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Journal Key:

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

10/26/06 (Thursday)

Cara got onto the table at Susan's today! I'm pleased that she's too fast for other people, too, and it's not just us. Susan found her up there eating a banana, with the peel still on. Susan has removed her fruit bowl and gotten out her baby gate.

Cara didn't nap well for Grandpapa yesterday, and she was up today around 3:30 in the morning. She wouldn't nap at Susan's, either. Susan theorizes that it may be an ear infection. This sounds plausible, because lying prone would affect her inner ear pressure and possibly be painful. When Cara is upright, she's kind of mostly fine. She was perfectly happy this morning, feeding herself yogurt at 5:30. I called the doctor, who said that it could be the ears or it could be teething. We have to see how she does tonight and then possibly bring her in in the morning.

Cara was clingy this afternoon. She liked to be carried around, but she had a few little projects of her own. She went into her closet and moved all the spare diapers from their box into her hamper. I'm glad I tidied up after her, because I had forgotten that she had dropped the phone in, first! She had a nice, friendly time with her Playmobil people downstairs, while Buster cuddled on Elmo. Cara dove at Buster to hug and kiss her--she did kiss in her direction with great emphasis. Buster fled, but she didn't go far. She came to rub against my back and be very affectionate to me. I was waiting for Cara to kiss me; we made a nice love triangle. Cara almost did kiss me; she was walking around kissing, and she nearly hit me. She may have kissed in my direction. That was a high point of my day.

I got home at 6:30 today and Evie had to leave to do her conferences with parents at school. Cara and I had a naughty dinner of Wendy's fast food. Cara continues in her mistaken impression that ketchup is to be sucked off of the french fry and then the fry is to be given back to Daddy for a refill. She had some chicken nuggets and did actually eat some french fries, but only ones that were not ketchup receptacles.

We watched some Curious George, then got ourselves up and went off to Ron and Em's for a change. It was Uncle Ron's birthday party! Everyone got to have cheesecake and Cara (who, let me remind you, had not had a wink of sleep since 3:30 in the morning this morning!) climbed onto the dining room table twice in search of adventure. She also got held a lot, partly by Julianna, who was there. We walked home with Julianna, who nicely asked Cara, "Are you going to sleep tonight?" To which Cara instantly replied, "No." Later we tested this. Evie asked Cara, "Do you want to stay up?" Cara: "No." Daddy: "Do you want to have an ice cream sundae every day?" Cara: "No." Hmmm. I sense a pattern.

Anyways, the birthday party broke up pretty soon because it was time for PJ's bath. We had just enough time before we left to watch him run crying down the hallway, totally naked. Then it was Cara's turn to go home and take a bath. When I first took her upstairs Cara actually kind of fought me, perhaps because she knew the bath was coming. She didn't mind sitting in the bath when the time came (with her good friend Battle Cat, with whom she had a long and interesting conversation, including a word that sounded exactly like "pie"), but definitely did not want to get out of the nice warm water. I had to dry her, though, and then she got into a nice warm sleeper, and then we brushed our teeth in the bathroom (I held her through the majority of the brushing), and then we went back downstairs again for more Curious George.

I admit, I was afraid to even try her in bed because she'd been so stubbornly against it during the day. We watched cartoons until after 9, then I finally took her upstairs--and instead of putting her to bed, I started putting laundry away. Then, thankfully, her Mommy came home--and we all went downstairs and Cara played some more with her toys. Eventually I did get her into her room and read her some books. She was clearly very, very tired--so tired, in fact, that when I put her down, she made not a peep, and has not peeped since. Let's hope she gets some good rest.

10/27/06 (Friday)

Cara up at 7:45 and distressed because her nose is running and she can't catch up! When I try to wipe her nose she resists. Her cheeks are both red and sore from all the wiping. We settle for a low-impact morning. She watches the great Satan--Little Einsteins--and then comes over for breakfast.

She has a nice gooey cheese omelet which she seems to enjoy thoroughly. The only downside is her runny nose, which just won't stop.

At 10:15 we're at the pediatrician who tells us that it's not her ears, and she doesn't have a cold. It's her teeth--her molars coming in are causing her distress. As to her runny nose, he says to give her an over the counter runny nose medicine. And oh by the way, Cara has her flu shot!

