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5/5/05

So last night Cara was fussy for a good bit. She wailed off and on for what may have been over four hours, starting around 7. I told Evie to go to sleep around 11 and rocked and carried the baby around for about a half an hour, until I was sure she was good and sleepy. Then I got a half hour's sleep on our couch (wow! we have a comfortable couch) until the baby woke up and started making noise again, around midnight. Ev had been hoping that the baby could stay down until around 1, but I was only able to keep her quiet until around 12:20 or so. But after that feeding it was a fairly standard night, I think--I went up to bed and stayed there, pretty much.

Today was a big working day for me, because my computer has been down for a while and someone from work was actually asking me how I was doing on all the projects they tossed at me. So I sat down and got through around seven hours of work, which cut a little chunk out of my assignments. Evie very nicely took care of the baby and went out and did some shopping and stuff for tomorrow, when my grandparents will be coming over to see Cara. They are flying in all the way from New Mexico, so it's a special occasion! Though Cara is already their third great-grandchild. In the evening I had a beer in honor of Cinco de Mayo. Well, not really, I had a beer because I wanted one. It's an interesting number date today, and much earlier in Evie's pregnancy, when the original due date still sounded feasible, we had thought about the possibility of getting an easy-to-remember birthday like 5/5/05. But it was not to be...

My allergies have been impressive today, which is a shame, because Evelyn gets worried that I will wake the baby with my sneezes. In fact I managed to upset Cara just lately with a nice sneeze attack. She was in my arms, apparently asleep, but the sneeze startled her and she went off. Cara has been fairly fussy today, but Evie says she read somewhere that fussiness can be a sign of growth, change and development--I just hope she's not growing a tail. Evie also claims that the white noise of a vacuum cleaner can calm a baby, so we'll get to try that out pretty soon.

...Turns out the vacuum does work. Who knew? Spock, that's who!

I've been developing the idea of "babies flying through space in a baby spaceship," which I sometimes sing or talk to Cara about. I know, it's very strange, but there you are.

Well, Cara is crying again, so maybe I'll vaccum the stairs.

5/6/05

First of all, I have to put in here that yesterday I got Cara's birth certificate in the mail. I forgot to mention it! Everything is spelled right.

Last night, based on a passage Ev read in Spock, we decided our tactic of leaving bright lights on in the room where Cara was sleeping was exactly the wrong thing to do, so we used a dimmer light. It was a pretty good night with some fairly solid sleeping and regular feeding times. This morning as I was going in and out of sleep I had some kind of dream about watching a solar eclipse happen. Then I woke up and stared directly at my alarm clock, which read 7:37--the exact time of Cara's birth. Whoa...

Then we got up and made some preparations for the arrival of my grandparents, who duly arrived. We got some very nice handmade gifts, including a needlepoint and a poem written by Cara's great grandmother. Then I went out and fired up our grill for the first time this year to cook a honey mustard type of chicken Evie put together, and we had a pretty nice lunch. Cara was good and fussy and everyone got a chance to try to quiet her down. She ended up in great grandmom's arms and got sung to and finally went to sleep. She also had a nice quiet awake period during which my father mercilessly filmed her. Cara likes to be filmed, actually.

We polished off the visit with a game of Wizard (a trumping card game, for those of you who don't know) which Ev and I won together since we each had exactly the same score, then I jumped onto my computer for some exciting work from home. Then we decided to get the heck out and go to Friendly's for dinner. It was another restaurant trip for Cara, and she was once again a little angel--totally asleep through the whole thing. I have to think the background noise of the restaurant keeps her under. On the drive home she started up with the crying, and now that we're home she's getting fed.

It was so nice to see the grandparents again--four generations came together today (and you can bet we got pictures of it)! And we'll be seeing them again on Mother's Day, which is very appropriate. Meanwhile tomorrow we'll be seeing some friends, and Heather will get to see Cara in person for the first time.

Everyone thinks Cara has long fingers. Her eye color is still up in the air--many say dark blue, but recently I've begun to think I see a greenish hue somewhere in the depths. It's weird how it's so hard to tell. At Friendly's, just to cover all the bases, the staff gave us a kid's menu and a knife and fork and napkin for Cara. Not yet! Also the waitress gave me a child size sundae, even though it wasn't what I asked for. Hmm...

