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Journal Key:

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

 

6/26/08 (Thursday)

We are starting a potty routine, because this is what Susan has at her house, and also because Evie and I have already seen the real value of routines in Cara's day. So Cara has to go on the potty at set times throughout her day. Today we are still getting off the ground and Cara needed a couple of time outs on the stairs to convince her to do her duty. But she did, and was successful all the times I saw her do it--I also hear that she pooped, which is good news.

I was very popular this evening, probably because I did not do a lot of enforcement. I watched some TV with her, put cheese on her pasta at dinner, and went along when she suggested that I entirely change my clothes (when all I'd gone upstairs for was to take out my contact lenses). I did tell her a few times to not do things which I felt were dangerous (such as laying with her head near a door that could open towards her, or trying to climb up the leaning slats of her dismantled crib in the office). But I also gave her a bath, which was pretty fun, and then made the mistake of showing her that Puma can swing from the end of the yoga mat strap (his leash). This was very, very funny, and I had to swing him a lot.

Last night Cara was singing to herself for a long time in her bed. One song which Evie overheard went like this: "Oh Puma, oh Puma, you're on top of my head. You climb all the way up, that's what you do!"

6/27/08 (Friday)

Cara and Grandmama Janet arrived here around 5 P.M.

Cara is lively, bouncy, a bundle of fun fun fun. She's learning so many things -- how to use her voice, for one. She can be very loud and when she sees that's not right, she tries hard to be moderate or quiet. Mostly, she's thrilled to move from one activity to another. 'Let's run!' she says when in the park. 'Let's paint!' when on one level of our house. 'Let's draw!' when on another level.

Cara had some success with a structured approach to using the potty. A conversation:

Grandmama: 'Cara, before you have your toast with sprinkles snack, you have to use the potty.'

Cara: 'No. I don't want to use the potty.'

Grandmama: 'You have to use the potty. That's an important rule.'

Cara: 'No. I don't want to use the potty.'

Grandmama: 'Then sit over there on the stairs and when you decide it's time to use the potty, we'll go downstairs.'

Cara: 'All right.' Then goes to sit on the stairs. She's on the stairs for one second during which no doubt she sees Grandmama preparing her toast with sprinkles. Then Cara says: 'I want to use the potty.'

Janet does the yeoperson's work when Cara is with us. I'm usually tired or on the injured list. This evening as Janet was moving to the bedtime routine, I asked how I might help. 'You read the stories tonight.'

Ok. I haven't done that in a while.

Upstairs Cara is listening to the sound of some tiny bells that hang on a string off a lamp in the bedroom. She bats the string with the bells around nine or ten times. I explain to her that she's skilled at delaying.

She doesn't even look at me and I percieve the beginning of a secret smile. Maybe that's reading too much in--Cara is only three years old after all and can't possibly have any secrets. Maybe she understands, who knows, but she gives it up and moves to the bed.

I read her two books. A Dr. Seuss on the important subject of Feet. And a bedtime story -- Winken, Blinken and Nod. At some point Cara said 'More books.' but I said, 'No, it's time for sleep.' And when the story was over, I tucked her in and she might have been asleep before I left the room-- tired from all the fun fun fun.

6/28/08 (Saturday)

Our adventure for the day was a family trip down to Uncle Jim and Aunt Sarah's new house. At first, when I suggested the trip, Cara was not excited about going. "Is there a playground?" she asked, sounding bored. In a few minutes she had warmed up to the idea and was urging us to hurry.

Their new house, which I got to help them move into yesterday, is beautiful and really they are almost settled in. Cara was eager to explore and found a nice 1,000-piece jigsaw puzzle that she wanted Jim to show her how to do. We distracted her with something from the refrigerator: punch juice! That was a hit all day. There was a cup of it on the table that she could pretty much always go back to.

The fun got even funner (hah!) when a friend showed up with her three-year-old son. He was great, and the two of them managed to, largely, occupy each other a lot. He was very interested in superheroes and adventure, so Cara got to play today in ways she is not accustomed to. It was interesting to see her adapting. She pretended to shoot rays out of her fingers at one point, I think. Later, somehow one of them had "turned small" and Steve used a TV remote to turn the poor child large again. When Cara was small, she used her "tiny" voice and asked for help. She very squeakily didn't want to be small!

Cara also got to play with her grandparents today, which I know she enjoyed. I was very glad they were there, particularly, because Grandmom was a great help with potty training. Lately Cara's been refusing to go on and we've been having to go through a huge rigmarole involving time-outs and things any time she needs to go on. Having Grandmom go with you, though, is great motivation.

We went out to Friendly's with Uncle Jim and Aunt Sarah. Cara remarked that she had not been to this Friendly's before, but Sarah pointed out that she had been, but it was in utero. We played with Cara's fairies while we waited for food; they had many adventures. Actually, several of them got hurt and needed Band-Aids, and a few then beat each other up. I'm not really sure what they were fighting over. Cara remarked several times that she was "having a great time at Friendly's!"

