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11/20/08 (Thursday) Today I was taking a vacation day, but Cara was still going to Susan's. On these days Cara gets to Susan's extra late--but we did brush her teeth, which was good. I also was the one who came to pick up Cara in the early evening. She was right by the door and was happy to see me. Susan said she'd had a good day. There was sand in her shoes and in her mittens, from which I cleverly deduced that they had gone outside and played in the sand box. She also made a cute pair of turkeys by placing some paint hand prints on a piece of construction paper and adding some feathers and other pieces. We had a very nice evening, because we took Juliana out to the diner for dinner. Juliana got the usual guest's duty of taking Cara to the potty--she was duly honored. Cara ate an astounding amount of food. She had a buttered roll, some breadsticks, a hot dog in a bun, a little bit of pasta, and some chocolate pudding. She also had a few of the gummy worms that Juliana had purchased and secreted along in her purse. Then, after we got home, Cara decided that she wanted Jell-o! It was quite amazing. Drawing is a big part of our day. I had to draw Tinkerbell this morning, and then when we got home we had to draw a Mommy and Daddy for Tinkerbell. Then later in the evening I had to cut out bears, which we were still coloring as Cara was getting into bed. The popularity of the Tinkerbell movie continues unabated. In fact, now that she is used to the parts that she previously didn't like, we are watching the whole thing every time. 11/21/08 (Friday) Today Cara was picked up from daycare by her grandmama! Steve got her packed in the morning and dropped her off. On the way, he realized he hadn't packed the Tinkerbell movie. He and Cara had a discussion about the many alternative activities which she might engage in. She informed him that she wanted, at Grandmama's house, to play freeze tag. On the way down Cara and I talked about baking bread; she is very enthusiastic about punching down the dough. Accordingly, as soon as we arrived I started some yeast, and by bedtime she had the freshest bread she's ever eaten as a snack. A sample is on its way home with her - she kneaded it with all her little strength, sampling tiny tastes as she worked, and punched so firmly her whole hand disappeared into the dough. This morning she ate only a single bite of a gourmet breakfast - homemade toast with sprinkles and a cheese omelet - you couldn't have had anything finer at a B&B! Rather, she spent her time hiding, so George and I had a breakfast conversation along these lines: When I got to gymnastics this morning, I found that Grandpapa's car was already there. Outside the front door, I found a very familiar plastic barrette. Inside, I found Grandpapa and Cara reading a book. I fixed her hair for the first of about twenty times today, we read her another book, and then warm-ups started! It's very exciting for me and Em that our kids are no longer in the youngest group at gymnastics. Instead, we've discovered, we're in the potty break group. Cara and PJ both find that at least one trip to the bathroom is necessary during the 45-minute class. The other PJ (yes, there is another) also tends to take one. It's particularly confusing for me because they're both boys, so I tend to assume that the ladies room will be free, but they're both with their mothers. I'm not sure whether the other kids go. I do wonder how much of this is monkey-see, monkey-do. I had thought of making sure Cara went before class, but I got distracted. I'm not sure it would make a difference! At home, we found a great computer game. It's a Yo Gabba-Gabba one, of all things. You get to pick a guy who walks around picking up musical notes; you make him walk by using the arrow keys and jump by using the space bar. Using the space bar to make someone jump is something Cara can actually do, so for perhaps the first time she had a meaningful part in a game! She could even, sometimes, figure out on her own when to make him jump. It was very long, though, and she got distracted and I found most of the rest of the 800 (literally) musical notes on my own. Grandmom and Grandpop came!! Much shrieking. We had not prepared Cara. Much shrieking. The best part was that Janet got me to finally get out all of the tiny, tiny things that came with Cara's dollhouse furniture last Christmas. There are many. They are tiny. I know, it was about time, right? Now, we have plates and cups to set up on the table, instead of making the girls have a pretend tea party. There is a little plastic chicken. There are pots and pans and kitchen tools and lamps and a vase of flowers. There are loaves of bread. We have tiny plastic braided garlic. There is a little toy sailboat. The favorite objects, though, are a tiny plastic teddy and two little dolls, which are basically monochromatic plastic shaped like little people. They are much beloved. They came out to lunch with us and did not get lost. We bummed around at Sears for a little bit, and they were in Cara's hand the whole time. (Tonight she kissed them for the