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Journal Key:

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

1/11/07 (Thursday)

We kept Cara home today from Susan's, which was probably a good thing. It was extra work for poor Grandpapa, but Cara needed it, we think. She was up in the night twice, still feverish and limp, happy to cuddle. Steve went in to wake her around seven thirty, and he says that, short of physically picking her up out of the crib, nothing would rouse her. She slept soundly until about ten thirty. When she finally woke up, she was fine. It must have been some sort of 36-hour bug.

I got home at about three twenty, and we said elaborate good-byes to Grandpapa. She blew him multiple kisses, which made up for the way in which she started saying "bye" before he even got ready to go. A little while after he left, Cara started asking, "Pa-pa? Pa-pa?" I asked her whether she was looking for Grandpapa, and she nodded. I gave her an elaborate explanation of where he was going.

We went to play outside, though it was much too cold out, really. Cara pushed George up and down PJ's driveway several times before I talked her into going home. Actually, I got her to agree to go to the mall to run around there. George came with us, in two of his incarnations, and there was a lot of conversation in the back seat.

At the mall, I believe we went up in the glass elevator twice, down four escalators, and up two. It was a productive trip. Some of the escalators there are not positioned side-by-side, which is somewhat confusing for little girls. We went down, and she turned around to go up. There was no up. It was then that Cara discovered the hand rail. We stood there for several minutes, Cara holding her hand up and feeling the hand rail running underneath, saying "whoa." Later Cara scared me by crawling off the up escalator at the top; usually I lift her off of them, but she did fine. We were walking along the upper floor when we came to two steps down. Well, they were thrilling. We stayed for several minutes, going up and down them, jumping (almost), and touching the railings. It's not like we have stairs at home, you know!

I took Cara into the Disney store. She said "hi" to lots of toys and animals, but she had to pick up a few of them. I really am impressed by how she puts things back. Half of the time I don't even ask her, she just goes back to the shelf and replaces whatever she's carrying. She did have a few favorites, though. She really got a kick out of the pencils that had tops bent to look like Mickey's head. They were all tangled up together, but she got out one and then another, and I thought she was done because she had two, but she put both in one hand and kept going. She eventually put them all down, but she came back to them again with enthusiasm. The thing that I will probably buy her, though, the next time I have any good reason to buy her something, is a little plush Roo. She carried it around the last time we were in one of those stores, and she kept it with her this evening, too. Eventually I have her kiss it good-bye, and she waved and called to it until we were out of the store.

We picked up dinner at the mall, including soup for Cara. She happily ate most of a cup of cream of asparagus, and I introduced her to the idea of dipping bread in your soup. She made a nice green mess. Afterwards we played; Cara got to see the monkeys, and then we went downstairs. We did some coloring and discussed how many of the Little Einsteins characters are named Annie. Piglet got to kiss several drawings. We headed upstairs and everyone got to roll on the bed (with varying degrees of enthusiasm and success).

In the bath, Cara looked at her toes and said "Piggy. Market." We've been doing "This Little Piggy" fairly often lately, considering how much of the time her feet are inaccessible. She also brushed Battle Cat's hair, taking his helmet off to do it. She learned that his head can turn all the way around. She lay down on her tummy in the water, with only her head sticking out, and practiced swimming. We're not sure where she figured that out. She's a busy girl; she's definitely feeling better.

1/12/07 (Friday)

Here's the part of Thursday night that I forgot to put in. We're in the mall. Cara walks into a shoe store. It's a sports shoe store, so the store is full of racks of clothing and things. The four salesmen, young guys wearing referee shirts, are standing around talking. Cara walks in among the tall racks, so unless they are paying close attention, all those guys see is me, walking in, looking at the floor. Cara walks to the back of the store. She stops in an open glade in front of the cash register. Is she going to destroy their display of shoelaces? I try to assess the possible damage. There is rap music playing. It's not gangsta rap; it's kind of nice, I guess, with a female vocalist. Cara starts to clap. It's not applause-style clapping, she's opening her arms as wide as they go and almost clapping with the music. I've never seen her clap like that before. She stops and turns around and around. She claps some more. She turns some more. She's not really, but almost bopping. Soon she finishes and walks back out of the store, me trailing her and apparently looking at the floor.

