6/2/05

Again, last night, I slept in the glider for a while, then fed Cara around three, went to bed at four, and was up at six. However, when I put Cara down at 7:15, I went directly down to the couch and went to sleep. We woke up at about 9:30. I brushed my teeth, put in my contact lenses, and fed Cara. She was asleep again when her Grandma Janet and Grandpa Jim (and Rusty) stopped in to say hello/good-bye on their way up to Nova Scotia.

I took a shower and then talked to my dad on the phone; he was planning to come up for a picnic and a walk, but we cancelled. I put a french bread pizza in the toaster for my lunch, and of course the baby woke up. I decided to just turn down the heat and feed her. Things went well; I fed her and then was able to feed myself while she napped.

We spent a lot of time in the glider today. I wonder how many hours I've logged in that thing. Whenever she's fussy or hungry or sleeping in my arms, there we are, and then I sleep there at night! I was sitting there with her around one, and she was falling asleep, and I decided to take the bull by the horns and go out. We went to BJ's, a wholesale club that sent me a two-month membership for free in the mail. I thought we might as well check it out and maybe get some deals, and it wouldn't be a problem if she got cranky, because we could just turn around and come right home. Cara was really good, though. She was awake and looking around for a while, but then she fell asleep in the cart and I did get some shopping done. I bought lots of practical things and a couple of slightly-less-than-practical things.

We came home and I went across the street to actually be sociable with my neighbor (a very nice man), but Cara woke up and started playing my song loud enough to be heard across the street. She was very mad. She fussed, and I gave her a bath, which she did not like (water too cold), and changed her outfit and fed her. Then we hung around outside and she slept in her car seat while I messed with the box for my new outdoor table. I took her for a little walk, and she was awake and just looking around the whole time. Towards the end, though, she DID start crying. She proceeded to fuss, eat, and doze in my arms from five to about six thirty. Her daddy got home and she fussed through dinner (we took turns eating and holding her).

Now I fed her and she ate a lot without crying much at all, and we put her down in her crib like a good girl. It's about nine o'clock. We'll see what happens.

I am still waiting for a big bowel movement. I am somewhat concerned, as I know that she did not have one yesterday or the day before, and I'm not so sure about the day before that. Nothing I read about constipation applies, because her stool has always been liquid. Her belly doesn't hurt her, I think, because I've palpated it and caused her no discomfort, but every time she gets cranky I blame her bowels.

6/3/05

When I sent Steve off to bed last night around ten, I told him that I would try to feed Cara around eleven, three hours from her last feeding. Until then we would snuggle and rock in the glider. I have started singing to Cara, who I have realized is my only uncritical audience, and I had soothed her to sleep by eleven. I assumed that she would soon wake up. We both wound up sleeping (my sleep punctuated by numerous awakenings, of course, to check on things) until one thirty in the morning. At that point, I was pretty ready to go to bed, but I figured that I had better feed her again first, or it would be a pretty short sleep. I gave up and put the sleeping baby in the crib, though, and waited for her to wake up. She got noisier, but I swear she was still asleep when I picked her up again to change and feed her. It's very hard to tell sometimes. Eventually I got to bed, but I was up again by five. When Steve got up at 6:15, I just wanted to go to bed!

I didn't get to. Cara was UP. Steve played with her for half an hour so I had a break for a cup of tea (which was very very nice), but she was definitely up. I was not. We wrangled all morning, with me just wanting a couple of hours of real sleep and her not feeling like giving them to me. Somehow, though, around ten or ten-thirty, the tide turned and I felt better. I was ready to make the baby happy. We had a good time playing with all of the toys in her crib, including the little stuffed animals that Steve's cousin Cheryl gave Cara. They rattle. Unfortunately, this has led to me shaking the butt of a little purple hippo in my daughter's face, because that's where the rattle is.

Cara likes rattles. She looks at lots of things that make noise. I've started to put things like the hippo on her hands, and then she moves them as she flails around. She accidentally grabbed the hippo, once, by its little bow tie and waved it around, but that was short-lived.

