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Journal Key:

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

1/10/08 (Thursday)

Poor Cara had a very unhappy morning. She perked up for a little bit here and there, but she was definitely not digestively happy. She had diarrhea, and I picked her up from Susan's at about a quarter to twelve.

I anticipated a dreadful trip home, but everything was fine. Cara was cheerful and chatty. Here, we played and had fun. "Why we go to my house?" Cara asked. I told her it was because she was sick and I had come to get her. "Oh, fank you, Mommy, fank you!"

She was fine. I gave her a little bit more to eat, topping the waffles she'd enjoyed at Susan's, and then I read her a book and put her down. She slept soundly under her blanket. Aside from the laundry, I saw no signs of problems!

In the evening she got kind of unhappy. Steve thinks she was in distress again, and I think it was at least partly hunger. I guess he may be right. Nothing dramatic happened, but we are considering keeping her home tomorrow.

1/11/08 (Friday)

We sent Cara to Susan's, and she had a great day. They made mitten-prints. They got to put on mittens, slop them in paint, and slap them on paper. They did it twice, with orange and blue paints. The kids really enjoyed it; PJ came out to show me his. Susan said the mittens were sopping and the paint was all over. Definitely a good time. I just wonder what happened to all the mittens.

What a great evening! We went to the mall to meet Daddy, having canceled Cara's sleepover yesterday because we didn't know how she would be feeling. Cara loves going to the mall, and she loves to find Daddy. We parked near his car, which I showed her. On the way into the mall, she must have asked me five times where he was. Every time, I told her he was in the mall, and I asked whether we should go find him. Always yes, fortunately.

It's really rather a long time since we've had a family outing to the mall. Cara is much older than she was. She wants to do everything. She wants to ride in one of the fancy strollers they have for rent, among other things. This evening, I didn't carry Cara a step. Until the end, I don't think Steve did, either. She walked all the way across the mall!

The first exciting thing was the fountain; she let go of our hands and ran. After we saw that for a few minutes, we could head for Friendly's. We couldn't go in, though, because Cara somehow spotted another fountain. We went to look at it, and then we had to climb up the stairs that run above it to the second floor and look down. One of us almost got her head stuck in the railing. That was a good lesson to learn!

We really had to coerce her into the restaurant, but she happily cuddled up on the seat next to Daddy. . In her crayon packet, there was a card redeemable for a free balloon! Cara handed it to the waitress. She also sort of ordered her own meal, since she answered when I asked her what she wanted while the waitress was there. She was perfectly understandable. She didn't eat much, but she was happy. We got two balloons, which I tied to a dragon keychain I have in my preschooler-going-to-restaurant purse. When we were done and ready to head back out into the mall, Cara decided I should carry the balloons.

Since we now had some change, we went back to the fountain. We threw some in from up a little staircase, which was very fulfilling. Then we wandered all the way up and headed out into the mall proper. Cara was just happy to be running and laughing. She started saying something, though, and when we got close enough to hear her it turned out that she wanted to see the train.

We had to walk all the way to the other end of the mall. The whole way, Cara was holding our hands and talking, mainly, I think, about the train. Past other distractions she remained focused, and she and her daddy had a ride on the train. They sat in the caboose, where Cara wanted to. I think she thoroughly enjoyed it.

She came off a little distracted, and soon she gravitated to the carousel. She hasn't been on one in a very long time, and she's never really enjoyed it. I bought the tickets, and Cara decided that Daddy would take her. She picked a horse, got on, and they were off! I don't think she stopped smiling. Up and down, around and around she went, holding on to the pole. She spent quite a few rotations studying the lights and mirrors in the middle. She smiled at me, but I don't think she felt confident enough to wave. She did love it, though. What a big girl!

Tiny Town was next. She took her coat off. She took her shoes off. She was off! Steve and I sat on the bench with the balloons, keeping an eye on her (and breaking the hearts of several small children who thought perhaps we might just hand them a string). In the months since we've done this, Cara's become one of those big kids who go out and play on their own! She had a ball.

When she was ready to go, it was only because she had found another destination: the fire truck. The kiddie rides! She climbed into the fire truck. I got change. She and Daddy put it in and pushed the button. The truck started rocking. Music was playing. A little screen lit up to show the "road" the truck was "driving" on. Cara laughed and laughed; she worked that steering wheel harder than ever. She did get out before it was over, but she definitely liked that.

It was hard getting her out of the mall. She was fine, really; she was tired, too. Daddy carried her.

