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Journal Key:

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

3/12/09 (Thursday)

Today we had a great evening: Aunt Claire came up and we went and met Daddy at the mall to eat at Friendly's. Afterwards, we went to throw coins into the fountain. Cara ran ahead and threw in all of the pennies we had given her, but she soon found something else to keep her occupied. There was a mommy nearby with a little boy of about two. They looked at each other for a little while, and Cara waved. He waved back. Cara proceeded to spend about five minutes showing off for him. She ran around theatrically. She leaped in the air. She slid on the ground. Puma meowed at him a lot, and Puma also slid on the ground. He was fascinated. Cara was like a Vaudeville show or something; I've never seen her be quite so flamboyant, and I've seen her be flamboyant before. Saying goodbye to him was hard, but the thrill of being allowed to go up the nearby stairs was enough. Cara and Puma both waved goodbye. His mommy had to come and pick him up to stop him from following us up.

At home, while we were getting ready for bed, I put away my earrings. Cara asked to see my jewelry box. I put it on the bed for her. Now everything is out of it. The earrings are all out of their boxes. Everything is very neatly heaped in a pile. I got to read to her while wearing my very lovely opal choker as well as another necklace. I talked Cara out of wearing my watch to bed. Now I have to go untangle my necklaces.

3/14/09 (Saturday)

Yesterday, Cara was lucky enough to be picked up by her grandmama again and taken to Middletown for a sleep-over. They had a fabulous time; they did lots of art. Grandmama got to make tiny paper dolls. What fun! She also decided to introduce Cara to the art of collage. They made a beautiful house with, of course, some kitty cats. Cara drew a few boys and girls (well, I think some are boys) and cut them out herself and they are stuck on, too. It's awesome.

It gave me what I think was a pretty good idea, too. Cara's been drawing people and Puma, and she's added grass and even occasionally some trees, so I showed her how to make a house by putting a triangle on a square. She's added windows (in a variety of shapes), a door, and a chimney, complete with smoke. By her second or third house, the chimney had smoke and the windows had panes. With the first house I showed her how to make birds flying by drawing Ms in the sky; those are her pet birds. They did not appear in any subsequent drawings. She also colored paper girls and taped them on: they are herself, me, Em, Casey, and Juliana. On the back there's another house, with PJ, Daddy, and Ron.

It was a girl day today; Steve headed down to Jim's house. Cara and I were hanging out inside when Em called to tell us that they were taking a walk around the block, using a variety of riding things. Did we want to get Cara's scooter and join them? We sure did! On the way up the driveway, a back wheel fell off of Cara's scooter! We went back to get her stroller, instead, so that she could push Puma. The stroller is broken, too. One of the loops that holds it up in the back totally fell off. We decided to just carry Puma. In the meantime, PJ and Casey had also both changed vehicles.

We ended up going around the block twice, once on bikes of various types and once with our red wagon. The wagon was sort of a disaster, because it seats two and it is a huge novelty because this is the first time it's been out this year. Cara sobbed when PJ climbed in with Casey, so I carried her for a while. When we stopped, PJ jumped out to throw pine cones, a continually thrilling diversion for all of the children. When he saw that Cara had climbed in with Casey, he sobbed and had to be carried. When we stopped again, we started talking about how it was time for Casey to get out. Instead, Cara leaped out. How generous and giving of her? No, she had figured out that she could be carried.

It was lunchtime, so they went in and we took another short walk with Juliana, Cara and Puma being securely strapped into the wagon. After we put the wagon away, we got ready to go out on the town. I did Cara's hair and talked her into keeping her hood off. Her hood makes lots of parts of her hair go straight forwards, so no matter how well it's put together pre-hood, it's scary post-hood. Should we take some toys? Just Puma. Maybe Cinderella? (I wanted something to amuse her at lunch.) OK, said Cara, and the prince, and the other girls. I talked her down a little.

We had a really great afternoon, just the two of us. We combined business with pleasure. We had lunch at On the Border. We got a little booth. After we sat down, Cara said, laughing, "Hey, Mommy, you're in my seat!" Apparently for some reason she felt that we had selected the wrong sides. We switched. I'm still not sure why. After that we walked over to Sears, where we found sweaters for Daddy. In Sears, what Cara really likes to do is to go down the stairs to the house wares department. We did, and then we walked across it and went up the escalator (Cara's great at escalators now) and found ourselves on the right side of the store to find things for Cara. We bought her Easter dress. We looked for things for me, but we found nothing.

