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Journal Key:

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

12/11/08 (Thursday)

Cara is getting very good about playing on her own. When we come home, after she gives me her coat to hang up and forgets to put her shoes away, she visits her gerbils and gives them a treat. She can do this entirely unassisted, which is nice. While I worked on dinner, she dumped all of her girls out of their bin to play with. I got to come down for a while, and Cara got all of the balls out of her ball pit. Fortunately, I was soon able to get her to put them back in very cheerfully.

Taking the couch cushions off is a lot of fun. Today, Cara piled them up at the foot of the stairs and made a "car" which she wanted me to come drive while she sat in the back. However, today was the day when the cookie dough my kids at work sold arrived, so we had to make cookies after dinner instead. They were good!

For the past couple of days, I've noticed Cara adding "you know" to the ends of her sentences. It's not all the time, but often enough to stick out. She sounds like she's from the midwest or Canada or something!

12/12/08 (Friday)

It's been hard the past few days to wake Cara up in the mornings. I thought this was due to its having been dark and overcast, but Evie pointed out that Cara has been keeping some late nights. The other night she was crying bitterly in her bed in the evening and it turned out it was because her humidifier was not plugged in. Ever since we used this when she was sick she feels it is necessary for sleeping.

Anyway, after the initial difficulty in getting her awake, we had a good morning. We scrambled up some eggs together and got her to Susan's, where she went right over to the dress-up clothes that everyone else was using and picked out a shirt.

I went to pick her up this evening. She had a good day: the kids got to make cookies using some of the same cookie dough mentioned yesterday. Cara made some gingerbread men out of glittery glue. She was determined to put faces on them when we got home, but forgot about it in the interim. Instead she and I played with Play-doh until dinner was ready. (We also read a couple of books. In one of them Cara correctly identified the costume a character was wearing as the Statue of Liberty.)

We all got into our pajamas early this evening. Cara got into hers all by herself!

We continue to try to convince Cara to get up in the night if she has to use the potty. We're still working on that one.

I suggested a few days ago that the journal was going to go on hiatus. Clearly that has not been the case--I miscalculated the length of our software's trial period. But it is definitely ending after tonight, so until the new software arrives the journal will be on break. See you soon!

12/15/08 (Monday)

After a healthy injection of capital into our flagging economy, the journal is back in business! Meanwhile we had a fun weekend. On Saturday Grandmom and Grandpop came over and we hung around and played with girls and such. Grandmom made a cute gingerbread family, using the same cookie cutters we use when Cara plays Play-doh, and we had fun putting different colored icing on them and eating them.

In the afternoon, we used a Christmas present for Cara from my Grandparents to take the little girl to our local "Build-a-Bear Workshop." Admittedly we have tried very hard to stay away from this store when walking through the mall in the past, but we had just heard good things about it from Em and decided to try it when we had the opportunity. We went in and Cara got to choose the type of animal she wanted. She chose a nice gray kitty with a pink nose and feet. The empty kitty got taken to the stuffing station, where an employee told Cara when to step on a pedal so that the stuffing machine would whirl fluff around (you could see it through the glass) and fill up the animal. To test whether it was stuffed enough, Cara got to give it a very tight, intense hug: it was good. Then she got to pick out a heart. Following the woman's instructions, Cara rubbed the heart, held it, blew on it, and jumped up and down with it. Then it was ready to go into the critter, who was then sewn up. They even had a fake washing station where you could pretend to scrub the creature.

Another big part of the store was all of the many, many accessories you could purchase for your special little guy. They could have cell phones, skateboards, purses, or the outfit of your favorite local sports team. Cara at first wanted to buy a little Hello Kitty soft chair for her animal to sit in, but we convinced her that some clothes and shoes would be more practical (and easier for us to carry around). Cara chose a rather slinky pink silky dress for her cat, and we tracked down some pink shoes to go with it. The kitty then got its own birth certificate and we registered it using their in-store computers. Apparently it has a barcode inside of it so that if it is ever lost and returned to the store, they can instantly locate the person to whom it belongs.

