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Journal Key:

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

11/30/06 (Thursday)

Cara came running to meet me today at Susan's with a stacking cup in each hand and a pocketbook hanging around her neck. Susan says that usually when she hears the door she just tosses whatever she is holding up in the air and goes to see who it is. The kids were milling around for a minute and I heard Cara say "no, no, no" to PJ; then she sort of swiped at him. Susan and I both scolded her. Her no-no-ing is not always necessarily bad. Earlier PJ was going into Susan's cabinets and starting to go through her dishes. This is not a particularly good thing, though it's also not very bad. "No, no!" Susan heard Cara say. PJ walked away, clearly thinking, okay, I guess I can't do that.

I had raced home after work to get some things started for dinner so that Cara and I could have a good time together and I wouldn't have to turn on the TV. We had a very relaxing hour. "There it is," Cara said when the car pulled into the driveway. "What is?" I asked. The answer was unclear. She was pointing away to her right, slightly behind her. I took her out and let her run. She ran down the sidewalk to our neighbors' house, past Julianna's. The house has Christmas lights up already and there are also two lit-up, white deer outside. One has a moving head. "Wow!" said Cara. I waited on the sidewalk while she petted them both and possibly hugged and kissed them.

In the house, I sat around and amused myself for a little while while Cara went through two lift-the-flap books on her own. They were very funny books. I did get to read to her eventually. Having made sure no neighbors were watching, I demonstrated the proper hobby horse technique. Again this was a hit, but Cara isn't ready to try on her own.

Cleaning the table before dinner, I found myself in possession of Curious George. I took him into the living room and stuck him through the stair railing. Cara ate dinner, went and played, came in and out, and after dinner got into her high chair for a cheese stick. Suddenly, she saw him. After that, she was done eating. She had better things to do. She couldn't reach him by standing on the floor and reaching out, but she climbed up the stairs and got him. He was then her favorite companion of the evening; he even got a nice dunk in the bath. She loved him even wet, so I ended up brushing his teeth. She didn't think that that was nice. I can think of several reasons to object, but I'm not sure what Cara's was.

For the past couple of weeks, Cara has been very restless during our bedtime stories. Tonight, for the first time in a while, Cara stayed cuddled up with Daddy and read her books nicely and went to bed. Of course, it's 45 minutes later and I still hear her chattering up there.

12/1/06 (Friday)

Cara and I go for our first visit to TinyTown, in the Woodbridge Mall. It's just outside of Fortunoff's which is filled with gorgeous Christmas displays, including a wonderful carousel outside the store which features Mickey, Minnie, Winnie the Pooh, Piglet and Tigger too. TinyTown is a safe play area where little kids run around in their stocking feet. Cara was in the lower third as to age but in the 99th percentile in charm and energy. She ran around all over the place, laughing her head off. While I was not busy chatting up nubile grandmas, being a bad grandpapa, I caught up with the escaping Cara (off to see the carousel) three times.

After TinyTown, Cara climbed around several toddler-scale vehicles which gave me the chance to take some nice shots of Cara behind the wheel of each.

Soon, I was carrying the tired youngster on the escalators and then to the car where we made it home in time to give Cara a yogurt lunch, which she attacked with two spoons. This is part of learning, I think. But she was actually fairly neat. The vast majority got into her little mouth.

Now, at 12:20 P.M. she's settling down for her nap, talking to all her stuffed animals. "no!" "uh oh" -- lots of practice talking is going on up there.

12/2/06 (Saturday)

The 2-syllable word of the day: bubble! Cara stood on the sofa gazing into the fishtank, right next to the aerator. Great-grandma helpfully pointed out to her that there were bubbles. "Buh-bul buh-bul buh-bul," she said, clearly enjoying the funny sound.

Downstairs our little helper carefully replaced a few pellets of cat food that had fallen from his dish and did NOT attempt to put any into her mouth. "Cat food," I told her. "Foo cat," she replied and proceeded to count the individual pieces, pointing at them, "one two fee." She seemed to know that there were more, but had reached her limit for counting.

The weather was rough, but we did a lot of running around inside the house, some of which George caught on video using his cell phone. We also read some books - Curious George was a favorite this time - rolled around on the yoga balls and played with the alphabet zoo.

Great-grandma thoughtfully provided a large plastic bib with a pocket at the bottom, so we can let Cara feed herself yogurt with confidence. She also provided some freshly made blintzes, so we all had a delicious treat at supper time. At breakfast today Cara surprised us by chowing down on some multi-grain toast in preference to white bread - see, she knows what's good!

