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Journal Key:

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

5/17/07 (Thursday)

Cara was not wonderful at Susan's today. Thank goodness I ran into Em and she said that PJ was horrible! I feel much better. Cara painted a beautiful picture. It's flowers, but each blossom is a different-colored hand print. Susan showed the kids how to smudge the leaves, though, and Cara applied this technique to the flowers, too. This is logical but somewhat unfortunate and aesthetically unpleasing. It's still a great picture, anyway.

I asked Cara whether she wanted to take a walk. She did. Unfortunately, I asked her this on Susan's sidewalk. Cara was ready to head off, right there. She was not pleased about getting into the car. We got home fine, and Cara saw an animal in the driveway. "Chipmunk!" she announced. I thought it was a squirrel. We had to go look for it. Mysteriously, it had disappeared! "He in my sandbox," Cara concluded. After she had a brief ride on her horse and got eight bears, we got out the stroller (the actual one, not the toy) and headed out. I had to hit the florist at the My Favorite Muffin, so Cara got to ride. She loved watching everything going on. She even said "Hi, girl," to someone and got a Hi back. The bears had a good ride in the cupholders in front of Cara.

Close to home, Cara got to get out and push. First she had to run on a low, wide retaining wall. She ran back and forth and then tripped and fell harmlessly into the grass. After that I was able to talk her into going on. She pushed the stroller a good portion of the way back.

Cara helped me make dinner. It was breakfast-for-dinner night. We cracked and beat up eggs. Cara helped crack one (on her own initiative) and then put the salt in. The pepper mill is still too much for her. She helped stir. She helped mix up pancake batter, too, and she helpfully tasted some strawberries.

Her dinner was better than it has been lately. I made her special pancakes. She found a "no-man" and Mickey Mouse on her plate when she got to the table. She ate both of them and then another Mickey and finally another snow man! She also had some eggs and maybe some strawberries. Cara is very good at saying "wank you!" these days. Often, we hear "wank you very much!" She enjoyed her dinner. We are having some issues, still. She has, as PJ did several months ago, decided she wants to get out of her seat. She wants to sit with us or to run around. We were lenient about it because she has been sick. This evening, we were firm and she stayed put and ended up being perfectly happy.

Cara went out with her daddy on an errand, and then she got to go outside and ride on her horse. We convinced her to come in by telling her that her bears, who were riding in the pockets of her sweatshirt, needed a bath. They all got one. So did Cara. She had fun, too. She got to wear her hat, fake sneeze, and knock it off. "I choo my hat off!" She made me do it. She made Daddy do it. "Bless you, Daddy!" I thought that Cara was going to go to bed with eight bears in their rocket, a large plastic egg. However, I think she has gone to bed with eight bears in her hands. Much more manageable.

5/18/07 (Friday)

I got to pick up Cara from daycare today. She had made a bee, a paper bee with bubble wrap wings and pipe cleaner antennae who is stuck to a purple popsicle stick. Cara loves him. she waves him around in his stick. I asked her what bees do. "They go hive!" she cried, joyfully.

Due to some bad traffic conditions, our Friday got off to an unusually late start; Cara did not arrive here until close to 6 p.m. The minute we arrived she was eager to find her Grandpapa and ran straight into the house calling "Papa!" He lifted her in his arms and her feet kicked the air in delight.

We had time for just a little bit of painting before supper was ready. Actually, for a while Cara had a plum in one hand and a paintbrush in the other - does life get much better than this? Cara chewed on some asparagus but did not eat much of it. She had some hot dog and some bun and about half a container of yogurt. Maybe that plum filled her up.

