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Journal Key:

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

7/28-8/2/08 (Monday-Saturday): North Carolina Vacation!

On Monday morning we got up early, though not quite as early as we had planned due to a quiet alarm clock. When we went to get Cara after loading up the car she was quiet but willing to get out of bed, and we were soon off in the early morning darkness. She did eventually fall back asleep in the car, as we had hoped, but it took her a while. We drove a good ways before making our first stop, probably in Delaware, at a Dunkin Donuts. While Cara went in the potty with Mommy, I purchased one donut for each of us. Cara was perfectly happy and excited. "I weally, weally like donuts!" We all sat down. She took one bite out of her donut, then spent the rest of the time sitting at the table, smiling emptily at her mother. It was strange but very funny--we assume she was too excited about the situation to eat.

Cara did really well in the car both ways. She is really able to deal with almost any situation she's placed in pretty well. One thing that really helped, though, was the portable car DVD player which we got on loan from my aunt and uncle (thanks very much Sally and Ron!). It had a little bit of difficulty reading some of our recorded Curious George DVDs, but it worked fine with the They Might Be Giants DVD. Cara loved watching it and, even better, consented to wear the headphones, so that Mommy and Daddy could do their own thing up in the front seat (we read a book aloud on the way down and listened to a book on tape on the way back up). At times she was so focused on the DVD player that she didn't pay any attention to the questions we asked her, but sat hunched forwards with her hands holding the headphones on, looking remarkably like an anxious NASA employee in mission control.

Evie and I are both very glad that we spoke to Em's mother before we left, who convinced us not to give up on potty training on the long car trip. We put Cara in underwear from the beginning and took an extra car seat cover with us, which we never needed. We made plenty of pit stops and Cara stayed dry all the way, both ways. Now that the trip is over, Cara is basically potty trained!! We are done with diapers, and as soon as Cara gets a little bit better at realizing she has to go, we can dispense with pull-ups at night as well. Even now if she starts going, she can stop herself before it gets too messy. We did have a couple of small accidents while at the beach house, but these could have been avoided if Cara's parents had managed to get her on to the potty at regularly scheduled times.

But what about the vacation?! It was tons of fun. The house was beautiful, and Cara had a room and a potty to herself. She took naps and slept through the night with very little difficulty. She managed to earn herself quite a few stickers, and we all got the toothbrushing song "Figure Eight" stuck in our heads. We found some games in the house, one a sadly incomplete Mouse Trap. It came with two tiny plastic mice, however, which made perfect purses for her girls. The fairies were very popular on this trip, and all had names given to them based on their colors (Pinky, Blondie, Bluey, Purpley--and their leader, who was also blue, and who I dubbed "Bluto"). Cara had at least one memorable time where Uncle Jim and I played with her and her toys.

Uncle Jim had to be shown various things, and was fairly popular. He also showed Cara the wonderful Japanese animated movie My Neighbor Totoro, and very kindly loaned it to us for the trip back home. I was wondering whether Cara would really take to the story, which was a little slow-going for her. Grandpa suggested that she watch it and at the end they could rate it with a thumbs-up or a thumbs-down. This was a new concept and the thumbs-up became a cute little thing that Cara and Grandpa could do. Cara did like the movie very much (and fortunately so did everyone else, it having been somewhat forced upon them by the toddler in their midst), particularly because she was getting to stay up late to watch it. (She also got to eat some shrimp while she was staying up late--she ate quite a few! They came from a giant bucket of seafood that we picked up from a nearby restaurant and steamed in our kitchen. The ladies of the house enjoyed it immensely.)

We of course also spent a lot of time outside the house. The beach! Cara was excited by the ocean, and kept running down to the water, but she was also a little afraid of the waves, and would never let us take her in very far or very long. We did take her out in the water a few times to jump in the waves, and this was mostly lots of fun for her. She loved the sand, though. Grandma had brought some castle-building molds (from my own childhood), and they had a good time digging in the sand and going out to the water to fill up their buckets. Evie had the good idea of buying a kite, with purple and pink unicorns on it, for us to try. Cara liked the object very much, but spent only a few seconds holding the string when it was actually flying (I loved it and hope to get a chance to fly it again soon!). She preferred looking for shells, or playing with the inflatable duck ball that Evie got for her (an inflated duck sits inside the ball and can flop around in there).

