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6/9/05

9:00

I sat down in the glider with Cara last night around 10:30, and eventually I fell asleep. When I woke up, so had she, so I put her down around 11:50. Cara then slept until 6 in the morning. Therefore, I am happy to announce that Cara and Steve both slept through the night--I, of course, was up around four to go to the bathroom.

3:30

Well, my baby is an alien. I think she is running on some sort of 48-hour day or something. I mean, I fed her around six and she went back to sleep. I showered quickly, sure she would be up soon. She slept till eleven. I fed her, and she went back to sleep. I took her out of her crib and stuck her in her bouncer and took her outside, where she went to sleep. I brought her back in, and she got fussy. Finally, I thought, we can do the things I've been planning on doing together all day! I wanted to give her a bath, play with her toys, and introduce her to the wonderful world of light opera. I think that The Pirates of Penzance would be good for her nascent vocabulary. She fed a little bit and then screamed a little bit and we played a little bit and then she fussed until I picked her up. She seemed to like that, so I carried her around a little. We looked at ourselves in the mirror in the bathroom, which was fun, and then I put her in her carrier and--surprise!--she fell asleep. So, she's an alien.

On the upside, I've gotten a few chores done. None of them are really useful ones, but it's good that I did them. I really have to get busy, though, because Cara's Great Grandma Anne and Great Aunt Nancy are coming tomorrow! We are very excited and Cara plans to wear this really cute outfit with ruffles on the butt.

6/10/05

9:00

That silly baby slept until seven un the evening! Then she was fussy for a few hours--in fact, her Aunt Claire, who was here, is one of the few people aside from her parents who have heard Cara at Full Volume. I was sure that I was really in for it and was going to have a horrible night. However, I was able to put Cara down at 11:20 and go to bed. She didn't wake me until 5 in the morning, which is pretty great. I used to go to sleeep at 10:30 and get up at 5:30 when I was working, so we're getting close to a normal night! Because I'm an optimist, I put Cara back down at 5:40, even though she seemed a little bit restless. I've heard a lot of grunts and things, but it's almost nine and she's not quite up again. I slept until eight, and then I seized my chance for a shower and now I'm ready for the day.

My grandma's coming today! I'm not really ready, so Cara and I have lots of chores we may try to do. It'll be a busy, fun day. One thing we're going to do, which will accomplish nothing, is to start listening to the baby-oriented cd's that Steve picked up for us at the library yesterday. One is classical, one seems to be some sort of hip-hop, and the other is just cute.

My new glider came! It's much more dignified-looking than the loner, and it's also much cushier. It's bigger, so it takes up more space in the room, but that's okay; more things fit in it. When I have a toddler, we can still snuggle up in it together. Also, when I'm nursing, it's harder for Cara to push off from the arm of the chair with her feet.

Aunt Claire and I worked on the baby book yesterday. We got four pages done, giving us a total of five completed. One thing we need to do is to get nice pictures of the house and more family pictures. I mean, we have lots of pictures of Cara with her relatives, but we need some specific shots and we need to get prints of other ones. The page that says Family on it is going to be crowded!

For the past week it's been about 90 degrees out every day. Finally, today, it's going to be a little bit cooler and it looks like it will stay cooler and perhaps not even hit 80 next week. That's wonderful, because it will be easier to take Cara out and easier to hold her without getting all sticky. I'm quite pleased.

6/11/05

Well, Cara has met another branch of her widespread family at long last. Her Great-Grandma Anne and Great Aunt Nancy came up to see her, but unfortunately they had a cold and couldn't really hold her. Everyone thinks she's beautiful and awfully smart. Aunt Nancy is going to take Cara and move her to Florida and keep her forever. She brought Cara a beautiful pair of shoes that she painted little blue flowers on.

Cara is getting much calmer and is able to just lie there and look around more, and she has, to observers' delight, rolled from her back to her side repeatedly. She has been getting better about putting her hands in her mouth, but she never seems really excited about it when she does get one there.

My mom, her Grandma Jan (Cara could potentially have two Grandma Janets; it's a problem that we haven't really figured out yet), has been playing "How big is the baby?" with Cara. I've been trying it, too, and Cara lets me play with her arms. She watches my face, but she hasn't yet mimicked the "SOOOOOO big!" motion that comes at the end. She may be close to doing it, though.