This week we agreed to make the most of time by meeting at the library, where Cara explored every nook and cranny of the children's room. Hidden in the back is a program area with hand puppets and a dress-up box. She immediately fell for the monkey puppet and made many efforts to find a hat he could wear. Alas, they all were too big. Cara also tried many hats on herself. As Ev has pointed out, there is no difficulty about leaving things where we found them, and when we left the program room, all was as it should be. We also read some stories, played with the toys, admired the giant whale and climbed on all the chairs. To her delight, there are ottomans on wheels that she could push, explaining, "push, push, push" as she went.

At home she returned enthusiatically to drawing again. It seems fitting that in a family of literate, artistic people, this child loves books and drawing. In a memorable moment, she read parts of her favorite dinosaur book to me, even mimicking the gestures I use when I read it to her, spreading her hand over the big dinosaur when she said "bi-i-ig" and pinching her fingers over the little one while she told me, "mall."

When it was time for supper I asked, "Are you hungry? Do you want a grilled cheese sandwich?" No interest. But as soon as I mentioned soup she ran for the stairs, saying "Oh boy! Oh boy! Oh boy!" Even though she had eaten an orange, a handful of blackberries and a third of a banana an hour before, she spooned up her soup nicely, but ate only a quarter of her sandwich.

After supper she asked "TV?" Grandpapa had found a Blues Clues DVD at the library, and Cara sat quietly in my lap to watch it, helpfully pointing out, "There she is," whenever Blue appeared. I guess she knew I was unfamiliar with Blue and might need guidance.

1/13/07 (Saturday)

Cara's hair was kind of staticky when she got here, and Grandpapa suggested some conditioner after the shampoo. Luckily, I have some spray-on, leave-in conditioner, which we applied, avoiding the necessity of another rinse. This morning it does seem to have helped. (Another remedy, which I didn't try, would be to rub a dryer sheet over her head.) We made sure to play "This little piggie" in the bath and again this morning - she loves it!

For weeks she has ignored the gigantic plush doggie, but last night she affectionately hugged and lugged him, so Grandpapa put him in her little bed. This morning we got a couple of pictures of her, sound asleep with her arm across his rump. She was up at 4:30 for a snack, and we finally woke her this morning at about 7:30. Despite her midnight snack, she had an excellent appetite for her eggs, but touched nothing else. We then had a few more minutes for reading and play. During this time I began suggesting that soon she would ride in the car to mommy and daddy, so by the time we got her sweater on, she was on board with the idea and got into the car cheerfully.

Cara didn't get home until about nine, and the first thing she did was to request the monkeys. I'm not really crazy about her watching so much Donkey Kong, which is basically very cute violence, but she is absolutely hooked! I'll give it a little while longer and see what happens.

We went out to BJ's because we had to get Steve's tire fixed, and while we waited we hung around the store. Cara loved being swung between us, but what she really wanted was for Daddy to carry her. She didn't want Mommy. She would turn away from me or ignore me, but she kept getting in Steve's way until he picked her up! We weren't really shopping, but I picked out a loaf of roasted garlic bread (the garlic was roasted, not the bread). Cara got to carry it. I thought she'd get tired, but she kept it for the rest of our time in the store. At the register, it was hard to get her to let go of it! ("Taking a little kid's bread; that's just mean," said the man behind us.)

In the car on the way home, she held the bread and screamed. She really doesn't usually eat bread for us, but it turned out that she was hungry and wanted some! We all had a good snack while we watched those funny monkeys. I think Cara really likes garlic.

Grandma Janet and Grandpa Jim came up, and at first Cara was both very excited and a little shy. Soon she was running around, showing off her toys. All sorts of people got to go down the Weebles' slides, and there was plenty of chasing. We also did some coloring. From the look of the pictures, I'd say more people than Cara joined in! Actually, we just taped new pictures to her table today; they're all Winnie the Pooh. Cara loves them. "Peet," she says, and scribbles on Piglet. "Tidder," and Tigger gets a splotch of color. She's really trying now to color specific objects or areas. This evening, she was pointing out and coloring the characters' mouths.

Pretty soon after her nap, it was time for Cara's grandparents to leave. She got a nice snuggle with her grandma and blew her grandpa a kiss, and it was just the three of us again. Cara and her daddy hung out while I made dinner, though for a while she stayed in the kitchen and played with pots and pans. She didn't even bother me while I cooked!

