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7/14/05

I knew there was something from our Florida trip that Steve had forgotten to mention, and I was pretty sure it wasn't the Bobo story, although I enjoyed that, too. This morning, I remembered what it was. We saw TWO interesting things in the flea market; one was the turtles, the other was a kiosk selling CDs and books that they would insert your child's name into.

It was difficult to walk by there with a baby. The woman manning the store asked us Cara's name, and she put on a lullaby CD that had Cara in it. "Cara, it's time to close your eyes now," a woman's voice said. It continued to sing to Cara. It was a little bit spooky. I told the lady we would think about it, and we left. Steve says that, if anyone's going to sing Cara's name, it should be one of us. He probably thinks it should only be him. I said that Cara really seemed to like it when I sang along to music with an inane smile on my face, and Steve said that she probably just liked the smile.

Today was a lovely day. Cara has made a diaper transition, and now she is using a package of slightly larger ones that someone bought us. It is fortunate that we have them, because the poor thing gets her outfits all wet whenever I put her old diapers on her. She has been through four outfits since four o'clock this morning. She woke me up then because she woke up because she was wet. It makes her very unhappy.

We played this morning and I did some laundry, and then Cara and I watched the Baby Beethoven video that someone bought her. The video is pretty cool; it has nice music and colorful images. There are a lot of puppets and toys moving along to the music, so it is really pretty much what we have been doing for Cara all along. She watched it, though, and was entertained for the entire half hour. This evening her daddy watched it with her again.

Cara and I went out and did some errands; she was very polite to everyone we met, including a janitor and secretary at Linwood and two old friends from our former apartment complex at the pool. We went to Babies R Us and I got Cara some white onesies in the 3-6 month size and some pretty ones in the next size up, because I couldn't find any pretty ones in our size. There was a sale, so I got the second package at half price; otherwise, I wouldn't have bought it. I also had a 20% off coupon, so I made out like a bandit!

This evening we went out to our favorite restaurant, the Indian place nearby. They have discontinued their buffet, but we still were very happy and, unlike the last couple of times we went, we got to eat our meal without the baby getting upset. She just sat with her daddy and looked around; she fell asleep a little, too!

7/15/05

Today was a strange day. It was not a particularly good day, but it was okay. Cara woke up around eight and I fed her and put her back to bed, peacefully asleep. I talked to my mom on the phone and made plans to head to her house in the afternoon, and then it occurred to me that it might be a good time to go to the chiropractor. The baby was asleep, so I could just toss her in her car seat and drive down there. She would, if I were lucky, sleep right through it.

I was, of course, not lucky. Cara was awake but quiet until I got back into the office and was lying on my stomach on a table with electrodes and a heating pad on my back. Then she decided to scream her little head off. I've been going to this chiropractor for years, and I really like the people there. The girl (whose name I really should know, but don't--how embarrassing!) came in and tried to calm Cara down, but nothing helped. We tried the hippo, the popper, dancing, bouncing, everything! She kept screaming, with tears running down her face. Finally, the girl called in reinforcements in the form of one of the doctors (whom I had never met, because I only see Dr. Sellari), asking him whether he was good with babies. He tried dancing with her, too, explaining that, as a teenager, he had had a baby brother, so he'd been through all of this before. The dancing didn't really help, but soon my ten minutes were up and I could get up and snuggle my baby.

Unfortunately, I still had to get adjusted. The screaming recommenced. Dr. Sellari says to bring her back any time; they love this stuff. The trip home was okay, but Cara was just not a happy baby all morning. I fed her a lot and she slept snuggled in my arms, which was fine with me because I was reading Harry Potter. Around 12:30 I packed her up and we headed for Grandma's.

We arrived at my mother's house around one, and I carried the sleeping baby in. I went back to the car for the diaper bag, and the baby was crying by the time I got back to the house. I fed her and my mom and I took her with us to mom's school, where Cara was a good girl, though not particularly happy, and met several teachers. It was cool for me, especially, because Mom teaches at my alma mater.

Finally, Cara went to sleep in my arms and woke up cheerful and willing to play. We did some tongue-sticking-out, some talking, some hippo-shaking, and a lot of foot-play. It is really cute how babies just lie there and pick their legs up in the air, feet together. Cara is really working on her hands, too. She has started touching one hand with the other in addition to sticking them in her mouth.

I talked to the pediatrician about teething today. She says that we could give Cara Tylenol if she seems to be in distress, and we can get one of those freezable teething rings. Cara has a white bump on her gum, and the doctor says that sometimes babies get little cysts. Dr. Spock never mentioned that! In any case, Dr. Chen confirms my mother's interpretation that drooling, crying, and sticking your fists in your mouth are a sign of teething.

Cara hasn't been extra-cheerful or anything, but she's been a nice baby this evening. Now her daddy is reading her her hippo book. I am ready to go to bed. It's nine o'clock.

