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Journal Key:

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

3/25/10 (Thursday)

My ideal plan for today was for Owen and me to stay in our jammies for a long time and get nothing useful done. Alas, yesterday was the first day to register for swimming lessons at the Y, and we missed it and it wouldn't work online, so we had to go. Plus we were out of diapers except for a box I'd bought of ones that fit now but will fit a lot better in a few weeks. So Owen had a bath and I had a shower and I started the dishwasher and a load of laundry and off we went.

Cara will be having swimming lessons on Tuesdays, starting next week! They'll be from 4:30 to 5, so I think Owen and I will just pick her up and take her straight there. No sense giving her a bath before she gets in the pool! She and I have to go shopping. She's very enthusiastic about a one-piece suit she had last year and wants it again in a bigger size. I'm not optimistic!

Thank goodness, Grandmama came up and took Cara to ballet! She gave her a bath and brushed her hair, and then when it was late and I was cranky and Owen was awake and everything was ready for them to hustle out the door and Cara decided she wanted a snack, Grandmama was able to magically produce an apple from her bag and solve everything! I was able to feed Owen and pump and (since Steve kept Owen happy) have a good dinner on the table when they got back.

Steve and I were discussing Owen's relationship with his poppers, as opposed to Cara's. He remembers Cara using hers a lot. I remember her popping them. Of course, I just spent some time browsing around the journal and saw that we had six poppers for her, each kept in a specific place. I also remember her getting that pacifier print on her face. I guess she used them! Steve and I have also had different experiences with Owen. He hasn't seen much popper success. I've seen some. Owen has three poppers, which I do keep spread out. One he brought home from the hospital, and he definitely likes it! The others I bought him; they're the same kind, just more colorful. He's rejected them completely! I've seen progress, in the past couple of days, that suggests that maybe he thinks those interlopers might not be so bad after all.

Tonight, as if Owen had heard us talking, has been a great popper night. During dinner, Owen sat in his bouncer with a popper (NOT the precious hospital one). Every once in a while, he'd start to make unhappy noises. It turned out every time that he'd popped his popper and was upset by its mysterious disappearance. We just kept giving it back, and he stayed awake and happy! Now, over an hour after dinner was over, he's getting pretty sleepy and we had to pick him up, but he's still working away at the thing.

3/26/10 (Friday)

Owen and I headed down the road to Princeton today to see a urologist. We had a lovely time except for the part where the nurse wanted to check his blood pressure in his leg, while he wanted to keep his leg scrunched up. I had been asked to hold him, and he was pretty sleepy, so it was an odd, relaxed, semiconscious struggle. You really can't complain too much about someone doing something to you if it doesn't even wake you up all the way.

So, next week I will be talking to someone to schedule Owen's surgery for his bilateral inguinal hernia at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, assuming that everything works out. Owen won't be able to consume anything but clear liquids after midnight the night before, and he and I will end up staying overnight so that he can be observed. It will be an adventure.

Our adventure for today was that, for Family Fun Night, the four of us went out to eat! Owen slept nicely in his car seat at the table, though Steve and I looked nervously at him whenever he moved and Cara gleefully announced a few times that his eyes had opened. He was great, though. He lulled us into a nice false sense of tranquility. Next time, he'll get us.

3/27/10 (Saturday)

Today was Aeshna's birthday party! And it was early--eleven. Ev and Cara had to leave early to get a present for Aeshna. Owen and I had a lot of time together today. I managed some very bad diaper-change timing this morning and he accidentally squirted over himself two times. The first time was OK because his pajamas needed to come off anyway, but the second time required a new outfit. So for most of the day he was "Mommy's 1st mate." He was good while Mommy and his sister were gone and slept on my lap mostly.

Aeshna's party sounds like it was fun--the party was at "Make Me, Take Me," a crafts store where the kids could paint things like mugs. Cara chose a dinosaur mug, because it had a plain side she could paint a girl on. The mug seemed to be a dinosaur driving a mug-shaped vehicle. Cara gleefully explained that the girl had been in the road and either jumped onto the mug or been hit by it. Aeshna was very polite and served the birthday cake to everyone herself--which Cara now wants to do at her party. Cara got to sit with the ever-popular Adrian, but after the art part he fell and cut his head; he went to the emergency room to possibly get stitches.

