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5/12/05

Yesterday when I wrote up my quick journal entry I had no notion that I was closing up the last day of the fifth week! We are now into week six, which will mark the last week of my paternity leave (I go back to work on 5/18, actually), and the end of my authorship of this journal. It will pass into the capable hands of my wife, who I am already convinced will up-stage me. But I am looking forward to reading about my baby, even though I won't be able to do it too many times at work before they block me from the web page.

It will be very interesting having to adjust to a working schedule again. I am already working rather extensively from home--much more than I had expected before this whole thing started--but it's still going to be much different to have to get up at 6:15 am again and come home about twelve hours later to a baby who still seems to have no notion of night and day! I had actually assumed we would be in a very regular and normal sleeping schedule by this time--perhaps still getting up to feed the baby every three or four hours, but I was ready to handle that. Cara is not ready for schedules yet, though. Last night she was (and of course our baby is an angel and can do no wrong and we love her, yadda yadda yadda) horrible. She has found new volumes and new decibel levels, and is screaming more effectively than ever--now she just seems to do it for four hour periods, even when she's not hungry. Oh, brother... Fortunately, she does eventually get tired, but last night I was trying to keep her quiet for only an hour or two and I nearly hit the edge of my endurance. There were times when I walked her back and forth in the nursery and she was totally quiet, even with closed eyes. But as soon as I put her down and tried to walk away, to my comfy bed, the screams began again. At around 1, Ev took her, fed her, and she finally went to sleep for an extended period. This morning she was back to her screaming tricks again, though, while I was off at the eye doctor.

I haven't been to the eye doctor for a while, and we had to find a new one that was local and took our insurance. We both made appointments for today; mine was first, and I miraculously found the place, and it was even where Yahoo maps said it would be. I decided not to get my pupils dilated, because my other eye doctors never did that and it freaks me out. Tomorrow I have to go back again for a contact lens fitting. Evie left for an afternoon appointment later in the day, and I was so lucky as to have the baby fairly quiet while I worked on reviewing a book for my department at work. True, I spent some time reviewing with the baby in my arms, but this seemed to keep her quiet--when she's really mad, simply holding her is not nearly good enough. You've got to do some big rocking and swaying. Vertical motion seems to be the most effective (I've seen the pediatrician use this trick a couple of times, and stole it from her).

Even though we think the baby is very mean lately, we still managed to get her to go to sleep at a reasonable time for us to all pack into the car and go out to a restaurant. And once again, like all of our previous restaurant trips, baby was quiet through the whole thing. I had mentioned to a few people before the baby was born that I did not intend on being one of "those people." You know, those people who bring their too-young child to a public place and it starts making really annoying noise, and they can't make it stop, but they don't leave. My idea for avoiding being those people was to never take the baby anywhere until she was much older, but we haven't followed that at all, and so far it's been fine. I certainly don't intend to start taking her to cocktail parties and movies, though.

A scary fact from Spock (very rare, since he's usually so comforting) is that baby crying usually peaks at six weeks. We're still a week away from that! Do you mean she can get louder than this? Hmm. And right when she is at her peak, I remind you, Daddy will be going off to work and leaving his wife all alone with the little banshee. I keep telling Cara that irritable babies will fail their psych evaluation and not get into the baby space program, but so far she has not gotten the hint. Evie, however, says she will be perfectly happy by herself. As soon as I tell her how to operate this html-editing program, we'll see just how well she's doing.

By the way, we are back down to using our original Pampers newborn diapers, having bought another package. They still fit her fine, and according to the packaging should continue to fit her until she weighs 10+ lbs. I am reminded of this because Evie is currently changing the baby. We have been told to feed Cara from a bottle at least once every other day, to accustom her to the bottle so she will be able to adjust to it later in her life (around September, when Evie goes back to work). Of course, we'd already seen that Cara could handle a bottle, and now we have license to give Evie a break every once in a while.

