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Journal Key:

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

 

11/29/07 (Thursday)

When I arrived at Susan's, PJ ran out to meet me first. I crouched down to greet him, and he knocked me flat! When Cara came out, she remonstrated with him and tried to help me up. She even used her "stop" hand on him, but it was astonishingly ineffective. He knocked me down a couple more times and pulled on my work ID, at which I did draw the line.

We stopped at the grocery store on the way home; we needed beans, Cara's favorite, so she did not object. We visited the produce section, where Cara spent much longer than I would have in examining the cabbages, largely because they were purple. Then she sampled some parsley and did not like it. The misters came on and we scampered away from the "rain." While we walked down to the Spanish aisle, Cara told me about the cabbages and the misters and then told me a long story about Emma hitting her on the head with a hammer. Cara claims that her reaction was to tell Emma, "Stop! Don't hit me with a hammer!"

At home we got out some stickers that came in yesterday's goodie bag. Having used them up, Cara found a few stickers in the kitchen and proceeded to paste them on the wall. As soon as I told her that that was not a good idea, she took them down and went to find some paper.

It was taco night, and I made Cara a quesadilla to go with her beans. I am charmed by the way she now eats this. She dips the quesadilla into her beans. By the end, she was shoveling beans on top! It's not easy to do that without using your fork, but she sure tried.

I, having been very lazy for very long, am now reaping the fruits of my non-labors. I'm a very popular parent. Cara insisted that I give her her bath tonight, and then she wanted me to get her dressed and read her a book! Novelty makes things highly desirable. I do have fun with her in the bath. Those sharks really love to have picnics, at which the sole refreshment is water. I'm proud of Cara. She loves to lay the washcloth out on the rim of the tub, and yesterday I explained that that was bad because of the drips. I showed her to squeeze it out first. This evening, she tried to do it!

11/30/07 (Friday)

A few highlights from Grandmama:

A bedsheet over the dining room table makes a wonderful secret place, big enough for both of us. When is the last time I was under the table? Above the table, a lot of painting got done.

No one enjoys a bath more than a 2-year-old, and Cara's bath was a lengthy, splashy affair. She caught all her fishes, wielding a fishing pole in each hand, and spent some time investigating the mysterious way the magnets at the ends of the fishing lines repel one another. Catching a round fish, she said she had a fat one. "He's round like a ball," I agreed, "He's roly-poly." Cara liked this expression and used it several times: "He rowy-powy," and once, for emphasis, "He rowy and powy."

12/1/07 (Saturday)

In the morning Cara asked to see the wedding cake ornament that is on display in the family room. While she closely examined it, admiring the roses and asking about the veil, I got out the wedding album so she could see her mommy in her veil and holding her flowers, and see the little bride and groom on top of the cake. Naturally, as we looked through the album, she asked, "Where am I?" She seemed to accept the explanation that mommy and daddy got married first, and then they wanted a little girl.

The event of our day was Annika's birthday party at Chuck E Cheese's. It was our first trip there, and we were pretty sure it would be one of those parenting events that leave one scarred for life. We'd been warned to take the Tylenol before we left the house. Actually, I think we were both looking forward to it, albeit with the realization that it would be a little louder than we're used to, somewhat overwhelming, and possibly scary for Cara.

We had to wake Cara from her nap to go, so she was not exactly at her perkiest. The place was packed, of course. PJ and Casey, with Em, arrived a little bit after we did. Avery was there, and Annika and Aliyah, of course. It was cool to see them all out of the daycare setting.

We found the corner intended for the little kids. Among other attractions, there was a tiny carousel with three horses just the right size for the kids. There was a giant rocking horse ride with little stairs leading up to the mounting platform. There were regular little rides where kids got to drive a car with Chuck E or a train with Barney. There was a strange contraption which involved the rider sitting on a bicycle on a rotating platform; when the pedals went around, the bicycle rose into the air on a robotic arm. There was a little slide. There was a big slide, but the only way to get up to it was to climb up either of two towers and get into a giant tunnel system suspended near the ceiling.