For a lot of the afternoon Cara was trying to get us to do an Easter egg hunt. I did finally take some plastic eggs and sprinkle them about the house. I imagine we'll still be finding some in a few days. The child wanted to know whether she'd found them all but I hadn't kept track of how many I had hidden.

In the evening Ev and I decided to order Indian food and we got Cara to try some. And she liked it! She had some paneer pakora (fried cheese) and some chicken tikka, some rice and a mango lassi to drink, and she claimed to like it all. She didn't eat a whole lot of it, but we parents agreed it was a very promising first try.

Cara has a small cold, mostly a cough, which hasn't really slowed her down one bit. However she remembers the last time she was sick--she had a stomach bug that flattened her for several days. When she was starting to eat again, Mommy made her a nice tray with a sampling of foods and brought it to her on the couch, from which Cara could barely raise herself. So now Cara wants a tray of "something". She was dubious about being able to go to the birthday party today. And tonight at story time, Cara was planning on staying in bed tomorrow and getting her breakfast on a tray.

3/28/10 (Sunday)

For the record, I will gladly set up a nice tray for Cara with drinks and toast and Jell-o, any time she's going to stay in one place and stay quiet for six or seven hours.

Today Owen was up at five, and then Cara got up as well. The wonderful part was that, at six, Owen was back down and Cara was downstairs with the TV on, and Steve and I went back to bed! The next thing I knew, it was after seven. Things were slightly less magical for Steve, who was conscious enough to hear Cara pointedly laughing loudly at the television and Owen fussing either in his sleep or in protest. Still, back to bed!

Grandmom and Grandpop came today, and we got to hand off a cranky baby! It was nice. They didn't even mind (I hope) that a cranky baby often makes for cranky parents. Owen did seem to have some fussy time today, but he also had some nice cuddling time. And he had a bath! He seemed willing to like parts of it. One nice thing is that after he comes out and gets wrapped up in his towel all chilly and wet, he really appreciates having clothes on. He is a baby who likes to have clothes on.

Cara's Jane Austen doll has been popular lately. She got to go to preschool on Friday; Cara raced upstairs to grab her and quickly undress her so that she could go naked. Yesterday we went through some baby doll clothes Juliana had brought over, and the things we chose to keep were mainly for Jane Austen. Fortunately, Steve was patient enough to dress her up in the things Cara had picked, so that she could see that the big T-shirt dress with clowns all over it really wasn't going to work out, and that the hideous thing meant to be pajamas for a baby doll just didn't do anything for her. Fortunately, Jane Austen ended up with a new jacket, which is white with pink flowers and which goes on over her dress beautifully. She may or may not have decided to keep a bonnet that sort of matches. I'm really not sure whether the bright yellow pants that Cara decided were bloomers are still on there. Right now, Jane Austen is sleeping in a special bed made on the foot of Cara's bed. I think she's dressed. Cara said something about going to get her pajamas. I'm sort of afraid to find out.

3/29/10 (Monday)

One exciting event from yesterday: For the first time, Owen burped for Grandpop!

It turns out that the hideously ugly clown shirt is Jane Austen's night gown. JA went to preschool today. She was naked when Cara found her, and so we had to find not only her dress but her new yellow underwear. The irony is that last week JA was dressed when Cara found her, so Cara insisted on undressing her for school. All of this is frustrating when it is happening exactly when it's time to leave and everything else is ready and waiting.

It was rainy today, and my plan for me and Owen was to spend the day cuddled on the couch watching tv and taking naps. Alas, it was not to be. Owen somehow did not see the beauty of this plan and spent the day being somewhat fussy. I ought to have explained things to him.

This evening, Cara suddenly leaped up, saying (I thought) "I have to put my pajamas on!" Actually, she said "'I have to put my pajamas on!'" and ran to get Jane Austen's clown nightgown. I managed to suggest that she also get her own pajamas, and, miraculously, she did. Eventually, they were both ready for bed.

