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Journal Key:

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

9/17/09 (Thursday)

Yesterday I reported that Cara was unable to spell "PJ." Somehow I missed the other exciting intellectual/educational news: she's learning to write her name as "Cara" instead of "CARA." She's pretty excited about it and confident about it; she's done it for me several times now. She can also pick out the small a and small r when I ask her to find them.

Several days ago, possibly last Sunday, Cara and I reached a stalemate from which neither of us was willing to back down. I drew her a page of princesses, not my first that day, and she wanted crowns and things on them. I drew a crown. I drew another crown. That was wrong. That girl was supposed to have a flower on her head. Cara would not color that page of girls. I would not draw another page of them until she did. She'd only colored one on the last page! The pages have been sitting on the counter, waiting. Cara has asked for more. I have promised to do more after she colors those. She has refused. This evening, she asked me, would I draw more after she colored those? What a good idea! Yes, I would. When we went upstairs for her bath, she had colored two of them very beautifully and started a third.

9/19/09 (Saturday)

Cara had her usual sleepover on Friday night, and we parents drove down to meet her in Middletown this morning. Grandmama and Grandpapa popped outside for a little while, and while they were out Cara put on several "shows" for us. She set up some chairs, created a stage out of sofa cushions, and padded out the audience with dolls and stuffed animals. There was no appropriate curtain, so we were all asked to cover our eyes (we had to help the dolls) until the show officially began. Mostly the shows consisted of Cara jumping around on sofa cushions, though there was some dancing and towards the end a few "opera" shows, with singing.

She also showed us that she has learned more than a little about chess. Grandmama and Grandpapa have a nice wooden chess set and board, and Cara was able to help me set up the pieces, and understood the purpose of the game and even how a few of the pieces moved. Her favorite appears to be the knight. We were very impressed.

Aunt Claire arrived and we all went out to brunch, which meant a Mickey waffle for Cara. I converted it to Minnie by adding a very blobby bow made out of strawberry syrup, some strawberry syrup lipstick, and blueberry syrup eyes. We whiled away the rest of the day at Claire and Casie's house, with one outing to have dinner and purchase our own copy of Sleeping Beauty on DVD. In the evening we put the movie on, and Aunt Claire did such a good job of skipping all the scary parts that the movie was probably about half of its usual running time! Which was good, because we got home pretty late.

9/20/09 (Sunday)

Today was a big chore day. We did start with a good breakfast, though. I made the pancakes this time, for the first time in months. Cara was delighted to see the Mickeys and snowmen; she neatly stacked three snowmen in one compartment of her plate, three Mickeys in another, and three smaller circles in another. This amounted to half of the batch of pancakes. We decided she could keep them, but she had to go one compartment at a time. After just the snowmen, to her astonishment, she was done.

It was almost time to go to Cara's preschool for a concert. We had a few minutes, though, so I asked Cara whether we could do any chores "really fast." She ran to the living room, grabbed her doll, ran upstairs to put her away, and ran back. We did get rather a lot of tidying done in those ten minutes. Cara was excited about going to the concert, but there were some misunderstandings. Cara believed that this was a concert in which the children, including herself, would perform. I had explained to her several times that there would be a singer there, and she would still get to go up and dance, but suddenly, before we left, she was in tears. What was wrong? "Daddy says there'll be a grown-up band there!"

It turned out to be a fun show; it was one local performer with a guitar. We'd seen him before. He got the kids up and dancing and did lots of silly things. For some reason, he thought the word "banana" was a part of "Ring Around the Rosy" and he thought the mommies on the bus went "wahh wahh wahh" while the babies went "shhh." (Certainly, he thought, the daddies on the bus went "wahh wahh wahh" when they had to change a dirty diaper.) The kids has to correct him a lot. Good thing they were there.

Soon it was time to come back home and do chores. Cara and I changed the gerbils and tidied up some, but then she settled in to watch Sleeping Beauty while I went off to "do other things." "Mommy," she said, when I stayed for a little bit after I got the movie started, "you're supposed to go do other things!" I am very pleased to report that Cara watched the whole movie, even the part with the dragon. I did sit with her for that part. She claimed later that her favorite part is "when she goes to sleep." I am a skeptic. Cara thinks that part is scary. Maybe she does like it, though.