After a period of acclimation and sizing up the possibilities, Cara started to climb a tower! She was really not quite big enough yet to climb from one platform to the next, so Steve coached her on how to climb up the net walls enough to get onto the next level. Soon, she was above our heads. She disappeared into the tunnels. I think Steve and I were both a little shocked. We could catch glimpses of her in the plastic windows, and occasionally she waved. She could walk up there, crouched over, and there was a lot to explore.

I didn't see her come out, but I did see her back at the bottom of the tower, beginning her second ascent. Eventually we caught all the children and had pizza. I don't think Cara or PJ had much pizza, but Steve reports that Cara had two pieces of cake. From where I sat I could see that she stayed in Steve's lap throughout the entertainment portion of the evening, in which Chuck E and several employees did a dance and many children danced along. I assumed that she was scared of them, but perhaps she was just more interested in the uncut birthday cake sitting right there on the table.

I took PJ back to the rides when he was done. He hopped right on the carousel and stayed on his horse for the entire ride. On his next ride, he got off his horse and stood. On his next ride, he tried hopping off and on. On his next ride, he tried riding a horse again and then opted for more hopping. Bored with that after a few more rides, he climbed into a train ride, sitting beside Barney. I gave him a token and he started it, but he soon got out. He got bahind it and leaned against it with his shoulder, hoping, perhaps, to help it get started moving, since it seemed to be having so much trouble getting traction.

Everyone else soon followed us. Cara headed back into the warren, barely coming out. We had figured that the climbing would get easier for her, but it stayed really hard all evening. She really worked at it, though, even with bigger kids breezing past her. We stood around, craning our necks for a glimpse of her. We thought she might be upset because most of the kids were faster than she and must just be running by her all the time, but she always came out ready for more.

When the birthday party was over we said goodbye to everyone, and then we went back, holding our coats, to let Cara have one last trip through. Then another. Then another. She got an extra hour. She didn't stick with the tunnels the whole time, either. She rode the carousel. She drove that train with Barney and got very snuggly with him. She drove a car with Chuck E and embraced him, with her hand in his mouth. She loved the giant rocking horse; she rode that one about three times. Eventually she noticed the flying bicycle. We went over to stare. With our last token, we let Cara ride it. She wanted to pedal herself, but her legs were too short to reach. I got her to back up a little and spun the pedals myself, as we'd seen other parents do. Soon Cara was in the air! She really wanted to go again, after it ended.

She really didn't want to leave. She really, really didn't want to leave. She wanted to go back to Chuck E Cheese. In the car, I suggested that perhaps on Friday she could ask Grandmama to take her. Really, though, Steve and I are both willing to go again.

12/2/07 (Sunday)

It snowed last night! I pulled up Cara's blinds and showed her the street outside. "It snowed!" she said. We spent some time lazing about the house but eventually all got into our snowgear. For Cara, this involved a complicated, many-layered arrangement featuring snowpants, mittens, and a jacket with a liner and two zippers. Fully attired, she was very puffy and a bit immobilized, but it didn't seem to bother her and we had a nice time in the cold outside. Our main task was to clean off Mommy's car, which we did with various tools, including Cara's cute little snow shovel. While we were out PJ came outside also. "Cara!" he called, and it turned into a chant: "Ca-Ra! Ca-Ra! Ca-Ra!" "Hi PJ! Hi Ron!" Cara called. PJ had to go off to the store with his family, and soon Mommy had to go off to the store to buy groceries, so Cara and I hung around the house and worked in the snow a little more.

This is her first snowfall of the year, and this year she quickly discovered (as did PJ) the joyous experience of eating snow. I repeatedly told her that we don't eat snow and just as repeatedly found her carefully nibbling it off of her mitten. I think I got through to her eventually. Cara hasn't been playing outside too much lately and noticed this time out that her springy horse toy is gone (we put it in the shed). I told her he was put away so he wouldn't get cold out in the snow. We went down to her little slides, which are also slightly winterized but were coated with snow. Cara discovered how much faster the slide is with slippery snow on it! We did some stomping and looked at our footprints. I decided against showing her snow angels, and when my hands started getting very cold we went inside.

