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Journal Key:

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

6/28/07 (Thursday)

I have been keeping up the habit of putting sunscreen on Cara in the mornings while I get her dressed. She likes it; she tells me where she needs it. I'll start with one leg, and she's telling me she needs some on the other. She saw the bottle this evening and I had to give her more. I also hit upon a great tactic today. I tell her I want to brush my teeth, and, guess what? Cara wants to brush hers, too.

Despite being tired this morning, Cara made a project. It is a fly. I confess that I was unable to guess. Frogs eat flies. Cara knew that while we were at Susan's, but a few hours later she was mixed up. What do frogs eat? Tadpoles! Ooooh.

We got out a lot of toys. Cara pulled out her doctor's bag and dumped it. I discovered that several stuffed animals, including George, were sick. Cara put on her stethoscope, which she hangs around her neck. "I go bum bum on him," she told me. I agreed, but I didn't know what she was talking about. Then she put the end of the stethoscope on his chest and said, "bum bum." Then he was all better. Some animals got medicine, which they liked. Then we were witnesses of a happy family reunion. Cara has two George toys, the big one who giggles when he's tickled and a little one who wears a shirt and cap. It turns out that they are father and son.

Desperate to cook dinner while keeping Cara amused, I was carrying books upstairs for her when I remembered a trick. I got out the Play-doh! Cara sat happily in her high chair while I got things started, and then while the water boiled I made her two octopi. She was very happy and gave them a hat to share, and then she pulled off a few limbs and then mashed the rest of the bodies beyond recognition.

Cara has been very snuggly lately. I keep getting hugged around the legs, and I can almost always get a hug when I ask for one. Reading books or watching TV, she cuddles right up. It's lovely.

6/29/07 (Friday)

Cara and I had a productive morning. First, she used the potty while I sunscreened her. Then we both brushed our teeth. While she watched TV, I brushed her hair and then put it up! I found the tiny rubber bands and gave her doodlebops again. They pretty much stick straight out; it's adorable! She was very good about letting me do it, and I put tiny butterfly clips over the rubber bands. I didn't expect those to last the day, but somehow they made it. I dropped her off at Susan's with her overnight bag, because Grandmama was picking her up.

At Susan's, as we prepared to leave, PJ happened to pick up Puma. Cara said firmly, "PJ, that mine. I need it," demonstrating outstanding assertiveness skills. It was effective too; Puma was promptly returned and no tears were shed.

At home we went directly to the playground; Grandpapa came too! There was a friendly 5-year-old named Amanda who held Cara's hand as she traversed the wobbly bridge - not that Cara needs that assistance any more. The slides were not very slick, probably because of the recent rain. Eventually Cara tumbled on her way down; she didn't fall off the slide, but she was scared and she cried hard. I held her until she could be distracted by the idea of her ball traveling down the slide.

GiGi came for supper - actually she brought the entree, a lovely salmon fillet. Cara was too hungry to wait and had her hot dogs and the bun (separately) before the rest of us sat down. She munched on raw snow peas before they were cooked, but had none of the cooked ones.

After dinner we caught Curious George on TV and then had another joyful bath with the froggies. Cara kept adding toys - soon the tub was highly populated. She worked a lot with the watering can, and at one point she inadvertently watered me - oh well. Then, of course, she became a kitty cat; by wonderful good fortune, she also had kitty-cat pajamas! Bedtime involved the usual assortment of delightful delaying tactics; we read Grumpy BIRD. She needed water, and she needed more water; finally she did what I always do - she kissed her toys and tucked them in, and then I kissed her and tucked her in.

6/30/07 (Saturday)

That good little girl slept the whole night through and woke up happy. She had time to paint a picture before breakfast. As we got her ready to go home, I asked what Mommy and Daddy might be having for breakfast - eggs and toast? "No," said Cara firmly, shaking her head. What then? "Donuts!" she pronounced. And away she went happily to be reunited with her loving parents.

Mysteriously, all the donuts had disappeared by the time Cara got here. There was no sign of them at all; in fact, it looked as if Mommy and Daddy had had bagels. I asked Cara where the donuts were. "Daddy take them."

Cara helped me put away the tupperware, and I made the mistake of showing her her new Wiggles bowl. It was nine in the morning. She wanted soup. We distracted her, but later she reiterated her request. Eventually I gave her some yogurt in her bowl; that made her happy.