Cara is still in her lighter onesie outfit, which leaves her legs and arms pretty much bare. It's been a few warm days, and Spock seems to think it's more dangerous to overheat a baby than the other way, so we are glad to leave her in the outfit. I think the snap systems they use on these baby clothes are ingenious. Cara's current outfit is adjustable, because the bottom flap has two different sets of snaps that it can snap onto on her upper body, depending on her size. Also with this outfit I can randomly play with Cara's feet and legs whenever I want to--ha ha ha! Her feet are cool, and her toes are actually much more flexible than adult toes, since she can splay them out almost like fingers--inadvertantly, of course. I'd like to think that Cara is getting a very little closer to forging a connection between her brain and her arms and hands: I suspect I may have caught her looking at her hands in a somewhat unfocused manner recently. I was able to distract her for a few fleeting minutes with her aquatic wonders toy last night (I too am mesmerized by the swimming fish, moving lights, and bubbles). Also this morning she was definitely looking at the toys on her bouncer while I was spinning them for her, though I couldn't seem to make her look in her mirror. Maybe she won't be a vain baby.

5/13/05

Friday the 13th! If I were superstitious, this would mean something. Last evening I decided to give Cara her first viewing of Star Wars. True, she can barely see anything even when she's looking at it, and she wasn't awake or even present during large chunks of it this time, but can you start too early with this movie? It should be imprinted on her brain! Before the movie was nearly over, Evie went off to take a nap. Cara was in her new fussy plus mood, and I tried lots of things to quiet her. She spat up several times, so I took a look at Spock, who comforted me and made me decide I shouldn't be worried about the spitting up (I already looked at his spitting up passage earlier to comfort myself in this regard). I also looked at his passage about crying and decided I don't have to worry about Cara's fussiness, but I got some basic tips for quieting the baby. More like a check list, and he says that once you've covered the check list, you should be satisfied you've tried a good range of things and if you're still dealing with a noisy baby, maybe it's time to step back and take a break. I dimmed the lights, tried making white noise with my mouth ("Shhhhhhh..." Take a breath: "Shhhhhhh...." and so forth; not particularly effective, if you were wondering), tried the rocking and the bouncing. So far the big vertical movements are the most effective. I also put Cara on her belly draped over her Boppy pillow. I like doing this because it gives her the chance to work on her neck strength and head turning; this time when I tried it, I stuck a pacifier in her mouth and she actually almost fell asleep in that position.

Anyways, Evie took over eventually, perhaps around midnight, and she said the baby was fine after that, with the feedings followed by periods of sleep. She says that as long as I get Cara "over the hump" of nightly fussiness, the rest of the night goes well. As long as we don't have that thing where she gets fussy at three in the morning...

This morning Cara wasn't too bad, we had a nice breakfast of eggs and pancakes (I made the eggs, Ev made the pancakes), and I went off to the eye doctor and decided to get new frames and new contacts.

Let's go back to last night, because Cara had been giving us a lot of wet diapers but nothing else. I asked her last night, when I was changing her, "Are you going to give Daddy a bowel movement?" Well, when I came back from the eye doctor, Evie was listening to Paul Simon and I carried the baby over to the stereo and sang along and rocked her. At this point, she decided to give me her bowel movement. She gave it to me on my shirt. I think before I became a father, I had dreaded these kinds of situations and assumed they were going to annoy me, but actually I found the situation funny. You should enjoy these stories now, because once Evie starts writing the journal you may not get the bodily functions so much...

Evie then gave the baby a bath, which she had been planning on doing anyway, and she got a nice new outfit (one of our favorites, the "Busy Bees" body suit, or "flight suit" as I sometimes call them). Then Evie went off to get herself a pedicure and I was left with a very good baby, who I put on her Boppy (lying on her back this time) and she got nice and comfortable and fell asleep, so I moved Cara and Boppy all into the play yard and did some work. Then Ev came back and we got Evie ready to go off and visit her parents. We packed up the stroller, the diaper bag, and the play yard. I unfortunately have been forced to stay here at home and for the last few hours have been working. It's nice to be needed, I guess...

Now I am obviously taking a break to write this journal entry. Hopefully Evie had a nice time with baby and baby's grandparents, but it could be tomorrow before I get a chance to write about it. Or it could be even later than tomorrow, because tomorrow the family will be taking a long car trip to visit my Aunt Sally. Plenty of family will be there and I'm sure we'll have a ball--perhaps everyone can hear some good loud screams from Cara!

Ok, I'm going to go and watch ads for Episode III on the internet.