At the pharmacy I pick out a runny nose medicine without looking at the dosage. When at home I realize this is a medicine for big kids. I should have looked for an 'infants' medication. So I give her the smallest amount possible, 2.5 milliliters. She drinks it up eagerly, it's cherry-flavored and she wants more but doesn't get it.

In about two minutes her nose stops running. It's perfectly dry, like the Sahara Desert. She eats a good satisfying lunch and then at roughly noon, I drop her into her crib where she goes without a cry or a sob.

10/28/06 (Saturday)

I hear that Cara's Friday nap was a good three-hour one! Glad she was willing to sleep for George. At 3 PM or thereabouts on Friday Cara's South Jersey Grandma Janet arrived to take over Cara-wrangling duties. Cara's Mommy and Daddy got to spend some play time with everyone, and the four of us went out to the diner. There Cara managed to drop two spoons, eat a little bit of crayon, and watch some good table bussing. She also enjoyed eating "The Professor," which at this diner means a hot dog and french fries. She actually was not very interested in the fries, which was good since that's what she'd had for dinner on Thursday. She did eat her hot dog and most of the bun, and she also enjoyed a pickle from my meal. It's a bit surprising that Cara eats pickles without making any nasty faces!

As I say Cara didn't really eat many french fries, but she was supplied with ketchup on her own plate, and dipped the fries all by herself--and sucked the ketchup off.

Soon after our return to the diner, it was time for Evie and me to be off on a Cara-less adventure (a concert in a club in Sayreville). We did not get back home until after 11 PM, at which time Cara and Grandma were already in bed. It was great!

Cara was awake this morning at around 7 AM, when I woke up, and I got to change her dirty diaper. Then we had a nice cozy wake-up session and all did some teeth-brushing in the bathroom. We discovered Cara was out of waffles (gasp!), but she had some puffs and some bagel and got along nicely. Then it was play time while we parents alternately stepped out of the picture to get ourselves showered. Then Grandpa arrived! Cara was happy to see him and the interesting bags he had brought (containing tools to help work on our basement). Over the course of the morning and into the early afternoon, Cara had several trips down into the basement to explore all of the various places and things that she should not go near or touch. But no mishaps occurred. I went out for a while to run some errands, including buying Cara's halloween candy pail (a Winnie-the-Pooh plush head), and picked us up some lunch (pizza). Cara had already eaten some while I was out, and was clearly ready for her nap, but she was perfectly happy to sit down with us and eat some pizza and charm us with her usual antics. After lunch, Cara's Grandpa got to show her how to wear the Winnie the Pooh basket on her arm, by slipping the strap on.

During the summer when it was hot Cara was into our ceiling fans, and because I had pointed them out to her many times and explained to her with gestures of my finger that they went round and round, she developed the habit of pointing up to them. Since it's been a long time since we've had the fans going at this point, I had almost forgotten about this, but Cara clearly has not, because lately she's gotten back into the habit of pointing her finger up at the fan, sometimes spinning her hand around.

Cara also seems to have successfully learned to say and understand the word "pull." Evie had noticed this first when she was showing her an illustration of the concept in the "First Thousand Words" book we have, and we have now both witnessed her pulling her toy elephant and saying "Pull!" She also says "pie" a lot now, but we're still not quite sure if she knows what that means. A lot of Cara's babble consists of the basic words she knows, and clearly she is just experimenting with different syllable sounds.

After lunch Cara got put into her crib. I think this was around 2 PM. She was down for a good two hours, during which much work was done by all, and Grandma had to leave. Grandpa stayed on in the basement and got to witness Cara's return to the land of consciousness, and a few more dangerous trips down into the basement. She demonstrated that she remembered how to carry her bag on her shoulder. But eventually even Grandpas have to go home, so at around 5 it was back to the core family unit. What could we do for the next three hours? Well, there was some playing and some TV viewing. Daddy got to watch his favorite cartoons. Then we had some nice dinner: Cara very nicely fed herself some lo mein, and mooched a lot of other Chinese food from her Mommy, but got nothing at all from her Daddy. Cara also enjoyed some warm camomile tea, which was given to us by Em and Ron to help make Cara sleepy. I don't know about the sleepiness, but Cara definitely seemed to like it, and drank it enthusiastically from her sippy cup.

