It's Turkey Time

We hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving. We celebrated with Matt's parents, and Cara's cousins, Morgan and Grant. Here they are 'cooking' their own thanksgiving dinner. They had everything they needed - a portable cook stove, a stuffed turkey (literally, a fabric cooked turkey), cranberyy sauce, gravy, and even pumpkin pie with whipped cream.

As for the real dinner, Cara enjoyed most everything, even trying mashed potatoes for the first time.

Cara had lots of fun playing pretend with her cousins, and taking "baby" for a ride in the doll stroller mimi had on hand. 'Baby' must have driven miles in that stroller, as Cara pushed her everywhere, often transferring her from stroller to bed multiple times in just a few minutes.

We also attended the annual Cold Turkey Plunge, where brave souls jump into the Atlantic Ocean on Thanksgiving morning to raise money for charity. Unfortunately we were a little late, and missed the actual plunge by a matter of seconds (since that's as long as anyone stays in the water) - but the kids made the best of it by playing in the sand. It actually almost felt like a day at the beach, since it was actually 60 degrees out!

Cara also started putting words together, saying things like "want daddy" "go ride" and "more pease." Other words she's added this week include "rice" "Morgan" "Mimi" "Ella" (elevator), and "juice." Now that we're home, I think she's going through attention withdrawl.

It's All About Baby

Apparently Cara's baby doll, which she calls "baby" likes to help Cara eat her eggs. This morning Cara insisted on bringing baby downstairs (from her crib), and laid her on the table next to her while she was eating. The next thing I know, I look over, and Cara has 'baby' in her lap, and is feeding her eggs. Luckily, eggs wipe off easily.

You may also notice a lovely red mark on her forehead. Cara was walking to the car last week, when she tripped and fell in the garage, scraping her forehead. It looks much worse than it is, and she didn't even cry too badly. Still, everyone we meet, including strangers, wants to know what happened. It hasn't affected her sunny personality though.

The latest

Cara has been on an eating spree of late. At one meal last week she ate 2/3 chicken breast, 1/2 cup of peas, a spinach pancake and a 1/2 pint of blueberries. For dinner tonight she ate another 1/2 pint of blueberries, 2 turkey meatballs, and a 1/4 cup of edamame. This was just a half hour after she ate several pretzels and a cheese stick. I know this is fascinating information, but, hey, this is pretty much my life.

Cara has been doing and saying lots of new things lately. Favorite words are "pooh" - after winnie the pooh, "no, no, no," "cheers," "baby," and "mine!" She is very interested in copying whatever you are doing. So when I was writing in my calendar, she wanted a pen and paper to write on. When I get the broom out, she wants to sweep - which is sometimes very counterproductive.

She also loves walking around the house with various bags - pretending to go "shopping" - she'll grab a bag, walk down the hallway, and say "bye" to me, like she's on some big adventure.

She is just getting to be such a big girl.

It's tThe Great Pumpkin!

Ok, maybe not so great. Just a little pumpkin, or several of them. We got a bunch of tiny sugar pumpkins for the playgroup kids to decorate with stickers at our playgroup halloween party today. All day Cara enjoyed moving them from one place to another. From the coffee table, to the couch, to the play table, and even onto her rocking horse.

She also liked to try to carry two at once. A couple of things I learned...

Pumpkins do, in fact, bounce... and they are sturdier than you would think.

We had lots of friends over for our halloween party, with lots of treats too. There was Alexandra (the chicken), Avery (the belly dancer), Evie (the dog), Vivy (the fairy), Cara (another fairy), Tad (the dragonosaurus), Anthony (the cow, not pictured) and Samantha (the princess - not pictured).

More halloween fun tomorrow!

On Dinner Parties

Thursday night friends of ours from playgroup invited a bunch of us over for a little dinner party. With 8 adults and 4 kids, not to mention a thunderstorm, it could have been total chaos - but it ended up being really fun.

The kids did a wonderful job sitting at their own table eating dinner, and played nicely while the adults ate too. There wasn't even much fighting over toys, which made me happy, since, all day Wednesday and Thursday all Cara had been saying was "mine!"

After dinner, they all had fun playing together on the couch. Jumping over each other, hugging, and generally getting too wound up.

