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Journal Key:

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

8/14/08 (Thursday)

Cara was very ready to go to Susan's this morning. She didn't say anything that showed it, but without argument or delay she got dressed before she came downstairs, and then, after a good breakfast, she very willingly went upstairs to brush her teeth, which she let me do very well, and then she headed right down to get her shoes on. We got out of the house in record time.

We had a quiet dinner of leftovers, and now we're recreating our lovely evening from yesterday, watching the Olympics in our pajamas and eating popcorn. Cara brought Puma down to watch, as well as her paper bears and the bath Cinderella. Puma is trying to flip up to the ceiling, and I really hope he doesn't land in the popcorn.

Steve is teaching Cara to say, "Go white guys!" I think that this is unfortunate. Cara does also like the green guys. Volleyball is on. Cara wants to watch boarding. You know, boarding, where the guys jump off the boards into the water.

8/15/08 (Friday)

It was another nice Susan day. Cara chose her own clothes, though I did veto the combination of teal tank top and pink plaid skort. She wore a less-objectionable skort and then found her black dressy shoes that I think I bought for Easter. Of course, she had to wear them. It was an interesting outfit. She really loves choosing her shoes; she takes great joy from them.

When I dropped Cara off, there were two garbage trucks on Susan's street, and all the kids were outside to watch. Oh, the joys of recycling day!

When Steve and I picked Cara up, I got wet hugs from Casey, PJ, and Cara, all in their swimsuits. Susan announced that this was a special week, the week Cara really learned to use the potty at Susan's house! Good job, Cara!

We got Cara into a cute dress and headed south, to Aunt Claire's art show at Brookdale. We were the first to arrive, and we introduced Cara to the joy of eating cheese and crackers together. It was a hit. The rest of the family gradually showed up, too, and we got to see Claire's office as well, of course, as the work in the show. Cara liked the art, but she really liked the cheese and crackers. Eventually, I had to cut off her supply. She saw the logic, but soon she came up to me and, holding up two fingers, said, "Mommy, I just only want . . ." she thought hard and put up one more finger, "free more crackers."

We went out to dinner afterwards at Juanito's, and then we walked over to Broad Street for ice cream. I complained that Cara always picked strawberry because it was pink and then took my chocolate cone. Several people attempted to head this off. Moira suggested that Cara try a sample of strawberry ahead of time, and my mother got a small cup of chocolate ice cream to swap with Cara when the need arose. Cara sampled the strawberry and decided to get it. She stuck with her cup longer than I expected, and then she moved closer, . . . closer, and onto my cone. I got the cup of chocolate. After a few minutes, though, Cara moved on and gave back my almost-intact cone. So I was happy. So was she.

8/16/08 (Saturday)

Today we drove south to meet Grandmom and Grandpop in a big flooring store in Cherry Hill and try to pick something out for our bathroom. Cara was fussy all morning, and she wasn't particularly animated in the store, until Grandmom and I took her on the potty. After that, for some reason, she was perky and squeaky and giggly and ran around having a ball. She liked standing on the red section of the floor, and I think she particularly thought Grandpop would think that that was funny.

For lunch, we were planning on meeting Aunt Sarah and Uncle Jim fairly nearby. Cara got a special treat: we moved her seat into Grandmom and Grandpop's car, and she got to ride with them! Lunch was at a very pretty Italian place, where we sat outside on a patio with a wishing well in the middle. Cara got her own individual little pizza, of which she ate only one slice because she'd been snacking on bread and a mozzarella stick! After lunch it was time for some of us to go to Grandmom's house to play, and Cara wanted to ride with Jim and Sarah. Unfortunately, they weren't coming, so that didn't work out. It's an interesting hobby, riding in other people's cars.

Grandmom just got a new box of crayons, with 64 colors! We all got to draw; Steve made a lovely toad. My favorite part was lining the crayons up by color, since they were all out of the box. We also got out lots of toys and Cara got to play with her Grandmom on the floor. We went outside and ran around and harassed poor Rusty. The afternoon wore away, though, and soon it was time to get out booster seat back into our car and hit the road.

8/17/08 (Sunday)

Today I should no doubt have mowed the lawn and maybe gotten a haircut. Instead, after a leisurely morning of breakfast and Olympics coverage, we decided to hit the road and go down to the shore! Cara was interested in going to Grandmom and Grandpop's house again, but was willing to try going on rides on the boardwalk.