Mommy had suggested hot chocolate before she left so I made some--decidedly luke warm, I'm afraid, but Cara liked it fine and was soon happily slurping goldfish crackers out of it (I know: eww). We had a very impressive hot chocolate spill, compounded by the fact that I did not remove the still partly filled mug off the table after the first spill, and that Cara enjoyed discovering what would happen if she started sticking her hand in the chocolate puddle and pushing the liquid off the edge of the table. All was cleaned up by the time Mommy got back.

Also before Mommy got back, we got out Cara's interesting goodie bag which she got at Chuck E. Cheese's last night. It had several highlights, one of which was a top which lights when you spin it (sometimes). Cara was quickly arrested by the sight of a gummy pizza. She has learned to love all things gummy, and the concept of a gummy pizza was not at all repellant to her. I was at first reluctant to allow the candy, but relented with the provision that she only eat half (it was neatly split in two already). She took many many minutes to finish eating that one half, licking it a lot and saying many times that she liked it.

Cara had some "letters" for lunch (Chef Boyardee) and then got popped into her crib, where she chattered for quite a while and then slept for many hours. Evie went in to get her at around 4:30 and was sitting with her in the glider for a while--Cara's eyes were very heavy and there seemed the danger that she would simply doze off again. Ev and I pretty much had the same idea for how to get Cara going, but I was the one who asked her if she would like to go downstairs and have the other half of her gummy pizza. Was this right? Hmmm.

Armed with her pizza (which, she claimed later, smelled like pizza, and she liked it), we got her excited about going to play with PJ and then I dropped her off at Em and Ron's for some babysitting. She had some soup and some Diego and came back to us happy as ever--in another candy-related incident, she spent her first minutes at home eating the two tootsie rolls that came in her goodie bag and running around and around the play room, saying that she was "A very good runner." She even tried to bend her arms and swing them like a real runner would. Not sure where she got that idea.

Cara wanted to watch more Diego, but Evie diverted her by sitting with her at the computer and finding a web site with Diego computer games. The printed out a nice collection of safari animals which we can put into a book if we wish. Cara told me that she had seen Diego not on the television, but on the computer! Now she is just out of her bath. Mommy continues to be popular as a bath-giver, but maybe I can still take care of storytime.

12/3/07 (Monday)

Mondays are hard for working grownups, but also for little girls who have to go back to daycare instead of sitting around watching television in their pajamas. But actually Cara had a fine Monday morning, just one little moment of unhappiness when I had to break it to her that Mommy was at work, not at home.

After we were all home again, Mommy was cooking dinner so I got to read some books to Cara. When that got boring, Cara went and grabbed onto Mommy's leg. Mommy suggested that we play internet games. She had done this yesterday (see last paragraph of previous entry), and it had gone well. So I got Cara on my lap and we soon found the Jaguar Adventure game, wherein Diego and his little pal Baby Jaguar have to collect a bunch of magic bottles which contain the growls of other jaguars (this is one of the more lucid Diego plotlines). Cara and I had so much fun doing this that it was hard to get us to come in for our dinners.

Indeed, after some pasta Cara was ready to go and continue playing. I explained that I was still eating. "Daddy, can you be done?" she asked. Eventually I was and we spent the entire remainder of the evening playing Diego-related games on the internet. This was supposed to be a substitute for watching TV--I'm not sure if it was that much of an improvement, but I certainly had fun playing the games (Cara was content to watch).

We had a colored bath (yellow and yellow, because they are the only color tablets left, Cara having quickly used up all the blues and reds to make purple over and over again) and Cara convinced me to let her dump all of her bath toys into the water. Then there was a detailed story involving the mermaid, who is almost always "bad" and doing bad things, preferably with her arms raised. However this time she was bad and good and ended up by carrying all of the little plastic turtles to a "safe place." Well that was nice.

12/4/07 (Tuesday)

It's Hanukkah! When Cara first messed up Hanukkah and "Mannika," I didn't realize how much trouble it would be. We're sending a couple of Hanukkah books to Susan's tomorrow, and I'm pretty sure Cara thinks they're for Annika. We read a couple of them before Daddy got home. The one that plays "I Have a Little Dreidel" has run out of battery! Yay! We also had a lengthy discussion about "Hanukkah" versus "Mannika."