In other news, Cara's newest skill is being able to climb up on the chair I use at my computer desk. Before I can even turn around she's up on the chair, grinning at me, and using the computer mouse to delete all my e-mail. So if you've sent me an e-mail I haven't responded to, blame my little budding Internet expert. She definitely takes after he father.

Tractor Girl

At a loss for something to do this morning, Matt and I took Cara on a quick trip to a local farm one town over. They have apple picking, and pumpkins, and it appears that on weekends they also have all kinds of food and craft vendors.

One of the food booths was selling corn on the cob, one of Cara's favorite foods, so we just had to have some.

We also wandered through the pumpkins, and went to visit the resident goats. Cara and I had been to this farm before, and I thought she had been saying "geese" - but what she was actually trying to say was "goat" - still, it comes out sounding more like "gee." Here she is trying to get a better view of the goats.

The farm store had a bunch of fun stuff, including halloween decorations. One of those decorations was a boar's head hanging on the wall. While Cara was afraid of the head (reminiscent of the stuffed animal moose head at Ra-ra and Poppi's cabin), she kept wanting to go back into the area that had it - pointing up to it and saying something I couldn't understand. Probably something along the lines of "they really shouldn't put something like that where people can see, I think it belongs in a closet with that scary moose head I remember."

Apples, Apples, Everywhere

Wow, it's already October, and Fall is definitely under way. Sorry for the long time between posts, but Ra-ra (Grandma) and Poppi were visiting last week, so we were very busy.

We went apple picking, and did lots of playing outside in the leaves, which are just starting to fall. Poppi even taught Cara how to clean out the gutters.

Cara has been working on saying lots of new words. Her favorite so far is "down" - which can mean "put me down," "put that down," or "Maddie! down! don't eat my cheese." She has also decided that mommy is not allowed to hold any other babies. Several days ago I was holding her friend Viviane, and she pointed to Vivi in my arms, then touched the ground and said "DOWN!" in a very insistent voice. So bossy!

Here's a picture of Evie, Cara and Vivi after music class the other day. Cara really likes the music class - it's mostly just shaking various instruments, running around in circles and generally making noise. What could be more fun for a 15 month old?

Other words Cara is working on include "beas" (please), "duh" (duck), "doh-gee" (doggie), and "wugga-wugga" (wiggles).

She has also been on a hugging spree. She wants to hug all of her friends, whether or not they really want hugs. It could be that Cara's hugs are a little intimidating, since she tends to bestow them at a full run.

Full House

Sorry for the delay in posting a new message. It has been a very busy week, although most of the activities have been pretty normal, so not too much to write about. Plus, I've been very tired the past couple of days, since Cara is getting 2 new molars, and therefore not sleeping well at night.

Last Thursday Blair invited Cara and I over to celebrate Rosh Hashanah with her family. Blair had her father, sister and brother-in-law, as well as cousins there. It was really nice to be included, and the food was fabulous. I didn't try the gefilte fish (although the general comment was that it didn't taste anything like gefilte fish because Blair bought it from our upscale grocery store in town, rather than buying the stuff that comes in jars at the super market). But there was also matzoh ball soup, brisket, and salmon, and some fabulous kugel and rugelach. Cara was fairly pre-occupied with hanging out with the kids, so she didn't end up trying much. She ate a couple of bites of soup and matzoh ball, and then mainly ate her string cheese, and topped it off with a little frozen yogurt - nothing like a balanced diet. What was even better was that Matt and I got to go over the next night for leftovers!

This weekend Cara started her swim class. It was pretty much the same routine as last time - singing songs and splashing around for a half hour. Matt was in the pool with her, and I was watching outside (it was too dark to take pictures). But I went into the pool area for a minute, which was a mistake - even though I left right away, once Cara saw me she kept looking for me everywhere and not paying attention to class.

On Sunday, Kelsey, Morgan and Grant came over for a little playtime and pizza. We also got some very cute pictures of the 3 of them. Morgan was also very patient with Cara while they were picking the last of the blueberries off of the bushes by the deck. Cara kept pointing to the plants and "asking" Morgan to get the high up ones for her to eat. Good thing Morgan doesn't like blueberries herself, there weren't more than a dozen left anywhere on the bush.