After supper she searched the house for her favorite things - downstairs for the nesting dolls, upstairs for a "rub." In the office she spied a collection of pens on George's desk, and they became her heart's delight for the remainder of the visit. She drew with them a little, but primarily she wanted to hold them at all times. She got into the bath quite happily and helpfully, having tossed in all the toys, including the bears - they float! - but soon began crying for something. Even though she was clearly saying, "My pens!" the pens were so far from my mind that I asked, "your pants?" Fortunately I was able to divert her by handing her a bar of soap; it's slippery, it keeps getting away from her, and it tickles. It was only as the bath ended and she made her weekly transformation to kitty cat that I finally realized what she wanted, and asked Grandpapa to fetch them so a little girl could hold still long enough to be diapered and dressed. She held them while we read Ride a Purple Pelican - thanks so much to Mommy for sending it along - and 5 Little Monkeys and some Winnie the Pooh. Then I suggested that the pens could sleep in a box, and Cara agreeably put them to bed there. She herself was tucked in along with the Big Dog, Puma, Mickey, Minnie, Donald and the 5 blue bears.

5/19/07 (Saturday)

At about 4:30 I leaped from my bed. Perhaps I had imagined a noise. I listened - Cara was crying! Downstairs I went and lifted her up - "What is the matter?" "My Pe-e-ens!" Did they need to sleep with her? They did. We retrieved them. Then we had to verify the presence of all 5 bears; one had slid under the mattress, but we found him. By then the Schmutz was demanding release, so we let him out. This allowed Cara to look outside and see for herself that, as I had been telling her, it was still night time. When all these needs had been satisfied, that tired little girl went back to sleep with her pens in her hands.

This morning Cara was kvetchy; there is no other word for it. At every moment she seemed to want something desperately, urgently, and as soon as that need was met (or denied) she wanted something else. She had no appetite, nor any patience for breakfast, though she did eat most of a slice of toast while held in my arms. She did say "I want my daddymommy." That was pronounced as one word, as I have written it. So we sent her home as quickly as we could, to everyone's satisfaction, I hope.

We were happy to see our little girl at home. We played bears and watched some TV and snuggled (not for long!) and played all over, inside and out. Cara was still kind of clingy and needy. Actually, lately she's beem kind of wanting her mommy more and more. She even wanted me to read her to bed one night! It's nice. I ended up carrying her all over today. I read her a book in which some monkeys play hide-and-seek. I asked Cara whether she wanted to play, and she did. I covered my eyes and counted, hearing her run off to her closet. At five, I opened my eyes and Cara ran gleefully back to me. Next she counted and I hid. I went to the office. She ran past the door, but then she came back and found me. After that it all fell apart. I went to hide behind my bedroom door and Cara followed me, with her hands over her eyes, counting.

A little bit after ten we were inside reading books and she was saying, "Oh, Mommy!" in a certain way she has and I thought, that's strange, she usually only does that when she's sick. So I felt her neck and her forehead. Yep. No wonder she was so delicate.

We gave her some medicine for her fever, which was never really high. We snuggled in front of the TV, which was fine for a while. Then she would get up and want to play. That's pretty much how the day went. We cuddled and played. Once in a while Cara said, "Oh, Mommy!"

After lunch Cara was very perky. She wanted to run and play. I picked her up and took her upstairs. I changed her. She was not particularly happy. I put her down. She rolled onto her side. I gave her puma; she had some bears already, of course. I put her blanket over her. I peeked back in in a little while. She had fallen asleep right there, under the blanket, without shifting at all. I've never seen her do that before.

Cara and the cats are working on their relationship. Every time one of them makes an advance, the other misunderstands it. Shelby rubbed against Cara this morning, and Cara jumped back in alarm. When Cara wants to pet the cats, they run away. This may be because she still tends to shriek at them. Some of her overtures are just absurd. She found a kitty toy and decided that Shelby should play with it. She chased Shelby across the room to the bay window and then climbed up after her, trying to get her to play. When Shelby jumped down, Cara threw the toy, a relatively heavy one, after her. Later in the evening, she found a basket of plastic eggs and decided we would put them on our eyes. She climbed up the the window again, "I brought egg-eyes you, Buster! I brought egg-eyes you." Unfortunately, at just that moment, Buster had to leave.