5/14/05

Evie didn't get home until 11:30 last night! She wasn't quite in time to see me watching the end of Friday the 13th Part VI. I think it was part six... Before that I had watched something much better: Doctor Who. Ev and baby had a nice time and Cara's grandma had a good chance to hold the baby. Cara's great-grandma was also there! The lateness of Ev's arrival back home was due to the fact that we are now somewhat on the baby's schedule more than on our own--one must feed Cara and get her sleepy before going anywhere. When we got Evie in the house and we were ready for bed, we crept right off and left the sleeping Cara in her car seat. The next time Evie saw the baby was at around 3 am. Of course, then the baby stayed up until 4:30, but at that point Evie got back into bed and then it was a respectable 7:30 or so before we were woken up again.

Today we had some brief time in the morning, but soon it was time to get ready and go off on a long ride to my Aunt and Uncle's house. We packed up the play yard and the stroller (though we did not end up using either), got the baby fed, found the directions (you know in movies and TV where people are looking for something among a group of things, and it's always the last one they look at that's the right thing? well, that's what I had to do to find the right directions), and got underway. We had to stop at a rest stop on the Jersey Turnpike to pick up a small snack and feed the baby--Ev fed Cara in the car, a new experience for them both--but then we were on our way again, and a bit of traffic didn't bother us too much after that, because the baby was quiet for the rest of the way.

Cara got to see lots of family, including my cousins and grandparents and parents and aunt and uncle and brother. Many of them passed her around and held her. Cheryl gave Cara some very nice little stuffed animals, some of which make some almost wind-chimey sounding rattles when you shake them. We got to see Andrea's wedding DVD, which was very impressive, and we got some pictures taken on my dad's new digital camera (some of which I'm sure will end up on the site soon). We had some nice food and Cara didn't leak or spit up on anyone--she didn't even scream, really. She slept very hard during her visit and most of the drive, both ways. She got some nice compliments about her prettiness (it's a good thing she doesn't understand speech yet, or she'd have a big head--well, she does have a big head), and her ability to push with her legs. Cara and Evie will get a chance to see my grandparents again before they have to fly back to New Mexico, but the day they visit next will be my first day back at work!

We had mentioned today about people not appreciating their parents until they become parents themselves. I feel this pretty strongly. Or, rather, it had been a while since I'd had the opportunity to be reminded of just how special my parents were. Having Cara gave us the excuse to be together a lot more than we had been for the past few years, and I'm very glad for the chance. Oh no! I'm getting sappy again!

On the way home we decided that now was our chance to get some Kentucky Fried Chicken. I sometimes snatch a chicken wrap from KFC when I'm at work, and Evie had gotten jealous. Recent TV ads helped decide us. We got a bucket of chicken with sides and everything. We have both decided we don't need to do that again for a long, long time.

Evie has been talking to Cara about how Cara's mommy has to stop saying words that are even the slightest bit bad, and that she has to try to see the good sides of all the stupid people driving on the road with her, and only say nice things about them.

Tomorrow we're going to see Evie's parents again, and I'm going to mow the lawn. Right now, we are trying to feed Cara good enough (with a bottle) so that she goes to sleep for a while.

5/15/05

Last night was a bad night for Ev and me, but for different reasons. My night from around 11 to around 1 am was a battle with baby. I wanted her to go asleep so that I could go to sleep; she wanted to stay up and yell very loudly. A couple of times I put her down in the play yard and went upstairs, just kind of hoping she would go to sleep, but it didn't happen. Eventually Evie woke up and came down to feed Cara, I went to sleep, and Evie's bad night began. Not because of the baby, but because of her knees--she experienced some pretty bad pain, so bad that she couldn't concentrate enough to read a book. We're not really sure why, but one guess is that it's arthritis that's a side effect of her digestive problems. Today she didn't seem to feel it much, so we can only hope it won't be a problem that recurs too much.

I forgot to mention that yesterday morning Cara slept on me for the first time. Evie has experienced this several times now, because Cara just gets sleepy on her after a feeding sometimes (not as often as she used to, unfortunately), but it was my first time with her there. It was very nice. This morning, I got outside pretty early so that I could mow the lawn, then after a shower I had some lunch. Boy do we watch a lot of TV nowadays! We leave it on all the time, it seems like. I left it on last night even when I snuck up to bed, because I was afraid that if I turned it off the sudden silence would wake up the baby.

