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Journal Key:

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

1/22/09 (Thursday)

Cara has been having a difficult week at Susan's. That is, Susan has been having a difficult week, thanks to Cara. She has been refusing to listen, openly defying Susan, and screaming a lot. Susan suspects that this is the start of the . . . Something Fours. Something bad. I can't remember what. I sure hope not, though!

I have expressed to Cara what my feelings are about her behavior. Quite honestly, I had been planning on taking her out after work today and getting her some new socks and underwear, but I wasn't going to do that after I heard that today was almost as bad as yesterday!

So, Cara's been whiney all evening. Steve's theory is that when she knows Mommy's not happy with her, she feels that she is obliged to sound morose.

At dinner, I decided to supplement the meal by making myself some eggs. I like fried eggs, turned over, and everyone else in the house likes only scrambled. I went to make the eggs. Cara said she wanted some. She saw them. She still wanted some. I gave her a couple of pieces. The first piece, as is the first piece of pretty much anything she tries, was great. The real test is the second piece. It was great, too, as were the third, fourth, fifth, sixth . . . Steve came to my rescue by scrambling her some eggs.

1/23/09 (Friday)

This morning Cara got up nice and early: Mommy was still here, and she did Cara's hair. As a result of the early rising we got to Susan's before anybody else, a rare feat. Today Cara gave a nice apologetic card to Susan, and had a "better" day. Evie has decided to change our sticker system to include "listening." The other items on our sticker list intrinsically included this quality, but it has become clear that we need to emphasize its general importance.

Anyway Cara did well enough that we all went to the mall for an evening's entertainment. At Friendly's, Cara's meal came out before ours. We imagine this was a considerate act performed by the server to keep our child happy, but the end result of this act was that Cara finished her meal well before we did and became antsy. Fortunately she had her restaurant toys to distract her and just spent a little bit of time staring at nearby diners and watching people bus tables.

We quickly hit a shoe store and got new shoes for Cara, as her feet seem to be growing! We went off to the Playmobil store and saw their wonders, and managed to narrowly avoid having to buy Cara an expensive ride on one of the motorized creatures available for rent outside of that store. Then we went to Sears and got Cara some new underwear and socks (the rest of her seems to be growing also). Cara was very excited about her new underwear, but by this point she was also exhausted.

At home we had some trouble with cleaning up, and Cara emptied her pajama drawer. She did put all of the pajamas back eventually. She earned two books but for some reason insisted that she only wanted one, even after I purposely pulled out some books to choose from for her second. The one book she chose was an incredibly short, lift-the-flap board book aimed at pre-toddlers. As soon as we were done reading it she asked for another book.

1/24/09 (Saturday)

Cara got herself up early, walked down the hall and went downstairs. The only problem was, Mommy and Daddy weren't down there: we were still asleep in our bedroom. Having woken up and divined what was afoot, I found Cara and explained the situation to her.

She was very glad to learn that today was gymnastics day. She got to wear her new socks, and her new underwear. She rather perversely decided not to wear her new shoes. It was a good gymnastics class, though rather early on I had to get Cara a tissue. I admonished her about not missing her class, she wiped her nose and ran back. Almost immediately she returned to me so that I could take her to the potty. But the class she was in was pretty small and had two teachers looking after it instead of the more usual one, so they were well-behaved and did a good job. Cara got to swing on the rope, which must be about her favorite thing (I noticed that both of the teachers were amused by her rope-swinging pose: her head leaning far back with abandon, a grin on her face), and got to twirl around on an uneven bar (with heavy assistance). She did a little hopping move over a mat that I've never seen her do correctly before, and the class even attempted hand-stands.

After gymnastics, we realized our day was open and the weather was a bit warmer than recent freezing temperatures, and decided to take ourselves to the zoo. Puma came along, no doubt in a desire to revisit her (or his?) humble origins. Puma's gender is still under question: "She is a boy." At the zoo we did not do an exhaustive tour, but we hit our favorite spots: the reptile house, the tree house, the primates, the big cats. At the tree house, Cara went into the tree, climbed all the way to the top and then all the way back down again, all by herself! On the way up she yelled out a window at us.