On the new photos page for Cara, you can now see a photo Ev took yesterday of Cara. Ev is disappointed, because she says it looked much funnier in person. Cara's pacifier was hanging from her mouth, just dangling there at the very point of falling out.

Update: Ev has requested I tack on what she calls one of her favorite baby moments so far. Cara's great-grandparents arrive at our house and Ev comes down to greet them, holding Cara against herself. Cara promptly spits up all over Ev's shirt. Timing, timing, timing! Incidentally Cara spat up several times in the beginning of the visit, leading different people to two different conclusions: 1) Cara is not hungry, since she is spitting up the food she's just eaten. 2) Cara must be hungry, because she just spat up all the food she ate. Ha!

Another Update: This one about terminology. I call a pacifier a pacifier. My mother and father call it a "plug." Grandmom mentioned that out in New Mexico, Sheri calls it a "binky," which may possibly be a British way of referring to it. Evie likes to call it a popper, which goes very well with "flappers," Cara's arms (also Cara can make some very nice popping noises while sucking on it--as Dad remarked today, she sounds very similar to Maggie on The Simpsons). It allows one to say quaint things like "She knocked out her popper with her flappers."

5/7/05

Cara is now officially one month old! To celebrate, Ev gave her a bath and a change of clothes (see pictures of this). We are minutes away from a friendly gathering here, and will hopefully have a happy day. Cara did not scream through her whole bath this time, because Evie covered her with a wash cloth and kept her warm in the tub. Probably that's why. However, no matter how happy she may have been this morning, she was a little demon last night from around 10:30 pm to 12:30 am. Evie fed Cara all that she possibly could, but Cara had no interest in falling asleep. She screamed like a banshee instead. Evie was drained and went off to sleep, and it was baby shift time for me. I had spent an hour or so earlier doing some work. Now I had to do baby work.

I tried everything to try to make that baby quiet. One of the first things I tried was to walk her down to the dining room and game room where it is dark. Spock says dim light can help (as we read a couple days ago), and I had already noticed that when Cara is suddenly moved into a much brighter or much darker place, it can kind of shock her into silence. However, she had already worked up a good mad before I got her downstairs, so it was too late for that. I tried rocking her, carrying her around, bouncing her, keeping her still on my lap, draping her over my shoulder; I even tried playing the keyboard a little. Every time I got her quiet, a few minutes later she was off again. The pacifier worked a little, but she would always either spit it out, knock it out, or just start yelling with it still in her mouth. Eventually I was getting up to walk her around again and I thought to myself, "Okay, walking her around isn't working; what if I jog?" And that is exactly what I did. I held her in my arms and jogged in a circle in the darkened dining room. And you know what? It worked. She quieted down, and I slowly decreased my pace until I was walking (a bit unsteadily) in circles. I tried to keep this up until she got really sleepy, but she went off again after ten minutes or so. Still, ten minutes was the longest amount of time I had had her quiet so far that evening.

Anyways, I gave up on the dark room thing after that and took her back into the living room, and stuck her in the car seat that was on the floor by the kitchen. I rocked her in that for about fifteen minutes, and she slowly quieted and seemed to go to sleep. Ever so slowly, I woke up my legs and stood up, then moved the car seat over by the play yard and put a blanket on her. I crept slowly away, up to my bed. I was still standing by the bed, not yet in, listening to Cara making little noises, when sleepy Evelyn said "Get in bed." So I did, and the next thing I knew it was 6 am. I thought, "Oh my God! The baby never woke up and it's been almost six hours!" I jumped up and looked in the living room to find her sleeping peacefully in the play yard--Ev had gone down at around 3:20 and watched the baby wake up and fed her, without my waking up.

Heather's here! I'm off.