The rest of the evening was fairly uneventful, except that in her bath Cara had two Playmobil horses and the Playmobil baby, and shook her head at Battle Cat when he was presented to her. At teeth-brushing time, Cara was upset because she could not hold all three Playmobil figures and hold the toothbrush at the same time. So Mommy had to help brush the teeth.

Since I have journal duties, Mommy got to read the bed time books tonight. She ingeniously changed the words to one of Cara's current favorites, Good Morning Muffin Mouse, so that the book worked in context: instead of saying good morning to everything, Muffin Mouse pranced around wishing everything a good night. Now Cara is in her crib and the Winnie the Pooh head is on the floor in the living room--two sharks and a shovel are residing inside of it.

10/29/06 (Sunday)

This morning I got up at around 7:30, and my wife explained to me that it was actually 6:30. We changed the clocks slowly as the morning progressed and Cara woke up. There was some morning playtime and then Mommy took Cara off to the supermarket while I showered and did some vacuuming. I managed to blow a gasket on the vacuum, so one of the other things we did was go out and buy a new vacuum cleaner. Cara had a fantastic time at the appliance store we visited. Sometimes one wonders why we bother to buy her toys, when the price tags on vacuums are so much fun. (For the record, refrigerators are not nearly as much fun as vacuums.)

While out, we also visited the Woodbridge Mall. Evelyn's plan had been for us to get there good and early, when Tinytown is nearly unoccupied. Unfortunately, due to some slowness on our parts and the unexpected vacuum purchase, by the time we got there it was the usual mob of weekend visitors, and we were hungry. So we walked right past Tinytown and went up, up, up the escalator and then down, down, down another one. We also gave Cara the added thrill of some swinging, and she got to see the fountains spurting water up, before we arrived at Friendly's. There, Cara did some coloring and yelling, and then some good eating. She ate her entire grilled cheese sandwich and some bits of our food as well. Evie took her off to the Playmobil store, where I eventually caught them up and found Cara clutching a Playmobil horse and a unicorn.

We have come to the realization that there really aren't that many more Playmobil toys in Cara's age range. Basically we'll have to wait a year or two before we can get her the really good Playmobil playsets with big houses and lots of small pieces. That means we'll need a different idea for her Christmas gift this year. Fortunately we have a big toy catalogue from Toys 'R' Us that we've been scrutinizing.

Anyways, by this time it was clear that Cara needed her nap, but we had one more errand to run. Cara fell asleep before we got there, so Evie continued driving around the parking lot of the Walmart while I ran inside and picked up some photo prints I had made so that I can have up-to-date pictures of my little girl at work.

We managed to transfer Cara into her crib without much fuss for the nap--I don't think she fully regained consciousness in her trip from the car to her room, even though it was chilly and windy outside. Unfortunately Cara didn't manage to get in much of a nap, and was awake again in less than an hour. She got to see her Aunt Claire, who was making a short visit.

In the afternoon we ended up going out again, to the mall, where Cara had an interesting experience. As you know it is nearly Halloween, and I think it must have been for this reason that a man dressed as Darth Vader was striding through the mall. Evie and Cara followed him for a while--Cara was surprisingly indifferent to the whole thing, though, neither scared nor amused. I guess we need to watch some more Star Wars movies.

In the evening back home, I attempted to watch a movie which was not a kiddie movie (it was the Mystery Science Theater 3000 version of Hercules Against the Moon Men, which I watched as a kind of Halloween tribute); I should have known that it wouldn't work out. Cara would watch it for maybe two minutes at once, then was off again into the kitchen to bother her Mommy. We had a strange dinner, with Cara walking around and eating some cheese sticks, then eventually sitting down and eating a very small portion of a banana, and later being held and having a few grapes.

Cara has become quite enamored of the word "pie." She started saying it a lot at one point while we were in the kitchen, and I was a bad Daddy. I said I would give her pie, got out the pumpkin pie we happened to have in the fridge, and Cara and I polished it off together. Later I told her that the pizza I was eating was a pizza "pie," and she excitedly started repeating the word.