It's been a while since Cara's gotten any allowance, because she spent seven dollars worth of it when we were down in North Carolina. (There was that really great mermaid magnet set that was just like the fairy one I'd just gotten her, which she wasn't playing with. Now she doesn't play with either.) She got an allowance today, and we counted up her money. Enough for a Barbie. We went to Target.

Cara ended up with a set of two small Barbie fairies whose wings detach and are interchangeable and which are also hair clips except that Cara can't read that part and we're not telling her. The first thing Cara did with them, after sticking their wings on, was to take their skirts off. All of her Polly Pocket girls have underwear painted on. These girls have tops painted on, but their skirts are all that keeps their lower selves decent. However, they seem to like to romp around bared to the world. A lot. Somehow, for me, having that top painted on makes it worse than when the regular Barbie gets all the way naked. These girls, like most of Cara's dolls, like to dance and sing.

Right now those new girls are in the bath, but earlier they lay on the floor of the living room, forgotten, while Cara and Steve went downstairs to play. The played, among other things, the Curious George Beach game. Cara won. They played again, with Cara's doll-borrowed-from-grandmama and Cara's princess doll playing. The borrowed doll won. Without cheating. It's not a particularly intelligent-looking doll.

9/21/09 (Monday)

Our second week of ballet went well. Cara looked forward to seeing the other girls, though she remembered none of their names. She was once more overjoyed at getting glitter on her hands at the end; this time she "shared" some with her racoon backpack, who holds her dance shoes. Its ears are glittery. The dance school sells little snacks, and, since the other girls were getting some, I let Cara have a dollar and disappear into the back room. She came back out with a little package of Scooby-Doo gummy snacks. When we were pulling out of the lot, Cara lamented how much she would miss "those guys," whoever those people were with whom she takes dance class.

This morning Cara managed to give Steve a tough enough time about turning off the movie she was watching to get him to revoke her future morning-television privileges. I'm a big believer in reminding people of things, so I mentioned this to her after dinner, when she asked to have Sleeping Beauty back on. Her reaction: utter delight that she could watch it now. What a contrast to the reaction that she'll have in the morning!

9/22/09 (Tuesday)

This morning was not as bad as I had imagined. I had to go in and wake the child up, and then I went back downstairs to give her time to come down on her own. She spent a lot of time in the bathroom with the door closed, but finally came down and had some breakfast. By the time we were done breakfast it was time to get dressed and leave, so there was very little time to mourn the loss of the television.

According to one of Cara's teachers at preschool, she has many friends there. Cara is a little confused as to who exactly these friends are. But there is definitely a Vinnie and an Adrian, both of whom are boys (which I find a bit surprising).

It was my birthday today, so Cara and Mommy were waiting for me when I got home with a little bag of gifts. There was also a nice card, onto the envelope of which Cara had carefully written "BABBY." I was touched. She did write her name inside in upper and lower case letters.

Cara was very happy to take me out to dinner at the Chinese/Japanese restaurant where she's been wanting to go for a while. We get a dumpling appetizer that is served with tongs, and Cara happily tonged out all of the dumplings to us. Her main course came with serving tongs also! The only downside, as Cara noticed, was that there was no cake. We will get one this weekend though!

9/23/09 (Wednesday)

In the morning I was using our laptop, so Cara requested a computer game. We played one which involved getting a long line of ants past various obstacles by using our knowledge of basic shapes. Perhaps remembering this fondly, Cara at preschool drew a picture of the laptop sitting on its little wooden tray. You can even see the little mouse coming out on its cord, with perfect accuracy. She also drew a family consisting of nearly a dozen members.

In the evening Evie had Back to School Night, so Cara and I were on our own. Evie had left a drawing of three dancers, to which I was instructed to add a fourth. It's hard to copy someone else's ballerina-making style! "Mommy draws the dressfirst," Cara commented. We had a very smooth evening. Our viewing of Sleeping Beauty ended at just the right time to transition Cara into the bath--she wasn't particularly happy about it, but she gave in more easily than she has on other recent occasions. Then after a while playing in the bath, Cara had to go to the potty and so got out of her bath at the right time without a fight. And Mommy got home just as I was saying good night to Cara--so it was a well-timed night, all in all.

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