5/8/05

Well, I have some journaling to do now. We had a nice time with all of our buddies, and they had a nice time with the baby. Heather got to hold Cara a bit, and though I admitted that when Cara finally calms down after a fussy fit, it's usually just when she gets tired, not because of whoever happens to be holding her at the moment, a couple of people had the modest satisfaction of seeing Cara calm down while in their arms. We had some grilled hot dogs and some other nice foods, and played some games, most of which were enjoyable (and I think we can blame the band AC/DC for any moments which were not enjoyable), and Heather became very overactive with a toy monkey puppet which we may eventually be able to try on Cara. Then Claire and the family settled down for some Chinese food and a Harry Potter movie which happened to be on TV. Then Claire left just as Cara was being fed. Last night was very much like the previous night, with Ev feeding the baby and going to bed while I tried to chase away the fussies. It was another session in the darkened dining room (no jogging this time, just some rocking and position changes), followed by a short session in the car seat, then a transfer to the play yard where I swaddled her up, held her arms in for a while, and decided she was finally calmed down enough for me to go up to bed.

In the morning we hung about a bit and then prepared Cara for her longest trip yet--off to see her great-grandparents and grandparents again, this time at my parents' house, for an excellent Mother's Day dinner! The trip was fairly uneventful, except that while Evelyn was "resting her eyes" I totally forgot which exit we usually get off the Turnpike at, and we ended up taking a slightly alternate route. We made it all the way to the house without baby waking up or making any particularly loud noises. For the first time, we made use of a mirror that Evie bought which you can set up on the back seat of the car, so that you can see the baby's face as she sits in the rear-facing car seat. Clever! Though I didn't check it much, as it is probably not meant to be used by the driver of the vehicle.

Rusty, my parents' dog (and other spoiled grandchild) got his first taste of baby. His reaction to the baby was fascinating. Usually when we arrive, Rusty is ecstatic and jumps on me at least three or four times, despite everyone's attempts to dissuade him. This time, he cared nothing for me. Usually Evie gets to play with Rusty using one of his toys, but not this time. Rusty was utterly drawn to the baby. For the first hour or so, whenever the baby made a noise he barked. He was constantly wandering over to her play yard (which we brought with us--it's a very useful product, it is) to sniff and attempt desperately to stare down into the bassinet. He tried multiple times to come over and sniff and lick her when she was being held by people, but I don't think he was ever successful--though I did notice a moist receiving blanket which I think was (for once) not moistened by the baby. I discovered that Rusty reacts to our laser pointer in much the same way that our cats do--by chasing the red dot around and trying to trap it with his paws. He then sniffed suspiciously at the ground for several minutes after the red dot had disappeared, waiting for it to return. Mostly, though, he was interested in the baby, though he was tempted away by our meal and by a nice trip out back. It is unclear to me whether he thought the baby was a threat to the other household members, or whether he was just excitedly curious, or whether he was jealous. The baby had little to say to him, and barely seemed to react to his barking, which was surprising.

It occurred to me that we should have taken baby's stroller, as it was a lovely day and we could have taken her for a walk. But we missed our chance. Great-grandmom, however, had the chance to actually feel the force of one of Cara's farts on her hand as she was holding the baby; exciting stuff. Dad got out his tripod and actually managed to get a nice big family picture which, through the magic of digital technology, we almost immediately viewed on his giant screen television (a smaller version will probably appear in the photos section very soon; as soon as Dad emails it to me). Jim and Sarah, also there for the day, had to leave to visit Sarah's mother and complete their Mother's Day rounds; Ev and I had a longer drive and got in the car to go straight home. It ended up taking more than two hours, as the Turnpike was backed up and we again took an alternate route. When traffic stopped, Cara started to emit little groans, but once we were off the Turnpike and moving again, she settled down and was quiet the rest of the way home. Of course, once we got home she woke up and went off. But now she has been fed again and seems pretty ok.

While checking out Dad's digital photos on the big TV, we had graphic evidence of how much Cara has grown since her first day on Earth. Her cheeks especially have filled out. I realize I haven't mentioned yet that I think sometimes Cara honks like a goose. It's just one of those touching little details that need to go in the journal, you know. Cara does a lot of "bobbling" around if you hold her against your chest; I think she's really showing a lot of strength in her neck and head, not to mention her little pinchy hands. She also pushes quite hard with her legs (which by the way are really beginning to fill out her newborn-sized clothing--we may soon have to move up to the next size range, in the next drawer of the dresser!), almost as if she could stand if she wanted to. Cara's greatest asset is that she is adorable--it helps immeasurably when she is being particularly fussy to recall what a pretty babyface she is.