Of course, she fell asleep on the ride home. She's exhausted from her day. She was exhausted hours ago, from missing her nap and having a lot of excitement. She was happy to snuggle up to daddy as he carried her in. To our surprise, her pull-up was dry! She kept it dry all afternoon. We're impressed. She was even willing, in her usual post-car-wakeup fog of distress, to go on the potty. She's really coming along.

6/29/08 (Sunday)

This morning while Evie was in the shower and I was mowing the lawn, Cara went and got herself dressed! First she went on the potty, and then she went to select her clothes. She chose a nice long-sleeved shirt. She ignored the drawer that's full of shorts and skirts, and pulled some sweatpants down from a hanger in her closet. She dressed herself, showed Mommy, and headed off to play. We were all very proud.

We decided to go out shopping and went to a couple of electronics stores. Cara asked if the one store had a potty, but as it turned out the question seemed to be just natural curiosity, not from any desire to actually use the potty. We continued working hard on enforcing potty routines and habits, and though the pull-ups did not all stay dry, there were many successful visits. It is quite possible that Cara is trained in terms of bowel movements. As for peeing, she certainly knows when she is in the process of peeing; it's realizing before it happens that is the key step.

She went down for her nap fairly easily and slept for a good long time. Evie read in her room for a while, waiting for the little girl to wake up. She eventually did. There was a very impressive storm going on outside, which fortunately didn't frighten Cara very much. All of our VHS tapes were out (we are planning on a big purge), including a stack of Disney ones, which is how we ended up watching Fantasia. Certainly there were parts of it that bored her, but in watching it I was surprised at how many sequences were Cara-friendly. The best part was near the end, with ballet hippos and elephants--she was very engaged by that one. Fortunately she lost interest at "Night on Bald Mountain."

Evie had the excellent idea of whiling away our rainy afternoon by making a cake! Cara helped in between watching Fantasia. She scooped in flour, cracked some eggs, and of course got to taste some of the batter. (It was only when it came to actually eating the cake that she let us down.)

In the bath Cara randomly rhymed nonsense words, and told me that they rhymed. I think it's cool that she's figuring that out.

6/30/08 (Monday)

Today was Cara's last Monday at daycare for a while! She'll be going Wednesday through Friday for the rest of the summer, and the only regret I have about that schedule is that Avery comes on Mondays. Cara loves to see Avery. In the fall he'll go off to kindergarten, and I know Cara will miss him. I know it's an easy way to get her out of the house; as soon as she hears Avery will be there, she's ready to go. When we pulled up this morning, Avery's mom was behind us. Cara waited on the sidewalk while she parked, and then Avery got out. He ran up to us with open arms to give Cara a big hug. Susan says that Cara talks to him like they're a little old married couple.

I got an unusual welcome when I got to Susan's in the afternoon. Susan was just dumping the water out of the pool, and all the kids ran up onto the porch and began to strip! Only Casey needed help; she was the only under-two there. Everyone else basically managed independently. Avery demonstrated that he could sing the alphabet. I was intrigued to note that he sings "l-men-n-o-p," since I've been hearing Cara's "em-men-n." I guess that's still tricky even after you can say "l"!

This was one of our more psychotic, or, er, "emotional" evenings. It started with Cara wanting to watch television and me saying that it was not time to watch TV. This led to a full-on tantrum. It began with screaming about how I was mean. Cara then screamed, "I don't want my socks on!" She took them off (I'd left the room) and later, when I'd come back, she got up and stomped on them. I must note that I had had nothing to do with her socks today. She's also been angrily rejecting Puma during tantrums when he's handy; I think it's to show us how very upset she is, so upset she'll throw away the things she loves the most.

I think things calmed down and we moved upstairs. It had begun to rain, and I had to close the windows. Cara was distracted by that. We headed up again to the bedrooms, and Cara discovered that, when a man had come to give us an estimate on the bathroom, I had moved her potty seat into her room. She did not want it there. Once again, she was throwing things and screaming. She shoved and shoved at the seat and the step stool until they were out of her room, and then she slammed the door.

I recall that several months ago I realized that we cannot talk about Cara in front of her. Today, I got a nice confirmation. Em called while Cara was holed up in her room, screaming intermittently. I talked to Em in my room, telling her a little about our psychotic episodes. Cara's door opened. "I don't like that!" Cara yelled, and the door slammed. She was quite right. I apologized afterwards, and I think she appreciated it.

The evening continued, mostly nicely but with a few more storms sprinkled in. I'm glad Steve got to see some, so at least someone knows I'm not making this all up. We ended our playtime with seven girls, Santa Claus, and some sort of strange robot all playing Play Doh with us. They all made footprints and several girls made whole-body prints, lying on their backs. Eventually it was bath time. "Hey, everybody," I said. "What? What is it?" asked the two girls Cara could hold up. "It's time for baths. Can we all play tomorrow?" "Yes! Yes! We all like that!"

