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Journal Key:

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

7/19/07 (Thursday)

This morning, as usual, all the toys had to go see their daddies. Cara requested and got pancakes for breakfast, and of course she got sticky. When she was done I pulled her away from the table and gave her a damp paper towel to wipe herself. She got her hands, and I told her to get her face. She did. Then she wiped her legs and feet. Very tidy.

After a great day at Susan's, Cara got a special treat: her grandmom came up to stay with her while Mom and Dad went out to a concert (the Police)! Grandma brought Cara a new toy, too. It's a wooden doll with magnetic clothes. This doll has a lot of outfits! Cara is able to dress her, which is great because she has no other toys she can actually dress by herself. The evening went really well, and Cara was sound asleep when we got home.

7/20/07 (Friday)

Cara was very pleased to play with her grandma while Daddy and Mommy packed. They had fun with the magnetic girl. When Grandma left, Aunt Claire showed up. Cara had gotten out a lift-the-flap book, and she surprised Claire very much. Claire pointed to a green basket and asked what it was. "That watermelon!" cried Cara. She lifted the flap. It was watermelon.

Finally we were all in the car, heading for the airport. Cara enjoys having Claire in the back seat with her. They read the Goofy book. We quickly found a place to park, and Cara got to ride in her stroller, which she loves. It's very lucky that she's so happy to be in there. After lunch, though, she got out and ran around in the terminal, burning off some energy! Mainly we went around and around in circles.

Cara and I were the only ones to sit together on the plane. She sat by the window. I got out a bribe, a new toy. It was a Polly Pocket knockoff, a Sleeping Beauty doll with pink and blue rubber dresses. We had fun with that for a while. The take-off was a little bouncy, and Cara loved it. "Whee!" Soon, she fell asleep. She slept for most of the flight, waking up long enough before the end for me to read her a book or two. The stroller, which was waiting for us just outside the plane, was a big attraction again, and Cara rode through the terminal. She rode in the shuttle bus to the rental office. While Daddy and Aunt Claire installed the car seat, Cara and I went to discuss palm trees and lizards. I promised Cara that she would see lizards soon, and soon we were on the road.

Grandma Anne's house was marked with a pinwheel! Cara was a little bit shy at first, but soon she was exploring the house and interacting with Grandma, Aunt Nancy, and Uncle Arnie. Grandma had gotten Cara some new toys: Dora and Boots! Boots, of course, was the biggest thrill. We had some great Chinese takeout, and Cara enjoyed her lo mein. She also played the piano with great enthusiasm, but she didn't just bang on it. She looked like she really knew what she was doing, she sat up straight and delicately touched the keys. She also discovered the zebra-shaped throw pillows on the couch, who swiftly became her good friends. I'm kind of surprised she never tried to take them with her anywhere.

A side note about the piano. I also like to play the piano so Cara and I had several sessions on it together. During one session she decided that I absolutely needed to take my shoes off for some reason. I explained with some amusement that I did not need to take my shoes off to play the piano, and continued playing. Cara was adamant. "No, Daddy, stop, stop," she said, grabbing at my hands, and I was forced to go shoeless.

Uncle Arnie showed Cara a great trick involving blowing onto his thumb to make one of his fingers pop up. Cara picked up on this and has been counting to three and blowing on her fingers, though not with the same results. This has gotten somewhat mixed up with a game Mommy plays to make street lights change color ("Red light, green light, one two three!" then you can blow afterwards). Simple things can be lots of fun.

In the bath, Cara got to play with something special: my grandma has plastic measuring cups that are shaped like geese (I think) or swans (says Cara). The handles are their heads. I have always admired them, and Grandma brought them out for Cara to take with her in the tub. She loved scooping and pouring water with them as well as stacking them inside each other.

7/21/07 (Saturday)

We went for a walk around the lake in the morning; Cara got to see ducks and some egrets. We all looked for lizards, and she was the first to spot one; he was hanging on someone's screen. Then we saw a couple more, on other windows. We met a couple of dogs, too, but they weren't scared enough to really interest Cara.