After dinner, Cara and I went downstairs. All day, I've been playing with her kitchen set with her. We've had several cups of coffee, and we've also had some pie and cake on plates, eaten with forks. Cara did gnaw on her plastic cake for a while, but it's really not encouraged. We sit nicely at her little table and eat like big girls. It's delicious. In fact, it rates an emphatic "MMMmmmm, soup!"

We read some books, too. Cara is very verbal. In Olivia, Olivia's mother teaches her to make a sand castle. The picture shows the mom and a mound of sand. On the next page, Olivia has built the Empire State Building. Cara turned back, pointed to the mound, and said, "big tower!"

I was supposed to read Cara to sleep this evening, and Steve was on journal duty, but Cara would have none of it. Just as Daddy had to carry her through the store this morning, Daddy had to read to her this evening. Mommy was definitely not wanted.

1/14/07 (Sunday)

When Cara woke up this morning, her daddy had just gotten pancakes ready! She was delighted to sit down and have some. I gave her some syrup to dip them in, and then I let her try some honey. She liked both. What she liked more, though, was when Daddy brought out the scrambled eggs! We all got a good breakfast this morning.

By eleven, Daddy had left and Cara and I were on the road. It was Steve's day out, so we went to Jenkinson's Aquarium with Aunt Claire! Cara was excited about seeing fishies, but she insisted on pushing George out of the house in his stroller. She held him in her arms the whole way down, but the stroller just sat in the car all day. I told Cara in advance that we were going with Claire, to get her excited, and she was already excited about seeing fish, so there was a lot of anticipation. Cara decided that she would really rather have Claire carry her than ride in Mommy's arms. This lasted all the way through the aquarium! I kept trying to trick her; I asked her to show things to Aunt Claire, but instead of walking over, she just pointed. When Claire put her down, she got in front of her with her arms up. When I tried to take her, she clung!

We made a brief trip through the aquarium, and then we headed out for lunch. I ordered Cara a hot dog, but she was very interested in what other people were getting. "Pizza!" she said, pointing. She was enthusiastic enough that I changed my order. We got the pizza and drinks to the table, and Claire went back for cutlery and the rest of the order. Cara sat in a regular chair and, ignoring the French fries available, started to try to dismember her pizza! I lifted it up for her and let her take a few bites off of the point, but things went better when I was able to cut it up for her. Cara ate basically the whole slice, and then she got up and, instead of wandering off, went to sit in Aunt Claire's lap. She shared her soda, too.

Our next trip through the aquarium was more leisurely. Cara showed us the frogs and the turtles, and she said "Hi" to lots of fish. We went up and down the stairs a lot. Cara did some walking, though she really preferred to be carried by you-know-who. We got to see the alligators being fed, which is very cool. Cara had just taken us to the top of the stairs, so we had a good view. They were very cute. Upstairs, we took Cara's required picture-with-her-head-sticking-through-a-hole while kids were sitting down for a touch tank demonstration. Cara loved looking out at them. There are holes to stick your fingers through, and a couple of girls played back and forth with Cara through them. In the gift shop, Claire and Cara had a long discussion about what Cara wanted. It involved the sorting of many small plastic pirates, some walking around carrying a big box, and some very unattractive squeaking plastic otters. Negotiations were inconclusive, and we left with nothing; everyone was satisfied.

Outside, Cara was willing to walk. We gave her free rein. We ended up doing some running, possibly after other kids, and then visiting a candy shop. Cara did not notice the open bins of salt water taffy, which was very fortunate. She put back all of the giant pixie sticks she took out. She liked shaking the boxes of Nerds, but she put them all back, too. She said "Hi" to a big toy doggie, and we left. On the boardwalk, Cara pointed north and said, "ounce!" She was quite emphatic. We were curious, so we headed north. She was letting me carry her, so it was okay. We went some distance, with Cara pointing ahead and saying "ounce." Eventually I mentioned George and Piglet waiting in the car, and Cara agreed to go see them. We will never figure out what "ounce" was.