Last night we had some more friends over - our neighbor down the street, and her 3 kids, Julia, Charlie and Sophie. Cara was fascinated with Sophie, who is only 4 months old. She wanted to rock her and touch her hands and feet. I think she was trying to figure out if she was real or just a doll.

Blair, Max and Bella also came over, and the 6 kids (minus sophie) had a great time chasing each other around. They took all of Cara's toys out onto the screened in porch, and the girls set up a "changing table" for the dolls, and the boys ran around playing dinosaur. It was chaos, but fun to watch, and Cara had a ball.

Grandma is coming on Wednesday night - so there should be some more fun pictures soon!

Little miss fix-its

It's amazing how fast two little girls can get into so much trouble... The other night we were over to Blair's house for dinner. Bella and Cara were playing with a doll stroller, racing it down the hallway. At some point the wheel broke off of the stroller - but no one seemed very upset by this, and the kids went on playing, running in and out of Bella's and Max's rooms. A short while later everything got quiet. When things get quiet with three kids in the house, you know something is brewing. A few minutes later, Max comes out to say "Bella is doing something very bad" - When I went to check, I found Cara and Bella in Blair's room, huddled over the broken stroller wheel, over which Bella was pouring an entire bottle of Elmer's glue. The wheel, and good portion of the rug and not to mention the two girls, were covered in glue. The girls looked up at my intrusion, and you could see they were so pleased... thinking "look! We're fixing it OURSELVES!!!" These two are T-R-O-U-B-L-E

Cara has started trying to say some new words. Today we were watching the Baby Einstein "Baby MacDonald" video, which is about life on a farm. Rather than trying to say the animal names, like a normal kid, Cara's trying to say "tractor" - it comes out like "tra-te" - and she says it everytime a tractor appears on screen. She likes the animals, but doesn't seem overy interested in trying to name them.

We've also been playing a game during her bath, where I put a little rubber duck on the edge of the tub and cover it with a cup. Then I say "abra-cadabra" and slide the duck out into my hand below - and show her the empty cup. This game never gets old, and Cara will play it in the tub until I make her get out. So tonight at dinner I gave her a little bowl of peas to eat, after she finished all the ones on her plate. She ate most of them, but when there were just a couple of peas left, she turned the bowl upside down and said "abbbra-ra" and lifted it up and laughed. Apparently she was trying to make her peas disappear by magic.

We were also delighted to have a quick visit from Uncle Evan today. Cara was thrilled when he came out to say hi while she was eating her breakfast.

Here, Evan is demonstrating his babysitting skills while I ran upstairs to do some laundry - apparently sinks work very well as makeshift play-pens. Evan is nothing if not resourceful. For her part, Cara was having a blast. I should have remembered Evan's philosophy about kids... "hey, babies pretty much take care of themselves."

ACK!

We are back from our week long trip to Nantucket. It was a great week, and the weather was perfect every day. We spent a lot of time at the beach, although we didn't go in the water much, since the water was pretty cold.

We left out house at 3:15am (yes, as in, the middle of the night) to drive to Hyannis to catch the 7:30am ferry to Nantucket. We were supposed to get up at 2:15, and leave by 3 - but Matt set the alarm wrong, and luckily I woke up at 2:54 in a panic. The idea was that Cara would sleep in the car on the way to the ferry... and she did... a little. But she was still awake for most of the trip, and then very tired for the 2 hour ferry ride. Matt and I took turns taking cat naps and chasing her all over the boat.

The car ferry (this is the first time we've taken it) takes 2 hours to get from Hyannis to Nantucket. By contrast, the hy-line high speed ferry takes just under and hour to do the same trip - but it's a passenger only ferry. There are 2 car ferries that service nantucket - "the nantucket" and "the eagle." We had the nantucket on the way out - and it was not in the best shape. The eagle was much nicer - we had that on the way back.

Still, we arrived on Nantucket by 9:45, and were at Mimi and Bapa's house 15 minutes later. Then Cara and I took a nice long nap.

Later that evening we did dinner on the beach - a Nantucket tradition. It was windy, but beautiful.