night before getting into bed.) Of course we also did some drawing and some sitting around and some reading, and the day passed pleasantly. We visited with the gerbils, who were alas mainly asleep. In the evening, after grandmom and grandpop had headed home, PJ and Casey came over to play. It was a great evening. They brought tubes for Butch and Chopper, which were received somewhat warmly, though sleepily. They are gone now, so they were of course very popular. PJ was thrilled to see them "eating" the tubes. (They also brought a heavy-duty, giant tube that we'll save to be a holiday gift--yay!) We instituted a new rule, making the kids clean up whatever they had just been playing with before letting them get anything new out. It went great; with Susan's training, they could all handle it. It helped make the evening run smoothly. All the kids ate a good dinner, which was very nice, and then Cara got Steve to play video games. PJ wanted to try, and he and Steve ended up spending about half an hour together trying it out. He can't really do much on his own, but he can press a button! I tried steering for him while he made the car go forwards, and then I remembered why I don't play those games: I can't do it! Everyone went home happy. PJ and Casey both spontaneously said thanks for dinner, and Cara spontaneously said thanks for coming over to play. Good thing Susan had manners week! 11/23/08 (Sunday) Cara helped me do the groceries for Thanksgiving this morning, which was a rather arduous task. I had a long list, and I took out my work ID, from which a purple pen hangs folded up. For quite a while I kept Cara happy by letting her wear my lanyard and occasionally asking her to cross things off the list; eventually, though, the thrill was gone. She carried the list for me for a little while, and when I stopped to search through the giant bins of turkeys she got permission to go a little way off to look at the lobsters, which she correctly identified (no hamsters here!). I agreed to let her have a bag of funny-shaped balloons with faces on them, figuring she'd put in a good morning's work. Of course, we've already had to blow up about six of those balloons. There are five or six left. It's not going to be pretty. After nap time, which was of course abortive, we headed down to meet Grandmama at the Monmouth Museum. The four of us had a fabulous time! Cara crawled through tubes and went down slides, she drew and played with marbles. There is a wooden "tree" that has a hollow trunk full of platforms for kids to climb up, and when I was last there with her, probably in the summer, Cara got quite stuck. Today, she went in and then came out, and later she went in again and sat at the bottom and watched. Then she climbed all the way up, all my herself, and then she climbed all the way down. In celebration, she gave Puma a big hug. We went to dinner, meeting Claire and Grandpapa, and Cara looked wiped out! She was exhausted. Nevertheless, she wanted to go back to Grandmama's house to play. We did, and she had a great time. Grandmama bought her a beautiful tutu, which we've brought home, as well as a robe and slippers to stay there. All are pink, of course. The slippers are here, having been worn home. She wanted to wear them to bed, but we talked her down. 11/24/08 (Monday) Some time in the middle of the night, I heard Cara making noises and went running to ask her if she needed to go to the potty. She shook her head. "I need a tissue." She wiped her nose with one and promptly went back to sleep. In the morning she was out cold in bed, and it took a bit of work to wake her up, which has not been the case recently. She didn't eat her breakfast at all in the house, taking one little bit of a piece of toast. We had to turn off the Tinker Bell movie before it was over, but Cara did it herself without complaint. She also decided to leave Puma on a chair when she heard it was not Friday (ever since the one Friday when the kids were allowed to bring their favorite toy to Susan's, she believes that she can bring Puma to Susan's on Fridays). I put her toast in a Tupperware container and she spent most of the ride to Susan's eating it. Cara had an extra long nap at Susan's, not getting up until after 4, and she was a bit feverish. This evening she is coughing periodically and I don't like the sound of it. We'll see what happens tomorrow. Meanwhile, she is not feverish now; she did her share of running and jumping around tonight, and cajoled me into blowing up the rest of her balloons. I figured the best thing for us all was to just blow them all up and get it over with, and since Evie finally succeeded in teaching me how to tie off a balloon, I was able to do it. Now she is having a fun-sounding bath. 11/25/08 (Tuesday) It was clear before I got dressed this morning that Cara was staying home from Susan's today. She had her fever and a nasty-sounding cough. Mommy cleverly went out to get a cough & cold medicine in the morning. Then Cara and I had a nice day at home. She was out of it when she woke up but she perked up quite a bit. She had two pieces of toast for breakfast, and asked for