Our big excitement of the day was when Grandma took us to Lion Country Safari, which I've been trying to get back to for years! It was great, because they've made a lot of improvements and additions, but they've also kept a lot of the old things the way they were.

Everyone enjoyed the drive-through safari, though Cara eventually got a little restless and was released from the captivity of her car seat. She kept saying things like, "We coming, tigers! We coming!" She liked the zebras, I believe, and she tried to communicate with the elephants. This involved putting a finger or two in her mouth and trumpeting.

In the park, the first thing we did was have lunch. Cara and I went to look at toys, but there was nothing we really needed. After a hot dog, we all felt better and more ready to go brave the Florida heat! As we walked through the park to the lorikeet feeding, Cara spotted the old mini golf course. She was ready to play, but we had other ideas. We happily forked over a few dollars for little cups of nectar, and soon birds were landing on our hands. Cara was delighted. She wanted to pet them. She wanted them on her arm. I'm pretty sure, though, that she wouldn't have liked it if one did perch on her. At one point I had two on me, and Cara kept reaching out her hands as if to hug them, then squealing and pulling them back! Aunt Claire got a bird on her head for a while.

We stopped so that Cara could climb on some rides, and then we found the giraffe-feeding area. For a dollar, you could get a cracker to give to a giraffe who would wander right up to the platform! Cara knew this was cool, but I'm not sure she understood just how cool it was. She wanted to give the giraffe a cracker, but she would hold it out and then just put it on the railing. Giraffes' heads are really big! Cara got to pick out her souvenir for the day: it was a tiny plastic giraffe, which Aunt Claire bought her for about $3.50. Cara has very good taste.

We saw some birds and some alligators (an obligatory experience on a trip to Florida, of course), and then we headed, at Cara's insistence, to the mini golf. Grandma went to sit on a bench. I got clubs for the rest of us, but really we were all about to just wilt in the heat. We were not ready to play golf. Cara, however, demonstrated that her game has improved significantly. She now sort of hits the ball in the direction of the hole. Still. This was not thrilling enough to keep us out there. "Are you done?" we kept asking her. No, she was not done. She had to visit several holes, farther and farther afield. Finally I volunteered to put back the adult clubs, and then I went to find Grandma, leaving Steve and Claire to capture the child. It took quite a while. I think she must have explored the whole course!

It was finally time to get some ice cream and then go. For Cara I picked out a popsicle that turned out to be pretty huge. She had some trouble holding it upright. She licked it. She stuck it in her mouth. Both of these are acceptable popsicle techniques. She also discovered that she liked to touch it with her fingers and then put them in her mouth. She's a master of innovation. It's very lucky that she decided to walk around with it, because it kept the drips off of her clothes. Once I blotted the entire thing with a napkin, to try to help her stay ahead of it. Eventually she came over to me, seeming to say that she was done. I held out my hand (not really sure what I expected) and she put her popsicle into it. I had wet-naps in my bag.

Cara helped us with the traffic lights on the way back to Nancy's house, but then she fell asleep. A huge rainstorm started, and I stayed in the car with her, letting her get in a few more minutes of sleep. Finally I brought her into the house. She woke up better than I expected and started exploring. There was a lot to play with! Like Grandma's house, this house had things to run around. Cara found an elephant that looked just right for riding on, but she was not permitted to experiment. There is a small table shaped like a zebra, which Cara did eventually straddle. She found a cow-shaped candle, and she brought it right to Nancy. Then she found two wooden cats with moveable arms and legs, and she brought those to Nancy, too. They turned out, actually, to be her favorite things to play with. They talked to each other, they sat, they slept.

Nancy's cat, Calvin, is astonishing. He is very friendly and doesn't care at all whether you are a stranger. I believe he scared Cara a little bit, but of course she was simultaneously drawn to him. She believed for 85% of the time that he was Buster; she seemed not to notice that, if it were Buster, she'd had a personality transplant. She talked to him and tried to feed him leaves that were still on a houseplant. "You like it, Buster?"