I've been playing with Cara's legs, too, and singing her little songs about it. I have several songs that I sing to put her to sleep, but Steve tells me that they're all the same tune.

Just for the record, Cara woke me at two in the morning, but perhaps that was partly because her diaper had leaked and she felt wet. Unfortunately, it took until about 3:45 for her to get back to sleep. Now, the bedsheets are easy to deal with, and I have plenty of onesies, but I only have one light sleep sack to put Cara in, so I have to figure out what to have her wear tonight, as I have not done laundry yet. I think I may purchase another sack for my baby. I like putting her in a sack!

6/12/05

Again, I was up for about two hours in the night. I went back to bed a couple of times, but had to get up. This time it was between three and five o'clock, which hurts a little bit more because the sun is up when you get back to bed. I was confused when it was brighter in the computer room where the blinds were open than in Cara's room and mine.

As usual, the weekends are very busy. Today we drove down to see Cara's Grandpa Jim and Grandma Janet in south Jersey. They had been on vacation and hadn't seen Cara in a very long time, and they were very impressed with how much she had changed in that time! She holds her head up much better. Cara played with her rattles and sat up and had a very good time. Well, people played with Cara's rattles and she followed them with her eyes, and people sat her up and she looked at things, and everyone had a very good time except when Cara started wailing, which she did some of the time. Mostly, though, she was very good. Her grandpa got some good pictures of her and took some new video footage, which I look forward to seeing (my giant face isn't in it, I believe).

Cara had a bottle today, given to her by her grandpa, and she did a very good job on it. She took only very short breaks, and she got through about four ounces. She used to to that all the time, I think, though perhaps my memory is inaccurate. I'm not sure, but I think that she would regularly take four ounces. Lately, she'd been doing a poor job with bottles, stopping for extended periods and not really taking much formula. Because we want her to switch to bottles by September, it's pretty important to keep her willing to take them! I plan on giving her one every day. I hope I keep that up. I plan on watching tv when I do it, so I can make it into some kind of routine. It can get boring, giving her bottles. There's no way to have a hand free for a book!

I forgot to mention that Aunt Nancy figured out what color Cara's eyes are: blue-brown. That's really the only answer; it just isn't clear yet. I did a little bit of internet research, and there may be no real explanation for why our eyes change color. Cara's eyes may not settle on a color until she's a couple of years old.

Cara and I listened to a cd by Hap Palmer this morning while she took her bath. It was really cool; we learned about colors and numbers and the alphabet and opposites and different ways of moving. It is a perky album and I like it a lot. I think that the library has a lot of Hap Palmer. I'm glad.

6/13/05

We now have lots of toys in Cara's crib, one of which is her Aquarium Wonders aquarium thing, which hangs on the side of the crib. It plays music and there are little moving fish when it's on, and there are things that one can spin and push. Lately Cara has THREE TIMES that we know of reached out with her feet and kicked the button that turns it on. Unfortunately, she really has no idea that she's done it and she doesn't seem to care. Someday, though, that will be really cool.

Another cool thing that I forgot to mention is that yesterday Steve's mom gave him his Father's Day gift, which included the copy of Hop on Pop that she read to him when he was little. It's "the simplest Seuss for youngest use." I read it this morning; it's very simple, but it's fun and very long (that surprised me). It may be our first Seuss.

Sometimes I give the baby to Steve in the evenings and ask him to hold her for a minute so I can do something. Then I worry that he's going to notice that I've left him for much much longer than I said I would and have found lots of things to do that are not in the original plan that I had proposed. I have realized that this is really underestimating Steve and marginalizing his role as Cara's father. Sorry, Steve! I had decided that Cara should have a bottle every day, and I assumed that I would be giving it to her, because it would take up even more time in Steve's evening. However, when I ran this by him, he eagerly signed on to give Cara bottles in the evenings. This would be good daddy-daughter time, he said (not in those exact words). So, I was wrong. I am rethinking all of my thinking. I mean, I've always thought Steve was a good daddy, but I had gotten to feel like I was the primary parent, not like a partner. So, in time for Father's Day, I apologize again to Steve and promise that things will be different.

