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Journal Key:

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

4/9/09 (Thursday)

Today Cara and I had some post-Susan adventures. First we went to the party store to order balloons for her party. As we stood in an aisle, I quickly fixed Cara's pigtails. While I pulled at her hair, she whimpered. Some girls who worked there were coming up the aisle, and one came back with a pink latex balloon for Cara: "Will this make you happy?" It would. While the girl and I were discussing balloons in the front of the store, Cara let hers go. She was, of course, upset. The girl hurried away and came back with a giant rolling ladder, which she climbed to get the balloon. I tied the string in a loop and attached the clippy pen from my work lanyard to keep it safe.

Cara enjoyed looking around while I made my selections. One thing she found was a display of tiny put-me-in-water-and-I-grow things. They were 99 cents each, so I lent Cara two dollars so that she could buy two. She got a fairy and a butterfly. This solved two problems for me: I had figured I'd have to run out to pick up a couple of those to add to her birthday present, and I was also concerned about Cara's plan to use her two dollars at Build-a-Bear to buy two friends for Deesta. When we got home, I had her give me her two dollars, explaining that she was paying me back. I'm pretty sure that whole thing went over her head.

We also stopped at the farmers market, where Cara selected an orange and declared that that was what she would have for dinner.

4/10/09 (Friday)

It was a stay-at-home day for the family today. We lazed around just a bit in the morning but soon enough Mommy and Daddy were attempting to get some cleaning and tidying done to get ready for Cara's big party tomorrow. The child did her best to hold our attention. She easily convinced me to stop what I was doing and read her some books while she consumed a cookie in the kitchen.

At a little before lunch time, we parents had an appointment and so Cara was dropped off at the Loefflers' place. While we were gone, the child was reportedly a bit choosy when it came to her food, which was a bit surprising. Em cycled through several options before landing on some things that Cara was willing to eat: apparently her cupboards are much less crowded now. When we returned, all of the kids were busily painting some wooden craft kits from the local art supply store. Cara's was a nice little turreted tower which she had predictably coated in pink (very perceptive of Em to have some pink on hand!).

It wasn't long before the kids were outside playing soccer, and it wasn't long after that that most of us migrated to the tire swing for further excitement. I returned to the house to get some cleaning done. Cara did not get a nap in the afternoon, but spent some time curled up on the couch watching TV. We requested that she lie still and at least have some quiet time; that kind of worked, for a little while. Eventually Evie decided it was time to bake cupcakes, and the child helped mix up the batter.

One of the more interesting child-related things that happened today was in the morning. Mommy and Cara were able to recite from memory the first few pages of If I Ran the Circus (AKA The Circus McGurkus). Then Cara decided to put on a special show in our bedroom. She was the ringmaster girl and her stuffed animals were performers. She also had a microphone (well, a microphone-shaped roller from a lint-collecting tool) and improvised some songs. There was also some kind of storyline in which her stuffed monkey, the only designated male stuffed animal in her retinue, was a prince and was going to marry one of the other animals.

Now the little girl has agreed to take a bath so she can be nice and clean for her party tomorrow.

4/11/09 (Saturday)

All week I've been home, and I haven't slept past about 6:40, because Cara's been waking up early. She comes out of her room, sometimes uses the bathroom on her own, and then makes little noises until I get up. (Usually, Steve is in the shower.) Today, Cara woke up at six. When I got up and came down the hall, she emerged from her room in her footie pajamas holding Puma and her Easter dress.

It was finally birthday party day. We spent the morning getting ready, and Cara spent a couple of hours over at PJ's house while we put on the finishing touches. She and Casey wore their matching blue-and-white dresses, and Em got some really beautiful pictures of them. Besides the family and the neighbors, the twins came and so did Nicholas. The kids settled in to play. When Grandpop asked Cara how old she was now, she tried to explain that she was five because she'd had a birthday and this was another one.