I fed Cara from about eleven until noon, and I found myself in the same position and mindset that I was in yesterday: the baby was sleeping and I had better grab the day and use it. I needed to pick up a prescription and I wanted to get something nice for dinner. Steve was taking a half day, and I had pictured us spending the afternoon outside together and myself going out for something to barbecue, but it was rainy. Anyway, who knows whether the baby would go to sleep again! So we went out, despite the light rain. The stroller has two canopies that completely cover the inhabitant, so Cara didn't get wet. We went to the drug store, and I decided to brave the walk to the A&P, part of which led us out of cover. Cara did just fine. I bought plenty of food to get us through the weekend, although I want to go out for bread tomorrow. Cara slept the whole time, except for peeking at me in the Rite Aid, and then slept until about 4:30 after we got home.

At 4:30 I fed her, and then we played with her and had dinner (during which she went to sleep in her glider!) and then, at 6:45, a mother's dream was fulfilled and Cara had a bowel movement. It was truly a wonderful moment. True to form and conforming to my predictions, it was a doozy and went right up her little back. (Some day, Cara will read this. Imagine how she'll feel!) I feel much better. I'm sure you do, too.

I found a web site that has a chart that shows an average baby's schedule at different ages. It's awfully general, really, lumping together months 0 to 6, but it does make me feel better. It shows about two hours of play time spread out through the day, with plenty of feeding and going back to sleep time. That's basically what we do. I'm relieved, because sometimes I feel like there are things I ought to be doing but just don't know about. Also, sometimes I worry that I'm wrong to want her to just go to sleep!

I bought Cara a new toy at the A&P. It's a plastic ring with big plastic keys on it. It rattles. I'm trying to get her to grab it. It's not really working. Step two will be to get her to notice that she's grabbed it.

Steve has been reading to us while I feed Cara this afternoon. He's reading us Harry Potter, and we're both enjoying it immensely. I hope to go continue that now.

6/4/05

I'm getting to the journal very late today, so I don't remember much about last night. I do remember Steve trying to read to us but Cara yelling too much for us to make any progress. Eventually I got annoyed with him and sent him to bed. It wasn't a nice evening. I guess that wrestling with a screaming baby isn't a two-man job. Everyone was cranky. I think I got to bed around one. I was up from four to five, perhaps, and then slept until nine. That was nice, and I felt better. Cara didn't get up until about ten, I think. She slept cutely in her sleep sack. To my surprise, she is still able to scoot across the crib, even though her entire lower body is in a big sack.

Today I abandoned poor Steve and Jim with the baby for a couple of hours (I felt guilty, because Jim came over, obviously, to have a good time, and wound up stuck with a baby) and Claire and I went out shopping. We went to Babies R Us because we had a refund of the delivery charge for the glider to spend. I had decided to get a crib mobile for Cara.

We looked at a lot of very nice mobiles of stuffed, plush creatures that dangled and spun over the babies' heads while music played. We selected a nice one with an elephant, a giraffe, a lion, and a sea turtle with a baby. Then we looked in the real toy section and found a whole different type, with lots of features. We wound up putting back our sea turtle and its baby and getting a calypso-themed fish mobile. There are four glittery, glow-in-the-dark fish that dangle over the baby and spin. There's a light show in the thing they dangle from. It plays two songs and sea sounds. The base, the part that attaches to the crib, has a fish bowl with a plastic fish that bobbles around while glitter swirls in the water and lights change color. When the baby is able to get up in the crib, the base becomes a crib toy and the fish get cut down and become bath toys. When you don't need the crib, there's a little stand so that the night light can go on the dresser. The only thing that this thing doesn't have is a built-in alarm clock. There's also a remote control that hangs on the door knob so that you can turn it on without the baby seeing you!

The other thing we got was an arch to attach to the car seat that has toys hanging from it. It has a sea theme also, coincidentally. There are a crab and a sea horse that both rattle, and there is a sea turtle that plays music when you bat its head. Unfortunately, it seems to scare Cara. Perhaps she feels shut in and overwhelmed by them, as they kind of dangle in her face and cut her off from the world. I have attached them to her changing table, though, so I hope that they'll be fun for her there. We'll keep trying.

I think that Steve tried the mobile on her; I did see her lying in her crib crying when it was on. Then, though, he came downstairs and I think maybe she had decided she liked it. I will probably wait and try it on her in the daytime, when the stakes are lower. I feel less urgently that she needs to stay asleep when it's the daytime.

