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Journal Key:

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

11/22/07 (Thursday)

As she sometimes does, Cara spent last night in her kitty pajamas from Halloween, which still have the tail attached. To avoid conflict when we finally came to getting her into her real clothes for the day, Evie decided to transplant the tail onto her pants. For a short time she even went so far as to put Cara's kitty cat ears on, but those were removed.

Before this we had a lazy morning with the Disney Channel and bread pudding, which we all enjoyed. When Cara got dressed she was able to go outside and say hello to PJ and Ron and Casey, who were having a walk in the lovely weather. Soon we were in the car, though, on our way to a Thanksgiving meal at Grandmom and Grandpop's house in South Jersey!

Though she is starting to get a cold (which we hope is just a cold and not PJ's current malady), Cara had a great time. I think her favorite part was when, at her own request, she got to go outside and run around with the dogs. She was screaming with laughter just running around. Cara decided she wanted something good out of the shed, so we got out the rakes and raked together a small pile of leaves for her to play in. Cara also requested the sidewalk chalk. We traced some leaves, which went well, and then I went and drew a big dinosaur. This was of course the Mommy Dinosaur, and Cara immediately requested a baby dinosaur to ride on her back. Cara also wanted to ride on the Mommy Dinosaur, which posed some problems since Cara is three dimensional and Mommy Dinosaur had only two. Cara managed to improvise and got some blue chalk on her butt for her pains.

Inside, Cara did not eat much of the wonderful meal, and instead amused herself by repeatedly going downstairs and taking more and more toys out of the toy bin, bringing them up and playing with them for a very short period of time. Eventually the bin was empty enough that Cara was able to (somehow) climb inside. This is how Evie found her on one of the occasions when she followed the little girl downstairs. Cara firmly declared that she wanted Grandmom and told Mommy that she had to go back upstairs.

There was also some Play-doh playing, inevitably, and Cara had a new toy: a pair of girls with a large wardrobe of magnetic clothing! They are flat and can be laid on a sheet which shows a nice castle with a waiting prince and a horse-drawn carriage. Cara, as is her wont in dressing-up situations, found the outfit she liked best for each girl and then would not hear of any other outfit being put on either of them.

Eventually we departed and Cara did sleep for most of the drive home. Our post-nap time was traumatic as usual and Cara was also unhappy because of her runny nose, so we had Diego, Diego, and Diego. I was afraid that she was really getting sick but she did perk up, particularly for her bath. Evie decided to try putting Cara into the tub with the water running like last night. I was not convinced that this would still be as fun, but I was wrong: screaming with laughter. Last time she allowed me to turn off the water when the tub started getting really full, but this time I had to keep turning it back on so she could fill up her cups or let the water run on her toes.

She has had some medicine and some stories and hopefully will have a good night.

11/24/07 (Saturday)

Last night, Cara slept over in Middletown. This morning, I drove down and joined her. She had had a wonderful evening. I got to see her new toy, a magnetic fishing set. There are about a dozen good-sized fish who float in the tub, and there are four little plastic fishing poles. It was so exciting that we had to fill the tub again and fish them all out, even the pink ones, who had been separated from the others. We drew and colored. I made a cave with an afghan, and lots of Cara's toys, including the Big Dog, joined her in it. Hiding is definitely a favorite activity now: yesterday, Cara spent a lot of time under the dining room table, Grandmama reports.

In the early afternoon, we went over to GiGi's house! Tony and Dolores, Grandpapa's aunt and uncle, were there already. I thought Cara was going to be shy, but she quickly went over to show them her toys and even give them some. She let Dolores pull her pants up and everything. They're experienced grandparents, so they're experts on little kids. Dolores got to wipe Cara's hands at dinner, and Tony was allowed to play with the Littlest Pet Shop kitties. Cara liked her soup a lot (three napkins worth) and, to my delight, ate up all the kielbasa I cut up for her! She sat at the table on a regular chair with a pillow on it.

When we got into the car, Cara was tired. She fell asleep in five minutes, drooping over onto Puma and Zebra in her lap. When we pulled onto our street, I saw Em outside with the kids. We stopped, and Cara woke up. Em invited, Cara assented, and Em opened the door and unbuckled her. As I drove home, Cara was running up the driveway to ask Ron for a big hug! Of course, by the time I had gotten out of my car she had realized that she had just woken up from an all-too-brief car nap and was wailing at the foot of their driveway.

The three kids and Em came back over here for a few minutes. PJ got us to get out Elefun, and Em and I caught a lot of butterflies. PJ found the gummy bears (mummy bears!), and we managed to hold the children back while I divided them onto two plates. Each kid got about nine. At first Em was concerned because PJ had eaten more than half of his, while Cara was still on her first one, but then Cara delicately picked all the rest but one up in her hand and stuffed them into her mouth. She gave Em her last one.