For the kids, it was an activity-filled party. I got a big set of stickers and tattoos and we stuffed plastic eggs with them. Cara helped me do that yesterday, and this morning, when she told me she wanted to get a tattoo I panicked for a second until she said, "after the egg hunt." We hid eggs all over the top two stories of the house, gave the kids buckets, and set them loose. They were like a little swarm of . . . something. We actually restuffed the eggs and did it all again.

After cupcakes, Cara opened her presents. Last year, and every year before that, Steve and I sat with her and helped her and we went one by one. This year was, I think, a taste of the future. It was a scene of unimaginable chaos. The kids basically swarmed (I"m using that word again. hmmmm.) all over the gifts. Cara opened everything herself, without Daddy. He was sitting there, but he basically got to watch and discuss Batman with Nick. As an area became cluttered with wrapping and presents, she moved on, gradually ending up almost to the stairs. PJ was the most helpful one; he brought her gift after gift. I don't think more than two cards actually got opened. She got a lot of things she liked, but her reaction to two things stands out. She opened up some art supplies that included a kit of paper-doll-making materials. She sat down with them and was ready to forgo the rest of the gifts. Enticed to continue, she did. A few presents later, she was almost at the foot of the stairs where I was sitting when she opened up a plush giraffe. She leaped to her feet and gave it such a hug; I wish I'd had a camera.

Cara did get some great things. She's playing with the boy baby doll from Aunt Claire; they've had a tea party with the tea set from Aunt Sarah and Uncle Jim. She's been reading her new books, and she spent half an hour or so on her own doing a project with her new art supplies. Some new friends have moved into her dollhouse. We finally did open the cards.

When, after the party, we finally convinced Cara to change out of her dress, she put her pajamas on. She spent the afternoon alternately cuddling and running around playing. Around seven, we went down the street to color eggs. Tomorrow, we'll be hunting for them outside. Next year, Em and I may boil an extra dozen eggs to color ourselves. Of course, next year the kids may be ready for some more sophisticated techniques. Em did figure out that those stupid plastic sleeves that you can put on the eggs that shrink to fit them in boiling water are actually very practical when your eggs are pre-broken!

Steve and I gave Cara a bath toy. It has suction cups that stick it to the wall; it's for her mermaids. It has showers, a swing, and a slide. It came with another mermaid, whose proportions are different from the others'. We also got her one that floats on a lily pad. Cara stuck this thing to the wall hours and hours ago. She was willing to take a bath at five o'clock. It was easy to get her to come home from egg-coloring. Cara is very, very happy. Her bath has gone on for half an hour. ALL of the mermaids had fun. The pink mermaid, the new one and the new favorite, told a story about her name being Lily, and it had something to do with her having spat up a lot when she was little. Cara cannot get out of the bath yet because her mermaids have "to do some violations." I cannot comment on this.

4/12/09 (Sunday)

Easter Sunday! We began our activities with a morning egg hunt. We did one quick hunt outside before both grown-ups and kids agreed that it was just too cold. Then there were a few hunts inside. Then Em and Ev had the idea of doing an egg and spoon race. It may have been mainly for their own edification, since they ran the first race. But the kids also tried it and all of the races went remarkably well.

The Loefflers were set to go off on a family visit of their own, but they had a few extra minutes before they had to leave. Somehow or other we ended up drawing some pictures in the kitchen. Cara had requested earlier in the morning that I draw a picture of her new mermaid toy (currently her definite favorite, which she slept with last night and will probably sleep with tonight). PJ, having been shown this by Cara, eventually asked me to draw him some monsters. "Make them mad!" he insisted. I realized that PJ was helping me fulfill a desire that I did not even know I had, and we spent some time together happily, I drawing the monsters and he giving me ideas for new monsters. At his instruction I improvised a tree monster, a flower monster, a garbage monster and a telephone monster. PJ himself quickly scribbled up some monster trucks: the Daddy truck was equipped with guns, while the baby truck did not have guns because it was still small. Cara stood by and said with a certain amount of unease, "I don't like monster trucks."

