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Journal Key:

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

8/16/07 (Thursday)

It was the first day of our party today! Cara was excited when PJ and Casey came over a little before eight. It was a very long day, but it was also very good, overall. I had my concerns about each of the children, but we got through the day without much trouble.

Em bought a CD full of Playhouse Disney tunes, including the theme songs from several of our favorite cartoons. When I put it on, both kids started dancing and jumping up and down. For a few minutes, we all held hands and danced in a ring. They recognized a lot of what was played. It's cute that when the Little Einsteins theme started, they both had to tell me, "Neinsteins!" Cara now believes that I can put on music from any show, and she would like to listen to George.

I got out a bag of kitty cat balloons, which were a hit. Cara, of course, wanted pink. We had red, white, blue, and yellow. She settled for red. PJ naturally got the yellow one, which I burst during inflation! He was content with white. This left blue for Casey, who was fine. Cara and PJ took their balloons off into the other room, where I could hear them meowing at each other.

Casey is pretty good at amusing herself. She really likes Cara's armchair; she likes to stand in it and sit in it and once she spent several minutes on working herself out of it by climbing backwards over the arm. I believe that, inches from victory, she retreated, deeming the task beyond mortal baby. She also explored a lot, and she and her brother had a great time in the ball pit together.

A little after nine, Juliana came over! By then I had put Casey down for a morning nap, and Cara and PJ were drawing in the kitchen. Em made them goodie bags for the "party," in which each got a coloring book and some washable markers. Yes, there is a pink marker. There are also stickers in the books, which even Cara decided to stick on the book instead of her own limbs. (She tried her arm, but the sticker was too big.) Juliana stayed all morning, and she made things a lot easier. All the kids love to play with her. PJ even said her name! We had a snack. PJ insisted on sitting in the high chair, where he ate some raspberries and plenty of puffs. We played inside and outside. When it was time to start lunch, I put on the Diego DVD Em bought. Cara and PJ were thrilled, but then they were not thrilled by the eight minutes of ads that the disk played. When Diego came on, they ran to the TV and jumped up and down! For lunch we had some French toast sticks from the freezer; they were pretty good. I knew that the kids would like them, because they've had them at Susan's.

Everyone got a new diaper and cold medicine before naptime. I put Casey down first, in the office. I put PJ down, against his will, in my room. I put Cara down in her own crib, which she did not protest, having apparently forgotten that the other kids got to sleep in playpens. The girls were okay, but PJ was not ready to go to sleep in some strange room! I went in and out and talked to him and calmed him down and convinced him that he wasn't going anywhere. He stayed put. Eventually he wailed for a few minutes and woke everyone and then all was quiet. I stuck my head up the stairs and I could see him lying in his crib. I could hear Cara singing "Twinkle, twinkle, little star."

I cleaned up the house and lay on the couch with a magazine. Cara was still at it. She sang songs. She said "ba BA BA." She talked to her toys. She was loud! I know because I kept almost falling asleep but being jerked back awake by her voice. I wasn't sure what to do. Would she wake the others? Would I wake them by going up there? Finally, I went into her room, shushed her whoop of celebration, laid her down, put her blanket over her, and left. She went to sleep. When is it ever that easy? I went and took a nap, too.

At three, PJ woke up. It was strange for him, in his half-awake state, to be here. It was strange for him to be here without Cara. We went downstairs, holding hands. We had fun playing together; he lets me pile balls on top of him in the ball pit, which makes Cara shriek and tell me, "no, no, no!" He also got to see the ball popper, which has long been a favorite of his.

Juliana came back and the girls woke up, and we had another couple of hours of fun. Cara and PJ had a tea party with water in their cups and crackers on their plates, but for afternoon snack I got out some cookies, too. We played Weebles and Playmobil. We didn't need to see Diego, of whom the kids had seen half an episode. I had PJ upstairs for a diaper change when his mommy came back; he got to stare through the window as she walked down to the house to see him.

Cara and I cuddled and then played girls, which we hadn't really gotten to do all day. Daddy got home, and he and Cara preceded me over to PJ's house for dinner. Steve took the kids downstairs to play, and he thinks they're doing pretty well at getting along with each other! It was cool to see Cara building a long train track, which she eventually needed help with.

Possibly the best moment of the night: Cara is in the corner at a little desk, playing with plastic letters. "P-E-E-P-E-E" she spells. She always spells like that. P is probably her favorite letter. She did occasionally throw in a B. "I spell my name," she says. I go over. She has put together a random assortment of letters. "P-E-E-P-E-E-B" she shows me. "Can we spell your name?" Sure, I told her. What's my name? "Evewen." How do you spell it? "P-E-E-" and so on.

