| Previous Week | Back Home | Next Week |

Journal Key:

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

7/24/08 (Thursday)

Mommy got picked for story time tonight, and even though I was barely with Cara today, I figure it is about time I contributed to the journal. Actually the blow-up we were expecting last night because Cara only got one book didn't really come; she was not happy about it, but she accepted her fate. Tonight, the same thing happened again. One sticker, one book. I think the main issue, aside from a general discipline thing, is that getting one's teeth brushed is just not fun. It's just something you have to do to get it over with. These are just the kinds of things that Cara really doesn't want to do. She will sometimes do a chore with the promise of getting a treat right afterwards, but even with the promise of two books instead of one at bedtime, she still doesn't want to face the ordeal of brushing.

Anyway, aside from that I think Cara had a fine day. She made a "fan" at Susan's, a feathery contraption that she was excited enough about that she showed it to me. I stayed at work late today and got home in time for a quick dinner, then right to the bath. Cara has a new set of rubbery frogs (described earlier, I think) which are lots of fun. I can make them jump really good if I bring my finger down at their backs in just the right place. The frogs are very stretchy, but we discovered the limits of their tensile strength tonight when Cara pulled off her first frog leg. I made some noises about gluing it, but Mommy said (much more sensibly) that he was perfectly happy with three legs. Good old Bottle Cap (aka Battle Cat) also has been having fun in the tub lately. We theorized that he and Puma are cousins, though Bottle Cap clearly got the tiny genes.

In the furtherance of our musical education, Evie bought a They Might Be Giants CD today. These are the guys who do a lot of the catchy songs on the Disney channel (among other things). They have great music videos, and fortunately the CD came with a bonus DVD that has a pile of them on there! We all enjoyed watching some tonight. Looking at the menu screen, Cara kept requesting "the middle one," enunciating very clearly, but with absolutely no idea which one she actually wanted.

I will just say that when Cara came back from Florida I felt like she had suddenly grown a bit. She was singing along to songs, for one thing. She seems to be concerned with pronunciation lately. Tonight in the bath she got excited because she was using the word "separated."

7/25/08 (Friday)

This morning was really, really easy. There was a party at Susan's today, so Cara was eager to leave. She was dressed and had her hair done before she went downstairs, and she came back up willingly after breakfast to get her teeth brushed. She got a sticker. Then we were out the door, at the same time as Daddy! However, the purpose of this party is really sad: it's Avery's good-bye party. He's going to kindergarten in the fall, and he won't be at Susan's after today. The kids all signed a card for him the other day, but I knew it hadn't really sunk in for Cara. The poor kid hadn't even seen him in weeks, since we've missed so many Fridays! I talked with her about it in the car, and she was unhappy.

When we got to Susan's, though, at the same time as PJ and Casey, John, Susan's husband, was setting up an inflatable bouncy castle on the lawn! This was going to be some party. Of course, the kids all had to get in right away. They were still bouncing when I came to pick Cara up in the afternoon. It was time to say good-bye to Avery, and Cara wouldn't. He eventually coaxed her into giving him a high-five. She just didn't want to admit it was over. After that, though, it was OK. The grown-ups who were left were deflating the castle, and Cara joined them by flinging herself onto it. After a little more juice and a few more cheetos, we headed out.

I tried a new recipe, which failed, and we went out for dinner. We listened to Sgt Pepper in the car, and it went over very well. Cara sang along, sort of, to "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds," and she claimed to like several other songs. She asked us what each of them was called, and she ended up with the CD booklet. It was her favorite thing to look at. It could open and close. There were girls on it!

Cara got spaghetti, which she sort of ordered on her own, and we got the sauce and meatball separate. Cara had specified that she wanted "no meatball!" She had dry spaghetti with cheese. She twirled it! It was cut up already, of course, but it's still a skill she'd been working on for some time. When she was done with the spaghetti, she ate most of her meatball.

Before Cara's bath, Steve took out his contact lenses. "I'll get your glasses for you, Daddy!" said Cara. She ran off to our room and brought them back. Then she tried them on. Then she had to go and look at herself in the mirror in our room. Then she brought them back. Then she tried them on again. Eventually, Steve did get them. I can only imagine the fingerprints on the lenses.

7/26/08 (Saturday)

This afternoon Cara and I went to a birthday party for Nicholas, who is turning two. (I work with his mom.) It was at a nice place, a facility run by a swing set company. There were four big swing sets set up indoors, and there was a bouncy castle! Cara jumped right into the fun with no hesitation. One difficult point was the rule about shoes. They were supposed to be on, except for when you were in the Moon Bounce. Cara is used to having hers off a lot to play, so it was tough to get her to keep putting them on! Once she came out and streaked away without them; I figured I'd catch her when she resurfaced. I next saw her at the top of the tallest swing set, near the biggest slides. She came over to one slide and dropped a ball-pit ball down it. It gathered speed and rolled off across the room. She moved to the other slide and did it again.

Today Cara experienced her first piñata! The young man gave each child a bag, then hung up the victim while several mothers, including me, whispered explanations. The piñata was a green dragon, selected because of his resemblance to Eggbert from the Mighty Knights. Nicholas got the first swing. How could he hit his Eggbert? He's only two, so he vaguely sort of tapped him, with his father's help. The other little kids went next, in succession. Somehow Cara got two turns. She gave him a good tap the first time, but the second time she seemed to be aiming for his feet.

