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Journal Key:

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

11/9/06 (Thursday)

Somehow, last night Cara and I were reading until I put her down around 10:30. This morning, she slept nice and late! I let her sleep until around 7:30, when I went in and woke her. She got to say good-bye to her daddy before he went to work, and then I let her have some yogurt. Getting her dressed was an adventure; she would much rather read a book. She really loves Donald's Mexican Fiesta, which is a really horrible book. I had to read it to her as a bribe so that she would sit down for me to put her socks on. I didn't read it well. I got Cara to Susan's around 8:15, rather later than usual.

When I went to pick her up, Cara was happily playing outside; she was filthy because she likes, reports Susan, to sit in the dirt around the landscaping. She was also exhausted, because she had had only a half-hour nap. We picked up her art project of the day, a lovely collage representing birds flying in a blue sky (we've moved from studying hibernation to studying migration), and headed for home.

In my afternoon off I had done some raking, and I planned on letting Cara play in the leaf piles when we got home. I took some video, though of course I didn't get the really good parts. She was certainly curious about the leaves, but she didn't jump right in. She needed someone to show her what to do. Julianna came over and sat in the leaves, and I got some good footage that I could use to blackmail her. Cara really just thought we were outside to play chase, and she wanted us to come after her. I picked her up and swung her, which she loves, and I landed her right in a big leaf pile. She sat there up to her waist in leaves, not sure what to make of it. We tossed more on her, and we asked her where her foot was. She lifted one, and we asked where the other was. She lifted that, and the first one disappeared. Her feet were playing peek-a-boo! That was fun for a few minutes. "Bye, baby!" said Cara when Julianna left.

We went in to play until dinner. We read a lot of books, including some that are new, sort of, because I just got them out of Cara's closet. Several of those are Hanukkah books, which Cara is finally sort of old enough for, perhaps. We'll see. Cara also played nicely with her toys. The Playmobil people really love going down the Weebles' slide. The cats' toys enjoy going down the ball ramp, and in fact they roll better than the balls that came with the ramp! Good idea, Cara.

Cara was definitely exhausted, and she spent more time than usual sitting in one place this evening. However, we had our customary episode of running around like a maniac prior to going to bed. She got her hands on the cord for Steve's razor and ran around with that, to our delight. During her bath I got myself organized for tomorrow morning my putting my clothes in the hallway. When she was clean and pajamaed and brushing her teeth, Cara did some more running. She dragged my clothes into the bathroom. She found my bra and took that to carry around. Thoughtfully, she put the strap around her neck and wore it as a necklace. I thought it was pretty funny, until Steve took pictures. I took it back from her, but she started to cry and I let her take it back. Next thing I knew, it was back around her neck. Then she got the electric cord back. Gevalt!

11/10/06 (Friday)

This morning I had about an hour free with Cara in the morning before we had to get ready to go out. I took her upstairs to get dressed, which was something of a battle of wills. I wanted to get Cara dressed, and she wanted to play. Fortunately, I had budgeted plenty of extra time. On Steve's dresser he has a small metal hand which he keeps dollar coins in. There are five of them. I happen to know this because we spent about ten minutes this morning playing with them. Cara wanted to carry the hand with the coins in it, but they kept falling out. She would carefully put them back in and pick it back up and they would fall back out. She was very very focussed for such a little girl.

We picked up Munchkins and went over to see the twins. Cara carried the Munchkin package in, and then one of the girls carried it over to the television. None of them opened it or cared what was in it; they liked the size and shape of the package. The first thing they all did was switch sippy cups. Sarah took Cara's water, Cara took the twins' two cups of milk, and Lina was distracted by something or other. Everyone was happy, especially Cara, who had one for each hand. The girls all played pretty independently, except that Cara got jealous when Sarah was snuggling with me for a long time. It was interesting to see the children's different eating techniques. The twins would try Munchkins, reject them, and hand them to their mommy to finish. Cara would see me biting one and come over and take it from me. "MMmmm," she would say.