Aunt Sarah was highly popular; Cara always had to know where she was. She got Cara into the ocean before we really did, and she gathered shells to be hats for her girls. She also taught Cara good rules, like always having a "water buddy" when you go down to the ocean, and she played soccer with Cara with the duck ball and the water.

The duck ball and Cara spent a lot of time in the pool at the house. Cara was more comfortable there and really loved playing in the water. The pool was a good size, not too big and not too deep, so that anyone could help her along anywhere in the water. Because it was always hot and sunny during the day, the water was always a comfortable temperature. There were various pool toys already at the house, and the big favorites were the noodles. Cara loved getting on one and having a "noodle race" with someone. We discovered that we could also look through them and--even better--talk through them. With two noodles, one on the mouth and one at the ear of one person, and vice versa on another person, an entire noodle conversation could take place. There were also water guns, which Cara had not really experienced before, and which were also fun to play with.

The beach, the pool, and the house were not the only attractions. The three of us also had a few outings. Our first was down the road to the nearest miniature golf place. We had some ice cream inside (true to form, Cara ate a good deal of my ice cream cone instead of the one she had chosen), then went out into the brutal heat with our clubs and balls. Cara's latest mini-golf method is to take one stroke at the ball, wait to see how close to the hole it gets, then walk over, pick it up, and drop it into the hole. Using this method we meandered our way along the course for a few holes.

We also visited the North Carolina Aquarium, which is out on Roanoke Island. It was not a big aquarium, which suited us fine, and Cara got to see some otters, turtles, and sharks. She got to make her own shark hat (a construction paper band with a fin at the front, which she was able to color with crayons), we got our traditional flattened penny with an aquarium logo stamped onto it, and I was excited to find tiny fish-shaped sponges that purported to grow 600% larger when placed in water for 48 hours. Cara was also very excited, so we purchased three (two for Casey and PJ) and got to watch our pink shark slowly grow in a glass bowl in the kitchen of the beach house over the next day and a half or so. Unfortunately (for some reason) on the trip home Cara extracted the soggy shark from the tub in which he was travelling and playfully gouged out his eye. Otherwise he is still whole and is currently on our kitchen table at home, presumably shrinking in preparation for another watery growth spurt.

One morning some of us had the idea of renting bikes, and it quickly became a full family outing. Cara had her first chance to ride on a grown-up bike, strapped into a kiddie seat on the back with a pink helmet on her head. I do believe she enjoyed being taken for a ride. I rode the bike on the way out, and found that it was hard to get it going with the extra weight in the back, and particularly hard to get over hills! I didn't have much opportunity to turn around and see how she was doing. After the ride Cara tried out the North Carolinian playground equipment across the street from the bike shop. It had some nice climbing apparatus, even a little climbing wall that Cara tried for a little bit.

Our last outing had another vehicular aspect. We went to a set of shops, restaurants and entertainment spots called Tim Buck II. I think the idea was to possibly try out their mini-golf, or paddle boats, or bumper cars. In the event Cara and I found ourselves strapped into a tiny little race car, and we spent ten minutes swooping around a race track with a bunch of other kids. The car handled wonderfully and went fast enough that a nice breeze hit our faces; we got bumped into once, entirely by accident, and had to be extricated by the supervising employee. Cara spent the ride with a grin on her face.

Afterward the three of us stayed on to do some shopping. But first, dinner! We found ourselves at what we soon discovered was one of the fanciest restaurants to which we had ever taken our little girl. Due to a potty-related absence when our server first arrived, we never received a children's menu (or even realized that one existed). Cara had a bowl of she-crab bisque, which she ate a fair amount of, and we ordered a side of french fries with ketchup. She at first claimed that she did not want the fries at all; then, when she started to finally eat them, utterly spurned the ketchup. Eventually Evie convinced her to try the ketchup. The moment it hit her mouth, Cara cried, "I wike it!" Amazing. She discovered all over again that she likes ketchup. Following this we did a little bit of shopping (making use of the stroller for the first and only time on the trip), then stopped for some ice cream. Again true to form, Cara lost interest in her chosen strawberry almost immediately and ended up finishing Evie's chocolate cone. Through some incredible miracle, she did not get a single drop of ice cream on her shirt.