She slept last night like a doll. We followed what has become our bedtime routine: bath, book and bed. At bathtime she tried to remove her own shirt, and in the tub she washed parts of herself with the washcloth. "Can you wash your face," I asked, and she helpfully swiped at her lips. Likewise, she will wash her own feet. Knees seemed to elude her. Anyway, between the two of us, I think we got everything.

Before she left this morning, she helped me put away the alphabet zoo animals, like a good little girl!

Cara was nice and cuddly today, which I enjoyed. I got her some new library books, including Where the Wild Things Are. I don't know whether she's going to appreciate that one. There is another one, about a piglet searching for its mommy, that is a big hit. My biggest thrill for the day came when I was reading Cara a non-library book. She looked at a picture carefully and then pointed and said "birdie." It's the first time she's identified something for me, and I didn't even prompt her! This shows, of course, that it's useless to prompt her; she's going to figure it out as she figures it out.

Cara's grandmom and grandpop came up today and Cara excitedly went out to greet them. She danced and let grandmom read to her. Janet, like my mom, pointed out that Cara was saying "bubble." It's cool, because that hasn't really been one of her regular words. We had heard it before, but it wasn't a staple of her vocabulary, so to speak. I had been wondering how many words Cara says, so I admit (what a dork!) that I have started an Excel spreadsheet to keep track. It's really just a fancy list. We've got about 45 words on there. ("There it is" counts as one word, of course.)

Steve had to go to work today, so he missed all the fun. Cara was playing with a cat toy which we identified for her as a mouse. "Mouse!" she said, running off. She returned with a much nicer cat toy which was more clearly a mouse. Delightful. At lunch, Cara very impressively ate a pickle. Grandpop was remarking how surprised he was that she would eat something with such a strong flavor, when Cara took a bite and made a dramatic pickle-face. Thereafter, she made a face after each bite. She finished the pickle. Outside, Cara walked holding Grandmom's hand. She's such a big girl! Still, if I hold the other hand she begins bending down and counting, clearly wanting to be swung between us. Is it one, two, three or one, two, whee?

I put Cara down for her nap, despite her efforts to convince us all that she was both very cute and very busy playing. She spent a while talking in her crib. It was a stream of gentle babble, but then we heard her saying "No, no no!" Clearly, a stuffed animal had crossed some line or other. Eventually she went to sleep, and she slept until almost five.

When I returned home Cara was still napping. After a few minutes I went up to get her. She was groggy, as usual, and we sat for a while watching a silent movie on DVD that was playing. She was drinking a lot of water from her sippy cup--the whole evening she did a lot of drinking. Eventually we got ourselves together so I could take my two pretty ladies out to dinner at the swankiest restaurant imaginable--the IHOP. Cara charmed our waitress by trying to hand her a sippy cup and some crayons while she was taking our order. Cara was also momentarily flirting with a tall handsome waiter--they were smiling at each other for a few seconds, but then he had to leave and the whole thing ended. Cara did some good eating, especially of Mommy's broccoli soup. She also had some egg and pancake from her own meal. We were vigilant and managed to keep her from eating any of her crayons--she knows now that she's not supposed to put them in her mouth, but she still surreptitiously tries to sneak them in there anyway.

By the time the meal had ended it was pretty much our newly adjusted bed-routine time, so we headed home and got the tub started. Cara did her normal maniacal running about. In the tub, if any one of her toys happened to float too close to her, she would sharply yell "No!" at it and swipe it out of the way. She's really taking the whole discipline thing a little too much to heart. She also stuck her Battle Cat underwater and watched him slowly emit a stream of bubbles. "Buh bulz!" she said, and because I liked the way she said it, she repeated the word many times. I think Battle Cat's name will now be Bubbles.

For our bedtime reading we used some of the new books Mommy acquired, which went over well. There was a Berenstain Bears book about cleaning one's room (which really is more a lesson for us than for her at this point), a wonderful version of Froggy Went A-Courtin' (which Cara may have some vague unconscious memories of due to her repeated, repeated listening of the Burl Ives version while she was an infant), and the book about the Piggy looking for her Mommy, which is definitely a hit. When the Piglet and her Mommy cuddle at the end, Cara leaned against me. Was it just my imagination?

As a bonus encore book, we had a nice reading of Curious George Flies a Kite, surely among the best of George's adventures. For a little while there, when we had gotten really late with Cara's bedtime, she was wriggling out of my lap constantly and wouldn't sit still for even one book. But now she is back to enjoying the reading time, which is nice and is a real confirmation that our adjustment of the timing is a good thing. The Curious George book ends with George getting a baby bunny; Cara pulled the book up close and kissed the little bunny, then hugged the book and said "Mmmm." Then she was put to bed, where she is, as is her wont, communing with her stuffed animals.