Cara and Mommy got some nice presents for Ev's first Mother's Day, including a cute little baby carriage picture frame with a picture of Cara in it, and a bunny ice pack for "boo-boos" (also a silly word, but not as off limits as "poopy," even though I've now used that word twice). We'll get to see just how much Cara has grown tomorrow when we take her to the pediatrician for her one-month "well baby" examination. I hope to spend some time this evening getting back to my work. We'll see how that goes. Tune in tomorrow for Cara's weight!

5/9/05

First of all: 8 lbs., 8 oz.!

This is a good weight. I actually had expected her to be even heavier, but since she was 6 lb., 1 oz. the last time she was at the pediatrician, this is good. Her measurements (such as height/length and head size) are also all within the average for her age, so all is well. Cara nicely spat up, provided us with a bowel movement in her diaper, spat up again, and peed on the scale when she was weighed. She also screamed so much while the doctor was looking at her that the poor woman had difficulty examining her eyes. But I felt much more comfortable in the doctor's office than on the previous two visits, when Ev and I were much newer to the whole parenting thing. Of course, it's not like we're experts now, but this time I thought it was funny that we had to change Cara's outfit, instead of nearly panicking about it.

The doctor suggested that we start alternating the side Cara lays on, as she is detecting some head flattening. This sounds freaky, but babies have soft heads and now that people are supposed to always lay them on their backs, babies are more likely to end up with asymetrical heads. Dr. Chen (we've seen the same doctor for all three of our visits there, which is nice) said it was a "purely cosmetic" thing, and I doubt Cara's head will be really misshapen even if we always let her turn her head to the same side, but we'll have to try to keep track of that from now on. Dr. Chen also talked to us about massaging Cara's tear ducts, because she seemed concerned about her "leaky eyes." I think she was creating a problem so that she'd have something to say to us, though I suppose it would explain all the eye gunk we were noticing a few weeks ago. Still, I think the eye gunk was forming simply because Cara had her eyes closed a lot, and it hasn't been as bad lately now that she is awake for longer periods with her eyes open. We'll have to see whether her eyes have any leakage problems as time goes on...

Last night was interesting. It was Mother's Day, so it was exactly the wrong day for me to let Evelyn stay up and take care of the baby while I went to bed. However, on her suggestion, that is exactly what I did (by the way, I got at most fifteen minutes of work done, and spent the rest of the evening eating and watching episodes of Queer Eye). And in fact it looked like it was going to be a quiet night at first, because Ev fed the baby and she actually went to sleep, and Ev came up to bed. However, at around 3:30 the fussiness happened again, and I went down to try to "deal with" Cara. I couldn't do much. I tried lots of stuff, but she always started up again, even if I was able to get a few minutes of quiet. Cara (and probably most other babies) calms down when you use big motions on her, or sudden changes of position or environment. Like I mentioned before, moving her from very bright to dark or from dark to bright light makes her stop and pay attention, but also getting up and walking her around when she's been still for a while helps, and switching your holding position; and big rocking motions (not just tiny side to side motions, but big sweeping motions that extend your arms all the way in either direction) make Cara pause in fascination. I think she enjoys the ride. Last night I laid her on a pillow and then lifted the pillow up and down, and this quieted her very effectively. Unfortunately, both the pillow and Cara (at 8 lbs., 8 oz.) were a lot for me to go on lifting and putting down for the time required to get her to go to sleep (maybe I need to get back to the gym and practice for baby reps!). Eventually at around 5 Evie came down and decided it was time for another feeding. I went off to bed again, and according to Ev, the rest of the evening was ok.

After we got back from the doctor's this morning, I discovered that my co-worker had emailed me important files last Thursday that I had never received. These files, of course, are very time sensitive. I seem to have email problems, though it seems to be only her emails that don't get to me. Anyway, I changed the gerbil, got the files a different way, and have just spent the past four hours reviewing them--whew! Meanwhile, Evie was trying to quiet the baby and eat lunch--not something you can do at the same time, unfortunately. A little while ago she went out with Cara to visit the library and the park for a nice walk--she has not yet returned. That brings us up to the present. Now that I've had this pleasant break, I may actually eat something, but then it's back to work...