Our trip wasn't over! We went to Barnes and Noble to look at books and have a treat. I introduced Cara to the molten chocolate cake, which she appreciated as much as she ought. We went to Michael's and got some important things for the goodie bags at her birthday party. I was ready to go home, but Cara wanted another store. We walked into Bed, Bath, and Beyond. Then it turned out that Puma was tired. Then Cara said that this store was boring for her feet. We made our circuit and came back to the ranch.

We had deliberately skipped the nap, and it was late in the afternoon, so we hung out and watched some tv. We also made a tent with chairs and blankets, and Cara built herself a house out of pillows, and she made Puma a bed in the kitchen. I got a lot of real things done today, too. I ran and unloaded the dishwasher, cleaned the gerbils' cage, cleaned out my sweater shelves, reorganized a kitchen cabinet, and did two loads of wash. On top of that, I did the mending. I fixed a pair of Cara's pants, I fixed a pair of her underwear, and I fixed her stroller.

We took her stroller out for a walk, with Puma riding proudly. After I suggested that Puma might go to sleep, we stopped so that Cara could sing her a lullaby. It was something about a sad day and perhaps dreams would make you happy. Then we had to tiptoe for a while. When we were halfway around the block, Cara decided she was tired. She wanted to ride in her big stroller. We went home, and I explained to her that the jogging stroller needs air in the tires and we'd have to take her other stroller. This, Cara says, is a baby stroller. She's right. She's decided that that's OK. So we went for a long walk in that, Cara's feet hanging three inches past the footrest. She waved at everyone she saw.

At home, it was time for a quick dinner and a bath. I made some more paper dolls. Cara helped tidy the house, ate a couple of hot dogs, and was in the tub when Daddy got home.

3/15/09 (Sunday)

When I created a facebook page for Puma, I was required to input a birthday. I randomly chose March 15, then forgot about it until facebook.com nicely reminded Evie that today was Puma's birthday. Naturally we had to celebrate. Cara drew a special picture for Puma, and also gave Puma a crown to wear. She also drew a picture of herself, singing. She showed it to me, and explained that it was Cara singing, and then demonstrated with an enthusiastic "La la la la!" I took some time to vacuum the house and Mommy and Cara cleaned the toilets. The toilet cleaning was apparently Cara's idea, and she was the one who did the bowl scrubbing. Evie and I tried all the delaying tactics we could to reduce the number of new paper dolls that had to be created.

After lunch, Cara did not want to take a nap, and was not happy at the prospect. But eventually when Evie suggested it, Cara went up to her room and got into bed. She even, at further prompting, took herself to the potty, and was ready for a story when I came up to read to her.

It was not much of a nap; towards the end the little girl developed hiccups and could be heard moving things about in her room and hiccupping. She already knew that after her nap she was going to Aunt Claire and Casie's house, so she was very happy to come out of her room. She had on one of her typical amazing outfits, featuring her tutu and her shiny black shoes.

Mommy and Daddy and Claire were all headed to a fancy restaurant which we had decided at the last minute was just a bit too fancy for little girls, so Cara got to stay with her "Aunt" Casie for the evening. They had a rollicking good time. The evening began with a walk into town to pick up Girl Scout cookies; Casie met a lot of her friends and got to show off her roommate's niece to them all. Cara, as we had had the opportunity to discover earlier in the week, is averse to Girl Scout cookies in all their many forms, but it was a fine adventure all the same, and she got pizza for dinner. She terrorized the three cats who live with Claire and Casie by helpfully stalking them and throwing toys at them, and she managed to boss Casie into making several strings of paper dolls, even though Casie had little to no prior experience. Cara used Casie's inexperience as a reason for getting more and more dolls: each new string was found lacking in some way and another, improved set had to be made. Cara was dancing around the paper-doll-strewn living room with Curious George when we got back, and didn't really want to go home.

3/16/09 (Monday)

When I picked Cara up today, I told her we were going to the Farmer's Market and she could pick something out. "I'm going to get something really healthy!" she cried, delighted. She was going to get strawberries. I got distracted and we stopped at the library. We really enjoyed reading The Fire Cat yesterday, and I thought that Cara might be ready to truly appreciate the book Jenny's Birthday, which is also about cats and is by the same author. Pickles even appears, driving a little fire truck. It was a very successful and very quick stop at the library. Cara decided right away that she was going to leave the book in the car at the Farmer's Market. Good choice!