Cara got to choose a name for her cat to go on the birth certificate. With her typical flare for the improvised name, she produced the word "Deesta," which is now the cat's official identity. In a downright glut of pre-Christmas gift-giving, we took Deesta right out to the coin-operated machines and got her her own little Cara Bear.

Then it was straight off to Grandmama and Grandpapa's house for a sleepover visit! As you can see it was a long day, so Cara fell asleep in the car. She woke up well, though, with no grouchiness, and soon enough she was settled with her grandparents looking forward to a hot dog dinner.

The next day, Sunday, we drove back to the house to meet Cara and had a nice big breakfast. Then we helped trim the Christmas tree! When we got back home in the afternoon we went to the Build-a-Bear web site and went to their virtual world, which is pretty similar to the Tinker Bell site--I guess toys with their own virtual worlds are the wave of the future. Virtual Deesta got a condo with a train set and a bath tub and trundle bed. Cara got bored with the whole thing very quickly (it's not as exciting as getting to build you own fairy), so I spent her "bear bills" decorating the condo.

Now it is Monday. This morning my alarm clock went off, but I didn't hear it because the volume was turned all the way down. I suspect inadvertent sabotage. The result was that I woke up late and decided Cara and I had no time to eat breakfast in the house. So I toasted things and put them in containers and we got in the car and ate our breakfast on the way to Susan's. Most ironically, I got Cara to Susan's earlier than I have in months and months.

This evening we had a nice dinner and Cara and Mommy did a lot of playing. Mommy was popular--I was off doing various chores and things, so she got picked for the bath and for story time. Deesta is also popular. I am curious to see whether Deesta has the staying power to supplant Puma. It's a little hard to tell since for the past couple of nights Cara has insisted on having around eight different stuffed animals in bed with her, all tucked under a little baby blanket on top of her comforter. She is still not satisfied since she feels there should be animals going around the entire perimeter, and they are only on two sides of the blanket.

12/16/08 (Tuesday)

When I make Cara's bed, I always tuck her blankets and comforter neatly between the bed and the wall. When I say I always do it, I mean that. Every time I make the bed, I have to re-tuck them. Last night, I discovered why when Cara announced, "I have to get this blanket out of here!" and began pulling her comforter out. I suspect that this trend will continue.

Claire came up today and she and I did some errands together before we went to pick up Cara. When I mentioned that this was going to make a little girl's day, Claire was surprised. She tends to forget how very exciting she is. She sees herself so much, apparently, that she's hardly thrilled when it happens. Cara, though, is a different story. She ran out to greet me when we got there, but then she saw Claire and it was all over; I was forgotten. Deesta went to Susan's with Cara today. She got a good report and is invited to come back, but Susan also notes that she is far louder than Puma.

It snowed today! There was a mix of rain and snow, but we ended up with a covering on the grass and even some on the street. Claire and I got dinner going, and then Cara and I bundled up and went outside to play until Steve got home. Cara ran around and around, she made snow angels, she threw snow (at my belly, for some reason). We brought out the recycling lid and slid down the lawn. We played in Juliana's yard, too. (She's in Pennsylvania, and we miss her.) I made a tiny snowman, and then of course I had to make three more so that there were two children and a mommy and a daddy. Grandparents were requested, but she got distracted before we got to that. We took out the scraper and brushed off Claire's car. Cara caught a snowflake on her tongue. It was a beautiful night.

12/17/08 (Wednesday)

When I told Cara we'd be going to PJ's house tonight for dinner, she said, "I'm not going to fight with PJ, and I'm going to eat up all my yummy dinner!" Then I think she tried to smell dinner and failed, possibly because we were still about a mile away from the house.

We brought Deesta and Puma, who got to meet the animals PJ and Casey made at Build-a-Bear. PJ made a bear who wears a Spider Man outfit: Spider Bear. Casey got a very tough-looking dog who has a princess dress. All of the animals were well-behaved, and Ron managed to explain Deesta's name: Dees-ta Cat. As in, dees ta bear, dees ta dog, dees ta cat. Things are looking up! Also, we got a tube for Butch and Chopper. The Loefflers have instituted a new rule, which is that people are not allowed to remove paper products from tubes for the sole purpose of giving the tubes to gerbils.

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