We went over to PJ's house, but Cara just wanted to cling to Mommy or Daddy. She was not a happy little girl. When Daddy left to run to the post office, she burst into real tears! ("My daddy go work!") She hadn't been particularly interested in playing outside, which seemed strange, and now this neediness and her overly dramatic reactions to things made me suspicious. Around 11:40 we took her home and made her some leftover pasta. She fed herself some, but she wanted to be fed. Even that wasn't enough; soon she was just crying as I held out the fork. She got down and suddenly cheered up, but I caught her and hauled her upstairs. I tried to read her a book, but she was too hysterical. I put her down with puma and put the blanket over her. She wailed for another thirty seconds, and then she slept, without moving, for the next three hours. She was absolutely exhausted!

Everything was much better when Cara woke up. She used the potty like a big girl, and then we played in her room. Tigger and Pooh were out of the crib, and she sat with them on her Elmo couch. "Pooh, do you know where you honey is?" The conversation went on and on! "Tiggers DON'T like honey!" Once or twice she said, "You sit wif me right here," pointing at the couch beside her, and I thought she meant me. No. It was Pooh. He ate his honey with great enthusiasm, the designated bowl covering his whole nose. It was a while before he had had enough and we headed downstairs.

The three of us went outside to play with the sand table. Soon, we were joined by PJ and Casey, over for date night! Cara had to run to meet them. Immediately PJ insisted that he had pooped. I took him and Casey upstairs to discover that he had done nothing. He did get to sit, with great excitement, on "Dara's potty." Back outside, all three kids had a blast with the sand (and water) table. At least half the sand is now in the water side, and everyone needed a new shirt.

When water and sand started to make us cranky, we headed down the stairs to the back yard, where we could play basketball! PJ was thrilled. We had out plenty of balls, so while Casey tried to climb the slide PJ and Cara could take turns shooting hoops. Cara can dunk. PJ has to do a kind of lay-up. Cara can dunk, but she doesn't. First she sticks her hand up through the net. Then she stares for a while. Eventually she will put her ball through. This is frustrating for anyone waiting for the next turn. In a few minutes Cara was sitting in our sling chair. PJ became anxious. He wanted to know whether Dara would play basketball with him. Emphasizing the final three words by holding out her hand as if she were directing traffic, Cara told him, "PJ, I don't like basketball!"

Dinner was very freeform, with people wandering about here and there, sometimes with food in their hands. Everyone ate something, which is what counts. PJ enjoyed some strawberries. He would come into the kitchen for more and then run out, and I got to observe his running technique. He doesn't just start, he revs up. He kind of bends over, arms at his sides, and puts his arms back, then shoots them forward as he takes off.

Cara got out her little ponies, and PJ picked up the tiny ice cream cones. He and Cara elaborately pretended to eat them, each managing to get one further into his or her mouth than we would have liked. It was a natural progression for us to go outside for real ice cream cones. "Ice cream cone! Go see Juliana!" cried Cara. Alas, this evening she could not. Juliana just got out of the hospital today, having had surgery on Thursday. We went to our own back yard.

I think we went through nine ice cream cones. Casey got to eat a few plain, and she broke one or two. PJ got and rejected a flat one, then got and rejected a pointy one. Cara, for what I believe to be the first time, actually finished one! She also washed her sticky hands in the water table. We had moved upstairs, and I went back to get Casey another. Well, Cara wanted another. If she got one, PJ wanted one. They didn't want them dry, they needed ice cream. Somehow, I ended up going back inside the house, because we had put away the ice cream, to get refills for those conniving kids! Cara had one and a half ice cream cones. Everyone was tired and sticky when Em arrived.

When Steve took Cara upstairs to get ready for her bath, she told him she needed to poop. He got her onto the potty, and she said, "One, two, three, poop!" Surprisingly, nothing happened. Now, after our usual bedtime fun, she's tucked away safely in her own bed.

7/1/07 (Sunday)

I forgot to mention that yesterday, after she peed, Cara was allowed to wear pull-ups, which have Dora and Boots on them. It was thrilling. She did not want to put her shorts back on. We were sitting around upstairs when Cara noticed something. "I hear noise. Coming from my diaper." She pointed. Yes, I told her, you . . . passed gas. I couldn't bring myself to use the word fart. I guess she's never noticed before.