7/16/05

It is very very unfortunate that Cara apparently did not get the memo that says that babies sleep in the car. We just got home from my parents' house, which is a little bit more than half an hour away, and Cara spent about three minutes not screaming. No one enjoyed the trip. We brought her into the house and I picked her up and walked around with her while she calmed down. She made that little sighing noise that I remember you make when you've stopped crying but you had been crying really hard and your breathing is still funny. She started to get upset again and I put her down in her crib and turned on her classical CD and her fish mobile. I think she was talking to the fish.

Earlier, Cara met yet another challenge in her young life. She knows that it's pretty good to get her hand into her mouth, so she thinks, I infer, that it would be really really great to get both of them in there! However, it is clearly not to be. She tried hard this afternoon and failed, and she is trying again now. Her father and I can only wish her the best of luck and step back from the whole situation.

My parents went out to a garage sale this morning and bought some baby stuff for their house, including Cara's first swing. We put her in it and she started to cry. Then Claire and Steve and I went out to lunch, leaving my mother with a screaming baby. When we got home, we found that Mom had put her back in the swing, where she had been quite happy ever since! She was sucking her hand and watching the hinge the swing swung from and listening to Annie. We took her out and went shopping with her, but we put her back in the swing for dinner, and it worked pretty well. It's not a particularly new swing, so you do have to keep restarting it, but it's going to significantly raise our quality of life on visits there.

Cara was mainly a good, cheerful baby today. She enjoyed several diaper changes, smiled at people, drooled, AND stuck her tongue out deliberately when I stuck mine out at her. It was the first time she's really managed that. She also foiled her aunt Claire's attempts to wipe up her drool by grabbing the tissue and hanging on for quite a while during one car ride. She was in the car four times today, which may just have been a bit much. She also spent a couple of hours in her car seat at the mall, so I can see why she might have been tired of it. But, anyway, she was good and playful for the most part, so I'm happy.

7/17/05 (SG)

Hello, Steve here. Today we got ourselves up (Ev and I had a nice breakfast and look at the paper while Cara slept in a bit), fed the baby, and were off to South Jersey to see Cara's grandparents--and Cara's aunt and uncle, which was a pleasant surprise. Baby thankfully was pretty much out for the whole long car ride, but after only a few minutes of peaceful calm in the grandparents' house, it was off to the baby races. She was quite a bit fussy. Then we kind of compounded things by giving her a bottle, but she did eat more out of it than she usually does with me (the grandparents fed her). We were able to calm her down with her hippo and some good carrying around, most of which I did not get involved in--I took some personal daddy time to eat a very nice lunch and hang around. Eventually Uncle Jim and Aunt Sarah had to move on, by which time if I remember correctly baby was asleep. Baby had some time listening to her Burl Ives CD, and we subjected her grandparents to it, and they didn't seem horribly annoyed (we all found the "I'm off to Jolly England, where the bulldogs all wear pants" line rather humorous--and I am already quite attached to a few of the songs, including one about the frog who goes a-courtin' which reminds me of the wonderful old "Flip the Frog" cartoons I have on DVD--I hope Cara appreciates them!). Evie with great talent was able to play a game (Uno) and play with the baby at the same time--which was very wearing, so she decided that it was time I took a turn at baby-playing. I was not as successful in my multi-tasking, so the game was given up and I rolled her (she was lying in her play yard, which does have wheels and can be rolled) into the main part of the living room and played with her very emphatically. We did our baby legs ("I think you have a bad case of the Baby Legs. We may have to operate!"), and we did plenty of smiling and hand-sucking, and baby grabbed my giant finger (well, I made her grab it), and we danced and bounced and I sang very absurdly at her (which thankfully was not captured on camera) and did some tongue-wagging, though I don't think the baby ever stuck out her tongue at me in response to my tongue. When baby folds up her legs and sticks her feet in the air--which she does very often--I have developed the habit of giving her a "high five" by tapping the bottoms of her feet and making little popping noises. Sometimes I think this amuses her. My father tried desperately to capture Cara smiling while we were playing together, with some reasonable success (photos will be posted soon).

Anyways, I was glad that there was a good hour or so there when we were able to show Cara's grandparents that she doesn't actually spend all of her free time wailing red-faced at everyone who touches her. Really. And then we piled back into the car and got ourselves home--thankfully another uneventful car trip, with only one very short complaint from the backseat. We got a lot done in our Abraham Lincoln biography--perhaps baby will feel a strong liking toward old Abe when she grows up. If any of that mumbo jumbo about babies hearing stuff in the womb is for real, she should already be a big fan of Benjamin Franklin and James Herriott.

We picked up some fast food on the way home and ate it with baby in her bouncer. We were all happily watching Octopussy, a wonderful James Bond film. Baby did not dislike it. Then baby went up to her crib and we played with her little rattly lamb for a while, and now she is being fed and (hopefully) put down to sleep. Today baby got to wear a very cute little blue sleeveless number which I had had the misfortunate of never getting a chance to see until now (baby had always managed to soil it before I got there), but she looked very pretty. She got annoyed with me in her crib just now and was crying, but moving her lips and tongue with what seemed a definite purpose. I heard what sounded like an "m" and an "l" sound. I'm pretty sure she wouldn't know anything to say right now, even if she could pronounce anything, but I thought it was at least an attempt at communication. Off and on today, she was grabbing her cute little dress and tugging at it--I think she is definitely getting closer to conscious grasping.