We got back home around 10:30, and Cara didn't want to go inside. We walked around for a little bit, but soon we ended up in the back yard, running through the leaves. Cara can still play with all of her outdoor equipment, which is nice. I hadn't had her out there too much lately. When Grandpa Jim and Grandma Janet arrived, we all went inside. Some of us had to work in the basement, but Grandma and Cara got to go back outside with a doll carriage and two babies! Cara and Grandma had a good time playing, but by 12:30 that little girl was tired and hungry. While she refused to eat some green beans, I heated up some chicken patties for her. I cut them into strips and gave them to Cara, who amazed/amused/distressed/impressed her grandparents by stuffing way too much into her mouth at a time. Grandma cut them smaller, so Cara has to stuff a whole lot of little pieces in at the same time. Finally, having made a mess and gotten cleaned up, Cara was ready for her nap.

After a dinner of leftovers (Cara elected to have yogurt), Daddy, Cara, and I went to the mall. Cara really loves the display of trains that is up in the department store; we had to watch them for a long time. We showed her the trees and got a "wow," but then we had to go back to those trains. We rode a couple of escalators, and we soon found ourselves in the Playmobil store. Steve hadn't seen the castle before, so it was cool to show it to him. We spent about 45 minutes playing in there; Cara drove the royal carriage around, and she tried to make people walk on stairs. She also sat people in a rocking chair--"Whee!" I've never seen such a fun chair. It was late when we left the mall, almost eight. Cara made me carry her the whole length of the mall, but she got down as we walked past Tinytown. She ran in, and I let her go down one slide before carrying her away. She wanted to stay! There was a little bit of writhing, but she didn't throw a tantrum.

Back at home, Cara had a snack. She had more yogurt, of course, and she had some goldfish crackers. "Mmmmm," she said, as soon as I put them into her hand. There was a lot of enthusiasm throughout her snack. We tried to steer her toward her bath, but it was slow work; she was hyped up. She seated herself in a laundry basket and I offered her a ride. She was facing the wrong way, so I told her to turn around. She stood up, turned around, and sat back down, facing the same way. She got a backwards ride.

After her bath, when Cara was in her pajamas, she showed some interest in the dinosaur toy in her room. I got out the basket I had put all of the roll-a-rounds in, and naturally Cara upended it. She ignored the balls and grabbed a rubber duck with each hand ("Two!"), then gathered two more to her chest. She ran from the room and dropped them into the laundry basket. Ten minutes of hilarity ensued, with Cara getting into and out of the basket and putting things in it and taking them out and getting the metal hand from this morning back and putting it into the laundry basket and putting the money into the hand and then climbing into the basket and spilling it all anyway. I had taken her to the mall to make sure she got tired after her three-hour nap. After this evening, she must be!

A few small things: Cara found a way to drink from the spray-end of her watering can while in the bath. She said "tub" repeatedly tonight. Before Cara and I went into her room to read books, I carefully put Donald's Mexican Fiesta at the bottom of the pile of books and turned it face down, so I wouldn't have to read it to her. Nevertheless, when we were in there she somehow knew that it was there and made me read it to her anyway.

11/11/06 (Saturday)

This morning Cara was awake at around 7, before I had the chance to do much with myself. Mommy watched her so that I could have breakfast and so forth, then she went to the gym and Cara and I got to play together. I was with Cara down in the play room and she went over and got her nice brown shoes and tried putting them on. I got the picture and put them on for her, and then she immediately went to the door. It's possible she wanted to go wherever it was Mommy had gone, but instead we had a nice play session outside. First Cara led me along the street, picking up people's papers and putting them down in other places. Then we went out back and somehow made our way through the heavy layers of leaves to her outdoor toys and had a nice time with them. I showed Cara how I kick her balls around, and she showed me how to toss one into her slide platform and roll it down the slide. She drove her toy car (backwards) and messed around with the straps in her wagon. She found a hole in her tricycle and promptly started putting stones into it from our front border. She found Mommy's zinnias and grabbed each one so that she could bend her head over, sniff it, and say "Aaahhh." She used to pluck the heads off of Julianna's flowers, but I think we may finally have convinced her that you are supposed to smell them.