Another frivolous purchase was instigated by me on this shopping expedition: we purchased a pig catapult. It launches pigs over 15 feet. I decided it was the coolest thing I had ever seen--therefore, it quickly became the coolest thing Cara had ever seen, and we had to open it and launch a few pigs before the evening was over. I do hope that some of us forget about the thing altogether--the pigs are flung at an incredibly high rate of speed, and are very difficult to locate after they have been flung.

Grandma and Grandpa very kindly stayed with Cara one evening and let Ev, myself, Jim and Sarah all go out for dinner. We got drunk and went to Kmart, where--at long last!--I found the Polly Pocket "Race to the Mall" playset in their toy department. Evie and I were very excited--we'd been looking for it for ages! Finally Cara would have somewhere to race her tiny Polly Pocket cars. It proved to be in so many little pieces, however, that we had to save its assembly for after the trip was over. In fact, it happened immediately after the trip was over: the box came out of the car trunk and into the house, Cara saw it, and we spent some tense, irritating minutes fumbling it together while Cara hung over our shoulders asking us if it was ready yet. But once it was together--whoo boy!

I hope that Cara remembers this vacation as fondly as I will, though I'm sure the details will get fuzzy as she grows older. I think we all had a wonderful time while we were there! Fortunately, she will have the journal and some pictures to refresh her memory.

8/3/08 (Sunday)

It was hard to leave North Carolina, but I'm veyr glad we had this day at home to get settled and do laundry and groceries before the week really starts; PJ and Casey will be coming here instead of to Susan's tomorrow, so I definitely can't leave the house then! It was really a fabulous, relaxing vacation. I'm sure I've never stayed in a nicer place! We're really glad Grandmom and Grandpop decided to do that and arranged it all. Nothing could have been nicer than the past week!

I do have to add one or two things to the vacation memories. At the fancy restaurant, when Cara and I got back to the table after our trip to the potty, Steve had ordered drinks already. He got juice for Cara, which came in a styrofoam cup with a lid and a straw. She drank a little bit of it, but mostly she ignored it in favor of her water glass. "Water is much better," she said. Her water glass was a stemmed goblet, and it took a lot for me to not have my hands out to spot her whenever she picked it up. She grabbed it by the stem, wrapping her fist around it, and lifted it right up, drank out of it, and got it back down safely every time. It was a big, big hit.

So, the Race to the Mall. I remember watching dozens of ads for tracks for matchbox cars when I was a kid, and of course there were no versions for girls. I don't think I ever really wanted one or anything, but that probably adds to my excitement. As Steve said, it was difficult to assemble. He got it together, though, and we got to try it. It's pretty incredible.

There are two launcher slots, each with a big button to push. Only one can be pushed at a time, to prevent accidents. The girl, in her car, is launched and immediately does a loop-the-loop. At the bottom, she goes through some flags to take off a little velocity, and then she hits the bottom of the elevator. This is battery-powered; it is a conveyor belt that grabs the car and pulls it high up, to the top of the "mall." The mall is a three-story open structure, around and through which winds more track for cars. The cars circle the mall twice and then either run down a track that leads out or are shot back around to the bottom of the elevator, depending on the position of a plastic diverter arm.

We have now a round dozen girls and cars. All of them can run around and once, going up the elevator, around and around, and up the elevator again. There are two light-up cars, which are activated by buttons on their front bumpers. They hit other cars in the Race to the Mall, and they drive around lighting up. It's wonderful fun! PJ and Casey came over this morning, and PJ was inseparable from the cars. He can load and launch them himself (Cara can't load them, I think). He was fascinated for as long as they were here, probably about half an hour. Cara wasn't jealous, because she was busy showing Em and Ron all of her stuff. It wasn't new stuff, necessarily, just things she thought were interesting.

This evening I tried some stuff to help Cara brush better. It was a blue dye; I had to put it on her teeth with a little rubber finger brush just like what we used to use on the cat, when he had feline gingivitis! Of course, she loved the brush. She wanted to take it in the bath. Anyway, I turned her teeth blue, and then she was supposed to brush it off. Theoretically, I could then see what was still blue and help her to learn to brush better. She brushed. She didn't take long, and then I couldn't find any blue! This is definitely a work in progress.