We also had an interesting wordplay in the tub tonight. What Cara can also say, and I think with some inkling as to its real meaning, is "Hi." In the tub, we were playing with her watering can, and I suggested that it would sprinkle better if she held it high up. "Hi!" said Cara. "Hi, hi, hi, hi!" I tried to explain to her the concept of the homophone, but that may have to wait. I'm not sure how to make clear to her that the same sound can mean two different things. I suppose, like most of the words she is learning, she will learn this through context clues.

Cara was really quite tired in the evening, because she technically stayed up an extra hour today because of the whole daylight savings thing, and without getting much of a nap! So Evie was reading to her already by 8:30. Now at 9:10 she is still talking to herself in the crib, but she should sleep well tonight.

10/30/2006 (Monday)

Another week begins. In the morning we watch Cara's favorite TV: Little Einsteins and then the Mickey Mouse Club. The Little Einsteins was a great (!!) episode in which the four tiny heroes visit all nine (but it's eight, isn't it?) planets accompanied by Ludwig van Beethoven's music. Cara watched raptly and then, when called upon ("we need more power!") she pat pat patted her little legs with vigor. Later she watched Mickey Mouse search all through the Club House and environs for Donald in a game of hide and seek. I do believe that tiny Carolyn Genzano was involved in the action, experiencing the vicarious pleasure of discovering Donald crammed into a tiny storage compartment of the M. Mouse spacecraft.

After TV, Cara had her second breakfast, part of my cheese omelet, and we played around for a while before leaving for BJ's to get Halloween candy. Cara's shopping cart did not have a seat belt and consequently Cara was active and even boisterous. On our way out, I picked up a spare seat belt for her and she went back to the car safely.

After saying good morning to Julianna and reading a few books, I put some fish sticks into the oven and when ready, Cara ate them along with a cheese stick and half of a banana. I read a couple more books to her and then asked if she was ready for her nap. She said "no." Then five minutes later I changed her diaper and put her pajama bottoms on her. I asked her again and as I hauled her toward her crib and she lay completely relaxed in my arms, I heard her say "no" but without conviction. I put the blanket over her and tiptoed out of the room. She talked to herself for a bit and then went to sleep.

Cara was excited to see me when I got home, but she ran right past me into the game room; no sense wasting time saying hello, she clearly felt. Let's get down to the chasing! I heard from Grandpapa that Cara had had a good eating day. In addition to her two breakfasts, she had two lunches. This did not stop her from having a nice snack.

Cookie in hand, we set out for the park. It was nice out, and I don't know how many more nice enough days we'll get. We got to the park at a quarter to five, and when we got back in the car at five twenty, it was almost dark! Cara had a good time at the park. She ran along the path to the playground, despite having pointed out the basketball players, in case I hadn't noticed them. She showed me birds in the sky. She climbed up and stood on the bench. She climbed her ladder. She went down the slide. The thing we spent the most time on was the swings. Curious George, who had come in his stroller, rode with Cara. He had a great time! first, she was holding him nicely in her lap; soon, she was chewing on his tag. Then she was chewing on his hand. At one point that little monkey jumped out of the swing altogether (I can't imagine why he would have wanted to do that), but I retrieved him. The strangest part was when Cara started making George do flips. I just can't explain that, but it did look like fun. Cara and George stayed in the swing much, much longer than Cara has lately; I asked her several times whether she was done, but she kept shaking her head. Finally it got dark and I took them both out. George went down the slide one last time, and we all headed for the car.

Yesterday, we tried Cara's princess costume on her, and it fit pretty well. This evening, we tried the rabbit outfit on her again, since I'm the only one who saw her in it. It really is pretty big, but it's still cute. We got lots of pictures of her traipsing around. She even wore the head, without bothering it much. She asked me to read her a book, ironically, called Rabbit Stew. She didn't get the joke.

Once again, she was chatty in the bath. I heard her saying "honey," and Steve explaining that that was what bears eat. She wouldn't say it when I was in the room and he asked her to, and she wouldn't say it when he asked her what bears eat, but she would say it any other time.

Here is an amusing exchange:

Cara (looking up at Steve): Mama!

Steve: Mama?

Cara: (shaking head) Nao.