Another thing that started yesterday was Cara's frequent use of the word "see." It seems that every five minutes, there's something else. "I have froggies, see?" "They go down slide, see?"

Cara slept fairly late today; when I went in to get her, around eight, she told me her daddy had gone to work. She was delighted to see that she was wrong! We had a fairly uneventful morning. Cara and her daddy shared a couple of bananas, and then everyone had bread pudding. Cara had hers in her Wiggles bowl. I'm very glad I bought that bowl!

Since we had no plans for the day, we decided to go down to the zoo. When we'd discussed it yesterday, Steve had been very careful to spell out Z-O-O. That was silly, I thought. I usually don't use that word to her, so it would be fine. I usually ask her whether she wants to see animals. Today, when we were almost ready to go, I asked Cara whether she wanted to go to the zoo. "Yes; we go get shoes on! Daddy, get you shoes on!" She ran off.

Even though it was just about nap time, she stayed awake in the car. As we got off the highway, she spotted the fence. "The zoo! There zoo, Mommy!" How did she even recognize it? It took us a while to park, because we had to go to a satellite lot in a nearby park. It was almost one in the afternoon. Cara, in the back seat, was singing about going to the zoo. "We going to zoo, zoo, zoo!" After waiting a few minutes for a shuttle bus that was not forthcoming, we walked, carrying our tired little girl.

For the first time ever, we rented a stroller. Cara was just not willing to walk a step, and we were not willing to carry her through the entire place. Fortunately, she was very happy in her new ride. We saw some monkeys and some giant tortoises, the hippos and some Scottish cattle. We saw the elephants. We saw the big cats. Cara clapped during the movie. We were all, though, basically dragging ourselves. Whose idea had this been? Fortunately, we had both thought of it.

Steve got on line to buy us lunch, and Cara and I went off to sightsee while we waited for him. Waiting isn't boring if you think you're doing things. We looked at the swan boats. Cara was excited about them, but, fortunately, she did not want to go out on one. We checked on Daddy. No progress. We went off in another direction. We looked at some monkeys. Cara liked them, but she was not particularly happy. I had to find something new.

Did she want her face painted? I did not expect her to say yes, but of course she did. We went over, and there was really no line. One person was ahead of us. Cara wanted pink. She wanted green. I showed her the sign and asked her, did she want to be a pink bunny? No. A little mouse? No. None of my suggestions met with enthusiasm. It was our turn. I really did not think this would work. I popped her up on the stool and told the girl I thought a butterfly would be a good idea, and Cara wanted pink and green. I was waiting for the squirming and screaming to start, for "No, Mommy, no, no, no!"

The girl agreed that a butterfly would be good. She picked up her paintbrush. She told Cara to tilt her chin up, and she did. She brushed Cara's bangs back and held them. I hovered, ready for panic. The wet paintbrush touched Cara's face. The girl painted a pink butterfly, with some pale green highlights. Cara also selected blue, looking at the color palette and pointing out what she wanted. In a few minutes, some glitter was added, Cara got to see the mirror, and we were done! I was astonished. We headed back to surprise Daddy.

After lunch we went to the treehouse. Our little girl, who had not been willing to walk a step without trying to be picked up an hour before, was immediately ready to run around! It is wonderful to do things with Cara every few months, to see how she is changing. The first thing she headed for was the big dinosaur. She tried to climb him and even got to sit on his neck. Another favorite activity was sliding down his tail. Her friend the caterpillar was still there. He has been moved to a corner, though, suspiciously near a garbage can. She still loves him and immediately hopped onto his back.

She climbed into the honeycombs on her own. She looked into several eggs, but she did not climb in. She finally (I've been waiting) crawled through and climbed onto the frogs' eggs. I did explain what they were, given her recent studies at Susan's. She crawled through the hollow log, though first Daddy had to explain that it was not a slide. She was ready to scoot down on her tushie. We got pictures of her again in the big flower. I tried sitting in there with her, but she would have none of it. "No, no, Mommy! You get out!"

We asked her whether she remembers where the slides are. She does. She went around and around and around on the one that's built like a beaver dam. She also remembers the one that's hidden in the tree roots. She and I got to run around together. We went up the tree. Basically, this means Cara walked up a few flights of stairs. Then she walked down. Then down the slide. Then we walked up again. Going down the second time, she got creative. She was holding the railing on one side and my hand on the other, so she jumped. I'd say she jumped down about 75% of those stairs, one at a time.