There are two types of baby sleep: independent sleep, when she lies somewhere and sleeps, and dependent sleep, when she sleeps on someone or in someone's arms or while being rocked by someone or rolled about in her stroller. I wonder what proportion of Cara's sleep is independent. I hope to increase it.

Today, around eight, we got dinner (we ordered pizza). As soon as it showed up, Cara woke up from her independent sleep in her car seat (Claire and I had taken her for a long walk) and I picked her up. She went right back to sleep in my arms, stretching around and snuggling and luxuriating while I rocked her a little bit. Eventually I passed her to Claire and had some pizza, and she kept on sleeping, fairly actively, until about nine. Then I fed her and she slept on me. Now she is sleeping on or fighting with her daddy upstairs.

I predict that we will all (or, at least, Cara and I will) wrassle until one or so and then go to sleep for a while. Whenever I make predictions or generalizations, it always makes things not happen. Or something like that. Good night.

6/5/05

7:00

It's seven in the morning and everyone else in the house, except for Shelby Foote, who is in my lap purring, is asleep. I thought I would take a minute to talk about the night. I went upstairs around eleven fifteen, I think, and Cara was lying in her crib, working on a popper. Her mobile was running, and lights were moving over her in swirling motions while fish rotated above her. She was looking in another direction, of course. That was okay. Her daddy had left the seashore sounds on. I stood and looked at her.

I spent some time just kind of stroking her. I know that I would fall asleep if someone stroked my back, but of course she lies on her back, so I was stroking her chest and belly. With that and her popper, which she DID pop out a couple of times but accepted with alacrity when it was returned, she got quite sleepy. I was interested to note that she was more able to fall asleep when the seashore sounds ended, which indicates to me that she likes quiet. Maybe.

I had last fed her around nine, so I planned to feed her again around midnight and I basically just wanted to keep her amused until then. Midnight came, and she was so happy with her popper that it seemed that I would miss again. I lay down on the floor with a blanket and the boppy pillow (a very versatile item) to doze until she made up her mind whether to wake up or go to sleep for a few hours. By 12:20 she had popped her popper (I heard the change in her breathing) and eventually decided to wake up. I brought her to the changing table and she started to fuss, so I gave her another popper. By the time she was changed, that silly baby had brought herself back to the brink of sleep. I was on the horns of a dilemma (that's the first time in my life that I've ever used that phrase--how exciting!): I couldn't leave her to sleep on her changing table, but she was quite happy. I stood around a little bit in amusement and then stuck her back in her crib, and she woke up in a couple of minutes after I lay back down on the floor.

I fed her, gave her her gas drops, and gave her her vitamins. I think she only did one side and fell asleep--no she did a little bit on the other side, punctuated by earsplitting screams, and then fell asleep. I used my new putting-the-baby-down technique: I warm a folded receiving blanket with my body and then use it like a pot holder under her head. That way my hand does not move directly from under her little noggin when I put her down, and she doesn't get the shock of the cold sheet on her scalp, either. I think it helps.

I got into bed at about 1:15, and I woke up to a silent house at about ten to six. I went to the bathroom, and soon after I got back into bed to doze I heard little sounds. Cara was awake. I changed her and fed her a little bit, and now she's back down.

I need an answer to a question from all of you experienced (or just opinionated) readers out there. Please e-mail me with advice!

Here's the problem. I need to establish a level of trust with Cara, so she knows that when she has needs I will meet them in a prompt and appropriate manner. I read a lot about not delaying, about not looking like I'm going to feed her and then stopping to do something else while she cries. I see the logic there. You should know that your mommy will answer you when you call and help you when you're unhappy. Now, the trouble is the night time. Our routine is simple. Baby cries (or just wakes up). Baby gets picked up and changed. Baby eats. Baby goes back to bed. This is all good, but when I wake up in the night, I often need to go to the bathroom. When do I do this? Changing and feeding her usually takes near an hour, considering the going-back-to-sleep time, so I don't think waiting is a good idea! (Babies can sense it if you're tense, I hear!) I have been sometimes changing her and then running off for a minute, but that's no good either. I can't leave her on the changing table; it's dangerous, and it's also not good for establishing our level of trust that I mentioned. I guess I might go before I even pick her up at all, but that is bad in two ways--she's still crying, and she will eventually be smart enough to know that Mommy is around but not with her, and wouldn't she be mad about that? So, what do I do? No book has mentioned the bathroom dilemma!