We took the long, slow way back home, and Cara got her only nap of the day. At the house, we found Grandpapa watching football. We headed upstairs to leave him in peace. Soon Grandmama got home and played with Cara while we made chocolate chip cookies. Cara got to draw. Here's something neat: I was talking with someone and basically ignoring Cara. She stood by her drawing paper, saying "Cara, Cara." Her name was written on the paper. Of course, I've been writing that and all sorts of other things all day, but she's ignored them all.

Claire, Cara, and I went out to the M-HOP, Cara's favorite Middletown restaurant. I've discovered something that's perfect: Cara loves soup, and restaurants always bring it out fast. It eliminates the long wait for food in which little girls get antsy! Cara had vegetable soup and grilled cheese and some of my pancakes, upon request. She said "Hi" and "Bye" to people when it was appropriate, and she waved. She was very adorable and well-behaved.

Cara stayed awake all the way home, and then she insisted on pushing George into the house in his stroller. She was happy to see the kitties, and they were happy to see us (I presume). Cara and I played upstairs and had a nice bath and brushed our teeth and read some books and came downstairs to get Babar and read one of his stories, and then I put her down. We had a long, full, good day.

1/15/07 (Monday)

For Martin Luther King Day, I had the day off and we all stayed at home. We played around until Cara's friends the twins arrived (with their Mommy Shannon). Lina and Sarah were fun to have around. They are more verbal and more mobile, but not so much more that they were totally out of Cara's league. There were, of course, some sharing issues, but great fun was had by all. Cara seemed to refer to the twins as "kids." When they were playing with a toy she wanted, it was "No, kids!" When she was feeling friendly, it was "Hi, kid(s)!" Shannon was amazed to hear Cara talk at all, since when she is at the twins' house she is very shy and quiet. The trade-off was that at our house, the twins were too hyped up to eat their pizza. Cara on the other hand polished off her own large helping, then went downstairs to the little table where the twins' pizza was set up and started to eat some of theirs as well! (Cara also became very interested in her dried mango snacks, a food she had never wanted to eat before; but since the twins wanted them, it suddenly became important to eat as many as she could. Sigh...)

We tried putting in the Blue's Clues DVD, but nobody really paid any attention for more than one or two minutes at a time. Mostly it was running around and playing until well after noon, when the twins were dragged very much against their wills into the car and driven away. We gave Cara some quiet playtime to let her calm down from all the excitement, then it was up to bed.

Cara's nap was at least two hours and ended a little after four. Evie had an appointment so I went in to get Cara when she awoke. She was irritable and I lazily turned on the TV, but there was nothing on that interested Cara, and the sippy cup I gave her started leaking onto our laps. I was trying to cheer her up with some book-reading when her Mommy returned--this raised her spirits.

Soon enough it was dinner time, but Cara was not interested in the chicken we heated up for her--too much pizza perhaps? She did eat some fruit and innumerable goldfish crackers. Then in the evening Em stopped by with Casey and PJ (who just had to tag along when he heard Mommy was going to Cara's house), to give a very special present to Cara: soup! It was a tupperware container of leftover soup. Cara was made to understand what it was and after everyone left she yelled "Soup! Yaaaayy!" and stomped off to the kitchen. We had no choice but to sit it in front of her, where she disregarded all of her hard-learned food-eating skills and started eating the soup with her hands. She alternated between spoon and fingers until she was finally tired of this; then it was definitely time for the bath.

1/16/07 (Tuesday)

According to Susan, Cara had a weird day today. She was not herself in the morning; she was clingy and wouldn't eat. She also refused to nap, yelling for so long that Susan gave up and brought her upstairs. After nap-time, Cara was fine again. There was one other odd thing, which may also have happened in the morning. Dora was on, and there were clams involved somehow. Cara was terrified. She clung to Susan, shaking with fear! Any explanation for this must somehow involve a past life. Despite her strange day, Cara was chatty. She told PJ "No, no!" very clearly and distinctly. Like the cats at home, he doesn't have to be doing anything bad to earn a scolding. Cara was happy to see me. She seemed to be happy in part because she was sure I had only come to bring her home in order to give her goldfish crackers. "Crackers!" she would exclaim to herself in the back seat on the way home.

When we got home, it took us a few minutes to get settled. Cara requisitioned a sippy cup of water, and then she snuggled on my lap and drank it. We headed downstairs, where we spent about forty minutes reading books. We went back to our old favorites, the Berenstain bears, and we got to read my new/old favorite, Hand, Hand, Fingers Thumb. We were in the middle of Clifford when Daddy got home.