Cara helped me make corn muffins. She poured things into the bowl, she mixed things, and she even broke the egg! I hit my eggs on the counter to break them, but Susan hits hers on the rim of the bowl. I know because that's what Cara does. I held her hand and we kind of did it together. It was a little bit like a three-legged race, with each of us moving in a different direction. She got it to crack a little, and then she held it over the bowl and there was a little bit of egg-crushing going on. We both had eggy hands, but the egg got into the bowl and the shell didn't.

I set up our menorah, and I got out the gel one I bought for Cara. It's a menorah made of gel shapes that stick to windows! We put it on the fridge. I gave Cara the menorah and two candles, and then I had to give her the two flames. While she stuck those up, I put the rest away. She moved hers to the table and then to a kitchen cabinet.

When Daddy got home, we lit the menorah. "It's time to sing," I said as I went to throw away the match. "Happy birthday . . ." Cara began.

Daddy brought donuts! It was hard for some of us to wait until after dinner to eat them. (Bad plan, Mommy!) I hid them, eventually, and I made sure to make Cara something she'd eat. She had pasta. I asked her, when she was done, whether I could have her asparagus. "No, Mommy!" She even gave me the "stop" hand. She ate it all herself. That'll never work again; it was too easy.

Cara got pink donuts. They're glazed donuts, I guess, with pink icing. They're apparently the official donut of the NY Jets, or something like that. Cara had both, but she really mainly ate the icing off of them. Who knew, Steve pointed out, that donuts had crust?

When Cara developed a habit of pulling everything out of her pajama drawer, we got smart and cleaned it out so that there's almost nothing in it. That went well for a couple of weeks, but now she's just switched to another drawer. It's a drawer filled with things that are way too big for her. This evening, she noticed the gloves in the bottom. With considerable difficulty and finally some help, she put them on. I was able to convince her that a great thing to do with her new hands was to put everything else back in the drawer. She ran around with gloves on for the next twenty minutes. I'm wondering whether she'll sleep in them.

12/5/07 (Wednesday)

Cara did sleep in her gloves. She put them right back on after getting dressed, and then Daddy had to talk her into taking them off to pick up her gummie vitamins. She ended up not bringing them to Susan's.

Today's project at daycare was to color in a menorah; then Susan let the kids use some foam sticker Christmas ornaments, upside down, as flames for the candles. Susan reports that when she discussed Hanukkah with the kids, Cara was able to answer most of her questions. (Areas in which Cara is ignorant include gelt and dreidels.)

It was snowing. There was a dusting on the ground, particularly of course on the grass. Cara would not get into the car. She struggled and fought when I tried to put her in myself. Freed, she ran up and down on the ground between Susan's sidewalk and curb. Her sneakers have hearts in their footprints. I had to stand around for several minute before she finally climbed into the car.

On the way home, we enjoy looking at the holiday lights. "I see them! I see them!" Cara cries. It is a source of constant delight. She asked me to turn down a side street, because she saw some lights that way. If I ever say I like particular ones, Cara instantly likes them, too. My favorites are her favorites. This evening, though, she announced, "Mommy, I like lights. You don't!" She was quite insistent for about thirty seconds, after which she forgot all about it.

At home, we could not go inside. We had to run in circles on the lawn, with Cara yelling, "Run, Mommy, run!" We filled the bird feeder. We ran to the top of the yard and ran down. We ran around the tree. We ran around near the tree. Cara sat in snow on the railroad tie near the fence. She wanted to sit and watch me run around, but I talked her into letting me watch her run. Then she really wanted me to sit in the snow. We were out there, literally, for fifteen minutes.

It was playdate here. PJ made me change his diaper. Cara made Ron get her out of her booster seat. Casey asked for things and then said, "no no no no!" None of the children would tell us what they had for lunch today. PJ insists it was apples, but there must have been more. Cara was unable to think about lunch when dinner was in front of her. Everyone played well together. No one destroyed my holiday decorations. Many of us had a good dinner. It was a very pleasant evening.

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