It was nice playing outside, but Daddy had some things to do inside, so eventually, when I felt we'd covered all the angles, we went back in and turned on the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse just in time for the celebratory "Hot Dog" dance which ends every episode. Cara was thrilled. Since it's Saturday, there were back-to-back episodes and we got to see that dance twice! Then Mommy returned.

We wandered about for a while and I think Cara had a snack. I went out to try to rake some leaves, and Cara came out to help me. Basically we would take one swipe with the rake together, and then Cara would have to take over so that she could hold the very end of the rake handle, which attracted her somehow. Then she would stand there holding it until I helped her pull again. You can imagine how much raking had gotten done in the few minutes before Evie's parents showed up to help us in the basement.

What really happened first was a bit of playtime--Cara got a nice bead necklace from her Grandma, and got to try on a straw hat. Then we all had something to eat, and then Cara got put down for her nap while work started. When she woke up again, she eventually went out for a nice walk with Mommy and Grandma, and had a thrill when Grandma put her high up in our tree out front (well, not dangerously high). Grandpapa and I went out for some errands, and when I returned Aunt Claire had arrived! Eventually we all converged on the house again, set our plans, and set out for our local barbecue restaurant.

There Cara pretty much ignored her own meal in favor of the corn cob sections that came with other people's meals. We were surprised, as she hasn't seen corn for a while, but she went for it like crazy. Eventually she had two of them, one in each hand, and was chowing down. She also had some french fries, some beans, and some pickles, as well as some Oreo cookies. Cara has decided that the Oreo is a mere vehicle for the white creme inside (just like the french fry is a mere vehicle for ketchup, and so forth). She sucked the white stuff off the oreos and seemed disinterested in what was left.

We returned home for grown-up dessert, and Cara became engrossed once again in her Winnie the Pooh movie. She was still engrossed in it when her grandparents left. We found after this that it was time for Cara's bath, and tore her away from the movie, gated her upstairs and started taking her clothes off. This traumatized her to a surprisingly high extent, so much so that she spent her entire bath red-faced and wailing (Aunt Claire got to say goodbye during this cheerful time). We made it a short bath and appeased her by rushing her into her pajamas, popping some tasty Advil into her, and taking her downstairs for multiple episodes of Curious George. She was back up to late-night hyper mode by the time Evie took her upstairs to her room. She was very uninterested in books and managed to make it through Donald's Fantastic Fiesta (of course) but not much else. She cried for a bit in the crib but all is silent now.

11/12/06 (Sunday)

It took us a while to get going this morning, or at least me. We tried to keep Cara away from the television, but at one point for some reason I mentioned the "TV" and Cara went to the living room and pointed: "Ah, ah!" When Evie went to take a shower she quickly beat down what little defenses I had and we watched a few episodes of Curious George. I would like to say (or perhaps reiterate) that this is a great show. I think it's good for Cara, because even if she doesn't learn the lessons it is trying to teach, she certainly enjoys looking at and listening to George, and a lot of what he does and feels is conveyed without her having to understand words, since George can't speak. Also I find the cartoon highly entertaining, more than I would have imagined. I will also admit, a bit guiltily, that the tapes also have the beginning of Clifford the Big Red Dog episodes on them, and I have fallen in love with the catchy theme song. (Evie likes it, too, so it's not just me. And Cara bounces along to it.)

Anyways, once we all got ourselves up and dressed, and we finished the episode of Curious George that we were watching, we trounced outside to rake leaves. Rather, Evie raked up most of the leaves while I played with Cara. Then we went back inside, Cara had something to eat, and then she went down for her nap. Then we finished raking leaves and did some painting down in the basement, and had a bit of a snack, all while Cara slept. By the time Cara woke up it was somewhere around 2 and it was time to bundle her into the car and go down to Middletown.

