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Journal Key:

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

1/3/08 (Thursday)

Another great day at Susan's! Cara woke up wet after her nap, but otherwise she was dry all day! Tomorrow, Susan says, we can send her in pull-ups.

When we got home from Susan's, Daddy was here! It was a happy time. We played and had fun and made ourselves a good dinner. I made peas, and Cara liked them. I had to give her a little bowl to eat them out of, and she used a little spoon, too. She made Daddy eat some. In the middle of dinner, Cara decided to point up. She made us point up, too. It was just as if we were at Friendly's. We all had to use both arms.

While we were finishing up, the power went out! It stayed out for over two hours. We lit candles and found our flashlight and enjoyed it. While I cleaned up from dinner, Cara and Daddy played downstairs. Being in the dark seemed to add new charm to Cara's toys. I am also proud to announce that, by candlelight, Cara asked me to take her to the bathroom. She sat on the regular potty, like at Susan's house, and she earned herself another sticker. (I've cut her back to she only gets one if she is productive.)

It was getting cold, and Daddy suggested that we all get into our pajamas to stay warm. Cara likes to run around upstairs naked while we wait with her clothes. She tried it today, but there was no light except for where we were, so she had to keep coming back! We all put on a few layers of cuddly pajamas and came back downstairs.

It was sing-along time! Cara made me time "Itsy-Bitsy Spider," "Frere Jacque" in English and French, and the little gingerbread man, which became an extended narrative. We made up a story together about a horse. I did "You Are My Sunshine." Daddy and I sang a round. All this time, Cara stayed cuddled up to me, sometimes laying her head down and "snoring."

Cara occasionally got up and ran "very fast" around the room. She kept coming back to the couch, and the three of us ended up there under a blanket reading. We did Cara's pop-up geography book, and then Daddy found The Circus McGurkus! (The circus supreme!) Daddy and I really enjoyed reading that one! We were more than halfway through Ride a Purple Pelican when the power came back. It was past nine o'clock, and definitely bedtime.

It was a wonderful evening. I'm very glad we got back into our old books a little; I'm hoping that now I can have one of them in my head instead of the Wiggles song I've been battling all day!

1/5/08 (Saturday)

Cara came back from Grandmama's house happy. We had gotten a message the night before that Cara made a poopy on the potty! Exciting for us all. This morning Cara was returned to us in her pajamas, and we were still in our pajamas, so that worked out nicely. We lazed about a bit until lunchtime. Cara was very uninterested in eating and was very upset that we would not just give her ice cream. In retrospect this makes sense. She had a nice long nap and then PJ and Casey came over for a party playdate.

Unfortunately both Casey and Cara became sick with some kind of stomach bug this evening. Casey was the first, at dinnertime, and nobody ate much dinner. Then after PJ and Casey departed Cara started saying she did not feel well, and pretty soon she had ruined Mommy's second pair of pants (the first having been ruined by Casey). Cara is staying up late watching TV now since putting her to bed would be pointless and messy. She is very unhappy, but hopefully the bug will pass quickly. We're not sure how or why Casey and Cara came down with this thing. As far as we know, PJ remains unaffected.

1/6/08 (Sunday)

Last night was not fun for anyone. Casey and Cara both spent hours throwing up; they emptied themselves out and continued with just bile. PJ joined in later; he just threw up a couple of times, but he was also a little feverish. We put Cara down to bed around one; PJ and Casey were both really down around two.

This morning I remembered something: A mommy was at Susan's to pick up one of her daughters when I arrived on Thursday. The other, she said, was at home sick, throwing up. We have a source! Em and I have considered calling her to ask how long it lasted.

When we got up this morning, we found that Cara's digestive trouble had moved to her other end. We popped her into the bath and started another load of laundry. Poor Cara asked for juicy juice, which Steve went out to get. She really was much better; she drank some water and some juice, and she had some crackers with glee. After a morning with some playing and some cuddling, her diaper was still dry when we put her down for her nap around one.

We had to run another bath and start more laundry when we woke Cara a little after four. She was excited about going over to PJ's house, which helped motivate her. Over there, she really didn't eat anything. She may have had two noodles. She was much cuddlier than usual. She did some playing, but her cuddliness and the lack of appetite make me reluctant to send her to daycare tomorrow.

None of the kids threw up all day, and PJ and Casey had no diaper trouble. At dinner, though, PJ threw up! He also ate a brownie afterwards and threw that up. He's not going to Susan's, either. It's interesting to see how the three kids react differently to the same illness.

So, I think my wonderful mother in law will be coming up tomorrow, unless Cara wakes up perky and eats a great breakfast. In fact, if she wakes up and eats a great breakfast, how will we know she'll keep it down? Better safe than sorry.

1/7/08 (Monday)

Grandmom came up to stay with Cara today. First Cara stayed with Em, after Daddy left. The kids requested pancakes, Em made them, and the kids refused to eat them. Cara said they were "yucky." Little charmer.

Grandmom brought macaroni and cheese for Cara, who ate half of it at about ten in the morning and the rest around eleven. She used the potty reliably. They played all day, except for when Cara took a good nap.

I am sick. I lay on the couch all afternoon. Steve is getting sick. Grandmom stayed to give Cara some soup, and after she left we just collapsed in the living room. Poor Steve! (I'm more dramatically ill and much needier.) Cara is great.

One cute thing. Cara went upstairs. "Daddy, you sick?" she asked, coming back and slowly climbing down the stairs. She brought him the cough drops he's had on his dresser.