We got Chinese food for dinner. While we were waiting, Cara got up from the couch. "Someone at door," she said. Neither of us had heard anything. She walked me downstairs, talking about PJ and Em coming over, and I saw that the deliveryman was just getting out of his car. She is clearly psychic. Cara did a great job on her wonton soup. She likes it with crunchy noodles in it. She didn't even get her sweater wet.

We had plenty of time to play after dinner. Our favorite toy of the day has been the bears. We have sorted them and counted them and stood them up and sent them down slides. It's really a great test of Cara's dexterity to play with other things while holding up to five bears in each hand! When it was time I ran her bath. Cara came upstairs and ran to the tub. Into it she flung about seven bears. She turned and ran off again, heading downstairs to get more. It was a successful mission; she bathed with more bears than she could possibly hold. She came out of the tub holding them all in a plastic container intended for rinsing her. We tried to get her to put some down or just to take a few special ones to sleep with, but we failed. Having read about last night, I think it's probably good that we didn't push it. Steve'll have to explain how he got her into bed.

Cara and I read Ride a Purple Pelican. After (I believe) every poem in the book, Cara commented by saying, "Oh, Daddy." We read one or two more books before it was time to go to sleep. Of course the bears also had to go to sleep. It was unclear how this would be accomplished, since there were so many that Cara could not possibly hold them all in her hands at one time, and it just seemed absurd to take the wonton soup container full of bears into bed. The system we eventually developed somehow was this: Cara would take a fist full of bears out of the container and hand them to me. I would reach my bear-laden hand through the slats in the crib and dump my load onto the matress. It took quite a few loads, but they all made it, and then Cara got in with them and had to try to pick them all up again. In the end, I placed two yellow bears by her head, so that she could see them.

5/20/07 (Sunday)

The day started early and bear-full. Cara was eager to get downstairs and play, mainly with her bears. She was not interested in the TV, so Mommy and Daddy didn't get to read the paper much. She didn't even want to spend much time eating the pancakes I made. One interesting thing: Cara and Steve were downstairs playing, and the TV was on up here. Steve could hear the general buzz of its operation. Suddenly, Cara cried, "Neinsteins!" and ran up the stairs. Sure enough, the Little Einsteins were coming on. I don't think we need to worry about her hearing.

Later, she and I were down in the basement. She was digging toys out of the big tub we've stuck them in, and she pulled out her old bear puppet. I explained what he was and put him on. I made him talk and she gave him a hug when he asked for it. She also found her old horsie pull-toy, the little plush one. She put him down and said, "You ride it!" It took a second for me to realize that she was not talking to me. It was awkward, but the bear puppet rode the horsie while Cara pulled it. Then it was Cara's turn. She sat on the horsie, which is all of six inches tall, and wanted the puppet to pull her. It did not go well.

We went to see Cara's grandparents today. She fell asleep in the car for the final twenty minutes of the trip, but she was happy when she woke up to see Grandpa Jim and Grandma Janet. We played hard! We got out all of the matchbox cars and a lot of the little people. We got out the barn. Cara's favorite thing, though, was playing Play-doh. She was allowed to sit at the table like a big girl, and our equipment was far superior to what we have at home. Grandma rolled out the clay and used her collection of cookie cutters. Soon Cara had an elephant, a heart, a star, and a bunny smushed in her hand. We decorated some of them and generally had a great time.

Outside, we played bubbles. Cara has a disturbing propensity for putting the wrong end of things into her mouth or dipping the mouth end into the soap. Not once did she seem upset by the taste. She let us play with the novelty toys while she carried around all of the plain bubble wands. She clutched them in her hands and was very upset about the idea of sharing them. We're really hoping that this is a phase.

One great thing after another seems to emerge from Janet's stock of toys. She has two Playmobil sets: cowboys and Indians! There are about twelve people and at least nine horses. There is a teepee and a fence for the cow, bull, and calf. There are cookpots and coffee mugs. I chose the cowboy all in black and decided he was the cook. He held the coffee pot. Steve, I have to admit and he is welcome to edit me, got weird and had strange characters doing strange things. He would do something odd and then we'd look over at Cara, who, oblivious, was tasting the soup from the tiny cookpot in her tiny mug.