It was nice to get to have our day on the boardwalk. We have had a book or so of tickets for rides all summer and had never gotten around to using them. Today we determinedly went through them all. Cara sampled various kiddie rides, some by herself and some with one or the other of us. There was a nice little alligator ride which Cara called a "carousel," presumably because it went around in a bumpy circle. There was a helicopter with a joystick which would have made Cara raise up into the air, had she but realized it--which she did not. There was a spinning ride where Cara and I sat in the belly of a large dragon. It had a steering wheel which could make you wildly rotate as you revolved, but Cara requested that I not spin us. However, Cara was on a fake hot air balloon ride later with her Mommy, where the "baskets" went around and up and down, and she let Mommy turn them around and around in that.

All of us also crammed into one of the more grown-up, scarier rides, which also went in a circle but did some much more violent twirling. We all seemed to like it a lot. Apart from her not wanting me to twirl our dragon, she did not seem at all afraid on any of the rides--though she had a very ambivalent reaction when I pointed out the roller coaster to her.

With the last of our tickets we all got onto a tiny train which took us in two big laps around the whole amusement park area, and then, not even close to being done, we moved right on to Jenkinson's Aquarium! Cara was squeakily excited and went dashing around the place. We were hoping to get to do the touch tanks there; Cara has never done them before at Jenkinson's, and she seems very ready now. However we were foiled because when we got up there it was time to feed the seals, at which time everything else is postponed. Cara did get to see the seals fed: she sat right up front against the glass with all the other little kids and had an excellent view.

By the time that was over, it was clearly time to hit the road, so I trekked back to our awful parking spot and managed to pick up the girls not too far from the boardwalk. We were then off to Grandmama and Grandpapa's house for a relaxing evening. We got dinner and Cara bossed various people into coloring things for her. She found some glitter glue and, after squirting out some in the usual manner, decided to dab her hand in it and then violently slam glittery handprints onto different parts of her paper. She eventually got a bath given to her by Grandmama, and late in the evening we made our way back home.

We acquired several new companions today. It was unplanned. The first one Cara saw hanging from a display outside of a boardwalk gift shop: it was an inflatable blue monkey attached to a string hanging from a long wooden stick. The monkey quickly became detached from the stick, and then Evie and I were concerned to see, as Cara was riding the alligator ride, that the monkey was rapidly deflating into a plastic, wrinkled, monkey-like wad. Fortunately it turned out that his plug had just been opened, and, being of small stature, he was quickly restored to his fuller form.

On one of her trips to the potty Cara spotted one of those silly try-your-luck games and became enchanted with it; eventually we were forced to lay our money down on it. The object was to take a rubbery frog, flop him onto a catapult, and fling him towards some rotating lilypads by smacking the catapult in the right place with a mallet. We purchased a bucket of six frogs and I am happy to report that the sixth and final frog was successfully planted in a lilypad. For this Cara got--what else--a stuffed frog.

Armed with her balloon monkey and her stuffed frog, Cara spontaneously said, "I'm not going to want aaannnything else." Remarkably, not too much later we passed another silly boardwalk game that we also just had to play. This was the kind where you have to squirt water at a target, slowly raising some object on a column, and the player whose column gets to the top first wins. Of course, with only Cara and Mommy playing, and me helping Cara to aim, the result was pretty predictable, and Cara soon had yet another stuffed frog (this one was somewhat larger and less plush than his predecessor, and blue instead of green).

It was a very froggy day. They stamp your hands at the aquarium--the stamp for today? Yes. A frog.

8/18/08 (Monday)

Cara got to go to Susan's today, because today was the first day of work being done on our bathroom. When she got home, things were different! I explained it all to her before we got back here, but it was still very exciting. There is a big plastic strip from the front door to the stairs, and another going up the carpeted stairs and along the hall to the bathroom. The toilet is in the office. The bathtub is gone, along with the tile, leaving the insides of the walls plain to see! There was much squeaking. When Daddy got home, we ran out to meet him and Cara got to give him a tour and tell him all about it.

I did explain that we cannot use the toilet in the office. Still, every time we head to the potty we have to re-explain why we have to go downstairs. When we were brushing her teeth, she asked why she hadn't taken a bath. (Tomorrow we get to have a bath at Juliana's, which should be fun for everyone!)

We made a couple of stops before we came home. We hit Pathmark, where I picked out new pigtail holders for me and for Cara, who carried hers through the store with great affection. Next we went to the farmer's market, where we picked out cherries, which Cara carried through the store with great affection. She also noticed the string beans, and carefully chose two she wanted. I convinced her to get a few more than that, and she carried the bag of them as well. We'll try the cherries tomorrow, but the string beans are gone.

This evening I had Cara sit on the living room floor while I brushed and brushed her hair to try to get the sand out. I forgot that that happens so often at Susan's. It was nice to get to brush her hair like that, though!