5/10/05

Last night went well, I believe, with the baby sleeping for three hours and then waking up to eat in a pretty regular way. This morning we had a nice breakfast and then Evie had the idea to go to our local park and have a picnic with Cara. We "sold out" and went to Subway for some sandwiches, then it was off to the park. It was a beautiful day and we had a nice stroll; our sandwiches were pretty good, too. Unfortunately, Cara decided she wasn't particularly happy with the whole thing--some wailing occurred--and we cut our picnic a little bit short, but I'm sure there can be many other outings in the future with longer walks.

Today I decided it was time to switch to a different brand of diaper. We had previously switched from the Pampers newborn diapers to Huggies ones, but I just don't think they work right. Maybe it all depends on the shape of your baby, but these Huggies just don't fit her the way diapers are supposed to fit. In a completely unrelated note, I discovered how to take the fabric cover off our car seat today... Whether I'll ever get it back on correctly is another story.

We did laundry, grocery shopping, washed the dishes (all of these mainly done by Evie), and I did some good work from home. I had some time with baby while Ev was out shopping, and we listened to Marvin Gaye and 10,000 Maniacs. I sang along and Cara looked at me with flappy interest. I discovered it is surprisingly difficult to make Cara lie on the left side of her head rather than her right. I tried turning her head manually, but it just went back. Then I tried switching her twirling bears to the other side of her play yard so she might turn to look at them--but she didn't. I tried to use her squeaky duck to make her turn her head--no good. Even laying her down with her head kind of on the left didn't seem to work. Of course, Evelyn came home, fed the baby, and put her down on her left side--no problem.

We have tried the bigger size Pamper diapers on Cara, and though they are huge, they seem to fit ok. Evie also put Cara into one of her slightly larger size outfits this morning; it was Cara's first time wearing it, and it fit pretty good.

Hmmm...I thought more happened today, but that's all I can think of right now. I took a few pictures of Cara earlier that I'll pop up in the photos section now.

Actually, I can add something that I don't think I've mentioned yet in the journal: Evie is giving Cara vitamins. They come out of a dropper and Evie has discovered how to administer them without Cara spitting it all back out, which is pretty impressive if you ask me. Cara also had a nice bath today. Oh, and she dished out what I think has to be her largest bowel movement in her life so far--yay! Cara won't appreciate my saying this in her later years, but she farts--a lot. Okay, I'll stop now.

5/11/05

I'm coming late to the journal today, but it's been a fairly busy day. Let's deal with last night first, though. It was a doozy for Ev, who had to deal with a fussy baby all night (I got up from time to time to stand around and look at the baby, which I'm sure Evelyn greatly appreciated). Then Cara had some fussy--in fact, near-hysterical--moments today as well. Fortunately she was pretty good for her grandfather, who was hear from around 11 am to around 6 pm to help around the house. He decided to thoroughly, thoroughly power wash the North side of our house, which was growing some greenish stuff on it (those of you who were or are Boy Scouts will know why). Then, having cleverly noticed that one of Ev's car's tires looked low, we systematically checked the pressure on all the tires of both cars and filled up whichever ones were low. Dad brought his power washer, a cool new ladder that converts to lots of different shapes and lengths, and a cool little digital gadget to measure the tire pressure. Unfortunately, just a normal bike pump to pump up the tires, and I quickly worked up a dripping sweat with the little work I did pumping. It was hot today! In fact, in the evening we put Cara into a onesie type outfit, and through the day she did not wear her little waiter undershirt at all. We all three took Cara out for a walk, which was warm but nice. Dad got a few chances to hold Cara, which they both seemed to enjoy a lot.

After the chores, Dad helped us eat some lunch meat, and after our walk we watched our TV programs (While You Were Out and Clean Sweep). During the TV shows I learned that I had more work to do--I had pretty much finished my work from home yesterday, and was hoping for a free day today, but it turns out there is a 200+ page book that I have to look over now! Which is why I got to the journal so late this evening.

The other thing that happened today was that the cats were outside a lot, especially Buster, who much prefers the outside. Evie cleverly dosed them with a flea/tick preventing thing, which they have been trying to lick with some success, and which is making them smell funny, but it's all for the best.

Well, I think that's pretty much our day, and it's late, so I'll sign off.

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