As the afternoon wore away, Cara, tired, got very sensitive. She wanted passionately to play Play-doh again, so we did. This time we didn't use the cookie cutters, we just modeled with our hands. My in-laws have introduced me to the innovation of using blunt kitchen implements to detail our creations. Janet modeled a lot of vegetables, so I, having a lump of purple, rolled a lot of tiny balls and made a bunch of grapes. It's my greatest creation yet! Someone made a guy and we stood him up and propped a giant carrot on him, and he slowly fell over. Cara was devastated; there were real tears and she needed to be held and comforted. She was tired. It was time to get into the car soon.

She was better, getting home, than she usually is after sleeping in the car. Daddy made quesadillas and we had a nice dinner. Just as Cara and I were done, PJ and Em came over to borrow our stroller. (They have an unmanageable twin stroller and a regular stroller for Casey; it's hard to take both kids for a walk.) I put Cara down in the kitchen. PJ came up the stairs. They saw each other. They were happy. Cara went over to PJ, opened her arms, bent over, and hugged him! It was astonishing. I'm not sure he noticed.

Cara wanted, then, to go for a walk with PJ. We got her shoes and jacket on, and I went and got the jogging stroller from the shed. Off we went. We caught up with Ron and Em on Silver Lake, where they were stopped to talk to a former neighbor. Seeing each other, Cara and PJ bounced in their strollers and then started a shrieking contest. This lasted, off and on, for the whole ride. It was a happy shrieking contest. It was great to get out and walk around; we may make a routine of this. The only problem is that the jogging stroller is very hard to turn! My shoulders may be sore.

It was after seven thirty when I got Cara home and we started our bedtime routine.

5/21/07 (Monday)

When I arrived to pick up Cara today, I brought Aunt Claire! I could see Cara thinking hard as she charged down the walk to us; she went right to Claire. This was just as well, because it meant I could pick up PJ. Soon, Cara was jealous and wanted her mommy. PJ and Avery started doing something rather odd as we were leaving. They put their hands down on the sidewalk and dangled their heads, sticking their tushies up in the air. They were trying to stand on their heads. I recognized this because yesterday Steve turned some Playmobil figures upside down. I asked Cara whether she could stand on her head. When we followed her into the other room, there she was, upside-down. I helped by picking up her feet for her.

I had thought that the three of us could go to the park today, but Cara wanted her bears. We came home. Cara gave a really wonderful bear demonstration for Claire. She gave me my green cup and let Claire have the yellow. Then we all spilled them and picked them back up. Claire made a pattern of bears in different colors, and Cara was very intrigued. She could not quite master the system, but she was ready to line them up. Then she carefully and quickly sorted them back into their cups. At one point, she actually counted the blue bears correctly, one through ten!

While I was outside talking to a neighbor, Cara got out a pad of drawing paper. She wanted pens to draw with. Either they did not notice the crayons or Cara rejected them. Cara led Claire on a search of the house. They looked in Mommy's bedroom, behind the mirror. They looked upstairs and down. They found a generous handful of pens and pencils in a mug in the kitchen, and they brought them outside to draw at Cara's picnic table.

When we saw PJ, we had to go visit him. We brought our chalk. After I had traced both kids, Claire and I drew a simple hopscotch board, just five boxes in a row. The two kids, who both love hopping on any chalk drawing, were wonderful hopscotchers. PJ did some good jumping and even went into all the boxes. Cara jumped at first and then degenerated into forceful walking, saying, "hop, hop, hop!"

Once in a while, as they played, Cara would come to us, upset. "PJ said no me," she explained on more than one occasion. This, I think, is what Susan is trying to teach her: she is verbalizing what upsets her. Susan gives her suggestions for responses to PJ in those situations. That will be the next step.

