| Previous Week | Back Home | Next Week |

Journal Key:

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

11/6/08 (Thursday)

Mommy had the day off today, so Cara was happy to have both of us around this morning. Ev gave Cara full-size pigtails for the first time, and it went well. I made toast and eggs which, as usual, Cara was not able to eat. I packed her toast in a tupperware container and she ate it in the car--I hope she doesn't adapt herself to eating breakfast in vehicles.

Susan successfully re-did Cara's pigtails, and when Mommy picked the little girl up they went to the farmer's market and bought "tiny apples." We had a pretty uneventful evening, with more stubbornness during the bedtime routine. I am wondering if Cara is getting sick and having the usual mixed feelings about the prediction. If she is getting sick, she has an excuse for being whiny.

Tomorrow Evie is off again and is keeping Cara home with her. They'll have a playdate in the morning, where no germs will be spread--none!

11/7/08 (Friday)

No, no germs were spread! It was a great playdate. Cara was thrilled when company arrived, though she chose to first address them through Puma. (Puma was later announced as "Girl Emperor Puma.") My friend Denise came over with her son, who's almost exactly Casey's age. They both were good sharers and they played pretty well together. One highlight for me, though, was when Cara needed to use the potty. I asked whether she wanted me to come with her. "No, not you!" she cried. She had headed for the bathroom, but she came back out to the playroom and just stood there and looked at Denise until Denise went with her. We played all over the house and got out lots of exciting stuff. At the end, while I got lunch ready, we put on The Mighty Knights. Both children bounced up and down on the couch during the opening credits, screaming "Dragon mountain! Dragon mountain!"

One measure of a good playdate: both children napped soundly afterwards.

11/8/08 (Saturday)

After Cara's nap yesterday I drove her down to my folks' house, so today Grandpapa dropped her off at gymnastics. While Cara, unlike PJ, has yet to bounce to a standing position from the C-drop thingie they do where they sit down on the trampoline, she did do so well at her scissor-kick thing that the teacher wanted everyone else to pay attention. As soon as they looked, of course, she went back to the old way of doing them, where you jump your legs apart and then jump them together, instead of doing both in one jump. She and PJ each also had a potty break (or two). She got a stamp of a zebra on one hand and a crayon on the other, and she was very happy with them.

We went home and got Daddy and got in the car to go and meet Grandmom and Grandpop at the zoo! It was a little rainy, and I confess I had my doubts about our sanity or at least our intelligence on the drive down, but it turned out fabulous. The day was cool and grey, but we put our umbrellas away pretty early on. The animals were almost all far more active than usual; we saw tigers playing with a ball, orangutans swinging and playing with a sheet, polar bears having some sort of snack, giant tortoises eating vegetables, and a lioness playfully scraping at the glass with her paws. We had the treehouse almost to ourselves.

Puma came. He rode in my back pack. A few weeks ago, possibly months ago, I remember discussing with Cara the fact that Puma had come from the zoo. She wanted to go back to get another one, possibly a sister. She remembers. She brought it up every half hour or so. Her grandparents were willing to supply such a thing, so we eventually went into a zoo shop, possibly the very one from which Puma himself originated. We found a wall of stuffed animals. There were pumas. Cara was surprised that they did not look like Puma; the difference may have been only that they had not been loved for two years, but they may have actually been slightly different. She picked one. Someone showed her the snow leopards. She put the puma back and took one of those. Someone showed her the panthers. She put the leopard back and took one of those. Then another big cat. Then another. We settled on one, finally, a jaguar of some sort.

Then, we looked around a little. I pointed out to Cara a bag of squishy, stretchy, brightly-colored snakes. I wanted to see what would happen. What happened was that we put back the jaguar and got a bag of snakes. Very, very dearly beloved snakes.

We went back to Grandmom's house for the evening, and the snakes came out to play. There was one for each of us. Their names were Pinkalicious, Yellowalicious, Purplealicious, and so on. We played hide and seek with them. They talked to each other. They watched while we colored. Cara has been making voices for her toys for a while, but this evening she reached new heights. Puma went under the table to be sad. "I'm sad because I can't find a friend," he said. "I can be your friend. I'm Pinkalicious!" Cara answered herself, in a somewhat different voice.

The snakes and Cara stayed awake in the car the whole way home, and we didn't get here until about ten. They had a raucous time. Everyone arrived safely, though, and no snakes are sleeping with the little girl.

