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5/26/05

Dr. Spock says, "If the adults are insensitive or indifferent to [a baby in her first year], she may become apathetic or depressed." I read the index yesterday and found all sorts of interesting things. The depression issue concerned me, and I hope very much not to wind up with a depressed baby.

Last night Cara and I slept together on the couch as usual. We slept from about eleven to two or so and then she ate and we slept again until about seven. I decided not to try to accomplish anything at all today. I spent lots of time just holding the baby. I watched my morning television with her (I watch Mad About You and Designing Women, both of which are shows I always liked but never watched, and then I watch Golden Girls, pretty much all of which I've seen before) in my lap, then put her down and went and ate breakfast.

I fed her again, and we rocked in our glider, then I put her down in her crib. I rocked Shelby in the glider. She liked it. Everyone likes the glider. My daddy called and then he came over for lunch. Of course, as soon as he arrived I discovered that Cara had somehow peed all over her crib. Daddy and I gave her a bath and cleaned up the mess, then we ate and watched a movie. Cara slept in my arms like a good baby, mostly, throughout the afternoon. Daddy left around four and I took a nap until five, sitting on the couch with the baby in my arms, asleep also.

So, I accomplished nothing at all today. I decided to take a very relaxed approach today and try to be very attentive and responsive to the baby so she doesn't get depressed. Now Steve is home and he's holding her--we took turns holding her during dinner, basically, and now we're watching a movie with her.

Cara's eyes are definitely focusing better, and she's really looking at things, rather than just sort of looking. I think that, since we're eating in the nursery now, she's looking at the mural over my shoulder, but I may be exaggerating.

Cara is wearing a little sack sleeper, one of those things like a dress that I was talking about. It's cute; it's yellow with little ducks. She has socks on. The sleeper rides up, though, and her little legs get exposed. I'm not nuts about these things.

I don't know why I can put Cara down in her crib in the daytime but not at night. Of course, she doesn't really sleep in there very long during the day. She only seems to stick to it for a couple of hours at a time. I'm sure that, eventually, I'll get it all worked out.

5/27/05

Why, you ask, are these journal entries so short? Well, they are getting shorter as I make more and more retrograde progress. I can't put the baby down. Right now, I am rocking the car seat with my toes while I type. It's a combination of her getting more alert and me getting less good at managing her, I think.

Last night went fine as usual. We got up at seven and Steve changed Cara while I brushed my teeth. I fed her and held her in the glider, and then I put her down around 8:30 in her crib. I showered. At 9, she was up again. I tried taking her for a walk, and she cried. She was fussy this morning, I think. There was this horrible period with the baby crying inside and Buster running around outside, clearly playing with me.

I eventually gave up and put her in the bouncer on vibrate while I ate some lunch, since I had to tutor at 12:30. She fell asleep after I finished eating, and then I had to pack her up and head for Capri's house. It's a ten-minute drive, and she was quiet in the car but did not fall asleep. I spent half of my time dancing with her instead of really tutoring. However, I gave Capri major reading to do for HW and hope things go better next time.

I took Cara home and fed her and we sat in the glider for an hour or so. It's very nice to sit with her in the glider; she sleeps like an angel. Then we went out for a walk. I ate a sandwich while we walked; it's easier to push one-handed than it is to get quiet time in the house. Now it's almost 4 and I want to eat this Italian ice I remembered having in the fridge. I am rocking with my toe, but she is awake. She slept on the walk, but woke up as soon as we got here. I am a hostage to the baby!

Cara is wearing a long-sleeved onesie right now. It's cute, and I hope that the temperature is okay. It's quite warm, although it is still cool in the house. I took her socks off.

I have been intermittently using the gas drops. She still farts occasionally, but it doesn't really seem to bother her. I don't know. I'm going to go try to eat my stupid ice.

5/28/05

It was a very good day. Last night I put Cara in her crib around midnight and I lay back in the glider to see what happened. I woke up around three, but nothing was happening. I slept till four. Cara had moved over in her crib so that her feet were in the corner and her head was still towards the center where I had left her. She was kind of awake, although in retrospect I'm not so sure. In any case, I changed her and fed her and I put her back in the crib around five, at which time Steve happened to be up in the bathroom. We both went back to bed. Steve, however, got up again. I thought he got up because the baby was making noise, and I stubbornly stayed in bed and slept until 8. It turned out that he got up because he didn't want to disturb me by blowing his nose, and he just hung around and got a lot of reading done while the baby and I slept. I'm very pleased because basically Cara slept in her crib exactly as she has been sleeping with me on the couch.

I fed Cara, and then I was able to put her down again long enough to shower. She was awake then, definitely, and Steve and I had to eat breakfast in shifts while holding her. Steve went out to get his hair cut, and I played with Cara. Eventually I did put her in her bouncer and start to try to get things done--we're having company tomorrow and the house needed to be cleaned. I did a lot of sorting out of piles of things that have been sitting around since the baby was born or even since I was put on bed rest.

