| Previous Week | Back Home | Next Week |

Journal Key:

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

5/8/08 (Thursday)

Cara, who has seemed a little warm occasionally in the past few days, woke up today rather cranky and delicate. She also seemed a little warm, so we gave her some Advil before daycare. She had a great morning (I called), but then she got up to almost 100 and Susan remedicated her before nap. She spent the afternoon sitting at the picnic table, drinking juice. She was content, but she was out of steam.

We really had a fine evening. We played outside and in. Cara and I spent a lot of time with the two wind-up toys from our new toy stash. I had to make them jump, but they also talked to each other. Cara's been off of pink lately, so I got the pink mouse. She had the red kangaroo. "I have blue boxing gwoves." "Oh. I have cheese." They are fascinating conversationalists.

Outside, I discouraged putting the wind-up toys into the sand. The bunnies, who arrived when Daddy got home because Cara took them with her in his car, did get to go in! They did seem to like being buried. We also went to PJ's house after dinner (Cara cut dinner short, in fact, as best she could so that she could go back out to play with him.), where we had an amazing breakthrough that will change our lives forever. PJ and Cara both "called" the blue swing when we were heading back to the swing set. Em picked a long piece of grass and a short piece of grass and explained to them how drawing straws worked! We tried it, and it did work! I had been, in my head, trying to figure out how to explain odds-and-evens or rock-paper-scissors, so I was both greatly relieved and impressed.

Cara is getting rather hoarse. She was on the swing singing her song about the wind in her hair, which goes, "I I can feel the wind in my hair!" (repeat), and she was really croaking it. She seems perfectly happy. She sneezes and coughs just a little. We'll see what tomorrow brings.

5/9/08 (Friday)

This morning Cara was hoarse and coughing. We were still considering maybe perhaps sending her to Susan's, but her temperature read 100, so I took the day off.

Evie left us with a box of Jell-o. Cara was happy with this idea, so we made it right away. The only problem with Jell-o is that you have to wait for it to solidify. We went off to play but had to keep returning to "see" the Jell-o in the fridge. We were able to wait until the stuff had just managed to pass out of a purely liquid state, and then I set a little bowl of it in front of her and gave her a spoon. She had two little bowls, and that was pretty much her breakfast--eating was not our strong suit today.

However, it wasn't a tough day for either of us. It seems like we are never sitting down and just playing with Cara these days, but I finally got a chance to do a little of that today. We got out the girls. I also did some laundry, and Cara wasn't so needy that this was a big problem for her. She was perfectly happy to bring some of her girls upstairs and play with them on the bed while I sorted laundry.

One sign that she really is sick is that we had a lot of television today. During the morning it was sort of in installments: we would put on a show, watch an episode, then Cara would turn it off and we'd do something else. But after a while we would go back to the TV. We haven't been watching it a lot lately so I was really enjoying seeing the old George episodes again.

We did get ourselves onto the potty successfully a couple of times, though we did not remain dry. For lunch it was "star soup." Cara's current favorite, it was easy to make and there was a can already in the kitchen from the last time Cara wanted it: she had gone all the way downstairs to the basement, found a can and brought it up, before we managed to tell her that we had leftover soup in the fridge.

She didn't actually have a lot of soup because she was distracted by the white bread I got out to make a sandwich for myself. This is very ironic because I had been trying unsuccessfully all morning to get her to eat toast for breakfast. As a special treat, I got out the interestingly-colored gummy bears we'd gotten her at Atlantic City. She was quite happy with them, eventually referring to them as the "cool" gummy bears and requesting them several more times later in the day.

We had an early lunch, but she still didn't go down for her nap until at least 12:30, because we ended up having to do a few things after lunch before I convinced Cara to come upstairs for stories. She was coughing up there, quite a bit even at around 2. However I let her stay and she was definitely well asleep when I went up to get her some time after 4:30.

Right away I decided to try a suggestion of Evie's and get out cookie cutters for the Jell-o. I had poured some of it into a dish for the purpose, and with her directions managed to find the cookie cutters. From my point of view it was a dismal failure: not a single shape came successfully out of the dish, and in an effort to get the pieces to come out I overheated the Jell-o into a soupy mess. However Cara was perfectly happy just slapping one cookie cutter after another into the dish. At around this time Mommy got home!

For dinner Cara ate very little--some Jell-o. We tried to convince her to eat some fried rice we'd gotten her, but no dice. She was pretty normal, but with coughing and a runny nose, and we watched a lot of TV in the evening. At the very end of the day, after deciding to skip the bath, Cara played some computer games with Mommy. It was the first time she'd done that in a while, but she still remembered my favorite robot in the build-a-robot game. I was touched.