12/3/06 (Sunday)

Cara had trouble getting to sleep last night. Eventually around 11 or so she was making noise and I decided to get up and do something about it. I gave her some Tylenol, read her a book, and put her back down. This seemed to work all right, but she woke up at 7 am this morning, so not a usual full night's rest.

Still, we had a fine morning together, and then Cara and Mommy went off to the gym--where Cara whined a lot for ten minutes at the Kids Club and then Mommy had to go in and get her. Cara was crying real tears, all while she carefully put away some toys and got ready to go. Then there was some food shopping. When I got home, my wife and child were not there, but I eventually found them at PJ's house, where they were watching TV and Em was learning about the tragedy that has occurred in the children's entertainment world: the Yellow Wiggle is retiring for health reasons and handing his "yellow skivvie" over to a New Guy. Scary; although not as much a blow to our little family as it could have been, since we haven't been watching the Wiggles in the mornings lately.

We did, however, watch a lot of Curious George episodes today. This show we are all familiar with and love, but we learned that there are shows Cara watches at Susan's that we know nothing about. For instance, one was on while Cara was at PJ's house, and she started trying to sing along to some song which none of us had ever heard before. That was interesting.

(In a similar vein, Cara seems to have somehow picked up the use of the word "cool"--when she sees something impressive she will sometimes use "Whoa" or "Wow," but now will also sometimes say "cool." I didn't think Evie and I used this enough for her to have understood to use it this way, so I have to think it's someone at Susan's that taught it to her. I suddenly find that I want to have complete control over Cara's vocabulary! Cool is a perfectly all right word to learn, but what could be next? Gnarly?)

Apparently there was a little bit of fighting on the part of the kids--Cara still persists in her belief that because we tell her "No" very forcefully sometimes, it is okay for her to do the same thing to creatures lower on her imaginary totem pole. But there was an amicable separation when we left to have some lunch.

Cara went down for her nap some time well after noon, and as is usual lately did a lot of chatting while I wandered about the house doing chores. When Mommy came home from a stressful shopping expedition, Cara was finally asleep, and stayed that way for several hours.

The big news of the day occurred in the evening, when Mommy and Cara were hanging out together and Cara spontaneously walked over and gave her Mommy a quick kiss! On the corner of her mouth, no less. This is the first actual kiss Cara has given to an actual human being.

Cara seemed to be using the phrase "That's too hot" quite often today, though never at an appropriate moment. It's something we say about food that we can't give her, but Cara used it in non-food situations that never involved anything hot.

Also in the evening we dressed Cara up in a nice dress and took 62 pictures of her (according to my camera), and hopefully one of them will be a nice Holiday picture. During and after the photo shoot, Cara was out of her mind. She was hyped up to a big extent and actually threw all of her bath toys into the tub, something she hasn't done in quite a while. We had a nice bath and I was able to wash Cara all over because she was standing up and walking around a lot. Then there was some athletic teeth-brushing. I showed her one book all the way through and then it was her new adjusted bed time, so she went into her crib. She is still chatting a bit up there, but I have hopes that it's getting quieter, and what with all the running around she did tonight, hopefully she'll have a good night's rest.

12/4/06 (Monday)

The civilized Cara ate three quarters of a yogurt container and didn't allow a drop to fall anywhere other than her chin. After one snack, there were a few goldfish on her tray so she motioned to the package they came in. When I opened the package for her, she scooped her goldfish back into the package.

We were reading another excellent Richard Scarry book when, at the very end, Cara put her finger on the page and said 'pie.' Another word for the database.

In our reading today she seemed to enjoy Green Eggs and Ham, following the action with hilarity. She was also into the Curious George where he jumps out of a space ship; Cara was very happy when he landed safely.

When I got home today, the playroom was very tidy. Cara had helped her grandpapa clean up! Cara was a good girl for her poor achy, feverish, congested Mommy. We read several books, and Cara played nicely while Mommy took a break on the Elmo couch. I was good and gave her a few rides in the laundry basket and read her some more books, and then I put on Curious George and collapsed on the couch. Cara was good and I even got to sleep for about ten minutes.

Cara's speech has been progressing. Last night she made Daddy show her her jungle puzzle book, and she said "Monkey swing." She identified Shelby for me earlier, but she still can't come close to saying Buster. This is unfortunate, because Buster is the cat with whom she gets to interact. Steve and I sometimes say "kitty kitty kitty," as in "Here kitty kitty kitty." Cara walks after Buster, who is trying, of course, to get away, saying "kitty kitty kitty!"

Steve brought home pizza, and Cara ate a lot. We played in the basement, where Cara found her cowboy hat and made us wear it. She finally wore it herself while I walked her up the stairs, and I noticed that she was missing the stairs and going one at a time. She had the hat completely covering her face.

