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Journal Key:

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

12/10/09 (Thursday)

I got to talk to Miss Jane today; I asked her why it was that Cara had lost her state-of-being verbs. She knew exactly what I was talking about, which is somewhat reassuring. I had started to wonder whether maybe Cara had always said things like "I going upstairs." She had no ideas, though, beyond the same guess I had that Cara's modeling herself after her younger classmates, who don't have states of being yet.

Miss Jane reports that something she loves about Cara is how she always talks about not liking boys, and yet the playmates she chooses are Adrian, Ralph, etc.

This is I week, of course, and the topic of the day was insects. Cara made a great picture of ants; I thought that they all had giant bright blue mohawks, but then I realized that they were wearing miners' hats, with lights on the front. They are tunneling.

"Augh," said Cara, while she was putting her coat on, "Adrian keeps asking me to draw castles for him! I'm tired of drawing castles for him, but he keeps asking me to!" I am sure that many adults besides me will be astonished and delighted to find that she's gotten her comeuppance so soon.

12/11/09 (Friday)

Happy first night of Hanukkah! Cara woke up early this morning. When she opened the door on her Advent calendar, she was excited about getting a special thing for Hanukkah. Whatever it was she got, I guess it was good enough. I was in her room to look through her Hanukkah books, because there's a little boy at preschool who has been very excited lately about the Maccabees. The other day Cara mentioned that he wanted to show her a picture of them so that she could draw them for him.

I found one picture, in which they were guys dressed in Biblical-type clothes who had swords and (here's the Maccabee part) shields with stars of David on them, presumably so that people could tell what team they were on. "Oh," said Cara, "that's what they look like!" My project for the morning, therefore, was to teach her to draw stars of David. Two triangles, one on top of the other. I do wonder whether it'll stick.

12/12/09 (Saturday)

Last night Cara had a sleepover, and in the morning she returned to us thanks to Grandpapa. It wasn't long before her other grandparents arrived at the house for a nice visit. We split up and ventured out: Grandma and Mommy and Cara went into Sears to find a Christmas dress for the little girl, and Grandpa and me went to the fenced-off area outside of Sears where Christmas trees were to be had. By the time we had chosen one, driven it home and stood it up in the house, the girls were on their way back with a dress--in fact, two dresses. Cara had made the final decision, choosing a "Dolly and Me" dress which came with an identical dress in doll size. She was thrilled: the plan was to dress up Puma. In the event, however, Puma's big paws did not fit in the dress sleeves, so Jane Austen was chosen as a very satisfactory runner-up.

We trimmed our tree. Cara spent a lot of time swaying to the holiday music we'd put on, and asking other people to help her hang the ornaments she'd picked up. But she also had the clever idea of stringing together a long chain of snowflake ornaments and hanging them.

Evie cooked a nice big dinner, but it took a while to make and Cara snacked so heavily on biscuit dough and biscuits (I'm not sure which form she prefers) that by the time dinner was on the table she was not particularly hungry. At least she had some broccoli.

In the afternoon we collapsed and had some TV time, but after a few episodes of Wonder Pets, I was ready to try something else. So Cara and I went downstairs to play her Curious George game. Nowadays when we play games like this, it can't just be humans playing. Cara also had to bring her Jane Austen doll (who by this time was naked again) and Puma. She wanted to have a doll at every place at the dining room table, but I talked her down. However Jane Austen needed to have a big stack of books under her so that she could see over the table. (Cara was making ambitious plans for building a kind of booster chair out of books.) Puma also had to be propped up. Then I took all of the animate and inanimate players' turns except Cara's.

By this time Cara was hungry, of course, so Mommy made us some sandwiches and then joined in the game. Then I had to take a break to make Cara scrambled eggs. But eventually every player won the game, and we had time for a very quick run of Candy Land in which Cara and Puma played as a team.

Last night was the beginning of Hanukkah, and tonight we got to light two candles. I understand that Cara did not draw a Maccabee for her friend yet, because that's something she was supposed to do when she went over to his house.

12/13/09 (Sunday)

We started off our morning with Cara's very first trip to the movies! We all three went out to see The Princess and the Frog. We sat through the whole thing. There were some scary parts, which Cara was not a big fan of, and she spent some time leaning against Mommy. But she did like it. I don't regret having pre-emptively purchased a Tiana doll for her (Tiana is the princess from the movie). There were good slapstick scenes, which she always enjoys; plenty of dancing, which was good; and a princess who got to live happily ever after at the end. It was a long movie for her, and when we got out she said she was going to sleep in the car. Since we had a five-minute car ride home, she didn't really get the chance.

