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Journal Key:

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

8/28/08 (Thursday)

It was a bit of a strange day today: I took a half day and then Ev and I went together to pick Cara up. We told her that we were going to pick up Casie (Aunt Claire's friend and roommate) from work! Cara was excited, because she was all ready to show everyone the picture she made at Susan's. It was a starry sky. Cara was the only one who noticed that the larger stars looked kind of like people: she glued them next to each other, holding hands. As we later discovered, the stars also glow in the dark.

"Casie can sit next to me," Cara enthused, and when Casie walked out of her office to get in the car, that's where she wanted to sit. Cara was very happy to have someone sitting next to her, and Casie is very responsive, so they had a fantastic time as we drove through rush hour traffic. Cara got to show Casie her picture, and her fairies and her girls. We discussed how the girls were related (the ballerina girl is the mommy of I believe all of the princesses), and how they are related to Bottle Cap (Cinderella is Bottle Cap's mommy--which, we realized, makes the ballerina girl Bottle Cap's grandmom). We also had to explain to Casie who Bottle Cap was ("He is sort of orange," said Cara--not mentioning he was also a ferocious attack tiger).

Anyway, they had a fantastic time, and the first leg of the journey ended joyfully at Grandmama's house. Cara ran and jumped into the arms of Grandmama, and was off for an evening of fun with her grandparents while Mommy and I took Claire out for dinner and drinks (to ease the beginning of a new school year). Cara got out all of her horsie toys and some inherited stable buildings. All of her fairies ended up in a basket. She had some pizza, ran off, colored, had a bath, came back, and was horrified to find that her last piece of pizza had been eaten by someone else! In tears, she was told that she might get ice cream for dessert. "I wike ice cream!"

When we finally returned Cara was having books read to her by Grandmama. The last one she picked was lengthy, so we brought it home with us and I read it to her as a final bedtime book. She had quite a late night, and we have some concern that it will be tough to get her to Susan's tomorrow, especially since I have the day off! It will be Cara's last day at Susan's before the school year starts and we go back to mornings with just Cara and me.

8/29/08 (Friday)

Well, it was really hard to wake Cara up this morning! It took several minutes. When she finally clambered out of bed, still half asleep, I showed her the new shirt Juliana had given her, which I figured she could wear today. I talked to her about going to Susan's and about going on the potty. She put her arms up. A hug? Wanting to be picked up? Neither. She was waiting for me to take her pajama shirt off, so that she could get into the new shirt. She was dressed before she even went to the bathroom. After that we had to play a lot, but she did eat some breakfast and it was pretty easy to get her out of the house, all told.

On the way home in the afternoon we had to stop at the library, where we returned some books and played some computer games. They were closing at five, though, so we had to go. As incentive, I told Cara that Grandpop was at her house. Instantly, she was ready to go. "When we see Grandpop, I will be so surprised!" she told me repeatedly on the way home. I tried to explain the logical fallacy in that, but soon I gave up.

When we pulled up, disaster! Grandpop's car was not there! Cara burst into tears. She didn't open her door of even unbuckle herself. We got into the house and went to see the bathroom, where Grandpop and Daddy were installing a new floor. Cara perked up enough to play, though she sadly looked out the window pretty often, reporting back that they were not here. When we did look out and see them, what joy! What shrillness! I'm not sure my ears will ever be the same.

I bought a new toy, because it was on sale at the teacher store and I have always wanted one. It's a marble run, and the four of us put it together. When I gave it to Cara, she grabbed the box in a big hug, squeaking, "It's my favorite toy! I always wanted this!" Grandpop asked her whether she'd ever seen one before. No. It is, as I had hoped, pretty cool. I'd like to try taking it back apart and putting it back together in creative ways, but Cara says no. I have to wait for nap time

After dinner, Daddy and Grandpop installed a new shower head downstairs while Cara and I did all of the puzzles she has down there, one by one, with high-fives in between. She's definitely developing as a puzzle-solver. She doesn't need much help anymore with the jigsaw ones; the number and letter ones are tougher.