The bigger kids managed to do some damage, though. I heard one employee say something to another about getting "the bowl" and I was scared they'd distribute the candy fairly and evenly to the children. Instead, it turned out to be another bowl of candy, which was scattered out widely on the floor when the piñata broke, spilling its contents in one location! The kids knew what to do now. Cara was on the other side of the room, and she was done pretty fast. She came over to show me. She had two dumdums and two little Tootsie rolls. She was very satisfied. I pointed out that there was more candy on the floor right here, but she was content. When other people suggested it, she did expand her collection a little. It was still a nice small bag, which I have to say I was perfectly happy with.

The party moved upstairs, where there were pizza and music and all sorts of fun things. Cara ran through two of her lollipops, giving each back to me halfway through. I figure we might as well get the candy out of the way today, instead of dragging it out. There were hats and party blowers, and there was a treasure chest from which each child got to pick out a prize. There were spider rings, which I thought Cara might like, given our Chuck E Cheese experience, but she went for a more glamorous ring, in silver with a big amber diamond. She was awfully happy.

There was also a closed-circuit TV, and Cara did some fancy dancing for the camera. That was when I discovered that, with her in pink and me in a pink shirt, we had dressed alike! Oops. We stayed to sing "Happy Birthday," and we took our cupcake to go. We had to head to Grandmama's birthday party!

Everyone had pretty much gotten out of the pool by the time we got to Theresa's house, but Daddy was there and was still ready to swim! Thank goodness, because Cara was very ready to go in. They spent about twenty minutes playing in the pool, swimming around and trying out all of the floats. We had a great dinner, including some wonderful flank steak that Cara enjoyed immensely. "I want more chicken," she kept saying. Now, why doesn't Mommy make chicken like that?!

Cara got to put the candles on the cake, even though they had letters on them that spelled out "Happy Birthday." She put them all in order as we showed her, and it looked great. She helped Grandmama blow them out. Everyone ate lots of cake, and I managed almost to get away with Cara forgetting about the cupcake out in my car. We played for a while, but it was late! Cara rode home with Steve, so I was able to hide the cupcake completely. Maybe we can have it with breakfast tomorrow.

7/27/08 (Sunday) - Happy Birthday Casey!

Cara did have a cupcake for breakfast today! She didn't eat all of it, though, just most of the frosting. We had a nice day. Cara did excellent at potty-training today. She wore the same pair of underwear all day with no accidents! We got PJ and Casey at our house for part of the morning, and we played nicely mostly. We had some nice bubble time outside, some sand table, and a rousing game of hide and seek indoors. The kids remain unclear on the strict rules of the game ("I'm going to hide in the bed," declared Cara, and PJ could barely wait until we were done counting to pop out of his hiding place), but had a blast nonetheless.

PJ brought me a lovely dandelion, which I put in a vase on Cara's dresser. In a somewhat exciting change of pace, PJ needed a new diaper and I was the one who changed him. Sometimes PJ and Cara fall to bickering over something, usually a toy. My resolution method is to just take both of them away from whatever it is, which makes both of them momentarily unhappy but ends the argument/fight immediately.

Casey had a nice time playing with Cara's baby dolls. It's wonderful for everyone, because Cara really couldn't care less about her baby dolls, and Casey adores them. The baby always needed to be pushed or changed or fed or something.

At noon, the Loefflers went off to their house for a nap, and Cara went into her room for her "nap," which consisted of a couple of hours of her chatting with her toys. She'd gotten a new fairy lady as a prize (aka bribe) earlier in the day, and the fairy lady and at least one friend had some amazing adventures up there. Then we got Cara up and went off to Casey's birthday party!

Unfortunately it rained, but for the little kids this really didn't matter. They had a fine time inside playing with various toys. I'm not exactly a social butterfly, so I amused myself playing with the kids. We put some puzzles together. Casey got a really good haul of presents, many of them of the baby doll variety--she was still arranging her babies when we left! Cara and Diane and I got Casey a big Littlest Pet Shop playset, which will hopefully be amusing when she gets tired of her babies. Cara spent a lot of the present-opening phase sitting right in the middle of it all and saying things like "Can I help open-en it?" or "I think Casey wants to open this one." Fortunately (and rather miraculously) there were no fights over toys or presents.

After a lovely party, we headed home and Mommy and Daddy started getting busy getting ready for our big vacation, which starts tomorrow. Cara ended up with some Thomas tattoos on her legs (from Nicholas's party yesterday), and played with her fairies, and got to test-drive the portable DVD player which we'll be taking in the car with us on our long drive.

As I said, Cara did really wonderful on the potty today, and we also instituted some teeth-brushing reforms this evening. Evie replaced our hourglass timer with the stereo and we had Cara brush along to one of her favorite They Might Be Giants tunes ("Figure Eight"). We went back to letting Cara brush herself. There are plans for future brushing reforms, to be detailed in later exciting entries.

For now, we are going on a very extended journal break--perhaps our longest since its inception! Though I haven't gone back through the hundreds of pages to confirm that. We'll have lots of things to write about and pictures to put up when we return, in about a week.

The remainder of the week is detailed on the next week's page!

| Previous Week | Back Home | Next Week |