Cara and Steve and I hung out and got things done all morning, all of us very much awake, and then I went out with my sister and did some fun (and useful!) shopping. When we got back, my parents had shown up and Cara was spending time with her grandma. We gave Cara a bath and then Aunt Claire got to give her a bottle while I played with all Cara's stuff. Claire and I had bought some cute baskets to organize things on Cara's changing table, and now it looks really cute. I had a good time.

I took advantage of the natural urge of grandmas to play with their grandbabies and left Cara upstairs while I got to swiffer my house! Everyone had a good time. Cara, who only a few weeks ago would have fallen asleep for three or four hours after a bottle, stayed awake and alert and only mildly fussy for a couple of hours. Even her grandma eventually decided to just put her down. In the meantime, we all agreed that she is definitely looking at the mural on her walls, just kind of staring at it. She looks at lots of things.

After a long while we convinced Cara to go to sleep and put her in her car seat, which we can rock to keep her out. She was wearing a cute little flowery onesie, and she fell asleep when her grandma swaddled her the way we used to when she was a tiny little thing. She doesn't like those air currents on her skin! We started to watch a movie, and she woke up. I took her upstairs to change her, and she took advantage of my lax attitude to happily pee on the back of her outfit and two receiving blankets I had left under her. So I got to change her out of her cute little flowery onesie. I put her in a nice footie pajama outfit, fed her a little bit, and she fell asleep. She slept nicely through dinner. (For the umpteenth time, we ordered Chinese with my folks. We always seem to do this, but we all except possibly my poor Daddy like it very much. I can either think we're in a rut or we have a routine.)

When my mom and dad wanted to leave, Cara seemed to be waking up. Her grandpa wound up holding her, and she was sound asleep and making funny faces. This went on for quite a while, as it is clearly very hard to tell when Cara is in fact waking up and when she is just sleeping loudly and actively. Finally she woke up for her grandma, said good-bye, got changed, got fed, and has now, at 10:30, been put back in her crib. Remember how I said we had a routine and she was fussy all evening to about midnight? Oh well. I wonder what this portends for the night.

5/29/05

9:00

The night went fine. Cara slept from ten until about one, when I got up and fed and changed her. Steve didn't wake up at all, which confused him later because I had put Cara in another new outfit. I realized that one of the downsides to my sleeping in the bed is that both of us are much more likely to be disturbed. Even though poor Steve is going off to work every day, I think that this might be okay. I hope it will. He's tough!

We both woke up around 3:30--I guess I should say we all woke up around 3:30. Steve changed Cara and I fed her. Then I put her down; she was pretty sleepy. I made a poor choice. I decided to pick her back up and feed her a little more to put her really solidly to sleep. This naturally woke her up. So I was up to about 4:30. I stuck her back in the crib and slept to 7:30.

Conveniently, Cara has seemed willing to take a little additional nap in the morning, affording me a chance to take a shower. I hope she keeps this up on weekdays!

6:00

I think that Sarah saved my life. Seriously. She bought me a normal baby carrier, a Baby Bjorn. Now, I could have done this myself. I didn't. I got my silly sling thing--which may still work, especially when Cara can hold her head up--and that was it. Now, though, I am sitting here typing this with my baby sleeping strapped to my chest. She is slumping happily against me, although she is in no danger at all if her head falls back, since there is a nice high back. Her arms and legs stick out through holes, and it's kind of silly-looking (I've always thought so, frankly), but it's really really great. I mean, she can be awake and alert in here and look around and I can talk to her and things, and she can nap if she wants to and I CAN DO THINGS! I could eat my lunch, for instance. I've been strapped in for almost an hour now, and Cara is quite happy. Thank god for Aunt Sarah, who really knows what she's doing and can save me from myself.

I'm not sure how to take her off, but I figure we'll get the hang of it.

We had our company: Cara's Great Aunt Linda and Great Uncle Bill from New Mexico, along with Grandma Janet and Grandpa Jim and Uncle Jim and Aunt Sarah. Grandma Janet brought lasagna, so all I had to take care of was snacks, dessert, and bread. This was a great opportunity to buy way too much stuff and have leftovers. I somehow wound up with two bags of doritos, which I seem to find myself buying, for some reason, every couple of years. I also bought lots of cookies and a fruit tart. Now I have lots and lots of unhealthy things to eat.

Linda and Bill, of course, have two grandchildren of their own out in New Mexico, Sean and Evie. They are both going on a year old, and it's cool to hear a little bit about what it will be like. Evie is walking already and Sean can roll around the house. They play with toys and really interact with people. I really can't imagine how life will change when Cara becomes mobile! I am already thinking about ways to make the house more baby-proof, though. The living room is doomed; it needs to change a lot.