12/5/06 (Tuesday)

Cara had a rough night, and we have been scared that she might be getting my cold (which is better, incidentally). Despite that, she had a good day at Susan's. She helped Susan clean up, crawling under the Kitchen table to get things for her. She and PJ were playing with a doll house when I arrived; it was a cute little one. Cara really likes that kind of thing.

At home, we had some adventures. The first things we did was to go down to the basement. Cara picked up the container of cat treats, and I decided to let her give some to the kitties. I was not surprised to find the cats on hand, since the treats were rattling. I gave Cara one and showed her how to put it down for Shelby. She put it down, and Shelby started to investigate it. Cara decided to move it closer, which just scared Shelby off. I put it down again for Shelby and held Cara in my lap to watch. Buster showed up and we repeated the entire exercise. Cara took back the canister of treats, which I thought couldn't hurt, but she popped it open and a dozen or so flew out. The cats were fairly enthusiastic, and Cara wasn't upset. It was then, if at all, that she sampled the goods. I got most of the treats put away. Every time I suggested to Cara that we go upstairs, she chose to mishear me and only notice the "up" part. She went and climbed the stepladder.

Upstairs at last, I changed Cara into her Christmas outfit and took some pictures. She was very good about changing clothes. When I took her socks off, she carefully put them into her shoes. The pictures turned out better, I think, than last time we tried. I've gotten out my holiday decorations, which I think must be somewhat curtailed this year, because of the number of individuals in the house who would aggressively investigate anything they could reach (one toddler and two cats).

I got Cara back into her clothes before I made dinner. I decided to let her help. I put Cara in her high chair and pulled it over to she sink, where I showed her how to snap asparagus into pieces and put them into the steamer. Despite some initial oral investigation, this went pretty well. For the first time, Cara helped make dinner! (At Thanksgiving, PJ helped Em by handing her sweet potatoes. This made me brave enough to attempt my experiment with Cara.)

12/6/06 (Wednesday)

Today Cara was from her daily nap untimely ripp'd. She met me in the school parking lot a little after three, said "bye" to Grandpapa, and came over to see the twins. The twins are being toilet trained! I learned a lot. Cara was a little bit reluctant at first, being still somewhat asleep, but she got warmed up and had a fine time. For a few minutes, fully clothed, she even sat on the potty. She talked a lot more. She stood up for her rights when she was holding a plastic elephant and Lina asked her to "gee baa mama e-pha." "No, no, no!" said Cara. It certainly seemed that she understood exactly what Lina was talking about. When it was time to leave, I suggested that Cara clean up. When I next looked down, there was a pile of about a dozen crayons on the couch! Shannon and I think Cara was more at ease because she was there two weeks in a row, for a change. Unfortunately, next week I have a class after school on Wednesday!

Last week we left a toy at the twins' house, and this week it was returned to us. Personally, I thought it was of very little consequence; it is a very small, very stiff little lamb. When I got Cara out of the car in the driveway, she was holding it. I heard her saying something about the baby sheep. Then it was something about a mommy and a daddy and kisses, as she ran down the road in the dark and the cold with her baby sheep. Two houses down are the two reindeer that Cara visited last Thursday. It turns out that they are that little lamb's light-up mommy and daddy sheep, and they got lots of kisses from their baby. Actually, the one whose head moves just got affection from Cara; she and the lamb both interacted more with the other one, who seems, on interrogation, to be both mother and father to the prodigal. We headed for home, and then we came all the way back. There were more kisses. Cara patted the nice sheep. Then she got behind it and pushed. Repeatedly. Perhaps she was trying to convince it to respond in a more animated fashion. These are not lifelike creatures; they are basically white wires with lights strung on them. I had to carry her home.

In the house, Cara gave the lamb a ride in her stroller. She had a nice snack and then we waited for Daddy to get home so we could have dinner. After dinner, Cara had an early bath and then ran around in her pajamas for a long time. She was helpful. She takes direction well. She brought me her block set, which I like to keep alphabetized. Several had fallen out, and I asked her to go get them. It took her two trips, but she did it. Upstairs, she put on her daddy's shoes. They were a little bit too big. She shuffled along a little and then realized how much more convenient it would be to carry them. They spent some time in the bathroom, but when we asked her to bring them back, she did. Cara got her hands on Charlotte's Web, which I've been rereading. I started showing her the pictures. Did you know that the first picture is a girl fighting with her father over an ax? The second is a boy with a gun. I think that the next is finally a little girl giving a bottle to a baby pig. Cara ended up seeing a lot of the pictures, because she got Steve to show her more later. She was enthusiastic about the pig. We've been working on really brushing her teeth, not just letting her run around sucking on her brush. There is a trickledown effect, because Cara tried to brush Shelby's.

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