We were back in a bedroom when I "fell asleep" on the floor. First I heard Cara walking, saying "tiptoe, tiptoe, tiptoe!" Then I heard her snoring. Then she said, "ring ring, ring ring!" I woke up, but I had to ask whether that was the phone or my alarm clock. Her hand was on the cord of the phone, which was shaped like a cat. "Who was on the phone?" I asked. "Buster on phone!" What did Buster say? "Meow meow!"

Cara was very happy but less amazed than an older person might have been when Grandpapa and Grandmama walked in, with GiGi, too! Of course she really had no conception of how far we were from home; the next day she suggested that, instead of riding in an airplane, she could ride home in her stroller. It was great to get to play with all of them, but all too soon it was time for bed.

7/22/07 (Sunday)

We spent the morning in Grandma Anne's house, mainly just the three of us. Cara had had a long week, so it was good to get some relatively quiet time. We had bacon and eggs for breakfast, and Cara hogged the eggs. Then she got to play the piano and run around the house. There are three rooms with couches for her to fling herself onto. Grandma borrowed a little tricycle for Cara, and she even put her name on it! Cara didn't pedal it, but she loved sitting on it and scooting around. It started out on the porch. I heard Cara calling me and went into the kitchen, and I saw that she had already gotten it up the step and was sitting happily on higher ground. She also found a stationary bike on the porch, and she really wanted to ride that, too. It was definitely too big to do anything productive with, but it was great to climb.

For lunch, we headed out to the mall. We ate in the food court with Grandmama and Aunt Nancy. Cara, at the end of a tough week, was not interested in her food. Finally I took her for a walk and we got a cinnamon-sugar pretzel, which we shared and she ate most of. She tried to wipe off the sugar periodically, but it just got worse and worse. I used wet-naps on her, but they weren't enough. It may have been wrong of me, but I stopped at a fountain and had her stick her hands in! I also let her toss in a quarter.

The mall had a great play area for little kids, and we just took her shoes off and let her loose. We all watched as she scrambled up and slid down a giant baseball, climbed into and out of cars and airplanes, and generally jumped around. She was independent and wonderful. Next we let her climb into and out of a lot of rides. She explored planes, trains, and automobiles. Grandmama and I got our pictures taken with Cara in a photo booth. Each of us ended up with one bad picture and one good one. Too soon, it was time to say good-bye and head for the airport.

Cara fell asleep in the car. She slept through the car return, the shuttle bus, and some shopping. She woke up while we went through security. It was hard to wake up. I ended up carrying her, and I decided to placate her through shopping. We went to look at toys. There were many bears, and Cara selected a bright orange one who says Florida across his tummy. The cashier nicely took off the tags for us. I gave Cara to Steve, but soon she wanted me back. Now, I've been hearing a lot from her lately about how great daddies are, so of course I was melting at this point. It turned out that she was hoping we could go get a yellow bear.

It was a tough plane ride. Astonishingly, I was recognized by the mother of a former student who is now going to be a senior and who was sitting across from us! Cara sat between her parents, who had to pull out all the tricks in our bag to get through. Cara got two new girls to play with Sleeping Beauty. She got some of their shoes. She got plenty of pretzels. She got M&Ms. We read to her. She lifted the arm rest between our seats and I was sure she'd fall asleep, leaning on me, but she never did. She repeatedly asked us, brightly, "We done?" I think I remember the trips home usually being worse than the trips down. However, everyone survived and Cara was reunited, happily, with her stroller.

We picked up takeout and had dinner, even though it was ridiculously late. Cara played in her room while we unpacked a few things. She knew bedtime was coming. "Mommy I find biiiiiig book!" she told me, ready to be read to for as long as possible. Steve is much nicer than I am, and he must have given her fifteen minutes in the story chair. She was in bed by 11:30.

7/23/07 (Monday)

Today was cold and rainy, a perfect day to stay inside. Cara slept until nine, and, upon waking, gave me her traditional greeting. "Here George need go see his daddy." In a few minutes she was off down the hall, calling, "Daddy George, here's you monkey! Here's you monkey, named Little George!"