I made us a regular dinner, but for Cara I heated up a can of soup. While it cooled down she enjoyed some homemade bread from her grandmama, but when the soup came she forgot all else. Cara focused hard and spent about half an hour eating half a can of chicken noodle soup. A lot went down her front, but a lot went in. It was amusing to see her spooning up broth, dribbling it all over, and resting her other hand in the soup. The non-spoon hand is used to pick up the solid parts of the soup, of course.

When Cara gets mad at us, she has a very effective reaction. If we do something like try to make her let us brush her teeth when she doesn't want to or refuse to let her play with something she really wants, Cara walks away, generally faces a wall, puts her hands to her mouth, and whimpers. She's giving herself a time-out!

When Steve and I bought Weebalot, we had no idea how many individuals we were benefiting. The Weebles, of course, love it, but so do many others. The Weeble horses, for instance, particularly the smaller one, enjoy going down the slide and splashing in the moat. Cara's smaller baby doll is brave enough to slide. The little plastic Curious George from Cara's bath pouf loves the slide and also likes to ride around and around the tallest tower in the rotating loop. The Playmobil Mommy and Baby went to Weebalot this evening, to ride down that slide. Whee!

1/17/07 (Wednesday)

A watershed moment this A.M.: Cara called me 'grandpapa'! In the kitchen, I was fooling with something at counter level when Cara wanted to be picked up so she called 'dada' as she had done recently and then she said 'grandpapa'! I responded by picking her up.

She's having a verbal day. She's been talking up the usual storm this time she often uses recognizable words. 'puffs', 'eggs', 'monkeys', 'TV', 'George', 'Weebles', 'Buster', 'pretzel', 'fishies', 'book', 'slippers', among many other intelligible and I'm sure unintelligible words. When we were busy reading Red Fish Blue Fish, I had the sense that I wasn't reading it to her, we were reading it together. Most amusing: when carrying her Curious George monkey upstairs, Cara says 'ooh ooh ahh ahh' just like a funny little monkey!

I had to work late today, and around five thirty when I got home Cara had four pretzel sticks in her hand. Before Grandpapa left, they were gone. Grandpapa reported that today had been a big eating day. Cara ate two eggs in the morning, finished two types of soup, finished the puffs that the twins left here, finished the goldfish crackers, and had moved on to the pretzels when I got home. The Loefflers came over and we got Chinese takeout; when I asked her whether she was hungry for dinner, Cara ran upstairs! Em asked whether we'd found a soup Cara didn't like, and we promptly found one. As an experiment, we had ordered her vegetable and tofu soup. I tried it, too, and it was basically giant chunks of vegetable and tofu in broth. I've never tasted anything that was so bland--at least not from a Chinese restaurant! After I took that away, Cara polished off some lo mein and some of my wonton soup. Desperate, she spooned up the dregs of the broth from the bowl.

"No, no, PJ," said Cara. We were playing in the living room; Steve had brought down the dinosaur from Cara's room. Cara and PJ were on opposite sides of the room, doing unrelated things. She does like to discipline. They played together with the dinosaur and the roll-arounds. PJ rolled his two under the couch and then waited patiently for Cara to relax her vigilance. When she did, he took hers and rolled it under, too. Then they had to get them back out. For a few minutes it looked as if Cara was going under and PJ was supervising, but this failed. I brought out a spatula and helped. "Reach," said Cara. Again, they were playing with balls and PJ took Cara's. "No, no, PJ!" He gave it back. When it was time to say goodnight, PJ gave everyone in the room at least one high-five, carefully walking from person to person. Cara, noticing, joined in. She wasn't enthusiastic enough to get up; she just reached.

Bedtime and bath-time are nice. Cara helps us get her undressed; she can take her shirt off if we hold the ends of her sleeves so that she can get her arms out. She still loves rolling on our bed. This evening her diaper was very loose, so it fell off and she actually ran down the hallway naked. It was funny! In the bath, she got Battle Cat's head off. "Uh-oh!" He's fine now. She also likes, still, to do her swimming thing, lying down in the water and kicking, just holding her head and shoulders up with her arms. By special request, Cara is hearing the Berenstain Bears this evening.

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