We all headed back to PJ's house to watch George. We played trains. We made messes. We ate some popcorn. Puma and Zebra had come with us, and Puma, in particular, had a good time. PJ has a small skateboard, and Puma got to ride on it. "I can skateboard! Meow meow!" he announced repeatedly, though sometimes he claimed he could roller-skate. He also got to sit in the office chair and be spun around a lot. So did I.

Puma's adventures continued once we got home to see Daddy. We ate some dinner and naturally Cara headed downstairs first. "Evewen!" we heard a little voice calling. "Evewen!" Strange. Cara doesn't call me that. It turned out to be Puma calling me. He wanted to play Elefun. He wanted the red net. I could have green. Cara would have blue. It was hard to all play, since Puma and Zebra, who joined us, could not hold their own nets. Daddy, who also joined us, could. A few minutes later, Puma, with Cara sitting behind him, was driving Cara's ride-on car.

I had to go out to pick up some Nyquil for poor Steve, who has a bad cold. While I was out, I made a Very Foolish Purchase. I bought, for no good reason beyond that it was there and what I was looking for was not, Sudsy Mudsy. It's a Crayola product. What I got was two tubs of colored, mud-like soap, with a tiny shovel.

Cara was getting into the tub when I got home, so we got it out. I put away the blue tub, and Steve opened up the green. The tubs are a little bigger than individual servings of apple sauce. Cara went to work with her shovel. When Steve called me to come look, ten minutes later, Cara's face and tummy were smeared with green. The bath tub was smeared with green. The water was green. Steve's sweatshirt was somewhat green. I took pictures. It took some work on Steve's part and some fresh water to get the tub and Cara back to normal. She was happy, though. We'll save the other tub for a special occasion, I think, like maybe when she starts kindergarten!

11/25/07 (Sunday)

We had a nice lazy Sunday, sort of. Actually we accomplished a lot, but we didn't really go anywhere. We all bundled up and went outside in the morning (after Cara's breakfast of leftover pasta) to rake leaves and put things away for the winter. Cara has a little snow shovel, so we brought that out and she kind of moved some leaves around. She played on her slides and helped me empty out her sand table and helped by standing on the tarp while we raked leaves onto it. Eventually she was helplessly bored and needy and it was naptime anyway, so I gave her some lunch and put her down.

After a very amiale non-nap, we hung around the house for a while. The nice clean sandless table is in the basement, and Cara and I brought the Weebles down to play. They'll live there for a while. Cara likes the basement. She noticed the cats' water fountain and asked why they drink from it. I asked her why she drinks. She explained that she drinks from cups with little holes in them and it goes into her mouth. Very helpful.

We went out and bought a laptop! Cara selected two cat toys to bring along to the store for her amusement. I brought little animals, but she stuck with her cat toys throughout. Lately Cara has been taking out her Baby Einstein videos, and while we played with our new computer we let her watch the one about the seasons that has a lot of zebra puppets. She stood and stared at it for twenty minutes. She absolutely loved it, but here's one thing she couldn't do the last time she watched it: There is a lot of time when there are no zebra puppets, just other images. The last time Cara watched the video, she could not ask, "Where those zebas?" Every time they were not on-screen. I think we all enjoyed seeing them again, though.

We went out for dinner to the ribs place down the road, and Cara had macaroni and cheese. She got a side of beans, which she did not want. She rejected my corn muffin and fries. We ordered a side of macaroni and cheese. When it came, she ate it with elaborate enjoyment. The two of us did take a brief after-dinner stroll. We went to see the big wooden bear. We said hi to it, then Cara marched off with me trailing behind. She turned left. Left again. Left again. Left again. Why, there was another bear! After a long walk including a stroll through the bar, we eventually found Daddy.

11/26/07 (Monday)

We went out with Juliana tonight! We took her in our car to the diner. Cara showed off lots of her toys and ate her ravioli like a good girl. Like a good surrogate Grandma, Juliana took a cookie for Cara, who, however, ignored it. On the way home in the car, Cara got hold of her baby doll. Juliana named it Emma, which Cara may have liked. "I want to get dwessed!" said the doll. So Juliana got to dress a baby doll in the back seat of a moving car in the dark.

Of course Juliana had to come in to play. She had been in before dinner and had read books to Cara. Now, we showed her our basement toys. Cara pooped and decided that Juliana had to change her. She insisted, so Juliana, deeming this an honor, came up and provided moral support for Cara while I changed her. I asked Cara to pull her own pants up afterwards, but she decided Juliana had to do it.