After her bath, I get Cara into her pajamas. She wears snuggly footie pajamas that her grandma bought her. I lay them out on the floor, and she comes over in her diaper and sits on them, facing away from the neck. I get her legs into the legs, and Cara starts to zip herself up! She zips her leg, and I make her stand. One at a time, we get her arms in. I have to finish zipping her, because it's a bad angle for her on the tummy. Still, she's definitely working on dressing herself.

10/31/06 (Tuesday)

Cara got up nice and early today and even got to see her Mommy a little! Daddy did a lot of running around to get himself ready and also to get stuff together for Cara's Halloween party at daycare. Cara was dressed pretty normally in the morning except that she had a onesie instead of a regular shirt. Her princess costume could then be slipped on over the onesie when the time came. We had some time for a quick breakfast before setting out (I wouldn't have thought you could smear cinnamon toast on your face, but somehow Cara managed it), and then Susan met me at her door in a giant cowboy outfit, complete with oversize foam hat. When Evie came to pick Cara up in the afternoon, Susan said she was afraid Cara would be uncomfortable with all the people in weird costumes. But, I am told, Cara was the life of the party. She thought the costumes were great and had tons of fun. She brought home an interesting array of party favors, including some mini-slinkys which she promptly got covered in food (one was even partially dipped in apple sauce).

At Susan's, Evie noticed Cara climbing onto a normal-sized tricycle. I'm told she can almost figure out how to ride one! Maybe for her next birthday...

I took off from work early today so that we could all be together for a Trick or Treat journey. I brought home Mexican for dinner, which Cara enjoyed in the usual manner, and then we got her into her bunny costume. I had decided that the bunny was the one I wanted to see her in, even though it was a bit more difficult to manage than the princess dress. Besides, with a pair of bunny ears we had from last Easter, I could easily dress up as the Daddy Bunny.

I had gotten off early, as I mentioned, but Em and Ron did not, so we waited around in full costume for a little while, and got a chance to meet some trick-or-treaters. There didn't seem to be a whole lot of them coming around this year for some reason, but those who did were mostly pretty young and were all quite polite. They took small amounts of candy unless you told them they could grab all they wanted, and they all said thank you. Around 6 we got our flashlight and our bear head (for holding candy--though we discovered later in the evening that it still had a squeaky fish toy in it), our camera and our extra batteries (which, as it turned out, were dead!), left a basket of candy on the front mat, and wandered over to PJ's house. PJ was still busy screaming because he did not want to eat his dinner, but we hung in there and Cara got to wander around and scatter PJ's toys around the house for a while. Then PJ was screamily put into his cute bear costume, and Casey very quietly got into her own bunny outfit (adorable!), and we all got ourselves outside--even Em's parents, who had come to join in the festivities.

The kids were great. Even though it was quite dark out by this time, they fearlessly traipsed down the hill of PJ's front yard and across the street to the neighbors'. On our walks around the block we have had to pluck Cara out of this particular driveway countless times, but tonight was the one night when it was finally okay for her to walk up their front walk. Poor PJ was scared at first, and turned tail and ran when the nice lady opened the door. But eventually both kids got into the spirit. Cara actually seemed to think it was a good old-fashioned chasing session, and had great fun pelting down the sidewalk and laughing at the people trying to catch up to her. She also got to go to Gene's house and had a nice visit with Julianna. Then it was up the street to Em and Ron's neighbors' house. Fortunately, even though she was cooking dinner, Joann was happy to let us all pile into the house and we toddled about there for a while. Joann's son David showed us the horrible bloody scars he had painted on himself and prodded through the pile of candy he'd collected.

Eventually it was time for PJ to go home and try to finish his dinner, so we all went our separate ways. Cara did manage to eat a bit of candy this evening--first some Whoppers while we were waiting to go out on the town, then some M&Ms which did indeed melt in the hand, and all over the bunny costume. We took her out of that and eventually stuck her back in the princess dress for some pictures. Then it was time for the bath. Maybe it was the sugar, but Cara had a very energetic bath tonight. She bounced a lot and spontaneously did the "pat, pat, pat" from Little Einsteins. I think I heard her say "pretzels" tonight, and she loves her new word "honey," which she will say repeatedly with very little prompting. We have to try to get her to say "Yes" sometimes when we ask her a question--she doesn't seem to think there is any other possible response but "No."