We had a lot of fun on the beach all week - and went to beaches all over the island, including one we could only get to by boat.

As we were always looking for things to keep the little miss occupied until naptime, on Thursday and Friday we rented bikes and went riding around town. Cara really seemed to like it!

When we went back on Friday, cara pointed to the helmets on the wall and made the sign language sign for "please" - so apparently she was eager to go again. Whenever we'd go down a hill, you could hear her saying "wheeee!!!" Definitely something we will do again.

We ended up leaving Saturday night instead of Sunday morning, since we were worried about the traffic. We took the 5:35 ferry, and were home by 11:30pm - not too bad really.

So, we're back home and already have a full week planned. Cara starts her swim class next weekend, and we're seeing a bunch of friends this week so there should be lots of events to write about!

Peas Please!

Another weekend has come and gone, and with it, many more meals. I don't know why, but it felt like we did a lot of eating this weekend.

Here is Cara's dinner from Friday night. Yes, she is using a fork, and doing rather well with it too. However, it is apparently very difficult to get peas speared efficiently. She missed her mouth so many times, Maddie was having a blast waiting underneath her chair. Even when she eats peas with her hands, she eats them one at a time.... it is an excruciating process, particularly because she loves peas, so she will eat every single one of them on her plate before touching anything else. Grapes, we learned, are also difficult to get on a fork. The potato pancake worked much better - but she didn't really want to eat it herself, and ended up trying to feed most of that to mommy. Watermelon is easy to spear with a fork - but harder to get off the fork if it's a big piece. This whole learning to eat thing takes a lot of patience!

We also did some very adventurous eating out.... On Saturday night we went to a Mexican restaurant with some friends - well, 3 other couples with a total of 6 children between them (14 people in all). I thought this sounded like a complete recipe for disaster - but it ended up being really fun.

Cara had a chicken taco with beans and rice. She liked the rice a lot, and ate some of the chicken out of the taco - this was until she spied Bella's chicken fingers and fries. Now, you may wonder why we didn't order her chicken fingers and fries in the first place... well, up until now Cara wouldn't eat chicken fingers - she didn't like the breading - but, as seems the case fairly often, when she sees someone (especially an older kid) eating something, she's willing to try it. In any case, Cara ended up eating Bella's dinner too.

One of the mothers also had the very good idea to bring along a portable dvd player - so when the kids finished their food, the parents actually got to eat their dinner in relative peace while the kids watched toy story.

Actually, kids from other tables came over to watch as well. There is a great business idea in there somewhere!

Shoe-La-La

Ask pretty much any woman, and she'll tell you that there is nothing better than shopping for shoes - but who knew that shopping for little girl's shoes was even more fun than shopping for your own.

My friend Blair and I left the kids at home, and had a blast shopping for them at the "big" mall about 45 minutes away. Shopping for clothes for the kids was certainly entertaining, but the real fun was the shoes. Up until now Cara has pretty much worn the leather moccasin shoes called "Robeez" - which are wonderful and comfortable, and do a really good job of staying on little feet (no mean task, I might add) - not to mention that they're really cute. But now that Cara is walking all over the place, especially outside, she really needs tougher shoes.

When we were in Seattle, Grandma and Poppi took her to buy her first pair of shoes at the ultimate shoe paradise - Nordstroms. The pink and brown sneakers they got her have been very popular - and seem very comfortable. We also got her a cute pair of brown mary-janes style shoes - but they ended up being a little big, which became evident when I put them on her and she looked like a Clydesdale thumping around the house. So today's trip was partly to return those shoes and find something else that would be very wearable this fall.

Well, I really shouldn't shop with Blair, because she convinced me not only to return the shoes for another pair - but to buy an additional pair at the same time.

The brown pair was for the exchange - and the silver/gray pair was just a bonus. I wasn't even sure what she was going to wear them with - until we saw the new collection of clothes at Cara's favorite children's clothing store - "Janie and Jack". It was fate. And the silver shoes look so very, very cute on her.

Here they are in action...

We had lots of fun when we came home, as Bella, Max and Cara all gave us a little fashion show of their favorite new outfits

.