8/17/07 (Friday)

We had another fun party today. This time I got out balloons that had silly faces and funny nobbins coming out of their heads. Cara's was the only kitty balloon to last the day yesterday, so she asked PJ where his was. Fortunately, he didn't pay attention. Cara wanted a pink balloon. There were two, so she got to choose the face she wanted. She opted for happy rather than silly. PJ chose between two yellow ones, ending up with a kind of concerned-looking balloon. This expression was appropriate because Casey ended up with that one, chewing on it hard. I think I blew up at least five of them, because the kids managed to burst them. Strangely, in my tenure as a parent, I have seen several instances in which a balloon bursts while a little girl chews on it, but I have never seen a little girl be upset by that.

Cara and PJ both like to pretend to be babies. Cara particularly was in and out of the walker. I had to bring her a toy, so she got a little engine to play with. She frequently dropped it and had to get someone to pick it up for her. She could get out by herself, but it took a while. PJ wrestled with me sometimes, and after he knocked me down once she offered to come and pick me up. I had to lie there and wait for a long time. In the kitchen, PJ insisted once more on sitting in the high chair. In fact, he and Cara almost fought over it. I settled it by giving Cara her tray at her booster seat; she hasn't had that tray on in months!

Cara has decided that her armchair belongs not against the wall, as it's been for months, but in front of her toy bins, near her table. Casey loves the chair, and I saw her in it Wednesday night, jumping up and down while Steve held the front so it didn't tip over. Yesterday I left it where it's always been, so there was no chance it could tip. Today, Cara had me move it. I finally got smart and put another chair behind it to prevent any excitement. Casey did dive face-first over the arm of the chair to get PJ's yellow balloon, but she had a nice, cushy, air-filled landing, so she was absolutely happy.

Juliana came to play again, and I noticed that Cara repeats a lot of what she says. Juliana often prefaces her remarks with, "Say . . . " or "Tell him . . . " So do I, but no one listens to me! We got out the foam blocks, and everyone got to build things. PJ built a tall tower he was very proud of. Cara put a triangular block on its side and built a slide. Juliana built a bridge for Minnie Mouse to drive under. Both kids got caught up in this, and there had to be a lot of reconstruction after the many accidents. PJ took his car, in which Bert (of "and Ernie") was driving, over to the ball popper, where he drove it around the ball track. Bert "fell through" a hole and had to call for help piteously. I'm tickled that PJ has adopted a scenario Cara and I frequently enact. We got to run through it several times.

Em took a sick day today because she is sick. Around ten thirty, though, she came over to play with us. As soon as she arrived, PJ led her upstairs to where Casey was napping. It was time for her to wake up, anyway! We repaired to the kitchen for Play-doh, getting out a new set Em bought. Casey got to play in her walker. Cara got pink, and PJ got yellow. Cara used the cutters provided to make about four sea horses. PJ made a couple of turtles. We played with two extruders. There are safety scissors, too, which are very very safe. They can cut nothing but Play-doh, or perhaps cookie dough. They're very useful for extruded shapes.

We relaxed and watched Diego and hung out while lunch heated up. Then no one ate the chicken nuggets anyway. They had had plenty of crackers and they did eat some fruit. Casey likes to put food in Juliana's hand and then take it back and eat it. PJ had some blackberries. Cara had some oranges, which was just as well. Her fingers were still purple from her blackberries at snack time.

One last thing we did was to play with the dog some more. Cara has been sliding into the balls from the couch, but PJ took things one step farther, of course, and jumped. They all took turns; the tricky part was getting the girls to get out of the way after they jumped in!

After Casey and PJ headed home, Cara spent another couple of hours talking in her crib instead of taking her nap. She finally went to sleep around two, and I woke her after four. She was quite needy and clingy, but soon we headed for PJ's house for pizza, companionship, and brownies. I brought the sun visors I'd bought for Cara and PJ to decorate, so I got out the animal decals and they did their project. Cara's is exclusively blue and purple on her pink "hat," and Em wrote her name in blue glitter. PJ's is yellow with a variety of colored animals; his name is in orange. We're going to let them dry, and then the kids will pick everything off of them.

After a good dinner of pizza, Cara and PJ went upstairs and worked on making trouble. They climbed into PJ's crib and had to be rescued. They fought bitterly over who got to jump on which side of the bed. Eventually PJ came down, leaving Cara trapped once more in the crib.