While we were out in the zoo, as I've said, Cara would barely walk. She spent her time trying to get in front of us so we'd have to carry her. In the treehouse, she didn't just walk. She did this funny marching/skipping thing every few steps, out of sheer joy.

After that, Cara was exhausted. She rode the rest of the way out of the zoo. The only place we took her out of the stroller was the children's zoo, where she petted a goat. We caught a shuttle back to the car, and Cara sat in my lap (after the huge crowds of people got out and we got seats instead of having to stand in the aisle holding a 30-pound child). She was very cuddly, and she rubbed her face on my shirt, just like she used to do when she was tiny and tired. Of course, then I got no glitter out of it. She was asleep in the car before we were all the way out of the lot.

After dinner, I got a damp paper towel and tried her butterfly. It came off easily. I got her whole face clean. A few minutes later, she was in our bedroom. I heard her say, "I butterfly girl. I go see." Then the shriek. She threw herself down on her face. I had to take her downstairs to show her the pictures again. After I got her out of the tub, she told me, "The lady painted on me. A butterfly." I think she liked it.

7/2/07 (Monday)

It was my first regular summer day home with Cara. She has been singing all day, mainly about going to the zoo. She is ready to go again at a moment's notice. When we do other things, she adapts the lyrics of her zoo song. She has also rendered "If You're Happy and You Know It" and the alphabet, mainly the end. Mixed in, I'm fairly sure I heard "Twinkle, Twinkle" and other nursery favorites.

I am, again, very glad I bought that Wiggles bowl. Cara wanted bread pudding in it for breakfast. I got out another bowl to use in the microwave, because I'm treating the silly plastic Wiggles bowl like porcelain. Seeing me with a plain bowl, Cara was horrified. "NO, my bowl!"

We went out to do some errands. I was thinking ahead. Cara is missing art projects by not being at Susan's three days a week, so perhaps I should do some with her. At Target, we found a kit that would let us build animals! It had foam pieces, pompoms, googly eyes, and pipe cleaners. Cara loved it very, very much. She held it in her arms as we made our way through the store. Our next stop was the pet store, to which we walked. We dropped our stuff off in the car first, and Cara absolutely wailed at being parted from her animal kit. The same thing happened when we got out of the car again at Walmart, where we had to pick up the prints I had ordered. Given a choice of going home and going to the book store to play with trains, Cara elected to go home.

The whole way, she was talking about it. I was going to have to open it. With scissors. She carried it into the house and handed it to me. Yes, I agreed, I would need scissors. As I'm sure my readers have predicted, the kit did not live up to its promise. It clearly shows 3D animals in the pictures, but 85% of the pieces are foam stickers. I ended up getting out construction paper and drawing a backdrop. I let Cara color it in. The trees are pink. Then we made an elephant. Cara placed him in the tree. I stuck some stickers, but she applied most. Finally, I let her put on a dot of glue and stick his eyes on. Ready for more adventure, we started a second elephant. He is in the other tree. We started to run out of the shapes we needed and Cara started to run out of interest, so he is a half-done elephant. Cara played Play-doh while I made lunch. She even got some through the extruder!

I have begun a new parenting campaign. Life will be better for everyone when Cara is willing to walk on her own! In parking lots, I am certainly willing to carry her. However, she wants to be carried everywhere! I started by not carrying her in the pet store. Sometimes this was fine, but there was also a lot of whining. In fact, in the aquarium section, she tried falling flat on her face. When I didn't react, she got up and followed me.

After Cara's nap, we went to Johnson Park. It was an idyllic afternoon! First, Cara spent literally more than half an hour on the swings. We out-swung several other kids. Cara was very happy. Toward the end, there was another little girl about Cara's size on. She took off her shoes. Cara wanted her shoes off. The little girl's mommy said "whoosh!" as she pushed her. I had to say "whoosh." The little girl's mommy caught her by the feet and pulled her. I had to catch Cara by the feet.

Next we walked over to the far playground, bypassing the slides where we'd been swinging. I was glad; I like the far playground. On the way, we looked down into the stream and saw water bugs skimming around. Cara walked from the stream to the playground. She had a ball. She went down all the slides, again and again. She climbed the stairs, she climbed the ladder. It took a while before she noticed the curved ladder. I used to climb up them behind her, with my arm around her middle. Now, she walks up without hesitation. She even began holding onto the side rails instead of the rungs, which makes it even easier! We went and ran in the gazebo, and then finally Cara was done. I told her that if she walked to the stream, I'd carry her the rest of the way.