I thought I was going to get away without having to read stories tonight, because Cara decided that Mommy would read to her. But there I was standing in her room waiting for Mommy to come in, and Cara suddenly said, "You can read to me, Daddy!" and that was that. Mommy got a lot of new books at the library today, some of which got read earlier in the afternoon; but she was not in the mood for new things tonight. I have been letting her pick the books a lot lately, getting some very mixed results. She doesn't seem to be able to tell a good storybook from one with no narrative at all. Today she made me read various infant-level books with pop-out pieces and peek-a-boo doors on them. Tonight I did get to read How the Grinch Stole Christmas, which while not seasonally appropriate is always a good story. Cara's concern was with the Grinch's Santa Claus outfit, which she noticed early in the story had two buttons. At the climactic moment in the tale, when the Grinch realizes that Christmas doesn't come from a store and his heart grows bigger, she interrupted me to ask where his second button was--she could only see one in the picture.

5/10/08 (Saturday)

We had plans for Sunday which we cancelled yesterday, and I called gymnastics early in the morning to say Cara would be absent today. Cara slept very late--each of us went in to wake her up and thought better of it because she was so solidly asleep. I think it was after 9 before she finally came downstairs. Mommy made pancakes! It's been a while, so it was nice. We turned on the TV and a brand new Mickey Mouse Clubhouse episode came on which was destined to be one of the best ever. Clarabelle the cow needed corn, so Mickey conceived the idea of a Clubhouse Carnival as a fundraiser. They were getting all set to put their exciting idea into action when Cara figured out the pancakes were ready and turned off the TV. I was crushed.

We had a nice breakfast and Cara seemed entirely herself, polishing off several pancakes. My car once again had to go to the shop, so I left separately. Cara brought up the idea of going to the mall, or to a park, which we had to nix for the moment. I had to go and mow the lawn. Cara had lunch and asked for gummy bears, which I once again gave her. Once again she was very long in going down for her nap. Connection? Regardless, we have eaten all the "cool" gummy bears now, and the only place we know to get them is Atlantic City, so we won't have to worry about that again for a while.

Cara woke up very touchy and disoriented after her nap, but we convinced her that we were going to go out and have fun at the mall. First we had to drop me off to pick up my car. Evie reports that Cara broke into tears when I left. This was due at least in part to her just waking up from her nap and still being a little sick, but I think Evie is right that my "stock is very high" just now. Whichever parent has spent more time with her recently is always Cara's favorite. (Incidentally, to add some extra excitement to the journal, I will mention that when we arrived at the auto repair place we found a vehicle had run up the curb and through the glass wall of the front of the building, breaking lots of glass and knocking the TV off the stand in the waiting room! Apparently the car's remote starter had been activated without anyone realizing that the thing was in gear. Yikes!)

Anyway, we hit all the hotspots at the mall. First, after a little indecision, we went to the Playmobil store. They had a new setup to play with, and Cara did a little playing, but it was very crowded in the store (as it was all over the mall tonight, for some reason--last minute Mother's Day shopping?), and I think she got shy. We had to go and ride on the carousel instead. The carousel used to be right next to the Playmobil store--now of course, it is clear across the mall. Cara got a nice white horse with a pink saddle and gold hair (I think), and was happy on her ride. Then we got a balloon from a nearby stand--it was kind of flower-shaped and had pictures of Disney princesses on the top. Cara waved it around and swung it all over, putting me in constant anxiety that she was going to whack a passing shopper in the face.

Then we went to Friendly's for dinner--which, I might add, is clear across the mall from the carousel. Cara was delicate and got upset at her difficulties in eating mozzarella sticks, and upset when I prevented her from emptying the salt shaker onto her food. She also had a lengthy trip to the potty with Mommy. But we made it through that okay and returned--clear across the mall--to the carousel. Actually we did not want to ride the carousel this time, but the tiny train that is set up right next to it. This time Mommy got to do the honors.

Amazingly, our odyssey was not yet over, because we then allowed Cara to visit her old haunt, Tinytown USA. I was horrified by the huge amount of children already populating Tinytown, but Cara didn't mind at all and waded right in. She had a fantastic time. When it got around 8, Evie left to do grocery shopping, and Cara soldiered on. Eventually I convinced her to put her shoes back on by grabbing hold of her and not letting go.

I had had to do a lot of carrying of the little girl before Tinytown, but afterwards she was hyped up and energized, and wanted to run off through the mall. We had to go up the escalator, around, and down the other escalator, but then we managed to walk out to the parking lot, with only a small pause at the candy machines (no, she didn't get any) and a little bit of running on the reactrix pad. Somehow I convinced her to get into the bath, even though she had emphatically told me on the way home that she did not want one. Really once you start running a bubble bath she always wants to get in, and she had a fine time.