1/8/08 (Tuesday)

Cara woke up early today, which is very out of character. I think she was hungry. I was already up, and I wasn't going to work, so we just cuddled for a while. Steve got up and made Cara some pancakes. She had a quiet day at Susan's.

Steve and I felt a little better. We had tostitos while Cara had a kiddie tv dinner Steve had picked up for her. Steve tried some soup, too! Cara decided she wanted it, and he offered to trade for her macaroni and cheese. No deal. After dinner Cara and I played some Nick Jr. computer games, though we could not find one Cara wanted, which had to do with taking care of Dora's twin baby siblings. When Cara started asking for games, she asked for the potato. I was mystified. Eventually it resolved itself into "the volcano," referring to a Backyardigans episode. I do not think we've ever played a game about that. Oh well.

1/9/08 (Wednesday)

I reversed our morning routine this morning, and when Cara woke up I took her right downstairs in her pajamas and we had breakfast. Then we went upstairs and got her into her clothes. It went quite well; she already decided what shirt she wanted (her Little Einsteins one, which she initially claimed had Annie on it) before we even got to her room, and after she was dressed she hopped off the glider and said, "Now I have to brush my teeth!" In retrospect I'm sure this was a freak occurrence and will never happen again, but it was nice all the same.

For breakfast I decided to try to have toast with Cara. I made four pieces and put two each on two plates. First Cara wanted the OTHER plate, not the one that was near her. Okay. Then I wandered about doing other things instead of eating my toast and Cara finished hers. She wanted more. I gave her a half of one of my pieces and started eating my second piece. I had eaten almost exactly half of it when Cara finished her half. On my plate was the remaining half-slice, and the remaining half of the piece I had eaten. Cara specifically requested the half of the piece I had eaten, and did not want the other half-piece, even though they were exactly the same size. I convinced her that she didn't want mine. So Cara had three pieces of toast for breakfast and I had one. I was okay with that.

Cara had a great day at Susan's; Susan said she was back to herself again. She was certainly bright and cheerful when I got there. There is a new girl who has just started, and Susan reports that Cara played really well with her. She's only a couple of weeks younger than Cara, so it should be perfect.

Cara and I have some of our best conversations on the way home. There are fewer distractions than we find in the house, I think. I asked about the new girl. Cara didn't remember her name, so I told her. Cara likes her. What does she like to do, I asked. "Laugh," said Cara, "and scream." Hmmm. I asked about what they had played with today. A roller coaster. Cara soon embarked on a monologue, some snatches of which I could catch. (She tends to speak very quietly in the car.) She seems to have been relating some incidents from her day, which may or may not be entirely apocryphal. "It was broken and Susan put glue on it 'who broke this?' 'I did!' Susan said 'don't break it' . . . " I'm not really sure what was broken, if anything. Cara likes the idea of putting glue on things. She also sounded quite triumphant when she took credit for breaking whatever it was. My theory is that the roller coaster came apart at one point, possibly involving a disagreement between Cara and PJ.

Best phone call of the evening: "Hi, Evelyn? It's Susan. I've lost my marbles, and I want to know whether Cara has them." Quite seriously. The roller coaster is a track for marbles, large marbles. Susan frisked PJ before he left, but Cara might have had them in her pants, and then they would wind up in the washer. Nothing was in Cara's pants. Susan confirmed, when I asked, that Cara and the new girl had had a great time screaming back and forth at each other, fortunately outside.

When I was off the phone, I tried interrogating Cara about the marbles. She was playing with her baby dolls, who may have been using the potty. She looked at me very seriously and, raising a finger to her lips, said, "shhhhh!" Further questioning elicited that Cara had "put them in the holes in the roller coaster." I could not find out from her whether they were supposed to go there, which makes sense because if she put them there, then naturally they belonged there!

I had brought home groceries, and Cara asked for a hot dog roll. I gave it to her, and she wanted a hot dog in it. I made her one. She ate it, along with half of the roll. (She still splits the roll like a banana peel, entirely with her mouth!) She wanted another, new roll and all. I gave her another. She wanted another. I tried distracting her. She kept coming back to it. I gave her another. She wanted another. I drew the line at three hot dogs. "Wait until Daddy gets home!" I told her. Unfortunately, when Daddy got home, much later, she still remembered! It was pretty easy, though, to kind of distract her at that point. It is very scary to sit next to a two-year-old who is just getting over a stomach bug and who has eaten three hot dogs, when you are wearing your very favorite pajama pants that have been thrown up on twice already.

I finally got Cara to tell me what she'd had for lunch. I think she must have a split personality. This was not entirely a monologue, but I will write it as such, with one of Cara's voices in italics. All I asked was what she had, whether she ate it, and whether she liked it. "Peanut butter and strawberries! Yes! I ate it! No, I didn't eat it! I like it! No, because I don't like it!"

Fortunately the rest of the evening went off without Cara bringing any of her three hot dogs back up. She spent some time watching TV and some time playing computer games with me, Daddy. Cara had a similar contrary-wise way of talking when it came to choosing a game to play. This was mainly because she answers before she has actually made up her mind, so I would get answers like "That one--no, not that one!" We found a game where you could build robots, which is a wonderful thing to do, and we built every robot that we could build twice. Then it was past time to get a bath. Mommy found the fishing poles and fish that Grandmama got for Cara and we had a nice bath with those. It turns out our tub is made of metal--who knew?! The magnets in the fishing poles were constantly getting stuck to the sides and bottom of the tub, which added to the fun.

Mommy is back in action and managed to get Cara dried, dressed, brushed (teeth and hair), and storied, and now she is in bed after what was apparently a very eventful day.

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