Downstairs, they fought over the trains. And fought. And screamed. Then, strangely, there would be pockets of peaceful play. Twice, PJ's train "fell off" the track and had to call for help ("Elp, Dara!") until Cara finally paid attention and had her train come to the rescue. It took a long time; he had to persevere.

We walked home in the rain under an underbrella. Here, Cara became very, very hyper. She was out of her mind with energy. We folded up a play pen in the office, and she repeatedly threw herself over it to land on her belly on the mat. She was the opposite of what one would want one's little girl to be when she was getting ready for bed. However, she let me brush her teeth a lot, and she wanted to read stories with Daddy. She's still a good girl. Her rendition of "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" is starting to get more tuneful. She's delivering it right now, from her crib.

8/18/07 (Saturday)

My big accomplishment of the morning was making a pancake man. I figured that if Ma in the Little House books could do it, so could I. (I only take that analogy as far as pancakes. Not house-building.) Cara was perfectly happy to have him cut up and to eat him. First, I think she pulled off his head.

We mainly hung around the house and had a quiet day. Tigger, Pooh, Eeyore, and a couple of girls had a nice meal of honey in the three bears' house. No, Tiggers don't like honey. We got to see Cara leap into her ball pit repeatedly. Several toys got "stuck" in trees, sometimes directly after being rescued. We painted with water. Cara's technique involves a LOT of water. We read some books. I even read Cara some of our old Richard Scarry, and it was pleasant. Clearly enough time has passed. (The Big Book is now a potty book, which is motivation to be on the potty for Cara and motivation to read it for us.)

Over at PJ's house, Cara got her "hat," the visor she decorated yesterday. She looked lovely, of course, and nothing has been picked off it yet.

We did go out for lunch to On the Border. Cara got to sit in a plastic booster seat on the booth's bench! I remember being offered one of those somewhere else and finding it terrifying, but this time it seemed fine. I brought a coloring book, and she and her daddy were busy until food came. Cara ate all of Steve's refried beans, in addition to her own rice. We'll have to start planning better.

In the evening, I came home from the grocery store to find PJ and Ron outside. PJ was looking for Dara, so he and I went to find her. She was perfectly willing to go outside and play; I just had to put her sandals on. PJ had his on already. "Look, Dara!" He held out his foot for her inspection, repeatedly. "Oh!" she would say, sounding astonished. This is frequently her response to things he says.

Outside, PJ got on Cara's plastic tricycle and "rode" away, pushing with his feet. He had a long, long turn, and we ended up in front of his house. Cara wanted a turn. Finally she got to get on, and Ron was the first to notice that she was pedaling! She can ride her bike! She stops and pushes with her feet when she gets to uneven parts of the sidewalk, but she's really doing it. She's excited, too. She rode all the way home, even across the street, even though I thought she and I had agreed she would walk. She knows she can steer, too. "Steer, steer, steer," she says, whipping the handlebars back and forth. It's very effective. I think that she's doing real steering, too. Daddy got to see her ride down the driveway. I guess we'll have to actually get the bike out regularly now; generally she never touches it!

We heated up leftovers for Cara for dinner, and she also had some orange slices. I sat around eating sugar snap peas. Cara eventually got so curious that she asked for one. She didn't like it. Then she wanted another. I opened one up and let her have the peas from inside. Then between us we finished them. She ate some whole pods and some just peas. She also nicely shared with Daddy.

8/19/07 (Sunday)

Another mostly quiet day for us all. Cara requested pancakes again for breakfast. I suggested that we just heat her up some leftover pancakes from yesterday, but Evie said we'd have even more nice leftovers if she made a new batch. Cara chimed in and asked me to make them (she and Evie were on the couch watching Disney). I obeyed orders and made a small batch of pancakes--even a pancake "lady"--to finish up our mix.

We convinced Cara to come outside and she and Mommy played while I mowed the lawn. Cara rode on her tricycle again, all around the block. She seems to like to push a little on the ground with her feet to get going, then switches to the pedals. I also think that coordinating between steering and pedaling is difficult for her. But she did a very good job and her parents are very proud.

For lunch Cara had some of a bread pudding that Mommy made in the morning (meant to be breakfast, but Cara woke up earlier than we expected (when I got up I heard her singing "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" in her crib), and also quite a bit of fruit. I think she extended her lunch and ate quite a bit because she knew her naptime was coming. Eventually it came all the same, and she had a nice long nap.

When she woke up, Daddy was on the computer playing a silly computer game (World of Warcraft). Since many of her immediate family members play it, Cara is becoming familiar with the thing and likes seeing the 3D characters run around and jump. She was thrilled when I showed her that my character could swim underwater--and he had a pet kitty! The height of excitement was reached when we found that the guy could jump into the water with his cat, and the cat would swim next to him! I had to do this several times for Cara, who repeatedly said that the kitty was her "favorite," and was utterly delighted.