Here is Max in his new car themed shirt and hat, and Cara in a lavender sweater and blouse with silver trimming.

And Cara, sans pants, showing off her first J-Crew t-shirt (yes, J-Crew now sells kids clothes).

And here is Cara in her lavender blazer, holding her purple jumper, and you can also really see her shoes in the next picture, as she isn't wearing any pants to detract from them.

I have to say that I really haven't enjoyed shopping this much in a long time. I don't know if it was just because we actually had 2.5 hours to actually focus on the task at hand, or just that kids clothes and shoes are really cute - in any case it was a good day.

Thank Goodness for "The Wiggles"

I would never have guessed that I would be thanking an all-male Australian band for helping me get through the day, but there it is....

For those of you who don't know - "The Wiggles" are 4 Australian guys (plus a couple of minor other characters) that sing silly songs, dance, and generally act silly for a half hour a day on playhouse disney. Unfortunately it's on at the same time as Sesame Street, but thanks to the magic of Tivo - I can record one-week of sesame street, and then the next week of the wiggles, and have enough episodes of each to get me through those rough days, like today. This works especially well since Cara appears to like the shows more and more when they are repeated. It's like when I was 8 or so, and watched "The Princess Bride" more than two dozen times one summer - it got better every time!

I know, I know, I'm a horrible mother for letting my daughter watch any television at all... but hey, it's not like I'm letting her watch "Deadwood" - although I've been tempted some days... there are times I feel very much like talking like Al Swerengen.

And Cara absolutely loves the Wiggles, but then, what's not to like for a one-year-old. They wear bright colors - the songs they sing are very repetative, and about things like drinking water and driving a red car - and they have a pirate who wears magic buttons (whose theme song I can't get out of my head --- ever!).

So, why am I thanking them today? Well - Cara had a bit of a rough night. She woke up around midnight, and couldn't get back to sleep for a while. Whenever she has a bad night, the day after is usually a wash, if not worse. We did go to the music class -which she enjoyed - and then went down for her nap. But for whatever reason she only napped for 45 minutes (her usualy nap is at least 2 hours, and sometimes as long as 4 hours) - so this meant that she was super cranky by late afternoon. This is not a girl who does well without sleep. I would have put her down for a second nap - but she wasn't really tired until after 4:30 - and if she napped then, she's be awake until 10 o'clock at night - throwing schedules off world-wide.

So, in order to keep her happy I tried all the tricks - we had snacks, we had friends over, we went for a walk (which included a 10 minute crying session after she bonked herself on the head with her sippy-cup) - but she was just not happy. When we got back from the walk, I sat her down on the couch, got her some goldfish (the ultimate one-year-old comfort food), and turned on the wiggles. We watched 2 episodes (about 45 minutes worth), which managed to get me to dinner time without a major tantrum. It may not seem like much, but when you have a cranky baby, this is a major accomplishment.

So, if it takes me a wiggles episode or two (or 5), to make sure I have a relative tantrum-free day - it's totally worth it.

The Complexities of "Ring-Around-The-Rosie"

What do you do with a cranky one-year-old on a very rainy day? You bring over friends to play of course. Today was particularly gross, with heavy, cold, rain all day. So we invited Cara's friend Evie over to play. The girls had a wonderful time taking everything out of every drawer and cabinet they could find - they particularly liked the pizza and cookie pans - they made wonderful bangs when hit on the floor.

At one point we tried to play "ring-around-the-rosie" but ran into a stumbling block when Evie refused to hold Cara's hand. Cara was most insistant that you couldn't do the song, unless Evie held her hand. She basically ended up chasing Evie all over the family room, trying to grab her hand and hold her in one place for the song. When they got to the part of "and we all fall down" - Cara gave Evie a little help (not exactly a shove, but definitely a strong suggestion) that she fell down. Then Cara was equally perturbed when Evie would not get up (despite much pulling on her hand) to play the game again.

Luckily, Evie is very forgiving, and didn't seem to mind too much being manhandeled by Cara.

This is a picture of Cara giving Evie a "hug" - Cara's hug basically consists of her resting her head on whoever is on the receiving end of the hug. Still, it was a very nice gesture.