Cara got passed around to everybody and was very good. We all took pictures with her outside and she was passed from Sarah to me to her grandpa in about two minutes, and she stayed asleep the whole time. I hate pictures of myself with more than my usual prissiness these days because my face is so huge. It looks like a football player (that's my latest analogy, which may or may not make any sense). I am comforted by the fact that Cara will still be cute when my face is normal, and we'll still want to take pictures. I'm hoping that it'll be better in a month or so, but it may take longer.

Tomorrow will be an adventure for us all, although Cara may not appreciate it. We are going to a barbecue at my folks' house, which is on the Jersey shore, on Memorial Day, and then we're going to drive home. We'll have to bring a lot of entertainment for the car. (Not to entertain the car, but to entertain us in the car.) Usually the drive takes half an hour. I'll report back on how long it takes us tomorrow. Really, we've done sillier things on holidays. I'm very much looking forward to spending some time out in my folks' back yard, though.

I bought patio furniture. I got a nice big table and six chairs, which will all be delivered on Wednesday. I also have a couch and love seat that go outdoors in the back. I've always pictured myself sitting outside under all my trees with my baby (and my little cats, though Buster may have lost her outdoor privileges and Shelby wouldn't go out solo, probably, so scratch that!).

I think I'll go take Cara outdoors and then figure out how to take her off.

5/30/05

Those of you who were concerned will be glad to hear that Cara's still got it: between nine o'clock and one thirty in the morning last night (?), Cara slept for no longer than about ten minutes at a stretch. She wasnt' necessarily fussy or upset, but she was certainly awake and ready to BE upset if the need arose. Steve and I took turns holding her, rocking her, and reading Harry Potter aloud to each other, and we were both like absolute zombies at the end. Finally we gave up and I slept with her on the couch. I woke up at four to go to the bathroom, but Cara did not. We all woke up together at seven in the morning, so really she wound up sleeping for quite a long night, but not before giving us a good run for our money. I don't know whether it was that she had slept too much during the day or what. In any case, she probably will do the same thing to me tonight, when I'm on my own because Steve needs to sleep so he can go to work.

We went to my folks' house today and all had a very good time. Traffic, weirdly, was absolutely no problem. A very strange thing happened, though: Steve was changing Cara, and she fell asleep in mid-rediapering. She was so out that we were able to just pick her up and put her in her carrier and she didn't wake up. i have never seen anything like it.

I should have done the journal earlier, but I didn't, and I just abandoned poor Steve with both hands full of baby, so I have to go and be supportive!

5/31/05

8:00

What an absurdly good baby I have!

Well, last night she wasn't so awfully good. She wasn't awfully bad, though. I put her down at 10:45 and went to bed, but she woke me at 11:30. I picked her up and sat in the glider and we slept like that. I think I got back into bed around four, and she woke me at six. I suppose it makes sense for her to want to sleep with me, since I'm nice and warm and exacerbate her heat rash. Babies clearly have poorly developed senses of logic.

I fed her from six to about seven, off and on, and then put her down. She usually (every time I say this, she never does whatever it is again, of course) sleeps until about nine, so I can shower and maybe eat breakfast, but today she stayed asleep until 9:45. I fed her, and she fell asleep again! I stuck her in her car seat, and we went out. We drove to the North Edison library so that I could return my books from our last trek up there. Fortunately, I didn't need any more books; my daddy owns the next few in the series. Cara was very solidly out, so we stopped at Pathmark on our way home to pick up cherries ($1.50/lb. this week). When we got home Cara stayed asleep, so I had lunch. She woke up around 12:45.

After I fed her, I put Cara in our new carrier. It's kind of clumsy getting her into it when it's strapped to you, but we handled it. She cried at first, but then she started looking around at things. I went outside, and we did some chores. Cara likes to look at trees, but I got a lot done. I checked out our outdoor couches, which are quite fit for human habitation, despite being outside under only a plastic cover all winter. I removed the cover from our central air unit, and I hosed it off and hung it in the sun to dry. Later I stuck it in the shed. I refilled the bird feeder. I did all of this with the baby strapped to me, without letting any cats escape.

After a while Cara started to cry, and then she fell asleep. I've decided that the crying is a signal that she's tired and ready to conk out. Books have told me that this might be the case, but I can definitely observe it in action. I took a walk around the block with Cara slumped against my chest (enjoying more body heat, as well as the sun), and then I got her a sun hat. It was really cute and pink. She has quite a few sun hats, all of which are really cute. We'll have to start really wearing them. In any case, I headed back out. Cara and I walked up to our local My Favorite Muffin. Neither of us had ever been there before--Steve has gone a few times, but I'd never actually entered the place. It's pretty nice. Cara still hasn't been there, since she was sound asleep. I got an iced coffee and we walked home.