In the big cats area, we watched our favorite movie. I remember that during one of our first viewings of the movie, we were worried about a scene in which cats are leaping onto other animals and being generally predatory, but that Cara found it all very funny. Little has changed: this time around she had to jump up and dance a little bit during that sequence, because the accompanying soundtrack had a fast drum beat. We got to see the real pumas being very playful, even batting a ball around. On the way out of the big cats section there is a room with computers that have activities and such on them. We have always ignored this part, but this time Cara sat down at the computer. One of the activities was a personality quiz to find out what big cat you were most like. We crossed our fingers, answered the questions, and the result we were hoping for popped up: Cara was most like a puma!

After the zoo we topped off our exciting day by heading over to Grandmom and Grandpop's house. At Grandmom's suggestion we all played dominoes! This was a nice novelty, and it actually worked out quite well. The dominoes were colorful and Grandpop helped Cara to play the right ones, and we got through a few rounds before the child wandered off. Afterwards, Cara located the Play-doh and we were back to the more typical diversions. We did avoid having to get the Mouse Trap game out, which I think made all of the grown-ups happy. We didn't avoid having to watch How the Grinch Stole Christmas again. Cara got changed into her pajamas and then we got in the car. We had been given a cardboard tube to pass on to our gerbils, and Cara spent a good deal of the drive (or at least it seemed like a good deal of it) making tooting noises through the tube. She did eventually fall asleep.

1/25/09 (Sunday)

Today was our lazy stay-at-home day. In the morning, hanging around doing nothing in our pajamas, Cara and I had a good time. She took a small blanket and wrapped Puma in it to give to me as a present. I was delighted, naturally. Then I had to give her Puma. She was ready to give me Puma back, but I asked for a remote control instead. We went back and forth a few more times, until I finally suggested that she and Puma could give each other presents. They did have some very polite conversations while they did it. (Puma, by the way, is still having major gender issues. His or her gender changes in mid-sentence.)

When Cara went upstairs to get Deesta, she discovered that Steve had stripped the sheets off of her bed to wash them. What was left were the waterproof pads we keep in there for just in case. She came back down with a big waterproof pad, which she spread out on the ottoman, and Deesta, who had a dirty diaper. "Did you make poopies? Let's see if you made poopies! It's a good thing I have plenty of wipes. We just put you up here, and we put your legs up, and we have to open up the diaper here, and here--you did make poopies! It's a good thing I have gloves on." I asked whether Susan wears gloves. Apparently she does not. In the living room, though, it rerally was a good thing Cara had her imaginary gloves on, because she ended up with about nine or ten toys who all had dirty diapers, all lined up.

Cara had a non-nap today. She played up there for an hour or so and then began announcing, "I'm ready to get up!" until we got her. Soon, she and I went out to do some shopping. Cara happened to wear a shirt and pants today that are probably both somewhat small, and that motivated me to take her clothes shopping. (Her underpants showed over her waistband.) We just popped over to Sears. Puma came, too. For the first time, we shopped in the Girls 4-6 section. I found a couple of cute three-piece outfits, and Cara found a T-shirt with a monkey on it. It's glittery and flowery and the monkey has a halo, I believe, and the shirt says "Angelic." I told Cara we'd put it back and then we'd get it if she had been a good listener. In what I believe was another first, I took her into a fitting room to try things on. She chose to keep her underpants on (thank goodness), but she took her socks off. That floor was cold, she discovered! Anyway, everything fit, and she admired how she looked in the mirror. We got our monkey shirt, paid, and left.

Our next stop was the grocery store. Puma got to ride in the cart. In the produce section, I had Cara pick out a red pepper. She chose to carry it, and I noticed her kissing it. Soon enough, it was supplanted. She chose corn, but that had to ride in the cart. We got some apples, but I convinced her that the bag was too heavy. Her real love, it turned out, was a green bean. She suggested that we should get some, but I said no; we had a lot of veggies already and the last time we got them we never ate them. Willing to listen to reason, Cara selected one bean to get. When I returned from grabbing an onion, she was weighing it. She used it to drum on things, and she stuck it into things. She waved it around. She poked Puma with it. That bean was the best toy ever. The first time she put it down was on the conveyor belt at the register. Towards the end she was also carrying her new princess gummy vitamins. She explained that she would share those with her little brother, and she also said something about him coming shopping with us. The other day, she suggested that we buy him a sippy cup.