7:51 pm (SG)

Hello there! The "SG" above means that it's me, Steve, speaking. Today I spent a lot of time with baby, so it makes sense that I take over a bit. Evelyn convinced me (and I'm very glad she did) that I should mow the lawn in the morning rather than waiting until evening or some night during the week, so that's how my day started. While I was dealing with that and then showering, Evie did some chores and got us all ready to go down to Red Bank to hang out with Ev's parents. The plan: we would have lunch at a blues and jazz festival currently going on in town, featuring lots of food stands and live music, and then Ev and Claire and Janet would go off to see a girlie movie about Traveling Pants while George and I watched baby. Surprisingly, the plan went as planned. We were a little late leaving, but for once it was due to my thoroughness in mowing the lawn rather than the baby being fussy. Ominously, traffic was bad on the Parkway, presaging a slow ride home (it was slow getting home, but not terrible, since baby was quiet through the whole ride). We went out to the festival, and it was incredibly sunny and hot, and the ladies found a nice shady waterfront Japanese restaurant to eat at while George and I sampled the festival cuisine (I had chicken fingers--very unimaginative, I know, but I had a nice frozen pina colada before that). The beautiful-looking sushi which they had took so long to create that the ladies had to rush off to make their movie, while George and I wandered about the festival a while longer to take in a few more sights. I wheeled baby in her stroller. She was a bit irritable, but as long as we kept moving her in the stroller, she was good. We made it back to my car and got in it to get back to Cara's grandparents' house.

The car had been sitting in the sun for several hours and was rather hot. I turned on the air immediately, but baby quickly made it clear that she was not happy. I airily pronounced that once we got going and the air conditioning kicked in, baby would calm down. However, if anything, she became more angry. By the time we got back and took her out of the car, she was beet red, her face was scrunched in unhappiness, and she was crying in loud, grating growls that sounded like she must be hurting her throat. She must have been very hot. We got the air on in the house and I got baby out of her car seat. Both baby and I were sticky with the heat and I didn't like to even hold her for fear it would keep her uncomfortable, but I got her downstairs where it was cooler and eventually decided the best thing to do would be to change her diaper and then put her in a whole new outfit. I kept her just laying in her new diaper for a while (George and I also tried wetting a corner of one of her receiving blankets and dabbing it on her head to cool her off), then got her into her new outfit. I found the sweet spot in the downstairs room where the air was blowing in, and stood with her there for a while.

Eventually George set me up with a glass of water, a movie (Those Magnificent Men and Their Flying Machines--it's good to watch while you're taking care of a baby), and I fed the baby her formula a bit. George also had some nice time with the baby. The ladies got back from their movie, which they liked, and George made us a nice dinner on the grill. Cara got some nice time to exercise her neck while Janet held her. Janet also tried the bottle some more on Cara, which resulted in some silly pictures which I'll post up soon (baby likes leaning her head back sometimes...). Ev and I were happy to find that baby had herself another nice bowel movement, not four days after her last one, so we weren't starting a pattern of constipation. Also I believe this may mark our best changing of the baby after a bowel movement in a long time--we didn't have to change her outfit, even!

Our meal was topped off with ice cream and then it was time to pack up and get home, which as I said was slow but could have been worse. We read some more of our last James Herriot book and got through some good veterinarian anecdotes. Baby was awake a lot today and looking at things. She was fussy at times, but she had plenty of people to try to make her happy when that happened.

One thing we wanted to mention from yesterday but forgot: Cara passed a wonderful baby milestone. She farted while in her bathtub. Baby farting is always amusing (although now that her farts have begun to develop an odor, it's not as wonderful as it used to be), but it does get a little old when it happens all the time, so the underwater fart complete with bubbles was a nice variation.

I feel like there are more things I should say about the baby and her behaviorisms and such, but can't think of anything, and I've already written a lot. I will say that she's definitely growing, looking at stuff, and we felt it necessary to bring a few of her toys with her this time to keep her occupied and happy. Also I think in the future I'm going to make sure to get the car cool (or warm, depending on the season) before putting baby into it. And it's back to Evelyn!