We walked Grandpop out to his car. We all carried things. Steve and I carried tools he was taking home. Cara carried the box for her marble toy. She brought it right back inside afterwards.

8/30/08 (Saturday)

We had a nice breakfast of pancakes and eggs--quite a luxury--and then I went off to do errands while Mommy and Cara played and got ready to go to Grandma and Grandpa's house!

We had our usual visit with lots of toys and playing. Cara got a Kid Cuisine meal for lunch which included some gummy "bugs" with some kind of filling in the middle which might have been a juice of some kind. When we finally let her have them (after the had eaten a majority of the other food), Cara ate them very quickly so we never really found out. Mommy also brought along one of the craft project-y things she had purchased but never used for her couple of days watching the three kids. This one had paper people that you could color and dress up with various accesory stickers! It was pretty perfect for Cara, who has a paper people thing, and who loves stickers. She did an impressive job coloring in one of the people all by herself, and wielded a glue stick pretty well--having had lots of practice at Susan's, we presume.

There was a lot of Play-doh playing as well: girls had to be made with the cookie cutters, then horses for the girls, then the horses got tails and eyes, and then when Grandma or Grandpa brought it up, the horses all had to have saddles as well. Cara got to see some pop-up books she'd never seen before, and Grandpa gave her a good reading of The Cat in the Hat Comes Back.

Cara slept well on the way home, and woke up in the car before we got home; but the prospect of dinner kept her from being too crabby, and fortunately she was perfectly willing to go up to her bath afterwards. As often happens nowadays, the bath was ended by a trip to the potty, where I had to start reading her the library book Bad Kitty. Eventually we learn through use of pronouns that the kitty is a girl. "Why is she a girl kitty?" Cara asked, in one of her typical impossible "why" questions. "I don't know," I retorted, "why are you a girl?" Cara had an answer: "Because I wear girl shoes."

8/31/08 (Sunday)

Today was our day at home. After Cara's nap, though, company was here: Grandmama and Grandpapa! Squeaking levels were high. Grandmama was very impressed when she discovered that Grandpapa was able to play catch-the-girl with Cara while sitting down in a strategic spot where she was obliged to run past him. Earlier in the day, Steve had drawn some fairies for Cara. The first one had been an invention of his own, which she was very upset about. After that, he just copied her toys. During dinner, Cara disappeared briefly downstairs, returning to report, "Daddy, I scribbled over that fairy you drew. I just didn't like that one." Thanks, Cara.

In the morning, we had had Cara's big preschool activity book out. She really likes mazes, and she can do the simple ones on her own with little effort. She's also good at finding things in pictures, and when I went out at midday I got her two little activity books: one is just mazes, and the other is picture games. We spent quite a while with each, though we eventually turned to the back of the maze book and found ones that were too hard. Then Cara made Grandmama do them.

Also, earlier, we took down some old hardware in the bathroom and I spackled. Cara very much wanted to also spackle and was not allowed. "Why can I not put my finger in it?" she asked. She thought for a second, and asked, "Can I put my finger in it?" Steve came up with a creditable answer for the first question, which we felt covered the second as well.

9/1/08 (Monday)

Today Evie realized that it was our last chance to paint our bathroom before our week back at work. So I hopped outside and mowed the lawn while Cara helped Mommy tape up the bathroom with painter's tape. Then, quite conveniently, Em called and offered to take Cara while we painted! So Cara brought her new Barbie movie (The Princess and the Pauper) and went off to PJ's house. Apparently what happened was, they had lunch, watched the movie for a bit, Casey went down for her nap, and a few minutes later Cara asked Em if she could have a nap also! Em grudgingly agreed and when we went to pick up our little girl she was asleep in the guest room. PJ was happily watching the Backyardigans downstairs, and a few minutes after we arrived he wandered upstairs and was asking Cara why she was crying. Cara said she was crying because she wanted to paint a wooden girl that Em had for her.