Baby was pretty fussy this morning as well, and I had some frustrating moments trying to quiet her. I was trying to get some work from home done, but it was not to be. Thankfully, Ev's parents arrived and helped us out. Evie gave Cara a nice bath and then they went out for a walk with the stroller. At first Cara was very unhappy, and George came back to get a pacifier which, as it turned out, didn't really help. But they discovered that putting a blanket on her quieted her down almost immediately. We theorize that Cara didn't like feeling the breeze on her skin--this may have been why she was so upset when we had her at the park last time. Anyways, while Cara, who eventually fell asleep and actually ended up not eating for about five hours (!), was off on her quiet walk, I got my work done and was very happy when everyone came back. Unfortunately all this work kept me from socializing and Ev's parents had to go, but hopefully we'll get to see them again soon!

So now here we are again in front of the TV--we watched a Star Trek episode and some new Simpsons--and baby has been thoroughly fed and is hopefully going off to sleep again.

Only two more vacation days for me! Tomorrow I have chores to do, including an oil change for the car and a litter change for the kitties. This will keep me from feeling too guilty about the TV.

Another thing we did today was order some photo prints of various Cara shots. Digital photos are great, but with all these piles of photos of Cara, we have very little three-dimensional evidence of it. Soon we will. Evie got out her kiddie pictures and we had some nice reminiscing. We found some pictures of Evie at around the same age as Cara, and of course they look very similar. Cara is growing more hair and I think her eyes are more clearly bluish. It seems that my timing was off, though, because it's looking like Cara is entering this phase of heightened fussiness right when I'm not going to be here to help out. I hope I'm wrong!

5/16/05

Well, Daddy has found that he doesn't have much to do at the moment, so this may turn out to be a long entry. Currently I'm waiting for the wife to come home from a doctor's appointment. We both were up fairly early today and managed to get lots of good chores done, and I am amazingly done doing all my work from home, so I actually have nothing to do now. The last two days of my six-week paternity leave, and I actually have nothing to do! Except take care of the baby, of course. Last night I did some of that. We had hoped that baby was asleep enough that we could both get into bed, but it wasn't long before I started hearing the rumblings of a waking-up baby. So I went downstairs and tried to keep baby quiet for as long as I could, but she was a tough nut to crack. It's really frustrating when the baby is wailing away and you can't seem to do anything about it, especially when you'd rather be sleeping. Normal rocking and walking around with her had no effect, and I had to resort to big sweeping motions again, which doesn't make my back feel good and tires me out very quickly. Another thing I do when I've basically given up is just put the baby on my chest, because it's harder for her to yell really loud when she's on her tummy, and also I think it's good exercise for her. I could tell that she was probably hungry by the time I did this, because she went after the shoulder of my shirt like anything. She grabbed hold of the fabric with her hands and munched on it with gusto--by the time Evie woke up and came down I had a nice smeary wet patch running down my shoulder. It was the fun part of my evening.

After that I was supposed to go up to bed and sleep, but for some reason I had trouble doing it, and the baby was randomly yelling downstairs. Also the toilet was stuck running and I was too tired and hazy to do anything about it, so I just shut off the water (in the morning I turned the water back on and the toilet was fine--eh??). Evie had a rough night, because her knees bothered her a little (though thankfully not as bad as before), and Cara did not want to be put down. Evie ended up sleeping with her for a good part of the night. Again, I wonder how our nights are going to work when I have to get up to go to work...

In the morning, we didn't think we'd be able to do it, but we got Cara fed and sleepy and strapped her in the car seat and went off to IHOP. Ahh, IHOP. They make a fine breakfast. We both managed to forget to bring a pacifier, and for a while it was looking like we were finally going to get an outburst from Cara in a restaurant--but we had nothing to worry about. She flapped a bit, and blinked at us, but she didn't ever wake up and get mad. People who see the baby still guess that she's a lot younger than she actually is (Cara should be so lucky that this happens to her for the rest of her life!), as our waitress did.

