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3/19/09 (Thursday) The little girl got right out of bed this morning when I came in to wake her, which was a nice change from the past few days. On the way to Susan's I explained to her that Mommy had to go back to school tonight, so it would be just Cara and Daddy in the evening, and we were going to have a good time (unbeknownst to me, Mommy had already had this conversation with her). Cara knew just what she wanted to do: play her dancing game with all the little pads (it's called Hullabaloo). Susan is on vacation for the next couple of days, and her daughter Allison is filling in. When Cara came in, Allison complimented her shirt. She was wearing her white shirt with pink sleeves that says "LOL" in sequins. Cara explained that LOL means laugh out loud. Then she displayed her pants, which were pink and comfy, and went on to discuss her socks. Then she started telling Allison about how her Mommy was going to work tonight and she and her Daddy were going to have fun. Susan is usually lucky to get a "hello" out of Cara in the morning! A few words from Mommy: While we were riding home in the car, Cara and I saw a boy riding a bike. I commented on how much I liked his helmet. She concurred. Then she said, "Last time I was at the rented house, I wore a pink one. I sat in the seat. There was a bicycle thing for me to hold on to. You and Daddy took turns." When I got home in the evening, I was ready to suggest to Cara that we go to Chuck E Cheese for dinner. I was ready to go through that for my little girl, but she came right up to me and said that we were going to go to the IHOP, which was why she had her shoes on, and she got out her Hullabaloo game, and had some paper dolls ready to be colored. She had already planned out our whole evening together, and that was pretty much how it went. We went to the IHOP, where Cara was very cute and tossed Puma around while occasionally waving at other patrons (who generally ignored her). She seems more willing to talk to servers lately and was perfectly willing to tell the nice woman that she wanted lemonade and little pancakes. I hadn't brought any toys (other than Puma), but Cara was intensely interested in watching other people and in looking out the window at the cars and trucks driving by on Route 18. True to our plans, when we got home we immediately began a series of Hullabaloo games. Usually Cara does not approve of repetition, but we played quite a few games of Hullabaloo. The game is designed so that the winner is chosen entirely at random, but Cara had no sense of this and would happily jump to the winning pad after it had been announced, then say "Next time you can win, Daddy!" It was nice that she was willing to let me win every once in a while. After we got tired of that we did some drawing, and then I began the long coaxing process of getting her to clean up her markers and get in the bath. I was amazed that we got through the evening without watching any television. Unfortunately I can't take any credit for it, since the whole night went according to the child's plans. 3/20/09 (Friday) Evie and I got up on the morning of the first day of spring and found that it was snowing outside in thick, big flakes. Evie suggested that I wake up the child by telling her that it was snowing. This was a good way to get Cara up and going, because when I told her it was snowing she had to look out the window to see. When we were downstairs eating breakfast, Cara wanted to know if Mommy was still asleep upstairs, and whether she was going to stay home today. She was clearly hoping for a snow day, but I had to tell her that she was still going to Susan's as usual, but that since it was Friday it was Family Fun Night. Cara put on her snow boots and we brought her mittens and hat to Susan's. In the car on the way there, Cara said that when we arrived she was going to tell Allison "It's snowing outside!" True to her word, Cara did state the obvious to Allison, who made a suitable reply. I don't know if the kids ever actually got to go outside--as it turned out, there was not much snow to play in, so at the most they got to take a walk on somewhat muddy ground. But it was still Family Fun Night! Mommy and Cara went to the video store in the afternoon and rented her old favorite, a Holly Hobbie DVD. They were watching it when I arrived home. Cara would have preferred to stay at home all evening and eat pasta for dinner, but she let us convince her to have dinner out at the local diner. She seemed determined on pasta until she got a look at the kid's menu and reverted to her usual hot dog. We whiled away the rest of the evening at home playing with Play-doh. Cara does enjoy planning out her activities, and it seemed she was talking about Play-doh all afternoon. I was enlisted to create a whole spectrum of Play-doh walruses, among other things, until it was time for her bath. While we were messing with the Play-doh Mommy fell asleep on the couch. The child was fairly considerate and did a lot of whispering, but she also at one point started creeping towards Mommy on tiptoe. Evie said that one of her favorite parts of the evening was when she heard me say to Cara, "You're not going to scare your Mommy, are you?" Cara did not make any sudden loud noises (which she sometimes does to sleeping cats--hence my concern), but instead gave Mommy a kiss and gave her Puma to snuggle up with. She also made an attempt at singing "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star," by way of a lullabye. 