Mommy came home and helped move us along towards storytime. Cara managed to stretch out storytime by drinking a lot of juice and then asking for more, which I had to go and get. I finally got her down at a very late 10 PM! And of course, I can hear her chatting away up there.

5/11/08 (Sunday)

I hope everyone had as lovely a Mother's Day as I did. We didn't get to do some of the things we had planned on, like getting Cara to see her grandparents, but we had a great day on our own at home. We all woke up kind of early, around 6:30, partly because Cara had had so much juice the night before. I made crepes for breakfast, and we had strawberries. Cara had leftover pancakes from yesterday, so there were plenty of leftovers!

For the morning we just bummed around the house. Cara and I read books and watched a little TV while Steve vacuumed (Happy Mother's Day!). After a while, we went into the kitchen and made a cake! For Christmas, Grandmama gave me a castle-shaped cake pan. We tried it today. Cara helped a lot with mixing up the batter. She poured lots of things in, and she turned on the mixer. That part could have gone far worse. Another thing that went better than could be expected was the egg-breaking. Cara cracked them soundly on the rim of the bowl, one by one, then handed each to me to open! It was perfect.

While the cake was in the oven, the Loefflers came over for a little visit. Thanks to Em, Cara was able to give me the Mother's Day gift she had made at Susan's house last week! It was a cute picture of Cara in a frame that says "I love Mom"! Cara, who told me last week, "I wrote your name!", showed me where it said Mom.

For lunch Cara had her leftovers from last night's dinner, and she was promised a small piece of cake afterwards. When she decided she was done, I found myself cajoling her to finish up. It did not work. I had sliced off the bottom/top of the cake where it had risen, just to flatten the part it would all be sitting on. The castle came out beautifully! I gave Cara a piece of the part I'd trimmed off, with a little icing on it. She gave me the first bite and called Steve down from where he was putting sheets on her bed to have a big bite she'd found. She had decided it was Daddy-sized. After that, she wanted more. She's making it very difficult to say no to her lately! We really need to work on that. I finally made a deal with her: she got a small piece, and then she had to go up to bed. She got a small piece. She ate the icing off of it. She did not get more icing. "It's time to go up to bed!" she announced, heading for the stairs. I read to her and tucked her in, and when I got downstairs Steve had our lunch all ready. (We also spent part of naptime doing yard work. He earned a lot of husband points today.)

When Cara woke up, it was time to ice the cake! When I spread icing on it, though, all of the details of the castle were lost. Next time, I'll figure out a better system. This time, I used the writing icing to draw the towers and turrets back on. Cara added colored sugar, some squiggles, and tiny candies. Juliana and all of the Loefflers came over for cake, and PJ and Casey got to add to the decorations. Ron wrote "HMD" on the cake, too. There wasn't room for much else!

The kids were really excited about going to play outside, but we distracted them from that by giving them cake to eat. When they were done, we distracted them from getting more cake by taking them to play outside. They played sand and went on slides, but they also ran around and around the tree in the front yard. We played "Catch the Mommy" and "Catch the Girl," both of which are excellent games. Everyone got caught. Steve was grilling hot dogs, which he eventually brought inside. Cara was delighted and kept exhorting us to hurry in to eat. When we finally got inside, she instantly decided she didn't want a hot dog.

Juliana stayed to have hot dogs with us. Cara absolutely refused to eat one. She had some cucumber. Eventually Steve got her a clementine. She shared a piece with each of us. After dinner we ladies went out to play again. When we'd chased each other for a while, Juliana asked Cara whether she could roll down the hill. We showed her how to lie and how to tuck her arms in, and she rolled! I tried it, too, and it was pretty cool. Cara is very serious about taking turns, so Juliana rolled as well. We ran some races, and then Juliana had to go home; it was cold!

We called Daddy out, and we got to do it all again! It was still pretty early, so we got out the stroller and walked to the park. We all got to swing, and then we spent a good long time on the playground. Disappointingly, the twisty slide was wet at the top and then really slow for some reason! Strange. We got to play for almost an hour, and then Cara was happy to get into her stroller and have some more Cheerios on the ride home.

So, I'm really happy. My house is pretty clean, and my yard looks nice. My daughter said "Happy Mother's Day" to me several times. (She also called "Happy Mother's Day, PJ!" as he was leaving.) I got good things to eat. I got to decorate a cake. I got to roll down a hill. There are not a lot of ways I could have had a better day.

5/12/08 (Monday)

Cara's evening was chock-full of anecdote-worthy incidents. Just our trip home was pretty good. We stopped at the grocery store, and Cara got to look at the lobsters. She did not call them hamsters. She had no word for them. She went over to look at them and then screamed and leaped away to hide her face on my leg. In the car on the way home, then, I think Cara read something. "Mommy, it's a C and a A! It's a C-A!" I don't know what she was looking at; we were turning onto Silver Lake, so it wasn't the street sign. Still, it was pretty cool.