I don't remember if I started before we had breakfast or after, but I did change the gerbil's bedding, change the cats' litter, and meanwhile Evie went out and got her oil changed and went to the library to finally return my very overdue Benjamin Franklin biography book-on-CD. Those of you who can somehow recall back to the prologue of this journal will recall that Ev and I were listening to this in the car before the baby was born! Then I went out to get my oil changed. Then Evie went out to a different library (she is currently running through Patrick O'Brian's fantastic Aubrey/Maturin novels, and needed to get a specific book which is not at our normal library--I'm currently trying to get through the Harry Potter books and have barely gotten a few chapters into the first one, whereas Evie is probably somewhere into book five of the much more denser series she's working on; but then again, she gets to read while the baby is eating), this time with the baby in tow, while I rested at home. She said that taking the baby out to places now is practice for when I am off at work--good idea. Then Evie came back and was almost immediately off again to the doctor's, this time without the baby.

Cara and I had some hours to kill, and I decided the best way for her to spend her time was asleep. So I left her in her car seat, still strapped in, still asleep from her trip to the library, and went off to play the keyboard for a while. I recently got a call from my keyboard teacher, and I felt guilty and started explaining to him why I wasn't going to lessons, but in fact he was just checking up on us and was not trying to pressure me into coming back. By the way, we have now gotten baby presents from Ev's old across-the-street neighbors, and I think we even got a present from someone Ev's mother knows at the gym (!). People just love to buy baby gifts, I guess... Anyway, I was distracted from the keyboard by the arrival of our mail--we now have baby photos! Real printed ones! I already put one in my wallet. There are more photos on the way from a different source, which I ordered the other day, so now what we probably need to do is buy picture frames.

After messing with wallet photos, I decided to unstrap Cara from her car seat. This annoyed her. I had gotten the impression she was waking up, but I think I woke her up before she really wanted to. The wailing began. I had no memory of when Cara had last been fed, but I decided the best thing to do would be to give her a bottle of formula. (Before I made the decision to feed her, I changed Cara and wiped her face with a warm wash cloth--I think she may have even enjoyed the wash cloth, though since she was pretty unhappy at the time it's hard to tell.) We now have this big can of powdered formula. When I'd heard there were different kinds of formula, some that you had to mix and some that came all ready to use, I was deathly afraid of the powder mix version. However, it is really easy to mix up, and cheaper than the other kind. You just put a couple scoops into some water and shake. If your baby is wailing while you're doing this, you just put her in her bouncer and turn on the vibrations. For some reason I had to use our bottle warmer twice to really get the bottle to not be cold, but then Cara and I sat down on the couch and Cara chugged away from a little after 3 to about 3:30. At this point she had pretty much emptied the bottle. She was screaming, so I put her on my shoulder and she clammed up and got very sleepy. Ev had suggested I take Cara for a walk, so I waited for about ten minutes and then stuck her limp form in the car seat and we were off.

We had a nice tour of the neighborhood and came back, and Ev is just on her way home now finally (the doctor's office is busy even on a Monday afternoon), so I will close up this predictably long entry. Oh, by the way, I woke up at 7:37 again this morning. Creepy... Another thing: I think we're going to go back up to the next size of Pampers, because these original Pampers seem to be getting a little tight on baby's legs.

Buster the cat got out earlier today and Ev forgot that she got out, so Buster had a nice long time outside! I am very worried about the cats running away, but Buster slinked back inside of her own accord the next time we had the door open, so it was fine. The cats are so affectionate lately, and I think they like being petted on their backs more ever since we put that flea stuff on them.

I'm still going on with this journal! We are hoping to watch Empire Strikes Back tonight, because I am hoping to get through the Star Wars movies we have before we go see Episode III. Unfortunately I don't have Episode II yet, so we'll have to skip that one. Ev wants to take me out to lunch tomorrow for my last day off, and maybe I will have a beer tonight too. It probably seems very decadent to lounge around and do stuff like this for six weeks, but if you've been reading the journal carefully, you'll recall that it wasn't all fun and games... Thinking back, I imagine one thing that hasn't come through all of these journal entries are all the times I look at Cara and think how pretty she is and what an amazing little creature she is, with all her little fingers and toes and her silly facial expressions.

At first I was very weirded out and incredibly afraid of the little life Ev and I had created--for the first few days, we were both constantly afraid that she was going to die if we didn't keep an eye on her all the time; and Ev has reminded me several times of the first day Cara was out in the world, and my parents arrived, and we were all just looking at her and wondering whether we were "allowed" to pick her up (of course, my mother just went over and picked her up, and ended the speculation). Now that it's been over five weeks, we're certainly not experts, but we're much more confident of what is normal and what is not normal about the baby's behavior, and the fear is not nearly as constant or overpowering.