We played and played and played with Cara's new girls. There are five girls, three dresses, four pairs of pants, and thirteen tops. I bought them all, but I still feel justified in asking, "how did this happen?" In the afternoon I even caved in and got out several pairs of shoes, the sturdiest ones we have. I have no idea how our play suddenly became so fashion-centered. On one hand, I feel it's awfully antifeminist, and, on the other, it's great for her manual dexterity! It went on and on and on and on and on. Because of Sleeping Beauty, several of the girls are now "pincesses." One shirt is white with blue straps. Whoever wears that is the lifeguard. Two girls have "real" hair, and I got to style them both today. Then I got to comb Cara's hair with their tiny brush.

She also played with her old baby doll. It got some bottles, and I had to take off its pajamas. I didn't know they came off, but they do. Downstairs, Cara found the other baby, the tiny one in the bunny suit. Predictably, the larger one is now "daddy baby."

I think a very blah day at home was just what we needed, but now Cara is not interested in going to sleep tonight. Hmmmm.

7/24/07 (Tuesday)

I had to finish the final Harry Potter this morning, so I was late getting out of the shower. I was late getting Cara up. I had a class to get to at 8:30. Poor Cara cheerfully ate her dry toast in the car. I did bring her cup along, so she got bread and water.

It was an exceptionally beautiful day, so of course everyone was playing outside when I arrived. No one ran to the car. I walked all the way into the yard before Cara came over to me. I was ready for a hug, but instead she just pointed to me. "See, PJ, here's my mommy," she told him. Then she went back to playing.

Susan went over to Cara with something shielded in her hands. When she stepped away, I saw that Cara had made a wonderful hat. It's a bright yellow band of paper with cheerful stickers on it, and there are about six bright pipe cleaners sticking up like springs. Cara told me all the colors. The hat has something to do with sunshine. It's marvelous. When Daddy got home, I surprised him with it, too.

We hit the supermarket on the way home, and Cara and her orange bear got to sit on the horsie ride outside it. It was an adventure for them both. Cara got some, but, of course, not enough, time to play with her girls. I had to cook dinner, and Cara ended up spending some time alone upstairs. When she came down, she had brought me some of my shoes. She felt that they would help persuade me to come and play with her. We went for our walk this evening for the first time in a while. Altogether, it was a nice day.

7/25/07 (Wednesday)

This morning, Cara's highest priority, even before Little George got to see his daddy, even before breakfast, was to get downstairs and play with her girls. She got the castle out by herself and everything. Cara was not interested in leaving the house, but I had a plan. Of course, we only carried out half of it. I wanted to walk to the park and then the farmer's market, but we had limited time. It was ten o'clock by the time we left, and Aunt Claire was coming around eleven!

It's a quick walk to the park. Cara was, of course, excited to be there. She ran! She ran past the swings. She went to the slides first. She climbed up the stairs, turned around, and went back to spend quite literally twenty minutes on the swings. She got to go very high. Finally we returned to the slides. Inspired by the fun the girls had been having in Weebalot, I decided that the playground was a castle. Cara loved it! "No, Mommy, you cannot come in my castle!" Also, of course, "We go in we castle?" We ran around there for another half hour, taking a brief break to throw away some trash. At the end, Cara agreed that it was time to go home. It was hot today! We were both sweaty. On her way back to the stroller, at a run, Cara was distracted. She picked two flowers that she identified as dandelions. They were not dandelions, but I have no idea what they are called. We agreed to take them home and give them to Aunt Claire.

Aunt Claire, when she arrived, got as big a reception as Daddy and I get when we come home. She did appreciate her flowers. After the shouting and the running, she was immediately invited to play girls. Soon, the three of us went out to lunch at the IHOP, in honor of our grandpa Fred. I had grabbed a bag to put Cara's toys into, figuring we needed to bring some girls. Of course, we brought much more than I really wanted to. Cara decided to carry the bag, and we had a terrible time getting it away from her for the ride in the car. We all put our bags in the back seat. It was still wrenching, even though Aunt Claire did it, too. I just was not prepared for the content of the bag to be dumped back there.