I made pasta with cheese for dinner, and Cara and Claire played with Play-doh. When we first got it, I would get out only two or three colors. Lately, we have ended up with the whole set on the table, which is a great temptation. Yesterday I made her just pick three, and she was very upset. Today she picked three but then said that Claire needed another one. She gets credit for creativity. Claire made a rabbit that wins for Best Animal Made for Cara. There were also some people, a butterfly, and an alligator. Cara frequently thought she heard her daddy coming home, but he was stuck in traffic and ran late. She was happy when he arrived, and we all had a good dinner.

We walked again. Cara and PJ enjoyed constant stroller-side puff delivery. Casey was tired and crying, so Em carried her. Cara decided she wanted to ride in Casey's umbrella stroller, so we moved her over. She was happy the whole way home.

In the tub, Cara put the soup container over her foot or hand. It was a puppet. "Hi, I hand," it would say.

5/22/07 (Tuesday)

Cara ran to me when I arrived at Susan's. I picked her up and, as I walked over to the group, she said, "That Susan! That PJ! Casey! I f'end! I Tawa." I mentioned to Susan how pleased I was with Cara's skills in articulating what upsets her. Susan said that one incident that Cara was eager to report to her was "Casey hurt me!" (She's very apt, in general, to report very minor "injuries" lately. I think the novelty will wear off.) Cara made a necklace of yarn and a cardboard medallion. On one side are tiger stripes. Cara was the only child to correctly identify the animal whose pelt was represented on the other side: a giraffe.

At home we played bears. Cara gave me my cup of green bears; she likes carrying all four other cups around herself. She brought them into the game room and we sat down to play. "Buster eat you bears!" Buster was looking at us from the doorway. I told Buster not to eat my bears. "Buster eat my bears!" I suggested that Cara close the door, but then I said that she could tell Buster not to eat her bears. It turned out that she was trying to tell Buster to eat her bears, please. She carried all four cups out into the playroom after Buster and tried to climb up to the window with them. The bears all fell out. Cara decided she wanted to go play chalk with PJ, who was of course not home yet. She got the chalk and headed to the door. I said we had to clean up the bears first. She got her hat. I said we had to clean up the bears first. She went into the game room and came back out. I said we had to clean up the bears first. She came over to me. "I want go out! Play chalk with PJ!" I picked up the red bears. This primed the pump, so Cara picked up the blue and purple. She told me to clean up the yellow. I talked her into doing it with me.

Outside, I got her to draw on our driveway for a while. I drew flowers and she jumped on them. Soon, though, she wanted to "draw over there!" She took off for Ron. I called ahead to tell her she had to hold my hand to cross the street, and she stopped and waited for me! That's progress. In PJ's driveway, I traced Cara and drew a face on her, which charmed her. She got to ride PJ's scooter, because he was not home yet. She cannot actually move the scooter by herself, though PJ can go all the way down the sidewalk. She is enthusiastic about using it anyway. When PJ came home, he joined in the chalk fun. His two new hobbies are spilling out all the chalk and stepping on it and rolling it under Daddy's truck. Cara, meanwhile, is getting better about cleaning things up (I give credit to the bears) and takes the bucket to gather chalk. Cara wanted me to lie down and be traced, but, forgive me, I was wearing my work clothes and was too prissy. I let them trace my foot, which they both did with glee.

Daddy got home soon and we had a great time playing Play-doh before dinner. Steve made two dinosaurs, and we made them talk to Cara. She really knows when we're using funny voices that it's the toys talking. She and my dinosaur, which she seemed to call "saurus," agree that he was green and that they were friends. Then they had a very nice hug and maybe a kiss. Cara had the dinosaurs sleep in the different compartments on her high chair tray. She took charge of them both and made them kiss. Then she pulled the legs and head off of the purple one.

Dinner was good. I heated up a quesadilla for Cara and made corn for everyone. She is not bad about sitting down when we tell her to, which is a relief. She does finish before us and want us to go play with her. I'm not sure that real tears were shed, but much wailing was done.