Cinderella and Snow White went up and joined Other Cinderella in Cara's bath. When Cara got out, she had all three in her hands. Here was our dialogue:

Snow White: I want to be a cowgirl when I grow up!

Mommy: Really? Will you ride a horse?

Cara: Toy girls don't grow up! You don't grow up!

Snow White: (sobs)

Cinderellas: We want to be cowgirls.

Cinderella 1: I want to ride a horse.

Cinderella 2: Me, too. I will ride a horse, too.

Snow White: (crawling down into a hollow in Cara's towel) I just want to go in here and rest.

I know this is kind of weird, but Cara seems to like having her toys cry. Earlier when she was in the bath, one or more of the Cinderellas started crying. "I can't pat my head and my tummy at the same time!" she wailed. (I'm paraphrasing here. Patting the head and rubbing the tummy simultaneously was a skill that I think she learned about this weekend, or at least fairly recently.) I figured Cara was projecting her own fears onto the toy, so I assured Cinderella that, with practice, she could learn how to do it. "No I can't!" said Cinderella tragically. "I can't bend my arms!"

7/1/08 (Tuesday)

Today was Cara's first day home with me this summer. We had a surprise visitor in the morning: Aunt Claire called and said she was in the neighborhood, so she came over. Cara shrieked with glee and insisted on showing Claire several of her toys. We didn't really do much, just played around here and then walked to the park. It was hot outside and hot in the sun at the playground, where all of the swings and slides were also hot! All we did was climb up a few things a few times, of course all taking turns. Claire had brought with her a ceramic butterfly I had painted, and Cara and I picked out a nice spot to put it in the flowers up by the fence.

While we were saying good-bye to Claire, Cara tripped on the bricks by the sidewalk and scraped her right wrist and foot a little. The whole rest of the day had been a parade of Band-Aids, because the wrist is a terrible place to have to stick. At first I thought she was picking at them, but I've concluded that they just can't hold on! Her nap was inconclusive; I'm not sure whether she slept. I know that she called me around 1:30, and I told her it was time to go to sleep. She may have. I went in around three, and she told me that her Band-Aid, surprisingly, had come off. That was why she had been calling me.

We had to hit the supermarket today, and I've started trying to wean Cara off of riding in the cart. It's getting tough to lift her, and the carts say that the seats are for children up to 35 pounds. We don't have much longer, and, besides, it's getting harder for her to fit! She helped me push for a while, and then she wanted in. It's easier to have her in there, so I caved. At the self check-out, Cara got to scan two items herself! They were both new boxes of Band-Aids

I bought interesting Band-Aids It was a mistake. Now, instead of wanting a Band-Aid, she wants a particular Band-Aid!

Before dinner, Cara asked me to get out the Box of Forbidden Art Supplies. We played with glitter, and Cara finger painted. I'm happy, because I made sure we used up that finger paint! It was kind of old and a little weird, I thought. She had red, blue, and yellow, and she made purple, green, and orange! She even got to play with the foam animal parts and pop-poms. I put some glue on a piece of paper, and she made an interesting mess. She kind of made an elephant, and she made two triangles into a kite!

Potty training, of course, is progressing slowly. Cara went on the potty a lot today, but she did not stay dry. Three times she wet herself. Two of those times resulted in her immediate declaration that she was wet and had to go on the potty. The third time, she just didn't care.

We went outside after dinner and played with PJ & co. on Juliana's freshly-mowed lawn. We did a lot of chasing, and all three kids got to give boo bones. We all got green feet!

7/2/08 (Wednesday)

Being home yesterday and going to daycare today made for an outstandingly difficult exit from the house this morning. However, Cara went on to have a fine day. I remembered to tell Susan today about the days Cara will be missing when we go to Florida in two weeks. Cara was thrilled at the prospect of going to Florida, riding on an airplane, and going "to see my great-grandma!!" We got into the car and headed home. "I don't want to go home!" Cara wailed. "I want to go to the airport!" I tried to explain about dates on tickets, which of course cleared everything up.

I had some laundry to fold, and I gave Cara a dish towel that is hers to use as a drop-cloth when she fills her doll tub with water. She called me to her room to see, and I found that she had spread it on the seat of the Elmo couch. We sat there to read; I used it as a bribe to let me finish putting sheets on my bed. She picked out a book. Her choice was her Highlights magazine. It's the episode with the airport in it.

Cara brought her fire truck floor puzzle to PJ's house, and PJ and I put it together before dinner. Afterwards we all went outside to play. While Cara and Casey swung, PJ climbed up the ladder to the slide. "Peek-a-boo, Diane!" he said, peeping over the railing. He played it for a while, with me and with the girls. Later, Cara climbed up. "Peek-a-boo, Diane!"

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