When we got home, Cara wanted to go right inside. I should have focused on that, but I went to say hi to Juliana, and then Cara told me she had made pee-pee. I let her inside and sent her upstairs while I went to get things out of the car. Cara went upstairs, set up her potty seat (then waited for me to come see), undressed, got on, didn't produce anything, got off, wiped, flushed, and took off the seat. I got her a pull-up, and she got herself all dressed again.

Downstairs, we played with Cara's girls. Several of them had to get dressed up, and Cara is getting good at dressing them. She tends to pick up the skirt first, but the top really has to go on before the skirt. I pointed this out to her, and she said, "Oh, that darn top always has to go on!" I just sort of sat there in disbelief.

Dinner was nice. "Daddy, how was your day?" asked Cara. When she was done eating, she stayed at the table. Her fork began to dance and play and even to talk to my fork. "Mommy's fork, are you eating?" Her fork did a lot of bouncing and walking around and some strange under-table banging that Daddy and I were not crazy about. Finally, when the fork got the idea that my fork was not going to come play, it asked some other people. "No, I'm a straw," said the straw in Cara's juice box mournfully.

Also at dinner: "Mommy, is Susan your mommy?" Cara was confused and a little disappointed when I said no. I explained who my mommy was, and she liked that idea, but she still wanted to know why Susan was not my mommy.

We also played hide-and-seek upstairs. Cara hid and I found her, and then she asked me to hide in the same place and she found me. "I wonder where Mommy is. Is she behind these pillows? No. She's not under the bed," Cara said, making sure to look in all of the places I had looked before finding me in the bed, where she had told me to hide.

5/13/08 (Tuesday)

Cara came with me to the science fair at Linwood. She was thrilled about coming to my school, but in the car I made the mistake of telling her it would be a science fair. Of course, she only knows one of those words. "Will there be cows at the science fair?" she asked. "Will there be pigs?" I told her we'd see projects the kids had made. "Yay, I want to make a project at the science fair!" We do rarely take her places where things have been made and she is not invited to make one, I guess.

We got to see several of my colleagues and also to see several of my students and hear about their projects. Soon, though, the director of the science department showed up with her infant son and her four-year-old daughter. Well, the girls and I teamed up and went to run on the ramp that's in the corner of the cafetorium. After a couple of minutes, there was not much shyness. Cara hugged my leg, so the other girl also hugged my leg. Cara wanted me to catch her at the bottom of the ramp, so I had to catch both girls. The other girl also, to my surprise, tickled me. Later, she played with my hair. It was interesting to see her perspective on Cara. She must not be used to younger kids (yet, her brother's only a few months old!), so she thought a lot of the silly, playful things Cara did were strange. It was weird for me to see her through those eyes! I have to admit that I quite agree with her about it not being much fun to "slide" down a ramp on your bottom. Cara really likes it, though.

When we moved away from the ramp, I had to tempt Cara with something. We went to see the stage. That, of course, was a big draw. She went right up. Her friend joined us again, and both girls did a few dances, did some jumping, and even rolled around. Yes, that one was Cara's idea. The older girl showed us how she could sit, dangling her legs off the edge, and then slip down to the floor. Now Cara can, too.

It was a lot of fun hanging out, but it got to be close to bedtime. I had to (figuratively) drag Cara away. When we got into the car, though, she tried to put on her own seat belt. She got her arm tangled and I had to straighten her out, but then she took the buckle and inserted it herself. Another step on the road to independence!

5/14/08 (Wednesday)

Cara's project today was a cut-out and folded-up clam shell, which she had colored. Inside was glued a little white pompom: a pearl. She was able to tell me about it even before Susan brought it out, which is fairly unusual. She held it in the car, and then she wanted to show it to Juliana. She showed it to Em when they came over. She showed it to Daddy. She brought it upstairs with her for the bath (it did not go in). She was very fond of her "wittle wittle pearl."

I got her out of the bath by offering to show her some real pearls. She had to put her pajamas on first, and then I got out my pearl earrings. I had to put them on. She's never been so excited about a project before!

Earlier, we went outside to meet PJ, Em, and Casey over at Juliana's house. Juliana was watering her lawn, so the kids had puddles to jump in. The girls in particular really focused on that, while PJ helped Juliana with the hose. Cara took off her socks and shoes when they were soaking wet and went barefoot. Casey joined her, and they made little footprints between the puddles. All the kids needed wardrobe changes from the waist down. The adults, I am pleased to report, made out okay.

| Previous Week | Back Home | Next Week |