Another thing I said about Cara earlier on was that I just didn't feel that strong daughter/father bond that I expected to feel from the first instant I looked at her. I've decided that, for me at least, this is not an immediate thing--that my fear and anxiety made it hard for me to really embrace Cara as a lovable person. But sometimes now I think I can feel that bond growing on me. Sometimes when she honks like a goose or stares off into space while she's farting, I think I am falling in love with that giant babyface.

Well this is my second-to-last entry for the foreseeable future, so I guess it makes sense that I'm taking a long time at it and wrapping up some things. I really have to remember to tell Evie how to use this program...

5/17/05

I decided to wait until later evening before writing this one, my last journal entry for a while, so that I could cover most of today without Evie having to pick up on it tomorrow. Of course, by now I've forgotten almost entirely what happened last night. I seem to remember that Evie let me have the night almost entirely off and stayed with the baby for a long time. Not fun, but she got the job done. Actually she's decided mornings are going to be among the toughest times, because Cara is fussy then. We tried to take her for a nice walk but she got mad, even though we tried her with a blanket and without and kept sticking her pacifier in a lot. I ended up carrying her for a while. This shut her up surprisingly well. It was kind of funny because whenever we were in the sun she kept her eyes shut and it looked like she was asleep, but as soon as we got under some shade the eyes popped open again.

In the afternoon she slept pretty nicely. We got her to another restaurant--we're getting to be old hands at this--and though she did move around a little near the end (I think it was because the Thai restaurant was not very full on a Tuesday afternoon, and the lack of white noise roused her), she kept nice and quiet. We stopped off at the eye doctor to pick up contacts and Evie described her pregnancy to the woman there in such a way that it sounded really easy (quick labor, weight is back off, baby was small).

Later in the afternoon we got a knock on the door and were met by one of our neighbors who has a three-month-old named PJ. Her name is Emmlyn (or Emma Lynn? we're not sure) and she has had a much easier time than we've had with Cara, though she doesn't feel that way, having nothing to compare it with. PJ sleeps well and has never really been very fussy. It's nice to have another parent so nearby and I hope we can try to be social and hang out with her and PJ some more, because she seems like a nice lady.

Well, tomorrow is the first anniversary of our closing on this house (I checked my emails to confirm this!), and my first day back at work, and Evie's first day tangling with the journal. I showed her how to use the program today and wrote up some instructions, so there should be no interruptions for you careful daily readers. It's been fun doing this--of course I will still be around and may contribute some items every once in a while, but this does feel like a kind of goodbye. Since my last entry was huge I'll keep this one short, and I have to get to watching Return of the Jedi now anyway. The first six weeks with Cara have been interesting and there is only more interesting stuff to come. So keep checking for updates!

5/18/05: Evelyn's first day of Journaling

So, here I am at last. It's my first day home alone with my baby. It's my first day writing in this journal. It's really not the first day for anything else, except for poor Steve having to go off to work and then come home to a (possibly cranky) baby.

Yesterday, I was really stressed out and miserable. I had had a rough night and then we had a rough day. Also, it was kind of scary, thinking of Steve leaving me. However, I am feeling much better. We had a good night. I made Steve give Cara a bottle while watching Return of the Jedi, and then I went to sleep. I went to sleep on the couch beside them when Cara seemed to start to get really fussy. Next thing I knew, it was almost 11 and Cara was waking up in her play yard. I was very confused and really still asleep and I didn't think that there was any reason for the baby to be hungry, but I fed her anyway and she certainly ate. Steve went off to bed while I was still in a haze. I got her to sleep around 11:40. We slept till 3:15! That's very good.

Then she went back to sleep around 4:20, and I realized that Steve gets up at 6:15. That could be disruptive, but it worked out okay. I fed her again around seven. I followed my new procedure--I held her for half an hour or so after feeding her, and then I put her down. She was really loud, grunting and honking a lot, but she stayed asleep for a long time. I got to shower and eat breakfast and even (though I may not have looked like it) clean the house a little bit before my company came. Around ten Cara really woke up and got changed and fed. I put her in a cute, clean outfit, and then I dribbled vitamins on it, of course. Overconfidence in my vitamin-giving skills led me to do a very poor job. Now that I've been humbled, I'll be sure to have a tissue handy and make sure of my position before squeezing that dropper.