Our evening walk is becoming a routine. This evening we got a late start and just went around the block a few times. We had to stop periodically because we have made the mistake of bringing snacks for the kids. They often need refills, and tonight we had no extra adult to deliver while we walk. Cara also made a poor decision. She wanted to ride in Casey's stroller again. We let her, and Casey got to go in the jogging stroller. The umbrella stroller, however, has no cup holder or snack tray. This was a problem.

When Cara was in the bath, I lay on the floor in the hallway and petted Buster. Cara saw Buster jump over my legs, which she loved. As we took her out, she requested that someone jump over her legs. I jumped over her several times in the pajama process. Then she wanted to jump over me. I lay down and Daddy came to help. Cara "jumped" over me. She ran around again. She "jumped." We repeated this a few times. I don't see why we would need to pay big bucks to let her go on rides at amusement parks, when we can jump over Mommy at home for free. Then she seemed to say she wanted a ride. I was ready to give her one on my legs, but it turned out she wanted to slide. She stepped up on my stomach and was ready to climb atop my knees. Steve mercifully picked her up and "slid" her down from my knees to my feet. Several times.

5/23/07 (Wednesday)

Cara had a "smiley day" at Susan's. She made a picture of a flamingo, with real pink feathers and pipe-cleaner legs. While I was holding her, PJ walked between my legs several times, to Cara's great amusement. Susan says that they are learning to play together. They are starting to see, for instance, that if they keep going one after the other, they can both use the slide at once. They also sat at the little picnic table and played with the cups and saucers.

We stopped at the grocery store on the way home, where I finally found a new tube of Cara's toothpaste. I've looked in two other grocery stores and a pharmacy, and Steve even went to the grocery store up near his office, searching for it. We remember that once we tried giving her a different brand, which she rejected outright. Today, of course, I was delighted to find the right kind, and Cara got excited about seeing the character, Little Bear, who is printed on the tubes of the Other Toothpaste. I had to carry her through most of the store, except for a few moments when she got down to "carry" the basket. At the self check-out, though, she stood where I told her to and then followed me out of the store. The old helicopter ride has been replaced by a beautiful horse which, I was informed, is not working. We don't need them to work. Horses, however, are not as exciting as helicopters.

At home, we went inside to explore and play. In the living room, Cara completed an entire number puzzle, from one to ten. I asked her to put in the one and went away; when I came back, it was in! This may just have been a coincidence, because she didn't do as well with reading the other letters. Downstairs, after a search for her little baby doll, Cara got out her old textured animal books, which have pull-out animal shapes. She removed the sea life shapes and wanted to stick the star to the sky. We headed for PJ's, discussing who would get to play with what. PJ could have the star. Casey could have the crab. Cara would have sea horse. When Cara saw that Juliana was over there, our priorities changed. Juliana could have the star. (She came home from the hospital yesterday, and she gave Cara her three hospital bracelets, which, taped back together, Cara has been wearing around the house.)

Cara has been asking for days to go into PJ's back yard, and tonight she finally got there. Everyone got a turn in the swing. Cara put her hand into the pool. PJ and Cara are learning to seesaw. Everyone went down the slide. For dinner Cara ate two hot dogs and some pieces of another in addition to some pasta and a bun. She and PJ went downstairs, and soon Ron called me to come see. For the first time, Cara got herself onto the pool table! There's a bucket in place for climbing, but it's still a feat. They had a ball (ha-ha) until they started, possibly because Cara started by accident, throwing balls on the floor. Then it was no more pool.

Our walks are great for us, but Cara does not like being in the stroller so long. She wants to be out running around. I'm not sure what we'll do. She did have fun. We walked through Em's old neighborhood, so Cara saw Em waving at people. Cara waved, too. She was very excited to see a friend whom we all met at New Year's. She was also excited to meet the woman's two fluffy white dogs. She waved and talked to them. She offered one her star. We got her to bed nice and late tonight, too.

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