I detached Cara and put her in her crib. She shortly woke up, probably because of the change in temperature. I fed her and then we played with her toys for about half an hour. She really looks at her Jungle Arches now, when the animals move and the music plays. When she tired of that, I put her in her bouncer, with the toys on that.

I looked at her and talked to her and tried something my mother was doing, making a loud kissy noise with my mouth. Cara looked very startled every time. She was impressed, I think, because she can't do that. Cara is definitely making some vocalizations of vowel sounds now, independent of crying. I try making them back at her.

After we'd been playing for a while, Cara started to cry. I picked her up, snuggled her against my chest, and sat down in the glider. She fell asleep. I put her in her stroller and we went for a nice long walk, then came home and started dinner. Of course, she woke up violently in the middle of that, so I stuck the raw chicken in the fridge and had to go feed her. Now she doesn't seem to feel like going to sleep in any sustained sense, but we certainly got through dinner in fine style and now she's playing with her daddy.

6/1/05

5:30

Last night I put Cara down around eleven, I think. The problem is that she wakes up when I put her in her crib; I blame it on the crib being much cooler than my arms. I think they should sell heaters to make cribs the same temperature as people, just temporarily, so that babies could be transferred more easily. Then you could turn the thing off, as the baby's own body would keep it comfortable. In any case, I think I got pretty smart last night. When she woke up as I put her down, I gave Cara her pacifier, turned on the outdoor noise thing from the pack and play, and turned off the lights except for the one out in the bathroom. In the dark, with white noise, sucking happily, Cara was able to fall asleep. I lay in the glider because I was not confident about her staying asleep, and I DID have to put her pacifier back in once. I fed her around three, I think, and went to bed, having set her up in the same manner. She slept to 7:30.

Then she proceeded to not really sleep much all morning. She was fairly cranky and did some real screaming. I couldn't really put her down, although I did get some short breaks in order to shower and then to eat. At two o'clock, she fell asleep. I took advantage of the situation to go and unwrap the outdoor chairs that had been delivered, and then we went for a nice hour-long walk. We came home, and I started some laundry and fed her.

Right now, Cara is sleeping like a little angel (I probably just woke her up by saying that). That creates a pattern: during the day yesterday, she was fed and then slept twice in a row. This afternoon she has been fed and gone to sleep twice in a row. The difference is that it was the morning yesterday, and this is the afternoon. Does doing something two days in a row make a routine? Hmmm...

I forgot to mention yesterday that, in the car, I listened to a new baby cd of lullabies by Linda Ronstadt which my parents gave me. My dad warned me not to listen to it in the car, because I would crash. I assumed for some reason that it was very sad, and I would cry so hard that I would lose control of the car. However, he meant that it would put me to sleep. It neither made me cry nor made me sleep, but I listened to it about three times. (It was a long trip.) There is no way to describe it except very very pretty. I may move a cd player into Cara's room and try it on her tonight, because it is just so lovely and soothing.

I keep thinking I hear Cara and going to check on her, but she's peaceful. There are kids playing basketball directly across the street, and I think that I'm hearing them making noise. It's a noisy game. Upstairs, Cara is asleep in her crib, Shelby is asleep in the hall, and Buster is asleep in the office chair. It is a very sleepy place, with sun streaming through the windows.

9:30

Cara was so soundly asleep, and it was dinnertime, so I thought, well, why don't we go out? We haven't been out with her in rather a while, since she's been so awake in the evenings. When she was younger it seemed easier. (I am convinced now that I could handle a newborn with no problems.) Steve got home and agreed, so we went out for Indian. The Indian place is always pretty empty, so I figured that it would be okay of Cara misbehaved.

We were the only customers, and it was nice to see the guys at the restaurant again. We used to go there pretty regularly. I hope that business is okay--the blonde, Eastern European woman who incongruously used to wait tables hasn't been there the past couple of times we've gone, so perhaps they've cut back on staff. We had the buffet and took turns going to get food. Naturally, Cara spent the meal awake, and Steve managed somehow to eat and rock her at the same time. She would suck on her popper for a few minutes and then pop it out and cry and he would put it back and she would suck on it for a few minutes and pop it out . . . it was nice, though, to get out. She wasn't too bad.

We came home and I fed her and we played with her. Now she is fussy. I think she has indigestion--I am eagerly awaiting a bowel movement, as it has been a while. I've been waiting all day! When I took over the journal, I recall someone predicting less news about gas and other bodily functions. Well, I've never been so involved in someone else's bowels. It's very interesting. I'm sure you're interested, too.

Cara will be eight weeks old tomorrow, but she won't be two months old yet! I find that mildly illogical and therefore mildly annoying. I mean, when people say it's someone's half-birthday, is it really half a year? It isn't! That's not right. I think that all months should be the same and make sense. The end.

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