We had an impromptu Hanukkah party tonight and exchanged gifts with PJ and Casey! We gave PJ the car-and-track set that Cara and I found at the mall, and Casey got a Cinderella barbie-style doll with several dresses. The car set was a lot of fun; when the cars go off the track, they just go driving away! Cara's gift was a very very nice easel. It has a roll of paper at the top, and it has several different spaces to keep art supplies. Her things are a lot better-organized now, and they'll be easier for her to access. Cara drew a couple of pictures on it this evening.

Evie also got the kids some Hanukkah treats in driedel-shaped boxes. They got gummies and gelt and some hard candy which none of them seemed to like (I think maybe it was hot). It seemed like kind of a gyp that the boxes had no dreidels in them, but Cara figured out later that the boxes themselves were dreidels. We had our own set of dreidels, though, so we tried to organize some driedel games--there was not enough gelt to go around, so little plastic counting bears were used. The children lost interest pretty quickly, but the grown-ups were at it for a while.

12/14/09 (Monday)

Tonight was a night of changing minds. Cara was tired when I picked her up from preschool. She was tired when she got to ballet. When she came out, she announced that she hadn't gotten tired, even in tap. Apparently, she usually gets tired during tap. She wouldn't even be tired, she told me, when she went to sleep. How wonderful, I replied.

We had dinner sort of late. Cara was enthusiastic at first. Then, she explained, her mind kept telling her to play and talk a lot, instead of eating. Silly mind! We suggested that she tell her mind that she needed to eat dinner, but that didn't help an awful lot.

There was one thing she did not change her mind about: she wanted to hang up Jane Austen's Christmas dress. She tried using a tiny hanger from a new pair of tights, but it was too small. I gave her a padded hanger that's too small for me but perfect for her clothes. She was not distractible. Even though it was pink. I searched through her closet a bit and found an even smaller padded hanger that actually does for Jane Austen's dress. Which we can now hang up neatly, thank goodness.

12/15/09 (Tuesday)

Cara woke up early today; I was off of my regular schedule because I had to go for my 28-week glucose tolerance test and to get a shot of rhogam, so I was not allowed to eat but was available to make breakfast. Cara requested a bismarck. I also got to put a ponytail in her hair. By the evening, it was clearly not the ponytail I'd made. Cara explained that she'd taken it out and a teacher had put it back in. Cara having removed it herself explains why several ripped-out hairs were still on the holder when I took it out for her later.

My appointments were time-consuming but uneventful; it took from nine until one for me to get a few blood tests and a shot. I did get to eat, finally, around eleven. The baby is right-side up right now, which explains why all of the movement I feel is low down. He'll flip over in a few weeks. My appointments will be every two weeks from here on out, since it's the third trimester.

Poor Steve had to work late again--it's a couple of weeks since he's gotten home before seven, and tonight it was closer to seven thirty. Cara and I had an evening on our own. We played Candy Land, and we made it through even though I was the one who drew the card with the picture of the ice cream fairy or queen or whatever she is and even though I won!

Cara: "Stop spinning! I'm spinning! Something's spinning me! --Oh, it's just my mind."

After dinner, when Steve got home, Cara asked me to draw princesses. She brought some paper. I started. "No! Not with dresses on!" Cara wanted to make the dresses. Honestly, I can't draw naked princesses. I can draw princess dresses and then stick on whatever body parts emerge. I'm just not up for the task. Cara was willing to accept pre-dressed princesses, though she wasn't happy about it.

12/16/09 (Wednesday)

The greatest movie ever made was Blue's Big Musical Movie. At least, that's the consensus over here. We've watched it every night this week. And it's still good! Apparently. The only two good lines are both delivered by Ray Charles, as a G-clef. Discussing rhythm (or tempo, or something--uh oh, I haven't learned; we'd better watch it again), he commands, "Be a train with me, Steve!" Later, Steve feels that his song, while it's developing well, still needs a little something. "It surely does, Steve." Tonight was leftover night, and, to make it exciting, especially since I figured it might be just the two of us, I told Cara it would be a picnic on the floor. With a movie, she decided. Guess which movie!

I managed somehow to miss the bottom stair this morning and to land neatly on my knees (which are fine). At work, I was squatting down and balancing a clipboard on my knee to check in some projects. I teetered and tottered and then just fell right over and landed on my tush. Then I was talking to Miss Grace later and she said that she hadn't been sure that I was pregnant, since I usually have a coat on, but that I had "the walk." Things are changing.

Cara wanted to play girls tonight, and then she wanted to use water with them. What a great segue that was to get her into the bath! With eight or nine of her girls. They actually helped to get her out at the end, because she decided that they should go back downstairs and so I got to dramatically lay them out on a hand towel of their own.

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