6/6/05

I was on bed rest for the final couple of weeks of my pregnancy, which ended rather sooner than anticipated, so I was not involved directly in setting up the nursery. I did pick out the furniture and stuff, and I was certainly there for the whole mural process, but many things happened while I was down the hall in bed. I remember listening to Steve and his dad setting up the crib, and Janet brought all of the baby clothes we had down to my room so I could help sort them out. I also remember listening to Steve and my mom putting sheets on the crib. My mom explained to Steve that what she had done when she had small children was to layer the sheets, with waterproof pads in between them, so that at night if you needed to change the sheets, you would just take off the soiled one and be done. I was thinking back to that day today, because I just took off the final sheet (slight diaper leak, not really a big deal) and had to put new ones on.

I picked out lots of pretty ones that we hadn't used. We have a lot of sheets! I tried putting one on, and I found that it was absolutely impossible, even if I pulled as hard as I could, and the baby was a little bit fussy, and Shelby Foote was attacking my fingers when the stuck through the crib slats, and I was running late, and it was slightly ludicrous but I did manage to get a little bit stressed out over this stupid sheet. I got a nice pink sheet halfway on and gave up and left. I went down to my grandma's house today. When I got back, I attacked again. I had been planning on making Steve work on it with me, figuring that that was how they did it in the first place, but I wanted to get it done and I didn't like not having a place to put the baby. I moved the crib out into the room. I pulled my absolute hardest and through supreme effort I got that pink sheet onto the crib. We have two of that pink sheet. It's very pretty and I thought about putting its twin on top of it, but I decided to try a different kind. Surprisingly, and different kind went on more easily. It wasn't awfully easy, but it was better. Now we have a crib with three sheets in it.

Poor Cara got slumped forwards in the car on the way down to Grandma's house, and she screamed a good deal of the way. It turned out that I hadn't tightened her straps enough. My daddy figured it out. Grandma and I had a nice snack and took the baby for a walk, which was very nice even though it was about ninety degrees out. Then we went put to lunch with my father.

Having this baby is the hardest thing I've ever done. I guess that learning to teach is really the only other hard thing I have done, and this is probably tougher--it's certainly different! I feel like I'm constantly getting turned in different directions and figuring out things I should be doing better or differently. However, I keep reminding myself that there are lots of people who probably do a worse job! My mom and my grandma have both taught me something in the past two days. I think I tend to try to feed Cara whenever she gets fussy. What I really need to do is to watch her for signs of being hungry, like rooting around or chewing on people's arms. When she gets fussy, I can just snuggle her and comfort her. I'm going to try really hard to get better about this. I think I must rarely spend time just snuggling her, and that's not awfully good. I'm trying to change that.

Cara was very good and slept during the middle of the day, and then she woke up. I played with her for a while and then tried snuggling but decided that she really was hungry. She hadn't eaten for a couple of hours, but she was slobbering a little and sucking on things. I fed her (she ate plenty), and then she didn't go to sleep. Steve got home. He took out the recycling (paper and plastic), tied up the newspapers and took them out, cleaned up the mess in the basement where the stupid pump flooded the laundry area, moved the laundry along, and made dinner. The baby wasn't asleep. I decided to try putting her in her carrier and wearing her for dinner. She spent some time looking around and some time fussing and crying and then fell asleep around about the time I finished eating. Then Steve cleaned up the kitchen and finished the laundry. I contributed by wearing the baby.

My mother thinks I can do a better job of sleeping at night. She says to feed the baby around nine or ten and then just go the heck to bed. I'm going to try, but I think she doesn't go to sleep well at that time. We'll see how it goes. Right now she's asleep strapped to my chest, and it's 9:30, and maybe I'll put her down and go to bed soon. Will I make it? Only time will tell . . .

6/7/05

It's Cara's two-month birthday, and she had a heck of a day. When Cara has a heck of a day, so do I. Last night I got two three-hour stretches of sleep, which is about par for the course. In the morning, Cara slept, woke, fed, and played intermittently. She slept long enough for me to shower and dress and get myself a corn muffin, but not quite long enough for me to eat it in peace. She fed at seven, eight, and nine. We went to the doctor at ten.