By this time it was raining and it was time for Cara to play at PJ's house. She was very upset that her mommy chose to wear a sweatshirt instead of a real raincoat, and it took a lot of convincing before they would leave. At PJ's house, while her Mommy and Daddy went off and had dinner, Cara played nicely with Casey and PJ. Em and Ron's neighbors came over as well, so there were plenty of people there. Cara was convinced by PJ to jump high off the couch, which she did after a lot hemming and hawing--Em took video on her digital camera. She had what sounded like a nice dinner and did not miss her Mommy and Daddy much at all (which, as always, is good and bad).

When we came to pick her up, Cara was happy to see us and we got some hugs. As we walked home, Cara got very distressed if the hood on her raincoat slipped off, which it was constantly doing. She commanded that Mommy also wear the hood on her raincoat (yes, she wore one this time). I had also put on a coat, to try to appease her, but she wanted me to put a hood on as well. I tried to convince her that there was really no need, since by this time we were walking down our driveway. She began telling us how she should really be wearing boots (she had chosen her own shoes, a pair of swimming slippers).

Back at home we did some playing with the girls. By this time it would be kind to say that Cara was tired. She was very averse to cleaning up the girls or having to put shoes on them by herself, and got very upset when I refused to help put shoes on them. We went upstairs and got her tearfully into a green-colored tub, and she managed to have fun in there.

For storytime today Cara and I have been looking at a Dora the Explorer activity book she got during the "party" at the end of last week. It's really a coloring book with connect-the-dots and mazes, but fortunately it also happens to have a narrative running through it, so I can actually read it to her. It also has a bunch of places where you can put stickers, so tonight I gave her a treat and we put all the remaining stickers (one strawberry which was supposed to go on another page had been playfully stuck on Dora's head) in the correct places. Cara sees how they are supposed to go and tries hard to be precise. Of course, even after all this reading and stickering, we still had to read three or four other books before she got into her bed--and she was still pretty hyper. Eventually she will go to sleep.

8/20/07 (Monday)

What a rainy, dreary day! Cara and I stayed inside. When she got up, I had Warcraft on. Cara got to see my lady and her big kitty, whom she liked very much. In fact, she asked permission and then leaned out over the keyboard very carefully to kiss the kitty. Twice. Later, I was checking my e-mail when Cara came over. She wanted to "see the silly guy run." I'm an indulgent parent, so I got out Daddy's guy and his cat and made them run around. They also jumped into the water and we got to see them swim around. Do kitties like swimming? Yes, they do. Grandmama was on and brought her character over to wave, but Cara very soon lost interest and wandered away.

I traumatized Cara this morning. We went into my room and played at going to sleep in my bed. This messes up the blankets. Afterwards, I asked Cara to help me make the bed. She was happy to help and walked over to her side (really mine) and started to pull at the sheets. The wrong way. She's helped us strip the bed several times, but she's never helped put it together! She was appalled and wailed outright when she understood what I intended to do.

Cara is of course very verbal, but she also makes use of nonverbal expression. Just yesterday I noticed her saying, "dubba dubba dubba." That, of course, is something she used to mutter to herself months ago, sort of as a placeholder, something to say when you have nothing to say but happen to feel like talking. Today, her noise has been "nah nah nah," not to be confused with "nyah nyah nyah," which is obnoxious. "Nah nah nah" is a very versatile sound. It can be a question. It can be an exclamation of surprise, joy, anger, or horror. It can be funny. It can be punitive. It can also just be a sound you make when you have nothing to say but feel like talking.

Our late morning snack was hot chocolate with goldfish crackers. Cara watched me make it, and then she sat in her chair and slurped it up with a spoon. It took a long time, but she persevered. She liked it. A lot. "This is yummy!" "This is good!" "I wike it!" It may have taken her so long because she had to keep telling me that. She drank more than half the cup, then gave the rest to me to "drink it all up!" For lunch we had soup. It received just as warm a reception. There was spaghetti for dinner. It was also delicious. Clearly it was a good eating day.

It wouldn't be a day without the girls. Cara's two girls had a great day. They larked about the playroom, singing that they were "working girls," as far as I could tell. Later they gave each other a hug and a kiss and said, repeatedly, "Merry Christmas!" After Steve got home, it evolved to "Merry Christmas, my dear!" A while later I realized that this is all because of the "Hedgehog Family Christmas" story in the Big Book.