11/9/08 (Sunday)

We had of course a very exciting trip to the supermarket. We needed more vitamins for Cara, and I was vaguely thinking of getting some other kind than Flintstone. OK, I was thinking of getting Princess ones. We got to the aisle, and Cara declared, of course, that she wanted Princess ones. As soon as I saw the packaging I remembered that we got a bottle of these a while back and Cara didn't like them. I reminded her of this, and she told me that she would like them now because she was bigger. She really, really wanted them. She wanted one as soon as she got home. I did let her have one, and she announced, shrilly, that she liked it! She really liked it! She gave evidence to this effect by periodically asking, throughout the day, for another. Boy, will she be happy tomorrow morning! Unless, of course, she doesn't like them anymore.

Our other exciting purchase was a musical Care Bear tooth brush. It's as horrible as it sounds. It plays "You Are My Sunshine," with Care Bear vocalists. When Steve and Cara started it up, I was downstairs. I thought it was Cara whining. However, it did serve as a wonderful inducement to brush. She also spent less time than usual on her spitting, which she usually does rather a lot of.

Heather and Aunt Claire came over this afternoon. We played a little Candyland, and we played with the marble run. Cara got out many toys to show Heather, many of which she almost never plays with. Claire got to take Cara to the bathroom, though. Her popularity remains unrivaled.

I learned tonight that Steve does a nifty trick when he reads to Cara in which he puts a book between his feet and then picks his legs up and delivers the book to himself. I learned this when Cara asked me to "Bring the book, like Daddy." It was a highly successful trick.

11/10/08 (Monday)

Cara told me in the car that a little girl at daycare, Jo-Jo, has "wipstick" which she can carry around and put on whenever she wants. "Jo-Jo has wipstick, and you have wipstick, and I have no wipstick," she finished mournfully. I conceded that there was some chapstick at home that she could have to use at home, but it could not go to daycare. (I'm sure Susan would just love to have five kids with chapsticks to keep track of!) It might get lost, I told her. "I already wost it," she told me. Oh. Okay.

11/11/08 (Tuesday)

I told Cara as we left Susan's that I was making tacos tonight. When we got home, even though I know that that is one of her favorite dinners, I admit that I was surprised when she danced around, singing, "It's taco night! It's taco night!"

While I cooked, she took many cushions off of the couch and spent her time falling down on them in various attitudes, sometimes needing to be rescued. She ended up in the kitchen before things were quite ready, asking for water. I told her I'd get her some if she set the table, so she did. Each of us got our assigned color of kiddie plate. She did enjoy her dinner when it came. Cara's making great strides in actually eating tacos, instead of just beans and quesadilla. She had two tonight!

We made banana bread. Cara's actually a very good helper. She pours things, cracks eggs, and knows how to use the flat of a knife to level dry ingredients in the measuring cup. She also helps stirring things, although occasionally with too much enthusiasm.

So, Cara brushed her teeth this morning and did a good job with them tonight. She got her pajamas on promptly, and she even did a good job cleaning up, starting when I told her to and finishing thoroughly. She got all four stickers. Fortunately, Steve got home from the gym early enough that he's the one reading!

11/12/08 (Wednesday)

I read four books last night, which is a lot of books. I was also stuck reading a Babar story. I don't often get to read them and I did enjoy it, but it was a very long and somewhat bizarre tale of Father Christmas. It's one of the books that we used to skim over because it had so many words, but now that Cara is more willing to listen we can afford to read most of it.

Cara is getting a little under the weather. She was congested and a little warm this morning so I wasn't sure if I could bring her to Susan's. In the end, since she was bouncing around pulling all the cushions off the couches, I figured she was well enough to go. She did make it through the full day, though she is probably a little weepier than usual.

Tonight was playdate night! It was PJ and Casey's first time seeing our new gerbils. PJ in particular was delighted by them. The kids spent a long time with the lid off the gerbil cage, and the gerbils were surprisingly friendly. They came out to sniff hands, and you could pet them as they ran past. PJ got to see them drink from their water, and they were even willing to mess with some ribbon that the kids dangled down into the cage. I just hope that we don't end up with Em blaming us for having to buy hamsters or something.

There was a lot of jumping and climbing around on couches and cushions tonight. This was often accompanied by proclamations of "Ladies and Gentlemen!" I'm not sure where they got that from, but PJ and Cara were saying it, usually as a prelude to jumping off of something.

Evie managed to get PJ to do a lot of clean-up tonight. The gerbil lid couldn't be removed because there was no clean space on the floor to put it--this was enough to get PJ to clean up the play room. We ended our playdate with a very impressive meltdown from Casey, who did not want to put her shoes on. Now Cara has had a green bath; she is looking at a maximum of three stickers tonight because she didn't get her morning toothbrushing sticker.

| Previous Week | Back Home | NextWeek |