At the stream we saw those bugs again, and then we saw birds, downstream, taking a bath! That was cool! I stopped at the car for some money, and we got a small cherry Italian ice at the snack bar by the animals. We sat on a bench and shared. Afterwards we discovered that my tongue had turned very red, but Cara's had not. We had to go see the goats before we left. We found leaves on the ground and fed a few of them. It was quite late when we were ready to go home.

It was after 5:30 when we got back in the car, and I had been planning on hitting the grocery store before going home. I hadn't actually worked out what I was getting or anything. Now I wasn't sure what to do for dinner. I asked Cara what she wanted. Soup. Well. At home, Cara helped me take out the recycling. She had a banana. ("I need manna. In my mouf.") When Daddy got home, we all set off for Panera, the perfect place for dinner, where Mommy could have a salad and Cara could have soup.

In the car, I tried to warn Cara about how hot her soup might be. When we had our food and were situated at our table, She was upset about not having it right in front of her. Steve and I were trying to placate her and suggest alternatives, when Cara said, "Dip bread in it?" Of course! She solved the problem and happily ate bread dipped in broccoli soup until it was cool enough to attack with a spoon. We were remembering the last time we took her to Panera for soup. We had to clean the table, chair, and floor. I held the bib upside-down over the trash to let the pocket drain. Today, there was almost no mess. Cara washed her hands, and all was well.

7/3/07 (Tuesday)

In the wee hours of the morning, when Cara is usually still sound asleep, PJ is hard at work at being two. His favorite thing in the world is the garbage truck. He can hear it blocks away, and he yells, "Barbage! Barbage!" so that everyone else knows it's coming. He usually stands at the front door to watch it lift the big trash cans in its mechanical arms. Often, the garbage man will wave and honk his horn. Lately, he and his happy family have been sitting out on the front steps to watch. Today, a life-changing event occurred. The garbage man stopped his truck. He got out. He walked up to the steps and high-fived PJ! Very few people get to meet their heroes in the flesh.

At Susan's today, Cara and PJ made fireworks! They each got a piece of paper rolled into a tube. They like using scissors, so they had fun making fringe of each end. Then the fringe was bent out and decorated with glitter. Cara's tube is red with blue sparkles.

Here's the conversation I usually have when I pick Cara up.

Cara: We go see my daddy!

Me: He's not home yet. Do you see his car?

Cara: (looking at spot where car is not) Yes.

Today I explained to Cara that we would go home and see Daddy, and then we would go see her grandmama. When we got to the house, we had the following conversation.

Me: Do you want to go show your fireworks to your daddy?

Cara: My daddy not home.

Me: I think he is. Do you see his car?

Cara: (looking at car) No. He at work!

Well, when we got into the house there was a surprising and happy reunion. We got our stuff together, and Ron and Em got their stuff together. Soon, within the hour, both families were in their cars, heading to Middletown to see fireworks. We had walked over to their place while they loaded up, and as we walked back Cara explained, with some regret, "We can't go in Em's car."

When we got to my mom's house, everyone was of course excited. I took PJ into the house, where all the new stuff was thrilling for him. Cara soon followed and uttered the words I had been predicting: "No, PJ, dat mine!" I distracted her with a new toy, some bracelets my folks had bought. Soon they were both outside with my mom and perhaps some other adults; in any case, order was maintained. Cara was happy to be with Grandmama. PJ was happy to see fish and all the new toys. Casey was happy to play, too, especially with the giant block toy, the one that uses the peek-a-blocks. She was also happy to try to escape from supervision whenever possible.

Dinner was served a little bit after seven. This is much later than the kids' usual mealtime, so of course we had given them late and plentiful snacks. Between that and the excitement, neither Cara nor PJ ate well. Casey did fine. PJ spent the meal wandering around, evading all efforts to trick him into sitting and eating. Grandpapa George found this amusing and astonishing; he had to remind us all that he had never had a little boy around, so this was new to him. Cara, who had originally decided it was time to go to the park, had gone upstairs with her grandmama, but after a while I went up and brought her down. Moms have to be strict, you know. She ate some of a hot dog, and she sat nicely at the table. GiGi arrived and was delighted to see "the famous PJ." (Had she heard about the barbage?) Soon my parents, Ron, Cara, and PJ had all marched off to the playground.