I read a lot of books to Cara this morning. Downstairs, I looked at the pile afterwards. Sixteen. We weren't thorough with all of them, but we read many all the way through . Upstairs, we read the Circus McGurkus. It's a long book with a lot of text. We got through most of it, but then we got stuck. We were not allowed to turn the page. Fortunately, it was a page with some of my favorite lines in the book. "Ei, Ei! What a circus, my Circus McGurkus!/ My workers love work! They say, 'Work us! Please work us!'" I was happy to say that over and over again, when I felt that I ought to be reading. We stayed on that page, literally for over ten minutes! Then Cara got up and left. Before her nap, we read Cara's Dora coloring book. It was in interesting choice. We have shorter books. It's not actually that bad to read. Strange.

When we were getting Cara ready for bed, I took out the circus book. Cara opened it to that very special page. When Steve read her to bed, they read it. They could not go past that page. They could put the book aside, but they could not turn past it. It IS a very interesting page, with lots going on. Another possible explanation is that the finale of the book has been kind of scary for Cara, so maybe she doesn't want to see it? That's a little far-fetched.

8/21/07 (Tuesday)

Lately Cara has been getting up before I leave for work--which is good, because she'll have to do that every day once September rolls around. I may even have to learn how to make little pony tails in her hair. She stopped to say goodbye to me as I was leaving, telling her mommy "I said 'Goodbye' to Daddy!"

I hear that she was very good at Susan's today, and when I got home she was very noisily enjoying another mug of hot cocoa while her mommy made dinner. We went downstairs and played with her girls, rather randomly, and then Cara was happy to eat hot dogs.

We had an early bath time, which went well for Cara because she got to go back downstairs and have a snack afterwards. This may unfortunately have left her a bit confused and more hyper than usual. She was very happy to read the circus book with her mommy, but when real storytime came she did not seem interested in any of the normal pile of books. I forced Ride a Purple Pelican on her against her will and managed to get through it with no complaints apart from the "No no no!" as I opened the book. She grudgingly accepted a few others, until it was time to go to bed.

She requested to sleep on her Elmo couch, which I vetoed. It is nice to think that Cara is ready to start sleeping in a real bed, but it's scary to think of her being able to just get up and leave her room--that's why she really wanted the couch. Now she is unhappily lying in her crib.

8/22/07 (Wednesday)

Cara is a baby. Don't believe me? Just ask her! When we went into the basement to get the laundry, she found an old infant car seat, which I had to get down. She lay in it and asked me to rock her. So I did, and sang her a lullaby to boot. "I am little baby," she often tells me. I wonder if that's part of why she spends so much time saying "nah nah nah."

We had a productive morning in the house, but we went out to the mall for a run before lunch. It has basically stopped raining, but it's still too wet for the park. Cara has two modes of transporting herself in public, besides of course being carried, which is the preferred mode. She can walk while whimpering and trying to get ahead and put her arms up to be carried, or she can run very fast while still holding my hand. We made a fairly brief visit to a very crowded Tinytown, and we spent a long time with the Roman legions in the Playmobil store. Then Cara ran up and down a ramp four times, and then she really, really needed to be carried.

"Mommy," Cara's girls told me, "we are two working girls." Then I heard them talking among themselves. "We are naked!" they said. One of the exciting parts of the day, for me, was when we dressed all the girls in skirts. Cara's girls wore different outfits. I expected her to panic at any moment and demand their regular uniforms back, but she did fine. Juliana came over for a few minutes in the afternoon, and things got strange. I asked Cara whether she was a little baby. "No," said Juliana," say, 'I'm a big girl!'" "I big girl," said Cara. She really says anything Juliana tells her to! Next, Cara suddenly asked me where the yellow shoes were. She was acting as if they'd been here a moment ago, but we lost them two weeks ago! She hadn't mentioned them since, but this afternoon she did not believe me when I said they were gone.

We read the Circus McGurkus at least four times today. We don't go all the way through; we pick and choose. I'm relieved to be able to say that I still enjoy it.

We went over to PJ's house for dinner. The first thing the kids did was "go jump on PJ's fire!" His fire truck bed. PJ is an astonishing tumbler, flinging himself around in his crib like an acrobat. Cara is far more cautious. She did climb into the crib, and then she scolded PJ for jumping on "my side of bed!" Em made fajitas and got refried beans specifically for Cara; Cara justified her by eating two big helpings. Casey also loves them, but PJ is not interested. Downstairs the kids jumped off the couch some more, counting all the while. "One, two, three, jump!" says Cara, standing on the couch. She mainly feels that saying it is enough, but she did actually jump once or twice.

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