Once the Loefflers were off in their car, we gathered some of Cara's new toys, including her Lite Brite and her boy baby doll and a few stuffed animals, and got into our car. We went to Grandmom and Grandpop's house in South Jersey! We had a nice time. Cara, oblivious to holiday decorum, requested and received a viewing of the Grinch Movie. Other than that most of her play time was spent with her new toys, and at drawing and coloring. Poor Grandmom was taken away from meal preparation only to create more paper dolls.

Aunt Sarah's father, Jim, was in attendance, and was a fairly new person for Cara. He was a new audience for her, and she put on some performances for him. When she was finished eating before the rest of us, she went off to the couch and very loudly enjoyed herself (perhaps hoping we would be lured away from the table).

We had a nice time, but we managed to get Cara into the car by promising another go at her new bath toy. When she got home, it was only a few moments before the bath water was running. Evie reports that Cara was clutching her mermaid toys so tightly when she got out of the bath that it was very hard to dry her. At the promise of a final snack before bedtime, however, they were unceremoniously dumped on the floor.

4/13/09 (Monday)

Today was a nice girls-only stay-at-home day. The highlight of our morning was when Cara talked me into opening and playing her Curious George beach game. It's really, really cool. The box has a beach scene with big puzzle-pieces cut out of it; when you lift one, you see through a plastic window to the sea floor below. If you shake the box, the blue grains of "water" move around, and in them are little plastic "treasures." On your turn you draw a card with a treasure on it, and then you spin the spinner, which tells you which windows you are allowed to open. You pick a window, and if you see a treasure under it that matches any of the cards that have been drawn, you get that card. It's sort of a memory game. We played twice; Cara has learned, finally, to spin a spinner. Cara won the first game. In the second one, we had to take a break when I pulled ahead and she was very very unhappy. Eventually she got over that and we continued. She was happy for me when I won.

We also did groceries. Cara's carried a box of muffins for a while, and then she switched to her new gummy vitamins. Then back to the muffins. Then she selected a single green bean. She stopped to weigh it in a scale. I did the self-checkout, and the attendant and I were amused when I put the bean on the sensor and it charged me four cents. The plan was for Cara to bring the bean to Grandmama. Then the plan was that they would split it. Then Cara bit it a little, and it was smaller. She was still going to split it with Grandmama. We got in the car to go see Grandmama. Cara had the (smaller) bean. When we got out of the car, no bean. We will never speak of it again.

At Grandmama's house, even beanless, we had fun. Grandmama had hidden Easter eggs with socks in them all over the house. (She has been giving Cara sock-stuffed eggs for years; it beats candy!) Cara searched and searched and, with a little support, found them all. The real event, though, was that Grandmama and Grandpapa had gotten out and set up the dollhouse that our grandpa made for me and Claire when we were little. Cara went right past it when she was looking for eggs, which I thought was pretty funny. After lunch we all went up and started unwrapping the many, many pieces of furniture and accessories that we had saved. It was amazing to see all that stuff again; I'm really looking forward to playing with it all again. Cara was probably a little overwhelmed by the amount of new things she had to look at. She was, appropriately, impressed by the house itself.

For her birthday, Cara got a gift card to Barnes and Noble. I brought it along today to use as a bribe to get Cara out of Grandmama's house. It still took some convincing, but we were able to talk her into leaving. As we did on our last girl day, we got a treat at the cafe. We read a lot of books, then, but Cara didn't pick out any to buy. She took me walking across the store, looking for something. She wanted "a thing with all the things around it." This was accompanied by many hand gestures. Then, "the thing you get out of the thing and you take it out." She was starting to sound like Grandpapa . . . or me or Claire. However, I figured out that, with the intention of spending the fifteen dollars I had told her she had, she was looking for a machine. I had to break it to her that there were none at Barnes and Noble.

However, we were at the same shopping center where, so long ago on that fateful day, Aunt Claire got Cara Lucy the dolphin. So, being a sucker, I stopped quickly at Best Buy and let the kid blow two quarters on a new tiny squishy animal. It's a pink hippo. It's now in her jewelry box.