3/21/09 (Saturday) We put on some music today, and Cara was inspired. She told Daddy to "change into some clothes" so that he could dance with her, and off she herself ran. Steve was confused, because he was already definitely dressed. She meant for him to put on his work clothes, we think, but he managed to get away with keeping on his jeans and sweater. Cara, of course, added her black tutu to her pink outfit. Later, after the dancing, Cara and I went out to do some errands. Her pink coat went well with her pink pants and her tutu. As we walked along, she got a lot of reactions. "Oh, you're a princess!" the first woman, walking with her teenage daughter, said wistfully. "It's so nice that she can do anything she wants!" That's still true of Cara, in a way. She can dress up in ridiculous things and not know that they're ridiculous, but she may be learning. Cara liked it when people liked her skirt, but she told me several times that she didn't like it when people laughed at her. No one really laughed outright, but she was an amusing sight, gleefully prancing around in her ruffles, occasionally reaching back to pull up the skirt. It's sad that she's not more oblivious. 3/22/09 (Sunday) We had a nice morning. Cara and I had made dinner the previous evening (with Mommy standing next to us and telling us both exactly what to do), so to continue in that trend I made pancakes this morning. Then we had a little trip outside to speak with a landscaper. Cara got bored and went back inside, and before we were done talking to the guy my parents had arrived and were inside playing with Cara (hopefully not thinking that Evie and I were being neglectful parents). Cara got to show off her artistic talents. There was a lot of marker drawing and getting out of paper dolls. Cara really is excellent at drawing and coloring, and I'm very proud of her for it. I think we all wish she would cut back a little on the paper dolls, though! (Mommy managed to convince the child to make a little bit of a purge from our paper doll collection this afternoon, so that we now have some breathing room in our packed paper doll shoebox.) We had a nice lunch at a barbecue place where Cara got to try their mini corn dogs, which (unsurprisingly) she liked just as much as normal-sized corn dogs. And Cara convinced all of us to play Hullabaloo. In the evening, with a napless child, we visited the Loeffler house for dinner and some birthday cake (for Em's upcoming birthday). Cara contrived to injure herself in multiple places and ways, starting by scraping her knees while crossing the street on the way to the house. She also bonked the back of her head on the sidewalk when rolling down the hill later, landed on her hands and knees on the driveway, and managed to take an elbow in the forehead. There may have been something else as well. In between being injured and crying over it, she did have a lot of fun running around outside and playing with PJ and Casey. Now she has come out of a very quick bath (to get the grass out of her hair) and will soon be getting into bed, which is what she needs most right now! 3/23/09 (Monday) Cara wasn't interested in waking up this morning. Steve did all of the regular things he does. He opened the blinds, propped open her door with the blue pillow, turned off the stereo from the night before, and tried to convince her that it was time to get up. He left for a bit. When he returned, she had gotten up, moved the blue pillow so that her door swung shut, gotten back into bed, and pulled the covers over her head. He eventually had to bodily remove her from the bed, but then they had a nice morning. I had (somewhat psychotically) made a set of eight tiny paper princesses the night before and left them at her place at the table, which I hope was a nice surprise. It has meant that no one has yet asked me to make paper dolls this evening. For dinner, we made open-faced chicken sandwiches, brussels sprouts, and stuffing, and we also cut up half a cucumber for Cara. She ate half of the cucumber before anything else was ready. While we were serving, she was aleady asking for stuffing. I sat down, but I was pretty sure I'd be jumping up for a hot dog in a second. Instead, Cara asked for a sandwich (without knowing what it was or what it was called). She finished her cucumber, ate all of her sandwich, and asked to try a brussels sprout. To my shock and great consternation, she claimed to like it. She actually says that about most things she tries, but she actually asked for seconds this time. She also asked for the half of a sandwich that remained in the serving dish. She did all of this before she touched her stuffing. I think I brought home the wrong child today. 