When Juliana had gone home, we settled in to watch the zebras. We're working on weaning her from the TV again, but we could only hold out so long! It is nice to relax together as a family, too. It's a really good thing that Cara's so excited about playing with the running water in the bath now, because she ran right upstairs when she heard it starting, forgetting about the television--until she was out of the tub again!

11/27/07 (Tuesday)

Cara and PJ ran to meet me today, each holding a pink Styrofoam tray with rubber bands around it. They were thrilled about their guitars! PJ told me what they were, and Cara told me that she could play "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star." Susan explained that they had just all been playing together.

At home, we did some drawing and playing. "Mommy, could you wash my face?" Cara asked. I wondered why. "Because it has a little purple on it." That sounded like a good reason. Cara came over and picked up the purple marker she had been using. "What if I put some purple on my face?" She uncapped it, raised it, and drew what amounted to half of a mustache on her clean face. She was satisfied, and we headed upstairs to wash it off. She liked looking at it in the mirror, and when I got the wash cloth she washed it off herself. Then she washed it some more. Then she washed off the rungs on the banister. I'm not sure how many she actually did, because I decided not to hang around for that. When she was done, she let me hang up the cloth.

When Cara gets home, she is hungry. We read a nice Richard Scarry book that had pictures of produce, and after some discussion Cara decided she wanted a banana. In the kitchen, there were no bananas. I picked her up to see that there were none. That was a silly thing to do, because it gave Cara a great view of her Halloween candy! I let her have a pink Tootsie Roll. She also ate a cheese stick and some grapes that I hadn't remembered having. While I was getting the grapes out, Cara was pulling on the doors of the microwave cart, asking me to open them so that she could have "toons!" I had no idea what those were. Questioning elicited the information that they were square and she liked them and ate them. Eventually we moved on and shared the grapes.

Halfway through dinner, when Cara, having had plenty of snacks, had moved on, she came back in and asked again for toons. Steve was as mystified as I was, for a second. "Croutons?" he asked. Yes! She got some.

After dinner, Cara announced that she was going to the basement to look for her baby with a bow on its head. I went with her. She opened the big cabinets, searching fruitlessly for a toy that I personally do not recall or just do not recognize from its description. Nor do I see why it would be in those cabinets. So, Cara eventually happened upon her Christmas present, a Playmobil dollhouse, which is in its box in the cabinet down there. She asked for it. I told her no. Why? Because it's your Christmas present. That was a good enough reason. We went off to play with other things, and Cara did not mention it again. It's good to have a two-year-old!

11/28/07 (Wednesday)

Today was Annika's birthday party at Susan's house! Cara happened to wear her Disney princesses shirt, so she matched the theme. Susan says everyone had a good time and Cara ate lots of cake. She also reports that Cara was very good about having other kids get presents in front of her, which is nice. Additionally, I hear that "Cara sings a mean Happy Birthday!"

We got a very nice goodie bag. We got home and I left the room for a minute. When I came back, Cara had found the little bag of candy among the toys and dumped it. She was unwrapping an orange Starburst. I soon realized that the pink one was already in her mouth. I weighed the joy she was getting from having all the candy she could want against the harm of letting her have it, and I sided with the joy. It doesn't happen often; we still have lots of Halloween candy left! Cara gave me the orange Starburst. She unwrapped a Tootsie pop and gave it to me. She gave me another orange. She unwrapped the second lollipop for me. I secretly threw out the lollipops, but the Starburst were good. I ended up getting most of the candy. Cara got me to unwrap the Smarties for her, and we put them in a little bowl, but no one ate them. I explained to her that I do not particularly like them, and when Cara tried one she still had a Starburst in her mouth, so that did not go well.

Cara's toy giraffe came out and ended up helping to clean up the wrappers, which Cara herself was not at all interested in doing. She did sing a song about cleaning, but nothing happened. Giraffe could get a lot of the wrappers, and I suggested to Cara that she might have to help him, since her fingers were better. I heard her explaining that to him, in turn, while she finished the cleaning up.

At Playdate Em was being a much more responsible Mommy than I and trying to keep the candy to after dinner. She had twice as much, too, with two kids! Most of it did end up waiting, and Cara and PJ each had a lollipop or two while we hung out downstairs. Cara cuddled up to Em and stayed that way on the couch for a long time.

Cara has been a little bit congested for a couple of days, so she got some medicine before bed. She saw the Nyquil, which has been out because Steve has been sick, and she wanted it. We've told her it's grown-up medicine, and I really don't want to tell her how nasty it is. She begged and begged, and finally, as she was moving her step-stool over to try to reach it, I took it and put it away. The wailing began: "Mommy took my grown-up medicine!" I'm not sure how long the drama would have continued, had Steve not distracted her with her Dora and Diego Chutes and Ladders!

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