I've just realized I had two chocolate ice cream cones on that vacation, and I didn't get to finish either one. Huh.

8/4/08 (Monday)

Cara, PJ, Casey, and I had a mostly fun day together! The Race to the Mall was a big attraction all day, of course, and there are lots of other toys to take out and try, so no one was bored. In the morning, we made cookies! The kids got to take turns putting ingredients in and turning on the mixer, and PJ and Casey got to crack eggs. They were all excited about getting to lick the beaters, but of course there are only two. So, at the end I got three bowls and put the beaters into two of them and a spoon of dough into the other, which I gave Casey. PJ looked at that and decided he wanted that, too! Cara was single-minded and stuck with her beater, until she got distracted and wandered away.

We went outside in the afternoon and played in the sand table, and then we got out the sprinkler. The kids didn't run through much; they used the streams of water to fill their little buckets and watering cans, and then the went and found interesting places to dump the water. They cleaned a part of the driveway, watered some plants, and watered some rocks. Eventually I unhooked the sprinkler and let PJ water the plants with the hose; Cara got a turn, too. Casey had a big bucket full of water, and each child had one or two of Cara's girls. PJ and Casey spent a long time letting their girls swim in that bucket! PJ also used it to fill a little watering can with which to sprinkle my legs. It was quite pleasant.

I'm tired!! No one had a real nap, and I sure need one! We went to PJ's house for dinner, and we're getting Cara into bed late. She got all four stickers this evening, so she's getting four books, too. I got out some really skinny ones, but they might still be longer than we would want. Books are tricky that way.

8/5/08 (Tuesday)

It's Tuesday, so it's Aunt Claire day! We had muffins. We figured we were all tired out, so we had a very low-key day, mostly just sitting around the house. We showed Claire the They Might Be Giants videos we've been into lately. We did go out in the morning to gymnastics, where Cara got to do all of the things she said she wanted to: she jumped on the trampoline and and swung on the rope. She got an extra-long class, because one of the three kids was turning five soon and had paid for a full hour, so everybody got to stay--yay, us! She got good stickers, and her potty training held.

Her last accident was last week, maybe Friday, so we've been doing really well on the potty. She made it through today, too, until about five, when it all went to heck. She managed four accidents in about three hours, somehow. I think we're all baffled! Not seeing much else to attribute it to, I'm going to decide right now to blame fatigue and the built-up excitement of the past couple of days. That sounds good.

8/6/08 (Wednesday)

I think all of the potty-training disasters yesterday made me lose track of the nice side of things. For instance, I forgot to mention that yesterday, while Steve and I were out and Cara was on her own with Claire, Cinderella found her mother. Yes, it's true. She's been looking for her for months, calling her and not getting any answers but tragic echoes and sometimes me being confused as to who was calling. Yesterday, though, it turned out that one of the other girls is Cinderella's mother, and we just never knew it! We just thought she was the ballet girl, because she had the toe shoes and tutu. Now we need another one, because the other Cinderella also wants a mommy. Then they want daddies.

Today, feeling timorous after last night, I brought three pairs of underpants and three pairs of shorts to Susan! Cara was very, very happy to go back, by the way. Last night I mentioned where she was going today, and she wanted to go "now!" She made it through the day with no accidents except during naptime, so she'll just wear a pull-up for that from now on. What a relief!

We stopped at the library on the way home and selected a lot of books. Then we did a puzzle. Actually, Cara did it. I told her a few things were upside-down, but she really took the picture apart and put it back together herself! We read the books we'd picked out, and they were all dreadful. We put them back. We got more, and we just took those out in cheerful optimism. Now, having read some, we conclude that a few are ok. Somehow, I have more success at the children's department at the North Brunswick library.

Cara stayed dry the whole time. We got home, and I wanted to get her on the potty. She refused and refused and refused and then wet herself. I have suggested to her that next time she should listen. After dinner at PJ's house, when Cara wanted to go play, I went over to her. I asked her whether she would do something just to make me happy. "I could go on the potty!!!!!" she shrilled, jumping up and down and clapping.

In the bath this evening, Bottle Cap's leg came off. This happens fairly often. Tonight, Cinderella took the leg and was "wearing" it and talking in Bottle Cap's voice. As so often seems to happen when Cara does something odd, Steve said, "Oh, I think I was doing that the other day."

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