At dinner, she ate her bean.

1/26/09 (Monday)

Yesterday afternoon, Cara and I opened up a big big of clothes that sits in the basement. There were a few things in Cara's current size, so we got them out. The most exciting are two pairs of footie pajamas. Cara loves them. She had a pair on last night, and it took a while for us to realize that she hasn't worn that kind since she learned to use the potty. So, to go, she has to totally strip! So far, so good. We'll be trying again tonight.

This morning, when I was just about to leave, Cara got up. I snuggled her and took her to the bathroom. I started doing her hair for her, which I like to do as often as I can on work days because only I can do pigtails. She didn't want pigtails, though, she wanted barrettes. I told her they'd get messed up when she got dressed, so she should probably get dressed first. Surprisingly, she was amenable to that. Off the potty, she was ready to go. I suggested that she should wash her hands. She was willing to do that, too. She got up on her step stool and turned on the hot water at full blast. I said something appropriate and turned on some cold. Cara immediately began screaming. It was red-faced, falling-to-the-floor style screaming, the kind that goes on for whole minutes . . . while Mommy gives up and heads for work. Sorry, Steve!

I was sure that Susan would have a horrible day. Steve pointed out, though, that he had had great mornings all last week when Susan had terrible days. Sure enough, it was a great day at daycare! PJ and Casey also tend to have good days with Susan when they've had terrible mornings. Huzzah!

It was also a pleasant evening. Cara dressed a lot of girls and helped me in the kitchen. While I was cooking dinner, Cara turned off the main light in the kitchen. Then she left for a few minutes and I noticed when she returned that she had turned off the light in the living room. I lit some candles. While we sat and admired them, we talked about Cara having turned off the lights. "I'm sure a strange girl," she remarked.

1/27/09 (Tuesday)

This morning when Cara came downstairs she was stuffy and drippy and coughing and sneezing. As I made us breakfast and we sat down to it I decided that I was going to stay home with her today.

It was a very lazy day, with DVDs, TV and computer games providing our activities. Cara had me draw a design on a paper latern "for Mommy." We printed it out and Mommy had to construct the lantern when she got home. She had me cut out a string of "girls," which ended up looking gender-non-specific, so she assigned family names to all of them. There was Cara, Mommy, Daddy, etc. Perhaps forgetting the assigned names for a moment, she colored my paper figure mostly pink, giving me "a skirt." I suggested that maybe that person could be Mommy or Aunt Claire. But Cara was adamant about the names, so I just had to wear pink.

We had an early lunch--Cara's appetite was not diminished--and hung around for a bit before I gave her some nighttime cough medicine and sent her to bed. It was very quiet for an hour or so, then some crying began: it turned out the poor thing had very thoroughly wet her bed. We spent some of our afternoon recovering from this trauma.

Mommy made spaghetti and meatballs for dinner, and though the child thoughtlessly scorned the meatballs, she had several servings of pasta. She is still perfectly willing to jump around and was quite unruly in her bath. It could be I overreacted by keeping her home today; she did have a runny nose, but this hasn't stopped her or other children from going to Susan's in the past.

1/28/09 (Wednesday)

It was a snowy, icy day today, and Cara and I stayed home together. We had a pretty uneventful morning. Cara played a lot with the flashlights, announcing, among other things, that she was searching for Lucy, her very tiny, very squishy, very lost toy dolphin.

She took a non-nap, with several trips to the bathroom. Eventually, during a quiet spell, I decided that I also wanted a nap. Sure enough, in about fifteen minutes, Cara got up for good. I explained to her that I wanted to sleep for a bit, and I had her bring me the alarm clock from her dresser. I set it, giving myself about forty minutes. "I'll just play here," Cara told me. After a little while she went downstairs, only returning once in a while to show me things. Eventually, she brought me Puma. That was what I needed to help me sleep! I did get to doze a little while all of this went on. A little.

We had playdate here this evening, and by the time we got cleaned up afterwards (Cara is not a good cleaner-up when company is here, but she improves dramatically once it's just us) it was kind of late. Cara told me she didn't want to take a bath. I asked whether she'd like to go to bed early instead. She agreed! Of course, the way things played out, she's maybe five minutes earlier than she would have been. Still, it's a nice thought.

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