In the office, I put Cara's car seat on the floor and she started to fuss. A little tiny girl who had come in behind us came right over and looked in. She started petting the baby, and I showed her how to rock the car seat to help Cara be quiet. She rocked very conscienciously, and she would reach in and pet Cara's face. Cara didn't really appreciate that, but it was really cute! I put the pacifier in, and Cara got quieter. Eventually another baby came out, much louder than Cara was at that moment, and the little girl had to go see to that one, too. She came back when that baby left, and she went on petting Cara, rocking her, and even removing and replacing her pacifier (there is no way on earth that she could have removed the pacifier if Cara had really been working on it, so I know that didn't bother her). She was two years old; I asked, and she concentrated really hard to hold up the right fingers.

Cara weighs ten pounds and eleven ounces. She is at the 75th percentile for weight and the 50th for height. She is 22 and a half inches long. Cara got four shots, three in her thighs and one in her poor little tush. She did get very unhappy, but I snuggled her up and she felt better and got sleepy.

Unfortunately, I had to go to the dentist. I left Cara with my dad, and when I got home he said, "This is a fussy baby." She had slept for about 45 minutes, apparently, and then gone right back to being unhappy. He had offered her a bottle, but she really didn't do much with it. This worries me, since she seemed a little bit reluctant to take her bottle on Sunday as well and we're trying to keep her used to them. Anyway, it was about 1:30. I fed Cara. She was not interested in being put down. At some point in the afternoon I got half an hour or so with her in the crib, but she cries in her sleep sometimes. She can really scream her little head off, with her eyes closed, and then fall peacefully back into sleep without a flicker. It's fairly disruptive when you're trying to eat. She woke up for real when my food was ready, so I callously stuck her in her bouncer on vibrate and ate.

Around three thirty I gave up. I took Cara and sat down in the glider and let her sleep or be awake and nurse or do whatever for the next few hours. Finally, around six, she seemed asleep for real and I put her down. Within five minutes she was awake and screaming as if the world were ending. I felt like doing the same. Poor Steve came home to a very unhapy pair.

Cara seemed so very fussy that we wondered whether she was reacting to her shots at all. I took her temperature in her armpit and got 99, which I figure is possibly a slight fever. I went out to get some liquid tylenol, like the doctor told us to do, and to find something for dinner. I felt much better, getting away a little bit. My sympathy for my poor baby was fully restored! When I came back Steve had her in her bouncer, and she sat nicely throughout dinner. We gave her some tylenol (cherry--another new flavor!) and snuggled her all evening. She can sleep through my eating a bowl of ice cream over her head, but if I laugh when she's sleeping in my lap, she jumps.

Now we've put her down. It's after ten. She's eaten, but not an awful lot. She seems to be sleeping. I'm not necessarily counting on a good night, but I'm ready for whatever comes, I guess.

6/8/05

It WAS a good night; Cara slept until about quarter after three in the morning and went back to sleep before four. She didn't get up until about eight, so I (who got up at seven) had time to do a few chores before starting back onto the baby rollercoaster. She also gave me time to shower after I fed her. She was a pretty good baby.

Cara's Aunt Sarah came and spent the day with us today! It was great for me and Cara, and Sarah (I hope) also had a good time. I got to go out and do my groceries, and then Sarah and I were able to hang out all afternoon. Cara didn't really sleep at all, unless she was being held, but she was pretty calm sometimes when we put her down. I was really happy when Sarah said she could see why I would be meeting Steve at the door in hysterics after doing this all day by myself.

It was much easier to deal with the baby all day with someone else here. I mean, we certainly divided the work, but it's also just better when there's someone there so you know it's not just that you're doing something wrong and so that you have someone to talk to.

Right now it's after 9:00. I've fed Cara several times in the past two hours. She is not asleep at all. She is giving her daddy a tough time. He's not allowed to sit down. He has to walk around while Cara looks at the ceiling fan. She really likes the ceiling fan. Last night at this time she was asleep in my lap. She certainly didn't sleep more today than she did yesterday, so she must be tired, she just must. Somehow, we have to convince her to actually sleep. I'm probably going to just wind up with her in the glider in a while, and I hope it takes.

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