8/19/08 (Tuesday)

Cara was thrilled when the guys showed up this morning to install the bath tub. She had already been thrilled once, when Aunt Claire showed up, so it was a good morning. We had to go to gymnastics, though, and Aunt Claire stayed here, which was tough to explain. Gymnastics was nice, but it was a crowded class! With six kids, nobody gets a lot of turns.

Back at home, we played hard. GiGi gave us a Fourth-of-July-themed gift basket last weekend, and I finally unpacked everything in it. There was a set of star-shaped bowls, and between them there were two star-bowl-shaped pieces of Styrofoam. They were perfect boats for the girls! There were some arguments over who got to sit in them, and the rules did suddenly change in the middle of everything (at first, it was shoes only, but then everyone suddenly started getting dressed, only in pants and shirts, no dresses), but it was a lot of fun.

In the late afternoon we did something we should have done months ago; I'm not really sure what prompted the horrible oversight that led to Aunt Claire not ever having gotten to make Shrinky Dinks before. I mean, you draw something tiny, and it gets tinier. Where has this been all her life? She made a beautiful dragon and then drew Cara's three favorite fairies, who were more than delighted to model. Then we shrunk 'em. Cara immediately bore them off and put them in a star-shaped boat.

Later, in the evening, Cara had her Shrinky Dinks and her tiny girls in the star boat. Suddenly, she flipped it over and scattered them. "Help," I had one say, "I can't swim!" "You just go like this," Cara told her, demonstrating the dog paddle with her arms. That helped. She was able to swim to the boat, and Cara made sure that several others also asked for help, and got it, before she got bored and wandered off. I think she should be a lifeguard.

We went to Juliana's house for a bath! Cara got to use her toe-scrubbing brush and investigate all of the other items around the tub. Juliana, of course, was very impressed by the bath toys we brought over. Bottle Cap and Cinderella introduced themselves. The others just played. Cara listened really well when I asked her to look up so I could dump water over her hair; she listened way better than she does at home! After the bath, she took a brief tour of Juliana's upstairs and then we headed home.

Cara sat down to have a snack. I was explaining to Steve that PJ and his family are going to be on vacation next week. "They'll need someone to--!" began Cara. "To take care of their pets?" Steve asked. "Yes. The cat and the dog." Maybe Cara could do it.

8/20/08 (Wednesday)

When I get to Susan's to get Cara, I end up crouching down low for hugs. I always get Cara, frequently PJ, and, lately, almost always Casey. Casey comes up and hugs me and then she tends to sit down on one of my legs, and often I get Cara on the other, just because she doesn't want anyone else to have full possession of her mommy. It's sometimes just the three of them there, but sometimes Johanna is still there, too. She's been watching all of this, and today, when Cara ran down the sidewalk to me, she came over, too. I could see her thinking about it. Sure enough, in she came for a hug and plopped herself right down to sit, too. So I got Johanna and Cara, in my lap, about eight steps from my car.

I needed something from the pantry while I was cooking dinner, and Cara came down with me. She found a can of star soup, which she decided she wanted for her dinner. I was happy with that idea, but, I told her, we had to wait for Em and Ron and PJ and Casey and Daddy. When they all got here, we could have dinner. The only problem I had then was the few minutes when they were all here but dinner wasn't ready. Sure enough, each of the kids had to have a bowl of star soup, which they ate with varying success. I believe I recall some exclamations of surprise from PJ, midmeal, about the stars.

Yesterday, Claire updated Cara's sticker chart. She really doesn't need the potty sticker anymore, so we came up with toy cleanup as a category. We really haven't been asking Cara to clean up much, lately, so it's good motivation for us all. Claire drew a toy box with toys in it to represent the idea. It's working, too! Cara's been a good cleaner-upper for two days now.

Susan gave me PJ's mat to bring home. Ron dropped off the Pack 'n Play for Casey. Em and I have both bought cool crafts and toys to keep the kids amused for the next two days. Nancy Circle Daycare is ready to open!

A late update: Cara has been sleeping with Ribbitty, the frog Steve won down in Point Pleasant. In fact, he sometimes displaces Puma. At 9:45, suddenly, screams from Cara's room. We ran up. Ribbitty's arm, which has taken quite a bit of abuse, was coming off. Puma, who hadn't been allowed in bed before, was a great comfort to her and sat with us in the glider as I fixed Ribbitty.

"What do you need that string for?"

"To sew up Ribbitty."

"Oh, OK. . . . What do you need that string for?"

I explained all of my tools and we had a talk about needles not hurting stuffed animals, even though they hurt people. Puma got lots of cuddles and affection.

"Oh, Pumey!" Cara crooned.

"I don't like it when Cara calls me 'Pumey,'" said Puma.

I try not to get involved when they argue. Soon, they were all back in bed together.

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