3/24/09 (Tuesday) Cara made our morning easy by getting up by herself this morning, before I even went upstairs to get her. In the car on the way to Susan's, she said "When I'm at Susan's, I miss Puma, and Mommy, and you!" I can only hope she did not list in order of importance.The little girl loves to twirl--a move she learned at ballet class--and will do it at the least provocation. She almost missed saying goodbye to me this morning because she was busy twirling at PJ. This evening we had vegetable lasagna for dinner. We've had this for dinner before and generally given Cara something else to eat instead, but tonight Mommy put some on Cara's plate. She claimed to be excited about eating it, but ate everything else that she'd been given to eat before turning to the lasagna. She did eventually eat some, though, without protest, which was nice. Cara has waterproof bandages, which are most definitely waterproof, but which are also very hard to peel off. In the bath tonight, Cara requested her big bin of older bath toys, one of which is a squeezable Curious George toy (which I think may have once been attached to a poof). Recently this Curious George has become Princess George, complete with servants in the form of rubber duckies. Hmm. 3/25/09 (Wednesday) Yesterday when I picked Cara up, she gave me a pinecone and told me to smell it. It didn't smell like anything. I asked whether she had smelled it. No. I suggested that she try it. She did, and she enjoyed it very much. She had gotten me that special pinecone. We brought it home. I showed her how to make a bird feeder by putting peanut butter on it and rolling it in bird seed, and we hung it in the tree in the front yard. Today, I forgot to look and didn't mention it to Cara. She spontaneously told me that it was gone. We think deer ate it. I hope they enjoyed it. We also made Jell-o yesterday. I think that Jell-o is one of the worst things to make with kids. For the first half, the water is way too hot for them to deal with. Cara did stir it a little, though. Then, you have to put it in the fridge and not eat it for hours and hours. We had a few good talks about having some today after ballet. No miracles occurred, though; Cara had some for breakfast. Ballet was special this week. The recital's in May, so they're really getting ready. Twice the little girls, holding hands to make a chain, filed out of their classroom and went in to the big, mirrored front room to dance where the other class and all of the moms could see them. It's to get them at least a little bit used to having an audience. We got to see their ballet number and their tap dance. It was beautiful. Cara won't be in the recital for tap, because we registered too late for them to order the costume, but she'll be up there dancing ballet. We discussed birthdays in the car. "My birfday is April fourf," says Cara. She was disappointed when I told her that that one was mine and that hers was the seventh. Then, she brightened. "Grandmom's birfday is in the same monf!" At some point, Cara took a large-ish rock from her pocket. It was for Puma. How excited Puma would be! What would Puma do with it? She would balance it on her head. Soon this idea became more elaborate, and the plan was for Cara and Puma to put on a show in which Puma would balance her rock and Cara would dance on her bed, which would be the stage, and then everyone would clap. Who was "everyone"? Mommy, and Daddy, and Cara's toys, except that they can't clap. When we got home, sure enough, Puma tried her rock. It worked great! Then she dropped it and it split in two, which was also kind of cool. It's playdate night, and yesterday was Em's birthday! We got a card. Cara drew a girl: it was herself! (surprise.) She drew a large tree. She was willing to add Casey, but not PJ. Eventually she did add him. Then Puma. She also wrote Em's name. She was surprised at how few letters there were. I was pleased that she could write both letters when I named them. PJ and Casey are very enthused about knock-knock jokes. Em was researching them on the web last night and found her new all-time favorite. Who's there? Woo. She had to tell that one to Casey, whose response, rather than "woo hoo!", was "Mommy, are you an owl?" | Previous Week | Back Home | Next Week | |