another--which, characteristically, she did not eat. We watched Tinker Bell, of course, but also had some good play time with the Playmobil dollhouse. I even convinced her to do a few pages in her big activity book. At lunch time she didn't eat any of the numbers and letters I made for her. She had a little bowl of Jell-o instead. After a reading of one of her library books (The Flying Dragon Room, which she initially rejected based on the cover, but has quickly become the favorite), it was time for her nap. I heard some chatting and some coughing up there, and was unsure of whether it was going to stick--but the Tylenol and her own immune system kicked in and she slept a good few hours. I went in to get her at four: she was awake but I don't think it had been for long. She claimed that she had read The Flying Dragon Room to herself after I left. It wasn't long after her nap that Mommy returned home--as she was walking in the door, I was making an appointment with the doctor. I don't think I would have called them at all if not for the fact that other kids at Susan's have been on antibiotics recently, and that Thanksgiving is coming up soon. I think it's entirely possible that the last time I took Cara to the pediatrician was on Cara's very first visit, when she peed on the scale and Ev and I were trying not to feel overwhelmed. This time was much easier. While we waited for the doctor, we read the tiny books that I found in the drawers of the examining table, and then Cara and I built a road out of the wooden blocks we found. Cara was shy with Doctor Chen, but the doctor was nice and managed to find some Disney princesses in Cara's ears. Cara had a throat culture taken, and got two stickers as a reward afterwards. We don't yet know whether she has anything in particular, but if her high temperature continues, which it probably will, I will have another day at home with her tomorrow. We should have another nice day together. 11/26/08 (Wednesday) Cara and I did have another nice day together. Her fever seems to be gone, though she still has her nasty cough. We got no call back from the doctor so it's beginning to look like this is just a little cough. She was basically normal today except for that cough and the fact that she slept a lot. I didn't manage to wake her until eight this morning, and her nap ran late. We hung around the house doing the usual again. We spent a little time playing with the gerbils: Cara really does think the gerbils are very cute ("cute" is a very popular vocabulary word right now), and wants to give them food. They are fortunately somewhat better for that than the cats. I believe we watched the Tinker Bell movie four times today: twice in the morning and twice in a rowin the evening (this isn't as psychotic as it sounds; at this point Cara is at the "turn it on and wander off" stage of viewing). I played some video games on the TV, but somehow managed to avoid playing any computer games in the morning. For lunch Cara was willing to eat her numbers and letters, and also had a few bites of a grilled cheese sandwich I made--they might have been the first grilled cheese sandwiches I have ever made. Today I was trying to do a little picking up and cleaning in preparation for Thanksgiving tomorrow. I was doing this in some part of the house when I heard a loud noise from downstairs. I found Cara smiling at me next to her entirely gutted dollhouse. "That was funny," she remarked. Then she pulled out her bin full of girl toys and dumped that as well. So much for cleaning! I tidied her toys and saved more in-depth cleaning for naptime. (An interesting aside: Ev discovered this morning that Shelby the horrible cat had partially chewed one wing of Cara's Tinker Bell action figure. She had to go to Target and buy a replacement. She also cleverly cut down the wings of the gnawed figure, so we now have two Tinker Bells, one of whom has stubby wings.) Mommy got home and we were both busily doing chores for a while before Cara woke up. She was quite dazed and confused for a while, but finally managed to speak: "I want to watch my Tinker Bell movie." After that she perked up. She ate what we ate for dinner, excited about the pasta content. We did some moving around of the furniture downstairs, which was exciting for all of us, but eventually I was detailed to keep Cara busy while Evie did some cooking. I drew a family of cats and a family of dogs. Eventually I noticed a url on the cardboard backing from the Tinker Bell figure (Cara liked the pictures of the other fairy action figures on it), and decided to try it out. This whiled away the rest of the evening. It turns out that at Pixie Hollow on the internet, you can make your own fairy. We determinedly created three digital fairies (the maximum you can create on one account), choosing everything from their hair and face to their wardrobe (down to the color of their anklet). Each fairy got its own name, chosen from a lengthy list of first and last names, and its own home, which we could decorate. This is all part of a fairy internet community. Cara wants to make more fairies tomorrow. | Previous Week | Back Home | Next Week | |