So we managed to survive an entire rainy day inside. We're trying out a music class tomorrow - which could be a riot. I don't know if I'll have pictures from the class - but I'll try.

The trouble with orange

Orange is a great color - but when you dress a little girl in orange, there arise some minor issues.

Here was Cara's outfit today (see picture):

An olive sweatshirt (with orange, hot pink and yellow flowers on it), an orange polo shirt, olive khaki pants and pink sneakers.

Now, I admit that olive is a very neutral color, and apparently, so is orange - since everyone on the playground today thought she was a boy. No one seemed to notice the flowers or the sneakers - and I really think it threw me. I mean, I like pink and all, but it is nice to be able to dress kids in more than one color. Ok, I could get away with purple too.

There was another little girl in gender neutral colors at the park - but she had lots of cute curly hair - and just looked like a girl. Cara's still at that age (and hair stage) where you can't really tell. It didn't really bother me that people thought she was a boy (she was trying to play with the toy trucks and cars after all) - especially since I've spent most of my life being confused for a boy (because of my name, hopefully not because of how I look).

Other colors that are hard to distinguish if a baby is a boy or girl: green, red, tan, white, orange, brown and black. I think in the future I will also try to put a girly hair-clip in Cara's hair - maybe that will help. On a side-note, Cara has graduated from the itsy bitsy hair clips, to larger ones. If anyone has good suggestions for where to find good barrettes (the ones that flex open and closed) I'd love to hear suggestions. The best ones I've found so far have been in H&M - not a store I would have guessed, but one of Cara's friends gets her clips there.

In addition to our trip to the park, we also registered for fall swimming today. Cara loves the water, and has recently learned to hold onto the side all by herself. She saw a friend of hers do it, and was determined to try. I was actually really impressed, as I didn't think she would understand to hold on and not let go.

It will be interesting to see what she learns in her next swim class.

It's good to have friends

Even when you're only one-year-old, it's good to have friends. It's even more important in you're the mom of a one-year-old.

I'm lucky in that my next-door neighbor is also one of my best friends. And she has two adorable children, who are 4 and 2, and perfect foils for my little terror of a daughter. So tonight, we had our neighbors and their children, Max and Bella, over for pizza. After some minor squabbling between Bella and Cara over who owned the princess sippy-cup with the straw, everything settled into a normal rhythm.

Cara simply adores the older kids, especially Max, who, at 4, is the sweetest little boy I have ever met. He is so good to Cara, and takes especially good care of her. They all enjoyed chasing each other around the house, putting various amusing inflatable toys on their heads, and getting "airplane rides" from the mommies after they'd had a couple of glasses of wine (the moms, not the kids).

Bella and Cara are so much alike, although a year apart in age, which is why they ended up near fisticuffs over the sippy cup. When they get older - watch out... these are two kids who are destined to think up all kinds of trouble together. I'm hoping Max will be there to keep them under control.

Pizza was great fun, and Cara and Bella's dad discussed business ideas that would get them both out of the rat race. Ideas ranged from running a cheese/chocolate/pastry business (well, we all like to eat), to creating the next children's toy boom, to winning the lottery. Although I'm not sure winning the lottery really counts as a business plan... although it would be nice.

Baby Tornado

It is amazing how much trouble a one-year-old can get into in just seconds. Here is the little miss, playing inside the spice cupboard. I was attempting to make dinner, and she was playing at taking out the spices and putting them back in again. I also thought that everything was sealed. Not so...

That is vanillan sugar all over the floor, which, by the way, gets very sticky when it gets wet.

Not to mention I am now out of vanillan sugar, the key ingredient to everyone's favorite Christmas cookie - brunkaka.

This "before" and "after" literally took about 30 seconds. The time it took me to cut up an onion to put in the chicken piccata I was attempting to make for dinner. This is why I don't cook often anymore.

It seriously is simply exhausting to try and keep her out of trouble. I literally need to follow her around all day just to make sure she hasn't gotten into anything. It is a wonder we ever manage to eat, let alone get anything cleaned up. I really need to find another child lock for the spice cabinet that she can't break into. That is one messy cabinet. She also found the garbage the other day. She thought is was very amusing to put all of her toys and cups into the garbage. Life certainly isn't dull.