As soon as she was in her high chair, she dumped the girls out. Most of them were naked, and I had thrown in some clothes. Each of us dressed one. I was not assigned my personal favorite girl, instead I got the one Cara has decided is my favorite, Sleeping Beauty. Claire got my favorite. When Cara's chocolate milk came in a paper cup with a lid and bendy straw, I was a little bit apprehensive. However, she drank it all up with barely a drop spilled! When she was done with her girls, Cara moved on to her crayons. Once she got the box open and them out, she started stripping them of their wrappers, a task in which I was enlisted to help. When our meals came, we all ate. I did not touch a thing on Cara's plate, except for removing the tub of butter. She picked up her pancakes and ate them neatly, and she ate her eggs with her fork. She had requested both, and she enjoyed both. It was a perfect meal!

In the car, Cara found two padded hangers on the floor. She got to play with them, and they kept her happy the whole way home. Claire had Cara's bag in her lap, out of sight! While I drove, I was startled to hear an elephant trumpeting in the back seat. Sure enough, Cara had held the hanger up to her mouth like a trunk.

When we got home, we got distracted. I cleverly decided to open the package of glowing jewelry that had been forgotten in my car since July fourth. Cara got to wear the two bracelets and the two necklaces. She went down her slide. We looked at my garden. She rode on her horsie. Daddy, who was taking a Harry-Potter-related half day, came home. Eventually, though, all good things come to an end, and I had to pick her up and haul her upstairs. I put Cara down around one thirty, and I woke her again at five!

This was bad. Traditionally, when Cara's nap runs so late, bedtime is difficult. It's been difficult lately anyway. She needed to run, run, run. All she wanted to do was play girls or watch TV. I hauled her to PJ's house, where I took the two of them outside. First, of course, they went on the swings. It's fun pushing two when they're both easy to reach. We had some deep philosophical discussions. PJ does not agree that the sky is blue. It is white. PJ is working, I think, on a name for me. I demonstrated my name, which Cara is now pretty good at saying. He may be calling me Diana. Ron suggested later that perhaps PJ is a fan of Princess Di, and I should take it as a compliment.

Fortunately, they gave themselves a good workout. They played basketball. Well, PJ played, and Cara kicked her ball across the yard, by which I mean that she walked across the yard with the ball in front of her feet. I invited them to go on the seesaw, and they were both enthusiastic. To my astonishment, they can actually ride the seesaw! PJ got on the low part and I put Cara on the high end, and then I had PJ jump. Then I had Cara jump. Soon they got the hang of taking turns! There was a little bit of minor tumbling off, so they really need a spotter, but it was pretty cool. They came back to it a couple more times. Finally they made their way back to the swing set and the big slide. They ran around and went down it. They went up it. PJ is a clown! He climbs up and then pretends to slip so he goes back down on his tummy, and then he can do the whole thing again. It could go on forever. I'm very proud of Cara just for climbing up, as this is fairly new to her. Cara decided that the swing set was a castle. I told her it was her castle and PJ's castle. He liked that idea. They also went into the little house under the slide, and PJ demonstrated that he can dive headfirst out the window, putting his hands down and walking himself out. He liked it so much, he did it again and again. Then he climbed the ladder again, and I was playing with him when I heard a little voice saying, "Hep me, hep me!" I looked down, and there was the bottom half of Cara sticking out the window.

I forgot to mention that last night Steve reported that Cara decided to make words with her alphabet blocks. I was amazed when I went downstairs and found all of the blocks in a perfectly straight line. Today she made some smaller "words," mainly sorting by color. After dinner, she started taking out the big legos that are in a wagon at PJ's and lining them up beautifully. A new hobby!

In her bedroom, Cara found her glow necklaces and bracelets. When Daddy played with them, he put a necklace down on the ottoman and placed the bracelets as ears: he'd made Mickey Mouse. As soon as I got her out of the tub, Cara had to rush back to Mickey. Shelby got up on Daddy's lap in the glider, and it was "No, no, Sheby, don't hurt Mickey!" Fortunately, Cara herself disassembled him and used his parts to decorate her toy turtle. Easy come, easy go.

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