In the car she got the balloons untied from the keychain. We have once again convinced her to wear a diaper to bed. She got Daddy his slippers. She told us what pajamas to wear. I'm sure she tricked Steve into reading her too many books. All is well.

1/12/08 (Saturday)

Cara woke up with a messy diaper this morning, and so got an early morning bath. This is the only holdover from her recent sickness, and we determined that it would not dissuade us from going to the zoo with Uncle Jim and Aunt Sarah, as we had planned many weeks ago.

First we had breakfast. There was toast and there were some eggs. We had a short surprise-visit from PJ and Casey, who dropped by for a few happy moments while their mommy and daddy went out on a little errand. PJ built a nice train out of Cara's letter blocks and performed his usual action of getting out all of our little car and truck toys and running them around the moat of Weebalot castle. I find this very endearing.

Then it was off to the zoo! After having just recently randomly mentioned that she wanted to go to the zoo as I drove her to Susan's, I expected Cara to be very excited about this. Strangely, she had somewhat mixed feelings about it, though thankfully she was perfectly happy to be there once we arrived. While Mommy went to park, Cara and I checked out the zoo gift shop, where rows of Puma's brothers and sisters were lined up for our inspection. We escaped without a purchase to find Mommy, and soon after found Uncle Jim and Aunt Sarah!

Aunt Sarah seemed to be the favorite of the day. Cara did not have a whole lot of conversations with her, but she always wanted to make sure of where Sarah was and was always concerned when she couldn't find her. Being experts at the zoo (especially Evie), we got to show Jim and Sarah all the highlights: the friendly snakes, the elephants (who were in fine form today), various monkeys, and my personal favorites, the Big Cats. We took an early stop for lunch, where I mistakenly purchased the wrong meal for my nap-less girl. Fortunately this did not devastate her, and Mommy bravely "shelled" the batter-dipped hot dog nuggets I had purchased to make them look closer to the desired hot dog.

Cara had a nice run through the treehouse. While there, she ran over to the bench that runs behind the beaver dam pond. She purposefully sat and pushed up her sleeves, then turned around to really stick her arms in that water. As it happened, the water level was low enough that only her fingertips could get wet! I was sure the run through the treehouse would leave her utterly exhausted, but she (and we) still had the stamina to visit the small mammal house. Even as we were leaving Cara was still requesting to see more animals, but the trip had lasted longer than our usual ones and, from my experience at least, we saw many animals.

There was a typical post-nap crab-session when we arrived at home, and we immediately resorted to Diego and co. Cara had a little pasta for dinner. She hasn't eaten a lot since her big three-hot-dog mistake, and she is lately developing a bad habit of eating a very small dinner and then requesting more food when bed time approaches. Hmmm. Another regular evening pastime that seems to be developing is Cara and me playing computer games. Cara really likes the game where we get to build robots, and we have to build them all in the same sequence every time. Tonight we tried a different game for an Asian-themed show, which had us decorating our own paper lanterns and printing them out. We made two and Mommy assembled the printouts into lanterns for us. It was nice. Now storytime is probably winding to a close.

Evie's new story-reading method is to read a couple of books, then end storytime by reading a "calming," non-excitable story as the final book. Our current two options for the closer are Goodnight Moon and Richard Scarry's The Christmas Mice.

1/13/08 (Sunday)

A very lazy day today. Cara's digestion is still not entirely back on track, but her morning diaper did not prompt a trip to the bathtub, which is definitely a step in the right direction. My morning was made complete when the second Mickey Mouse Clubhouse episode detailed Donald's quest to win a hot-air balloon race--one I hadn't seen in a long time. Cara was happy to have pancakes, made for her by Mommy. (After a weekend with Daddy being very much in demand, by this evening Mommy was back in the ascendant.)

There was a lot of television viewing today. We had planned to have some playtime with PJ and Casey, but Em's back was out, so it was just us. Cara and I did manage to play with her girls a little bit, but not too many other toys got played with. Mommy went out to go food shopping before noon, and Cara and I had a nice time together. I eventually made soup for lunch, which Cara and I shared. I spooned some out of her bowl into mine, since I felt I'd given her too much. She not only didn't mind this but periodically added more spoonfuls to my bowl when she saw I'd run out.

A few weeks ago Evie explained to me a theory on praising children: you have to tell them why you are praising them, not just shower them with nondescript "Good job"s. She put this into action, telling Cara things like "I like the way you say 'thank you'" or "You colored that really well!" I'm sure that this is a very good thing to do and helps Cara understand the things that she does that we like. But one of the side effects is that Cara is very specific in her praise of us. For instance, tonight she got a new toothbrush. She didn't just say "thank you" as she happily ran off with it; she said "Thank you, Mommy, for giving me my toothbrush!"