Well before nine, Em, Ron, PJ, Casey, my mom, my dad, my grandma, Steve, Cara, and I were out at the playground with eight folding chairs, two red wagons, a stroller, some beer, a blanket, two flashlights, some bug spray, some cheese sticks, three sippy cups, and two diaper bags. We have always watched from the basketball court, but there were plenty of people here on the grass, so we set up camp.

I had also brought a bag of magic tricks which I had acquired at the dollar store earlier. Each kid got a new knobbly ball, PJ's in yellow, Cara's in pink, and Casey's in green. I also got really carried away in my purchase of glowing objects. I remembered that last year we had had to spend a lot of time dragging Cara away from other families, whose toys she had had designs on, so I wanted to be prepared. Well, I bought four thick glow sticks that came with flimsy lanyards, four necklaces, and more than fifteen bracelets. I've never had them before; it was a lot of fun to crack them to light them up.

The kids loved it. Ron showed PJ how he could swing the glowstick on its string and make a glowing circle. Cara was soon running around with at least eight bracelets on her arms. I organized my dad and grandma and we made a chain of ten or so bracelets. We all kept occupied until the show started.

When the show did start, we had to move over fast! We were too far to the left, but soon we were better situated. Cara was in awe: half was wonder and half was fear. She wasn't sure whether she wanted to be protected or to laugh at the "silly fireworks!" She sometimes decided to pretend it wasn't happening and to go show people her glowing necklaces. We'd expected PJ to be scared (based on his reactions to firecrackers), but it was so late at night that he really didn't react; he was half-asleep.

Afterwards we somehow got ourselves and all our stuff back to the house. There, of course, the kids all perked right up and got to play some more. We didn't get home until about eleven; Cara, who, like the other children, had been put into her pajamas to ease the transfer to bed at home, did not sleep in the car. She had a hard time calming down after such an exciting evening!

7/4/07 (Wednesday)

Some might think that, after her very late night, Cara would sleep hard. In fact, as we have learned from hard experience, quite often the exact opposite is the case, and last night was no exception. Cara was up and unhappy at around 2:30--part of the reason for this, she claimed, was that she didn't have every single one of her little glowy "rings." We eventually resorted to taking her downstairs and watching some TV, before getting her back up and into her crib for good around 3:30. Prognosis: over-excitement and break from routine.

Cara understandably slept a little late--so late, in fact, that we only caught the tail end of Handy Manny on the Disney Channel, and were forced to watch an episode of The Doodlebops. Toast used to be Cara's breakfast food of choice, and Mommy even made some nice eggs and toast this morning. But Cara has found a new obsession: the banana. In fact, she ate a stunning three entire bananas this morning! Hard to believe, but true.

We got ourselves up and packed and in the car for a trip to Great Aunt Sally and Great Uncle Ron's house for the 4th of July! Another alteration in Cara's routine of recent months is that she no longer seems to sleep in the car during the day. She slept not a wink during our nearly two-hour ride, and in fact I heard her singing a little of her rendition of "Going to the Zoo."

At Sally and Ron's, Cara was her charming self. Being the only child there, there were no issues of toy sharing and no division of adult attentions: everyone looked at her. She soon overcame her shyness and was handing things to various members of the family, especially Andrea's husband Dan, whom she seemed to take a shine to. She also very much liked the pretzels that Sally had put out, and snacked heavily on them. Having also eaten a pile of goldfish crackers on the way there, she ate very little real food, but later chowed down on a cupcake while in her grandma's lap. In between she played with her counting bears (a very reliable toy to bring places) and took a recently-discovered stuffed kitty of her Mommy's for walks in her tiny stroller. She and her grandma visited all fo the flowers outside. She also enjoyed climbing on a massage chair in the living room, though she was unsure about the actual vibrating massage function when it was turned on for her.

We had lots of fun, but we suddenly looked up and found that it was after seven! We hurriedly packed up and drove home. Cara slept through a great majority of the ride, and of course she woke up unhappy. The fireworks being set off up the block did not help. We gave her a bath, got her into her pajamas, and brought her back downstairs. She had two cheese sticks and her fourth banana of the day, she got to watch some Curious George (he's always good when you're upset), and now she's off to bed.

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