Mommy read to Cara (she only got out of her bedroom once!), and now she is in bed. A great time was had by all. Cara was so great. Now I have to try to put up all the pictures!!

11/1/06 (Thursday)

One postscript to yesterday's festivities: this morning Cara and I were on our walk when we found Juliana, Cara's neighbor, washing lampshades on her lawn. When she was finished she was soaked, but she took the time to come up to Cara and thank her for coming over last night. Juliana said that she was so happy that Cara, PJ, Casey and the rest of the tribe stopped by. She said it felt like she had an adopted family.

A comment on 'no.' We debate whether Cara understands the meaning of 'no' --is it something that she can say so she says it and gets a response, or does it really mean 'no'? Today, Cara is having a snack, polishing off two or so dozen grapes. I ask her: 'Do you want to come out of your highchair?" She says 'no' and shakes her head. Then in the next motion, she raises her arms (touchdown!) and is lifted out of the chair.

After eleven A.M. she's rubbing her eyes and trying to snuggle up with Buster on the Elmo couch. 'Do you want your nap?' 'no.' she says and closes her eyes.

Around 3:15 Grandpapa dropped Cara off at Linwood. It was such a lovely day that we walked down to visit the twins, leaving my car in the school parking lot. Shannon and I took the three girls outside and played in their back yard, where there is a jungle gym with two toddler swings. Cara loved her swing! Actually, we had to all take turns and so Cara tried both swings. The exciting thing for us moms was keeping whoever wasn't swinging from getting clobbered by whoever was! Cara spent her time out of the swing very productively; she sat nicely in an outside chair for a while, and she tried a few times to climb the ladder of the jungle gym to the platform, which actually is off-limits. The first couple of times she got a rung or two up and got stuck, but the third time she made it. She picked up two bottles of bubble solution and let me take her down. She ran around with them for a couple of minutes and then got distracted. Shannon blew some bubbles for the kids, which used to be the twins' favorite thing. They're less obsessive about it now, but they still like it. Sarah was in a swing, but Lina ran around, popping bubbles with glee, her arms in the air. Cara got out of her swing and joined in! She had always seemed to like bubbles in a general way before, but seeing Lina convinced her that they really were fun.

On our way back to the car we saw that a soccer game was going on at Linwood, so we went over. Cara stared at the game, and when the whistle blew and everyone applauded, she caught on and joined in faster than I did! The game ended, so we climbed up and down some stairs and then went home. Here, we started a load of laundry and sat around to read books before Daddy got home. I'm pretty sure we spent twenty minutes on a Richard Scarry Word Book.

It's playdate night! We went over to the Loefflers' for dinner. Cara enjoyed some carrots and a little bit of chicken, but the big hit of the meal for her was the bread that Em had apologized for serving in lieu of dinner rolls. She also got some puffs and a cup of water, which she promptly poured over her tray. I regret to be obliged to report that, during dinner, Cara amused the adults at the table by juxtaposing two of her words, "hat" and "sit." Neither was pronounced quite as I have written it. Ron isn't sure why he isn't allowed to say things like that at the table. For dessert, Cara enjoyed a kit-kat. Ron pointed out later that it was clear that the kids had had chocolate before playing with the big blocks downstairs, because BJ (the dog) was investigating the blocks thoroughly.

PJ is a little under the weather, so he's not quite himself. That may be why it seemed that as soon as he picked up a toy, Cara came and took it from him. I wouldn't like that to continue, but for now it seems like a bit of nice role reversal. Really, though, the kids got along fine. Cara showed Ron and Em how she is willing to sit and look at a book for several minutes in a row, which impressed them.

In the bath, Cara was talking up a storm. It was mostly "Ma" sounds. Earlier, I was getting her to say "honey" and trying to have her say it at appropriate times, such as when I ask, "What does Winnie-the-Pooh love to eat?" This did not work. Steve tried to get Cara to say "Mama" when he asked her who I was, but that didn't work. He did get her to point her fingers jauntily as if she were doing the twist. It was hard work for her and involved concentration.

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