We arrived at the beautiful local library, where Cara's Grandma's painting of Cara and Evie was hanging up along with many other paintings! When we walked into the art show, there were lots of people milling about and Cara hid her head. But we found her Grandma and Cara got shown around, and soon she was toddling about. We took her to the nice children's section of the library, where she got to sit down at a small table and play with some nice wooden animal puzzles and generally ignored all the books her Grandma and Mommy tried to show her. Something about the situation made Cara laugh very loudly at things which, at the best of times, should only be mildly amusing. A painting of a big whale on the wall (which also functioned as a growth chart) got a nice kiss.

We ran out of the library into the rain, then back to the grandparents' house. Cara had a fine time crawling and climbing all over, being chased, playing peek-a-boo, playing with her toys (and treating other objects as toys, most of which were taken away from her), and eating a nice dinner. She particularly liked the pasta, which got a lot of "MMMmmmm"s.

I wish I could remember all of the words Cara said today--there were lots. She goes through her repertoire, then will often surprise you by saying one you've been using for a while, or will from time to time repeat a word after you. Her pronunciation of the word "down" has evolved. It used to sound like "dow-oo," but lately it's been more like "noun" and early today I heard her say "down" perfectly at least once. Then she went back to "noun." When we were messing with her Playmobil toys this evening, she had hold of the dog house and started saying "house, house." (She did this for my mother, also.)

Tonight, among many of the things she did to avoid parts of her bedtime routine, Cara went into my side of the closet saying "shoes, shoes" and came out with my flip-flops. I took off the sneakers I was wearing and put on the flip-flops. She helped me take off one of my socks, and when Evie told her to put it in the laundry she dutifully walked the sock over to our hamper and dropped it in. Then, with my assistance, she tried to wear my sneakers. Surprise, they were too big, even for clomping around in.

Evie reports that during the book-reading session tonight Cara was trying all of her usual avoidance tactics, and at one point started playing with Mommy's toes. Mommy asked how many feet she had; Cara said "Two!" and pointed to each foot in turn, clearly counting!

11/13/06 (Monday)

Back to the routine. I arrive late because of traffic on the Parkway. Cara remains in her pajamas until after 9 A.M. She is talking. She says 'baba' to me and clearly means me--she brings me a book and says 'baba'. I say 'let's move to the couch where it's more comfortable.' I give her a head start and she walks over to the couch which is in a different room and climbs on. After we're done with one book I say 'Cara, get another book.' She climbs down off the couch, goes into the play room, finds a book and brings it to me.

'Are you hungry?' she walks over to the kitchen and the high chair. 'Put grandmama down the sliding board' and Cara takes the grandmama figure from a pile of figures and puts her down the PlaySkool sliding board. "Where's my hat?" I say and she brings me a straw hat laying nearby. We play a game with her figures in which each new figure that comes into the space has to kiss every other figure that's already there and then find a place to go to sleep. I do the first few ending with 'and then grandmama has to kiss the horse...and then the cow.' Cara picks up the horse and the cow and kisses them both, has them kiss each other, and then Cara herself falls over and pretends to sleep on the floor.

When I put Cara in for her nap, she lay on her back so I could put the blanket over her. She cried a little but I hope that when I go up to get her, she still has the blanket over her.

When I got home, Cara had just been fed some cheese and French fries. She took me over to the fridge. I was sure I knew what she wanted. I offered her her water, but, for the first time in a while, she said no. I was at a loss. I pointed at various items in the fridge, to no avail. The second time she brought me to the fridge, I figured it out: yogurt! Sure enough, she finished the open container and ate three fourths of another one. See, mommies really do know what their little girls need!

It was a rainy, ugly day, so Cara hadn't been out. I put her into the car and we headed for the mall. We had a great hour running around. There were a few arguments: Cara wanted to be carried when I hoped that she would run, in the big, wide-open walkways; and she wanted to run when I wanted to carry her, in the stores filled with non-toddler-safe things. She found some nice marshmallow-snowman figurines in a card store (card stores are a favorite of hers), and there was a lot of kissing.