At 10:30 Cara's grandparents and great-grandparents arrived for a visit. Everybody got to hold the baby and play with her and talk to her. Janet went through Cara's drawers and found a lot of clothes that will probably fit her that we haven't been using, and it's a good thing she did, because the outfits we'd been using, besides being redundant by this time, are getting tight!

We gave Cara a bath and put her in an outfit she's never worn before, which is yellow and has little animals on it. Then we put her back to sleep, stuck her in her car seat, and went out to the Edison Diner, which is pretty much directly across Route One. Everybody had a good lunch, and the baby was very good for her graandfather, who sat with her. She woke up a little bit, but she stayed quiet, looked around, and went to sleep, slumped happily.

Now we're home, it's three o'clock, and she's still asleep. I'm expecting her to wake up any time now. Her grandparents have left, along with her great-grandparents from New Mexico, who are about to head back home tomorrow. I am really happy that they came all this way and saw the baby. It's really wonderful that Cara got to meet them--it's the second time I've made them come all the way out here: first I got married, and now this. I'm not sure what i'll come up with next. Actually, probably next we'll turn her into a traveling baby. That should be exciting.

I have to put in a few words about cats. First of all, Shelby Foote is lying peacefully in my lap right now (in your face, Steve!) and, yes, my foot is asleep. Secondly, I thought it was really cute last night when Steve and I were sitting next to each other on the couch and I was holding the baby, who was lying splayed out on her back, and Steve was holding Shelby, who was lying splayed out on HER back. Shelby was sniffing at Cara a little, which is about the extent of the interest in the baby that the cats have shown.

Now, I'm a cat person. I've had cats since I was about five. It was not, however, until Buster and Shelby came along that I saw a cat that actually was consistently interested in cat toys. They'd always just politely ignored them. Shelby and Buster love their toys, particularly these little foam soccer balls that I got at the A&P for 99 cents. They don't chase them that much with us anymore, but we used to toss them around all the time. We noticed that the cats would carry the balls around and sometimes bring them to us and lay them at our feet. They didn't want to play with them; we got blank looks when we picked up the balls and tried to throw them for the cats at that point; they just seemed to be tokens of affection. The cats still do this; once in a while I look down and find a ball at my feet, the cat having silently deposited it and left.

Today, the grandparents and I were playing games in the kitchen while Cara slept in her car seat upstairs in her room. When we went up to check on her, we discovered that a little blue foam ball had been left in front of the car seat.

I have lots of plans for my time alone with Cara, and there are two items that I think will make that time more pleasant and productive. One of those is my glider, which was ordered several weeks ago. I expect its arrival any time now. I am looking forward to it very very much. The other is a baby sling. The big news is that it has arrived! Now I have to learn how to use it. It came with instructions and a dvd. That's my plan for this afternoon. I'm hoping to be able to cary the baby around the house and do things at the same time; I think that that might make us both happy.

This is a very long entry. I think I'll stop here after just a few more little notes and see whether I can figure out how to post it. my notes are responses to things Steve has said on the journal. Note one: I had never tried Kentucky Fried Chicken before, and the ads made it sound really good, so I wanted to try it. It was okay, but I don't need to try it again. Note two: I haven't had more than four hours of sleep in a row since the middle of March, so I think I'm entitled to watch as much tv as I want to. My brain is not operating at its highest levels and is not up for too much strain. I am trying to treat it delicately. (that's my excuse for everything) Note three: my foot is really asleep. So is the baby. So, I think, is Shelby. She helped Steve write all his journal entries, too, and this was always the result. Wish me luck.

Part Two:

As anyone who has emailed with me knows, I have a hard time shutting up. It may be exacerbated by being home alone. I have to add that being a parent and wrasslin' with my baby, holding her, feeding her, and burping her, has made me a better cat-parent, too, in some ways. The cats may get less attention these days, but Shelby is still asleep in my lap: I was able to pick her up, switch legs, and put her down still asleep. A few months ago, she would have been out in the cold.

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