After naptime, more television ensued. Our big moment of putting-the-foot-down was late in the evening when I decided that, if we were going to keep watching TV, we would watch what I wanted. We watched two episodes of The Muppet Show. This was also a lazy day for potty training: Cara requested to be changed once or twice, but none of us made the extra push to get her on the potty. She did get a sticker today, but it was for leaning back in the bath and dipping her hair in the water so that Mommy could rinse the soap out. (Mommy, the new favorite, did the bath and storytime.)

As dinnertime approached, Cara showed her hunger by requesting bananas. I think she was eating her second when Mommy left to pick up dinner. When Mommy returned, Cara was nearing the end of her third. Yes, we had three bananas. We had three bananas today.

1/14/08 (Monday)

With Mommy once again recruited for bath and storytime, I am here again for journaltime.

This morning I coaxed Cara out of her bed with the promise of pancakes for breakfast. There was a pile of leftovers from yesterday morning in the fridge. I got out three and heated them up. Cara ate them and asked for more, so I made a couple more. She ate them and asked for more. Soon we were to the last pancake, a giant snowman-shaped affair, which Cara also completely devoured. No more leftover pancakes! She also had a piece of my bagel on the way to Susan's.

I understand that Cara had a lovely day at Susan's, apart from the fact that every ten minutes she asked for the TV to be turned on--not surprising after our lazy Sunday. The kids did a project involving "tools." PJ knew the name of every one, while the girls could only dependably identify a hammer.

You may not realize this, but today was a very special day. Today marked the television debut of a brand-new full-length Backyardigans spectacle. For the first time in months, Evie and I found out when something was going to air on television, what channel it was on, and actually turned it on at the right time! Evie also decorated the house with streamers and printed out Backyardigan games and puppets off the internet. When I arrived home, Cara rushed out to greet me in full fairie costume. (This was very appropriate since one of the 'yardigans played a fairie in the story.)

To complete the party, we had pizza delivered! The only thing missing was the Loefflers, who backed out at the last moment. They don't know what they missed. The show, which was about two knights assigned to babysit an egg, started a bit slow, and Cara almost made us turn it off. Fortunately we hung in there until the egg started rolling around--then it was interesting for all of us.

We carefully kept the television off until the show started, and when it was done Mommy turned it off again. Such tears! But in a few minutes Cara discovered a slice of pizza she had forgotten in the kitchen and was happy again. We played with her Colorforms for a little and then Mommy convinced her to clean up with the promise of a bubble bath. I was not allowed to give the bubble bath, but we all hung out in the bathroom while Cara put her froggies to sleep in a washcloth.

1/15/08 (Tuesday)

Back to routine! We're finally all healthy and back to our normal life. No one came out to meet me at Susan's; Cara was helping to clean up. She continued working on putting blocks away while Casey was fascinated by my glove.

At home, we did not turn on the TV. Cara had a banana and helped me make a bread pudding, which I will bake tomorrow morning. She was pretty good at tearing up hot dog rolls, but she did tend to steal pieces to eat! The bread pudding was a specific request, and I was hard pressed to distract her from it. I had a lot to do getting dinner ready, and Cara eventually got bored and wandered off to play on her own.

Eventually, Daddy got home. Joy! He was soon drafted into the what-Cara-wants-to-eat effort, which consisted of Cara seeing things she wanted to eat and asking for them. I made stuffing, which Cara verbally confused with bread pudding and which ended up being the main course in her dinner, usurping the place of the hot dogs I had made her.

Daddy played with Cara after dinner. He gave her a bath. Now he is reading her to bed. We're really back to normal!

1/16/08 (Wednesday)

This morning Cara was willing to get out of bed when I mentioned the bread pudding waiting for us downstairs. We each had two helpings and Cara was in a good mood the rest of the morning. She happily picked out a sweatshirt and sweatpants to wear.

Very ironically considering Ev's comments from yesterday about us all being healthy again, I came down with a fever today and spent the evening totally useless and out of it on the couch. I did get to see the very cute robot head that Cara made at Susan's--a lucky coincidence that the project coincided with our recent robot-building habits.

I am awfully pleased with myself for getting us through the evening without Steve. He usually does most of the work, but I managed to feed both Cara and myself, clean up, and then play with her for a couple of hours before giving her a bath, reading to her, and putting her to bed. Cara understood that Daddy was sick and helpfully tiptoed for some of the time when we were downstairs, in between playing right next to him at her normal volume.

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