The child is tired. We did get to play a couple of rounds of the Curious George beach treasure game with Daddy this evening, though, and she was very nice when he won one. Now, thank goodness, it's off to bed.

4/14/09 (Tuesday)

When my spring break started, I moved my alarm to go off at 7:15. I was far too optimistic. Every day, Cara woke up between six twenty and six forty, except when she woke up earlier than that on the day of her party. Today, my first day back at work, I even dropped a bottle loudly in the bathroom before six. A cat investigated Cara's room and left the door open. Cara was still asleep when I left at seven.

This week at Susan's is Art Week, so Cara will be in her element. She gave wonderful answers to Susan's questions. What is art? The answer was something along the lines of using a lot of things to make a lot of things. Cara also drew a family portrait, which is a big picture of her and me with poor Steve all tiny in a corner because she ran out of paper.

The event that Cara reported to me from her day was that she got in an argument with JoJo over whether trains have steering wheels. They disagreed emphatically, apparently. Alas, Cara insists that they do. Then she told me, boys know how to drive trains. Do girls? Cara does. Because her shoes are on the right feet.

Cara asked me to make paper dolls, but I reminded her that she has some from yesterday put away in a bucket. To my astonishment, it worked! She got them out and we colored them; she did three and I did one. Their legs all had to be colored in because they had "swimmy things" on them. I had to draw them a pool. The sight of carefully colored paper dolls swimming is not a particularly inspiring one, since the work goes into their fronts and when they swim only their backs show.

Steve and I had an appointment this evening, so Cara got to play at PJ's house. When we went to pick her up, Em gave us something precious. It's a picture PJ drew, of himself and Steve playing "Dammit," which is what Em still prefers to call the game. Steve is even wearing his tie. The Steve figure is big and kind of encompasses the little PJ, clearly a strong and comforting presence. Never has such a sweet picture been drawn about Super Metroid.

4/15/09 (Wednesday)

Yesterday Cara and I played her Curious George game in the morning. It was a quick game which she won, so it was perfect! This morning we had muffins, and crumbs got on the kitchen floor. I taught Cara how to not learn from her mistakes by letting her take another muffin in the car. Not surprisingly (in retrospect), crumbs got all over the car.

Today was dance day, and some interesting things happened. We are now able to order tickets to her recital. Cara's recital costume for her ballet dance finally arrived! And--an added bonus--she was able to obtain a costume for the tap dance part of the recital, something that we didn't think was going to be possible. I finally got to see the costumes this evening--they are amazing, particularly the tap costume. It is so unashamedly hideous that it passes through the barrier and becomes something to admire. Tomorrow she gets pictures taken in costume.

It was playdate night tonight! I was late getting there and Cara was happy to see me. The kids had a little dinner and then wandered outside. PJ is a big fan of going around the block, so we went around the block a few times. The children were mostly on little bikes. The Loefflers have a very good system of stopping points that PJ runs or pedals to, and then he stops and waits until given the okay to continue (all the time impatiently crying, "Now? Now? Now?"). That way he never gets too far ahead. Cara is learning to use this system also. PJ is an excellent enforcer, since he doesn't want anyone to get ahead of him.

I hear tell that Puma was taking a walk on leashes with Cara's new dog toy. The twins intentionally purchased the dog, a Barbie-themed item that makes doggie sounds and periodically wants to be fed, as a companion for Puma. So that seems to have worked out. Cara has just run out of time in the bath and has to stop playing with her mermaid bath toy!

Today at dinner before Steve arrived, we had some interesting parenting adventures. We had cucumber slices with the seeds scooped out, so they were shaped like Cs. PJ was using his to shoot. He has developed a very effective shooting noise. Cara, of course, was upset when he shot her. Eventually, I used my hands to put a magic shield around her so that he could not shoot her anymore. He reached out and snatched it off and continued. I put another on and buttoned it around the bottom. He snatched it off. I worked hard at explaining to Cara that it really couldn't be snatched off, that it was still there. Eventually, Em explained it to PJ, too: "It's something special that Cara's mommy put on her, that no one can take off--like a chastity belt!"

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