Tomorrow I go back to work and Mommy is back on regular duty. I hope that anything important I may have disregarded in this entry gets filled in by her. So long!

7/18/05

I asked Steve to write a short journal entry last night, but clearly he couldn't do it. I can't think of anything he missed, so I'll just go on to today. Today was a lazy day. I decided not to take Cara out at all, since she'd been dragged from pillar to post over the past four days and seemed to be getting a little bit cranky about it. We spent the day playing, snuggling, and napping. (I didn't nap, except a little.) It was nice.

Cara is wearing yet another really cute summer outfit, pink with little flowers and a little ruffle kind of like a skirt. It's nice because she has taken to grabbing her clothes and pulling on them, and she pulls on the skirt, which is really cute.

A couple of times today, I put blankets on Cara and she got her hands into them and they wound up in her mouth. I see this as progress toward use of her hands. She's not particularly happy, I think, licking blankets; she seems a little bit startled about it, but she's exploring the world. I also kind of think she's starting to make rudimentary reaching gestures toward objects.

I was going to ask my family whether someone could come up and watch the baby while I went to the chiropractor today, but when my back woke me at three thirty in the morning I had the brilliant idea of taking Tylenol. It helped, I think, so I didn't go today. We'll see whether I deeply regret this. Not much else to day, except to point out that this is proof that I, at least, can write a short journal entry.

10:06 PM (Steve's shortest journal entry)

I was just listening to music with Cara (Burl Ives, followed by Nick Drake). I put her on her boppy and she smiled for a few seconds. She drooled on my shoulder. When we start next week's set of journal entries, I plan on overhauling the interface in the journal section. The End.

7/19/05

Okay, so maybe Steve CAN write a short entry. I think that this will be longer than his last, but it will be fairly short by my usual standards. I admit that I am reading Harry Potter; I'm on the last one before the new one, which we have and I get to read first, and so for the past few days I have been very willing to feed or snuggle Cara because I get to read while I hold her. She took a couple of nice naps with me in the glider today.

I've said that Cara cries in her sleep, but she also smiles. Earlier, she was sleeping in my arms and I happened to look down and catch her smiling. Then she laughed, or sort of chuckled. I really wonder what she dreams about. Hippos? People smiling at her? Those are the things that get laughs out of her when she's awake.

We played a lot today, mostly the same old stuff. Cara helped me do the groceries, and she is wearing a cute little pair of overalls. They're pink, with a pocket and a 3-D butterfly decal attached, as well as ruffles on the back. They have many other features, actually, but I really don't think I need to describe them all.

I read and mentioned to Steve something about how it's really good for babies to be bounced to music. Steve tried it while I was cooking. Cara apparently enjoyed bouncing on her daddy's knee for a few songs before she got tired. Maybe I'll try it too, tomorrow.

7/20/05

This will be the last entry for a little while, because my grandfather died this morning and we are going back to Florida for the funeral. We will be leaving New Jersey around one o'clock tomorrow; our return flight leaves from West Palm Beach at twelve thirty on Sunday, so we should be back at a decent time.

Today I wound up carrying Cara around a lot, even putting her in her carrier and doing housework with her. I have hired the son of our neighbors to take care of Shelby and Buster while we are gone, so I had to make sure the house wasn't too messy. Besides, who wants to come home to a messy house? Cara had a few naps in my arms today, as well. I think she is suffering from some sort of indigestion, so I'm being awfully nice to her when she's cranky.

She had a lot of non-cranky time today, though. We played a lot, and she got to see my parents and sister, too. She played with everyone. The most exciting part for me was when she played piano with my father; Steve has a keyboard in the dining room, and my dad sits at it with Cara on his knee. She watches his hands while he plays with the keys, and then he puts her hands up to them and she gets to play, too. This should be fascinating when she has really found her hands. Cara also took a bath today, and I have finally realized that the laws of physics really do apply; a 13-pound baby displaces more water than a six-pound one, so I need to start putting in less water, especially as more kicking is happening.

We've gotten out of the habit of giving Cara bottles. It's my fault, I think, because I meant to start giving her one every day, but I haven't been. The truth is, it's harder to read while you feed a baby from a bottle, because you need to hold the bottle as well as the baby. I need to read Harry Potter right now, so I really can't be expected to do that! It's very important. I am, however, almost halfway done with the new one, so a few more feedings should get it over with and I'll become a normal person again.

It is a bit scary to be taking the baby on a plane again, as I don't want to jinx myself by thinking about how good she was last time. I have to assume that it may be completely awful and that she might just be miserable. My grandma, thank goodness, is getting us the play yard and all the same stuff we had last time, so I hope we'll be okay once we get there. I hope. Wish us luck!

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