We had a good time in a toy store. Cara went up to the counter where there was a display of small toys and strange candy that looked like toys. Cara picked things up, but then, mainly without prompting, she put them right back where she had found them. I was awfully proud. I had been pretty sure I'd spend a lot of time taking things from her to replace them. We also ran through the aisles and danced and played with lots of toys that made noise.

Twice, Cara got to sit on the down escalators. "Whee!" She clearly thinks she's very cool. Downstairs, we found an interactive projection on the floor. Cara's grandmom had shown her one in their mall in south Jersey, but Cara didn't really try it. I theorized that she was shy because older kids were playing on it. Today, we were the only ones there. At first, it was like a big fish pond, and we could walk on it and scare the koi. It became a pirate game, with skeletons and buried treasure. We're rated "landlubbers." There were rockets and flying batteries and balls to kick. Cara was very tickled.

It's always interesting to me to see other kids when we go out. I admit that I gloat inwardly when I see kids bigger than she is who still use pacifiers or have bottles. Here's something that confuses me: I see lots of kids at the mall riding in strollers. I mean, these are certainly kids Cara's age and older; I can't imagine getting Cara to sit in a stroller, much less wanting her to rest while I do all the walking. I guess that sometimes it would be nice to have her contained, but she would probably hate being restricted like that. She wants to run!

In some down time after dinner, we watched some Curious George. Cara really laughs at it, and the great thing is that she is laughing at the funny parts. She loved it when George climbed into the shop window and unwrapped all the displayed presents and when he ran home, trailing wrapping paper behind him. She knew that those were not really realistic or normal things. (Unwrapping presents is a skill I hope she may pick up, though, since the holidays are coming!)

11/14/06 (Tuesday)

It was a short day, since Cara was at daycare and then I spent a long time cooking dinner. It seems like we spent most of our free time reading to her. Here are a few things that stand out in my mind:

You must be a parent of a toddler if you're pleased to find that a cracker has been stepped on on your rug, because it's not a wet cracker that's been stepped on on your rug.

Cara gave me a straw hat to wear. I pulled it down over my eyes and asked where she was. Cara lifted my brim, and I said, "Hi!" "Bye," she said, pushing it back down.

Steve pointed out yesterday that the Curious George shows were meant as a lesson not only to children but to their parents as well. The man in the yellow hat may let George get into all kinds of ridiculous trouble, but he never gets mad at him, he just deals with the situation calmly and responsibly. That's pretty cool.

Cara is a yogurt fiend. She had some when we got home, around five. She finished one container and ate another down to the dregs (she can't finish the last centimeter or so). Naturally, this ruined her dinner. Before bed, she took me to the refrigerator. She said no to yogurt but took the chilled teething ring. I'm not sure what she thinks it's for. A few minutes later we were back and we were getting out the yogurt. She finished some remains as best she could, and then I got out another new cup. She shoveled it right in! A lot ended up running down her bib, so I got another spoon and scooped it up for her. She let me feed her, then took my spoon and went at it two-fisted. When I looked next, she had stacked the spoons and was using both in one hand. When she finally got tired of eating, she went mad and pounded the almost-empty cup with her spoon(s). We hurried her into the bath.

Susan asked whether Cara cleans up at home, because she has a hard time getting her to help at daycare. I have decided to mount a help-clean-up campaign. After her bath, I had Cara help me put her rubber ducks and roll-a-rounds into their basket. She was very agreeable about it, but we definitely need to make it a routine.

11/15/06 (Wednesday)

Cara was up at four this morning, a little over an hour before I get up. She needed to be changed, so I did that, gave her some Advil, just in case, showed her a book, and put her back down. I was perfectly happy to go back to bed, but Cara was not. Steve was up with her for quite a while, and finally I joined them again. Cara was screaming for more Advil (it's grape!).

I got dressed and then while Steve was in the shower Cara and I went out for bagels. "Why is it," the man at the bagel place asked Cara, "that people your age like to get up in the night?" His nineteen-month-old daughter had also woken him long before he had to get up, and he goes to work well before the crack of dawn!