We all hung about the Loefflers' for a while, saw some vacation pictures, and then Evie went back to the house to put a second coat of paint on the bathroom. I stayed with the kids. We watched some TV, did some painting, played with various toys, and eventually ended up outside. At PJ's insistence we took a walk around the block. At the beginning, PJ was on his bike, Cara was on a smaller tricycle, and Casey was bravely attempting to ride the Spiderman scooter. I cleverly decided to drive along the remote control car PJ had recently gotten. By the time we were halfway around, all of us were off of our bikes and scooters and PJ was in command of the car, which drove into the street and had to be recovered.

In the afternoon, not content with the chores we had so far accomplished, we drove Cara off to the Home Depot. We've been there so often recently that when we walked in this time, Cara said "Why are we in this store again?" After that we went to a restaurant. Cara had found the presents Em bought for her while they were on vacation in Cape Cod, one of which was a new Polly Pocket girl! As the new girl, even though she was not a princess, she was the only one who made it into the restaurant with us. Cara was happily walking her around the table and singing nonsense. "She's out of her mind," I remarked to Evie. "She's out of her mind!" Cara happily sang. An old woman came over to our table to tell us how adorable Cara was--I was surprised how much I enjoyed hearing it.

In the tub tonight Cara got to try out the other present the Loefflers brought back for her: little capsules which expand into spongy shapes when thrown into water. They turned into mermaids and fish and palm trees: perfect for her. She even lied to her mother and told her she had not had her hair washed last night, possibly just to stay in the tub longer.

9/2/08 (Tuesday)

The dollar store, apparently, is selling cute little stationery kits with Disney stamps and stickers and things, and Linda bought the twins Tinkerbell sets. They decided to write to Cara. Each took a piece of Tinkerbell paper and wrote her name on it, stamped it, and stickered it. One went into an envelope, and one was folded up. Someone wrote Cara's name on the outside, with the sender's name in the upper left corner. The twins put them into the mailbox. Linda pulled them out of the mailbox, brought them to school, and gave them to me. I brought them home and gave them to Cara.

Cara wanted to send a card back to them, and "first to my three grandmas" I asked which three she meant, and she listed Grandmom, Grandmama, and Grandma Anne in Florida. I have a big box of cards, and Cara picked out five blank ones. Then she got distracted. After she was done with dinner, though, she ran downstairs before Steve and I were done. It was quiet. Then she announced that she had written her name on a card. I waited for an explosion of frustration as she tried to do more, but it stayed very quiet. She wrote her name on each card, filling the whole inside perfectly: "ACAR." Every time.

We tried to get her to decorate them a little, but all she was willing to add was one small sticker per card. We put those that fit into envelopes, and Cara sat in my lap while I held her hand to help her write Sarah and Lina's names on theirs. It went better than I had anticipated; she knows a lot of the letters, I think. I've addressed the other ones, and Cara helped me put return address stickers on them. Sorry to ruin the surprise, grandmas! I thought about not putting in the spelling, but I figured I'd better record this now, before we forget to put it in here!

9/3/08 (Wednesday)

This morning Steve asked Cara whether she wanted to help put stamps on the cards for her grandmas, and she ran and got out her stamps. The envelopes are well-decorated, no doubt with giraffes, gorillas, and teddy bears holding hearts.

After a playdate in which each child all three children took turns driving the adults nuts, we stopped by to see Juliana, who announced that Boo had been driving her nuts. Nevertheless, when he came to the fence and Cara asked, she went and got out a bone and helped Cara give it to him. Everyone was very happy.

Cara is moving up in the world. We have installed two towel bars in the upstairs bathroom, so now her towel gets to hang on the hook on the door instead of the shower curtain rod. She's been promoted!

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