There were no strawberries, of course. That wasn't a huge problem, fortunately. Cara helped get apples for Daddy, and she selected a plum for herself. She decided not to buy the item that I explained was a squash I didn't know how to cook. She picked out a cucumber. She picked broccoli. She likes poking the chunks of ice. At the register, she gave the cashier a friendly wave.

We were delighted that Daddy was home when we got here. He and Cara have spent the evening coloring the paper dolls Casie made, which turned out very nice. They are far larger than anything we've gotten to make lately, and they have more exciting clothes; she even gave them boots with heels! Cara has named them all: Tow, Weenock, Surprise Girl, Onesie, and so on. A few are Cara. They all have occupations. One is a working girl. Questioned, Cara explained that she works making paper for the kids at her school.

3/17/09 (Tuesday)

Happy St. Patrick's Day! Cara wore lots of green. Daddy at first considered a mostly grey sweater of Cara's which happened to have green stripes, but then in her closet he found her nice green sweater with apples on it, which hadn't been worn in a while, but which was perfect for today. Then there were her socks with a green stripe at the top, and Cara herself chose to wear her bunny barrettes today, which happen to be green (there's no telling whether Cara chose them for that reason or not).

The afternoon was full of adventure. Seriously. It was really nice out, and Cara and I came home early so that we would be here when a landscaper came to give us an estimate. We went to play outside. While the guy was writing up his estimate, Cara wanted to go see Juliana, whom we had just seen outside. Cara ran to the front door, which really was futile. I called to her to go around to the back yard. Off she ran. In a few minutes, she and Juliana came back.

Juliana's side of the story is that she was putting some things into her shed, and then she stepped into the house to wash her hands. She nearly had a heart attack when she heard someone upstairs. It was Cara, who explained that she had come in through the back, "looking for you."

We had a nice time outside. Two boys from the block were skateboarding in front of Juliana's house (one was David, Em's neighbor), and Cara was very, very interested. She had to run out onto the sidewalk and watch. She spent a lot of time out there. She had to run up and down the sidewalk. She had to dance for them. She went further from me than she usually goes. They were not particularly interested. "Wait until you're fourteen," says Juliana.

Later, I had to make Cara come inside with me so that I could start dinner. She was not pleased, even though the boys had moved on. I was up here getting things ready, and I heard the front door open and close. When I went downstairs to see what was up, there was no Cara. No Cara in the front yard. No Cara on the sidewalk. No Cara in the back yard. There was Cara, coming from Juliana's back yard, where she had been helping to get out the lights that border the driveway. Juliana had told her that she needed to go tell Mommy. Cara and I had to have a little talk about rules. I'm not sure whether it took; I didn't want to make her cry. I'll have to reinforce it a little, I think.

So, in summary, Juliana and I both had heart attacks and Cara had a fun afternoon.

Incidentally, last night Puma slept in a bed of blankets that Cara had made for her on the floor of their room. This evening, she is once again embarking on a night of solo slumber, except for the balloon that gets to share her bed. Cara has other toys on her bed, but none are actually with her. Interesting.

3/18/09 (Wednesday)

Today I was late getting Cara up and she did not want to get out of bed. It's pretty much been that way since the clocks changed; before then, she was getting up bright and early and making our mornings quite easy. This morning as I was explaining to her just how late we were and how important it was that we hurry and get her dressed, she went over to the coffee table and started deliberately cutting apart paper dolls, just to toy with me. But we did get in the car and get to Susan's without too much more difficulty.

As we were pulling up to the house, Cara told me, "Daddy, you are very big and fat." She did not at all intend to be mean about it, she just felt she was making a keen observation. I like to think that it was partly caused by my having my heavy coat zipped up, thus making me look more puffy. Anyway, this is clearly not the kind of remark we want her making to total strangers.

It was dance class today! Evie reports that Cara is working hard at making friends by waving at them. Sometimes she even talks to them! When I got home Cara was still in her dance clothes and was being photographed by her mommy while making interesting dance poses. Any day now I'll be putting those photos on the site.

In addition to its being dance class day, it was also playdate night! PJ and Casey came over to play. PJ, it was instantly apparent, came over to play video games with me. That is what we did until dinner was ready. For dinner the grown-ups had chicken, PJ and Casey had hot dogs, and Cara had hot dogs and a little chicken. Out of nowhere in the middle of our meal, Cara composed a poem: "Hot dogs are red, nothing is dead!" We were all flabbergasted.

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