I had planned on having a long morning at work, and Steve was great; he let me go and took care of Cara all morning, until Grandpapa arrived.

Cara gave some evidence that she wanted to nap but I was having no part of it! At ten A.M., we were running around in Johnson Park. While I pushed her on the swing, this series of exchanges took place: "Cara, haven't you been in the swing long enough?" "No." "Cara, are you getting tired of swinging?" "No", "Cara, do you want to get off the swing and go do something else?" "No", "Aren't those goats over there waiting for you?" "No" Finally, I caught on--so I asked her "Don't you want to stay in longer?" When she said "No" I took her out of the swing and watched her go happily to the next thing.

Which was the vertical (straight up!) ladder at the sliding contraption. She went slowly and purposefully up the ladder, her little hand finding the next rung which was just inside her reach. I stood behind her in catching position, very nervous, but then she made it the top, a very exciting event and at the top, she wiggled herself at me and said "ha ha ha" and crawled over to the circular slide which she took in as dignified a manner as a nineteen-month-old can. Then she climbed up the ladder again, said "ha ha ha" to me and slid down again. And then to prove that she could climb that ladder easily, she did it again, all the while as she climbed I felt this is going to be a disaster: she's overconfident but she succeeded again. Ha Ha Ha.

We walked over and laughed at the goats and looked at the bunnies. Cara found a deer on the other side of the fence and we stared at him as he stared at us. But soon it was time to ride home.

At 11:30, we arrived back at Nancy Circle and Cara was sound asleep. I took her out of the carseat and she slept as I carried her into the house and put her in her high chair. I figured I'd try to give her some lunch but when I looked she was sound asleep. I carried her upstairs, still asleep and put her into her crib.

I woke her up at 2:35 and gave her some yogurt most of which she fed herself. We made it to Linwood by 3:10, just in time for the joyous reunion of mother and child.

He didn't just witness that joyous reunion: he videotaped it.

Our playdate was canceled again, so Cara and I had a free afternoon. I couldn't decide what to do, so we bummed around Linwood for a while. Cara was sleepy and shy, so she didn't say hi to many people. She was sweet; she kept leaning her head in against me while I held her. We had a great time playing chase around a brick column, and Cara really appreciated the murals on the walls. In a classroom, Cara climbed in succession onto several chairs.

Just for fun, I took Cara to Barnes and Noble. She laughed and pointed at lots of big pictures of animals, and of course eventually she found the train table. This Thomas the Tank Engine set was better than the one at Toys R Us, because it had more train cars. There were some cool features that it was missing, like the train washer, but Cara had fun carrying around a few cars at a time. While she was playing, I found a few books to buy. I narrowed my selections down to two cheap choices and got two paperback books for about seven dollars. They're both ones I enjoyed as a child. Cara was the only child playing for a long time. Eventually, a boy and girl came along, pointing out the trains and the baby to each other. My sweet little girl went over to them and shared: she gave each one a train car! I was relieved, because I would have hated for there to be a fight! Cara watched them, fascinated. We were there for about an hour.

Tonight was playdate night: we went over to PJ's for dinner! Cara sat nicely through most of dinner, but then she went exploring upstairs for a while. One of the highlights of the evening was Cara reaching up to the table and pulling down a glass of ice water on herself. Poor kid! Her sweater and shirt were all wet, as were the table and the carpet. PJ had done sort of the same thing, but his glass had considerably less in it.

Back at home again later, Cara ate another cup of yogurt with enthusiasm. She got her whole self sticky. We wrassled her into the bath, but she was wild and free afterwards, running back and forth without even her diaper. I had to have Steve help me get one on her; I had let her loose for a few minutes while I found the Balmex, and it's hard to recapture your victim. He also had to wrestle her into her pajamas; we finally cornered her on our bed. She certainly got crazy tonight, but if she's as tired as we are, she'll sleep well.

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