Last night Cara went to bed around eleven and woke up around four, I think. I got back to bed before six and slept until 8:30. Cara and I spent lots of time in the glider today, and we did lots of chores. We changed the gerbil's bedding, did a load of laundry, and went shopping. We bought Steve a Father's Day gift, bought a new sleep sack, and did the groceries. This time, for the first time, I put Cara's car seat in the top part of the shopping cart instead of the big part, and it really seems very secure and not that scary to have her up there. It's kind of nicer to have her closer to me. We also took a walk and played with Cara's toys, and then finally I put Cara down. I was able to make a nice dinner, which Steve and I were able to eat before Cara woke up. Now he has given her a bottle, of which she drank half (rats!), and we will probably go play with Cara's toys now. Steve is much better at puppets than I am!

6/14/05

Last night we put on the Hap Palmer CD and Steve made Cara's bear puppet dance. That bear had to dance for a long, long time, because Cara just stared at it. We played with her toys and I got her to take the rest of the bottle. I think I got to bed around eleven, and I know I was up for a while during the night, but all I know for sure is that we both got up around seven fifteen, which disappointed me. I like sleeping.

Cara played with her toys a lot today and stayed awake for a long time, including the hour during which I went to the dentist and her Grandpa George stayed with her. She was very happy just looking at things and sort of fell asleep on the jungle mat a couple of times, because she was so relaxed. It is very nice when she can amuse herself. Cara laughs and smiles at me when we play together, which is much more gratifying than a lot of the interaction we have had up until now.

This morning I put Cara on her tummy, which usually upsets her very much. However, she calmed down pretty fast and spent about ten minutes just wriggling around. She was working very hard at something involving her legs and arms, but I'm not sure what. I think she'll roll over soon, but it looks pretty tough. I mean, her arms are kind of in her way because one sticks out on either side. I tried putting her on her side later on, to see whether she might roll forwards, but it made her cry. That was interesting, because we used to put her down to sleep on her side.

Cara's hair is getting thicker, and I'm wondering whether I'll like it--her having hair, I mean. Her little head has always been so cute! I wonder what her hair will be like and how soon it'll be like a real person's hair. Her eyes had been seeming very brown lately, but I've decided that it's the reflection of the brown fabric covering the glider. Her eyes are still indeterminable.

I know it's early, and there are lots of options out there and really no one will need help, but I wanted to say this now before I forget. Hap Palmer CDs would be a great Christmas gift for Cara. It's really cool; each song basically has a lesson plan to go with it. As a teacher, I find that very reassuring. They'll be much more fun once Cara can walk around and learn things, but I still like them now and plan to get the cd from the library again or to try others. I get the songs in my head and am irrationally tempted to play the cd for anyone who comes into the house. I try to show restraint.

6/15/05

Okay, I don't REALLY try to show restraint. Sarah came up today and one of the first things I did was to put the stupid CD on. First I tried the hip hop CD, which Sarah and I agreed was really not for our demographic. I'm sure that if you like rap it was a very nice album, but I really don't want to know who "didn't steal no cookie from the cookie jar." I don't want my daughter listening to it, but, more importantly, I just don't think I would be able to stand listening to it. So I had a good excuse to switch to Hap Palmer.

Cara was awfully good today. Sarah and I gave her a bath and I fed her and we went out on the town, hitting Barnes and Noble as well as Bed, Bath and Beyond and then even going out to lunch. I didn't hear a single peep from Cara the whole time we were out. As soon as we got home, of course, she was awake. She was still pretty sleepy today, although we got in some good looking-at-things time and we played with some toys.

This evening I had to go out to the 8th Grade Awards Night at Linwood, my school where I am employed. (It was awful; I had to give an award and everything and I hate talking to people! Plus, I had to get dressed up. It's the first time since March, really, and it was a great effort to look mildly decorative. It was nice to see my colleagues but awful to sit on stage for an hour.) When I got home, Cara was screaming her head off, apparently about her bottle. Now, Spock talks about giving breast-fed babies bottles. He says that they may reject bottles from their mothers, or reject bottles if their mothers are in the room, or reject bottles if their mothers are in the house. I theorize, though, that Cara takes the bottle better if I am around, because she associates me with food. Anyway, either because I'm the feeder or through sheer determination, I got her to take the rest of that bottle. Now she's asleep. It's 9:30, but I'm assuming she'll wake up for another feeding. I hope she will, for my sake!

Cara has a little lump on her thigh, which I discovered when I was trying some improvised baby massage today. I've decided that it's not cancer, though, it has to be a little swelling from her shots. I checked Spock, and he does mention that that can happen.

Now she's awake. I'm eating an apple. Steve is going upstairs. It's the end of week ten.

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