3/30/10 (Tuesday)

Today was Cara's first swimming lesson! Owen was very cooperative and took a bottle a little after three, so he had just eaten when we went to pick her up. At the Y, we got to get Cara dressed in the locker room; she'd never been in a locker room before, so it was exciting. She got into her swimsuit and we got her pink swim cap on her head; I'd bought her new flip-flops earlier, so she was all set.

It was nice and warm in the room where the pool was. The teachers, three or four (apparently) very nice (apparently) teenagers, strapped foam cubes onto the backs of all of the kids, lined them up, and got them into the water, where they all hung off the side of the pool. A couple of the teachers were in the water and took the kids, one by one, across the pool. They dog paddled. They used kick boards, holding them with their hands and propelling themselves with their feet. They hung onto things like giant Q-tips. They tried floating on their backs. The line of kids, about ten or twelve of them (Cara later told Steve, confidently, that there were about four), moved pretty quickly from one side of the pool to the other, back and forth, with two kids going at once. Towards the end, they all got out and, one by one, got to jump in to a teacher.

Cara loved it. Loved it. She was a happy, happy girl. It was, she told both me and, later, Steve "better than preschool!" I found this statement enigmatic. Did she mean, "so great it was even better than preschool," or did she mean, "that was better than preschool, I'd prefer to go there all day"? I asked to confirm that preschool had been good. It had. Swimming was even better.

Cara: I hope I get to go again!

Me: You do, next week.

Cara: Tomorrow?

I'm really glad that she loved it so much, especially since the lessons were her birthday present. I'm also really pleased about how well taking her there, with Owen, went. He was up and active while she was swimming, and he was cooperative when I put him back in his car seat at the end and we headed for the locker room. The whole process went smoothly.

Next week, Cara's pretty sure they'll be swimming underwater.

3/31/10 (Wednesday)

Steve and I have both noticed that Cara seems to be immune to Owen. When he starts fussing and crying, I know that it makes me tense and anxious (admittedly, sometimes more and sometimes less so). Cara seems oblivious. At dinner tonight, when he was fussing in my arms, she would get up and come over to see him and touch him and visit with him, or to see me. She'll continue her happy chatter over his noise, utterly unaffected. She definitely notices, because sometimes she tells us he's upset, but it doesn't bother her at all. Similarly, she sleeps through any noise he makes at night. It can be somewhat frustrating, when one is already somewhat frustrated, to have her cuddling up alongside the crying baby, but on the whole it's probably a very fortunate thing.

Jane Austen is still popular. When I picked Cara up from preschool, I had to put Jane Austen's coat on her while Cara put on her own. I had to make sure to button it up. At home, JA has aquired a sidekick. It's a little plastic cat, possibly a Littlest Pet Shop one. A couple of nights ago, it was named Doom. "Doom, doom, doom!" sang Cara. Fortunately, the name morphed quickly into Voom.

This evening, Voom was missing. Cara was certain that Voom had been lost some time last night; we went through her bed thoroughly and searched under it with a flashlight. No Voom. JA was very upset when she had to come into the bathroom alone to watch Cara brush her teeth. "Oh, I miss my cat-friend!" she said. One thing we were unable to establish was the gender of the cat. It seemed to change frequently, as those things do. I suggested to Cara that perhaps Voom was out on a mission. "Yeah, to fight bad guys! With the vooms from her head. She just takes them off and they shoot out and she has lots of them and they just make a cap . . ." Well, there were hand gestures that made that all make more sense than it seems to now. A little bit more.

I have been asked to pass on my own version of what Cara told me about Voom. Let's assume for the purposes of this description that Voom is a girl. She has something that she can shoot out of her head, and it appears to be regenerating, so she can just shoot another one after a while. She also seems to want to go find a planet with aliens and get them all out of the way, so that people can build houses there. It sort of sounded like pioneers settling the western United States.

Cara was very happy this morning because Miss Kathy was going to be at preschool. Miss Kathy apparently brought her children as well. The kids got little Easter bags today with grass and eggs. One egg was made of chalk--hmm. The other one is the usual plastic kind with a couple of jelly beans. Cara was convinced they were not jelly beans, but I don't know why. The kids also dyed eggs--Cara's was pink. She claimed that she dipped it in blue dye, but it "didn't work."

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