Cara had her lo mein and did not rub it into her hair! She had asparagus and stuffing and water and got done and got bored and started dropping food over the side and got taken out, and then she started almost climbing up us to tell us how hungry she was. Eventually, Steve gave her part of a banana and then I fed her the applesauce that came with her dinner last night. Not surprisingly, she wasn't able to finish her whole bottle.

Playing upstairs, Cara found a white blanket in the office and played peek-a-boo by putting it over her face. She looked like a little ghost. I put it over me and waved my arms around. I may have scared her, but she was curious and came into my tent, too. This went on a while. She also played by climbing onto and off of the ottoman again. She tried to pull her horse toy out of her crib, and when Steve got it out for her, she let it climb onto and off of the ottoman.

10/11/06 (Wednesday)

Once again, it was double playdate day! Grandpapa dropped Cara off with me after school, and we spent a few minutes visiting at Linwood before we headed over to the twins' house. Cara met lots of friends at school, but she didn't wave at any of them. She thought about it, and she smiled at a few people, but mainly she just let me hold her. She was shy. I speculate that she had woken up within the past hour or so, because that makes her less gregarious than usual.

At the twins' house, it was mayhem as usual. The three of them run in all different directions, occasionally interacting vaguely with each other or demanding attention from us. They all danced to the Curious Buddies, and they all enjoyed putting toys down slides. The did this with varying success and refused to allow me to put my toy, a roll-a-round I had found, down the slide. One highlight: Cara is lying on the Elmo couch, her feet in front of her. One twin opens the Velcro on her sneaker and starts trying to pull Cara's shoe off. The other twin joins in, grabbing her sister's shoulders to add her force to the pulling. Eventually, I reach in and take the shoe off. Cara has just lain there the whole time.

I was hoping that Susan was mistaken about Cara having tried to bite PJ, but she went for one of the twins, too. It was when she had just tried to take a toy from Cara, so it was self-defense. I don't want my child to be a biter, certainly, but I'm not sure how many response options she has, really.

After dinner, Casey, PJ, and Em came over! I got to give a bottle to Casey, who has decided that she really prefers her milk right from the source. Though many had failed, I am pleased to report that I was able to give her that bottle. Therefore, I missed much of the playdate. I know, however, that there was much frivolity and general running around. I also know that there were brownies, because I made them. PJ has developed a new move. Her reaches out and grabs Cara's face and squeezes! He is not doing this in a friendly way. It is horrible and makes her cry; I am pleased that she hasn't tried to bite him! She's a good little girl, after all.

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