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10/13/05

Last Night: The Postscript.

Have you ever had carrots in your ear? Until last night, I would have assumed that most people could say "no" to that. Now, I have changed my opinion.

Last Night: The Sequel.

Around ten this morning, I put Cara in her jumper. Shelby and Buster show up. I walk back and forth, up and down the hall, kicking the jingle ball. It seems silly to throw it just to follow it, pick it up, and throw it again. Of course, it doesn't seem silly to walk back and forth kicking it. Cara watches Shelby. Buster lurks on the stairs. Accidentally, the ball rolls down the stairs. Both cats follow. I retrieve it. I walk back and forth kicking the ball. Cara stands there watching. Both cats position themselves on the top step, with just their heads poking over, watching. This continues for at least twenty minutes.

Today:

Cara's grandparents came to visit! They brought lunch, dessert, and gifts from Disney Land (World? I never know, and Steve gets mad . . . it was the one in Florida.). We got chocolates, and Cara got a nice Tinkerbell onesie and a Winnie the Pooh rattle. The onesie will fit in a few months, but the rattle is a big hit right now.

Cara was a good girl all day. She got fussy around noon, and so I tried giving her some bananas. They were rejected. A bottle, however, was a big hit. I wonder whether she doesn't realize that eating food might make her less hungry, or she just doesn't like bananas. Other than that one period of crankiness, she was lovely. We played with her shape sorter, with and without the lid. We rattled our rattles. Cara can stick very large objects into her mouth. We're quite proud. Cara looked cute in her overalls, and we got what I hope are some good pictures.

We also put Cara in her jumper, and Grandpa and I rolled the jingle ball back and forth while Grandma took pictures from the stairs. The cats joined us and were typically, disappointingly non-participant. Cara got to watch them, though, and I'm not sure whether she can really track them when they move too fast, so it's okay. They mostly hid behind Jim, apparently thinking that that was a good vantage point.

After they left, around 2:30, Cara took a nap in her glider with her mommy and her popper. She woke up at three, and she was Very Unhappy. She screamed and screamed. I had to just plop her in her crib and make her a bottle. It was accepted and guzzled, and then she cried for more! I just nursed her for a few minutes, and she went back to sleep. I'd finished my book, so I went to sleep, too. I woke up around 5:30, and decided to wake Cara, too.

Cara sat in her swing while her daddy ate dinner. Nobody believes me about the swing, but she really will just sit there for about half an hour at a time. People tend to get anxious and want to give her toys and amuse her, but she's really okay. She does appreciate having a turtle to stick in her gaping maw, but she's really very relaxed.

I wasn't hungry when Steve ate, so I just had a bowl of cereal. We were almost out of milk. I found myself on the horns of a dilemma that many parents before me may have faced. We're out of milk, but we have all this powdered formula . . . I didn't try it.

10/14/05

Last year, while I was pregnant, I would come home from school every day and lie down on my bed with the cats. I put a blanket over myself and they lay on it and we all would fall asleep until Steve got home. I really wished I could have done that today. I am utterly tuckered out, and I hope that Cara decides to just go to sleep tonight.

Last night she did her thing she's been doing lately, basically behaving just like a little angel, but an angel who is not sleepy. I got her down and went to bed, and she was up again at about ten to eleven. Really it was an easy one, though, and she was back down in twenty minutes. I don't know whether that's why I'm so tired.

Baby was awake pretty much all day, according to her grandfather. She hasn't napped with us, either, except for maybe twenty minutes with Steve when she took a bottle. She is terribly friendly and playful. She's spent a lot of time in her bouncer, galloping away. She kicks so hard that the dangling toys just fly around; it's so loud that I had to almost shout to be heard. She thinks it's very funny. She's just highly amused by the world tonight, which is a wonderful thing.

10/15/05

Cara seems to get up earlier on the weekends than she does during the week, I'm sure of it! Of course, I'm not there when she gets up on weekdays, but I'm confident that she usually sleeps until or past eight o'clock. On weekends, she never seems to do that.

Of course we've had quite a nice day anyway. This morning we played and took turns showering, and then we all got in the car and headed down to Grandma Janet and Grandpa Jim's house. There, Cara sat in her new booster seat. It's slippery plastic, and she tended to slide around and slump, so I'll bring some nonskid stuff next time to help her keep situated. Cara very much enjoyed playing with lots of toys.

Janet kept a lot of toys that Jim and Steve had when they were little, and she's getting them out now. Steve doesn't seem awfully excited, but I'm recognizing several of them as toys that I had, too! There's a pull-toy that's a rotary phone on wheels. When you pull it along, its eyes roll up and down. The dial turns and rings. Cara likes it, too.

There is also a circus train set with cars and an engine that hook together and several plastic animals. I remember how much their tails used to frustrate me; they're made of slightly more bendable plastic of a different color from the stiff bodies, and they look like they ought to move. However, they are immobile. That bothered me. I didn't really get a chance to play with them this trip, but I expect to embark on a journey of rediscovery on a subsequent trip. A journey of rediscovery to a circus.

We got home around six, and Steven and I have eaten dinner and I'm doing some laundry. Steve is watching a DVD (one for grown-ups; it doesn't have any zebra puppets at all) and Cara is at work in her office--her saucer. She glances at his movie, but really she has to concentrate on more important things.

Our landmark for the day is that Cara is mow wearing a #3 diaper for the first time. When we changed from size 1 to size 2 there wasn't much appreciable difference, but the 3 diapers are huge! Also, they have cookie monster on them.

10/16/05

Our landmark for the day is that I bought some more size 2 diapers. The bigger ones worked fine, but they just seemed awfully huge. I figure they'll keep. Today was a very domestic day. We cleaned the house and did groceries, as usual, but we also went outside and got the lawn furniture cleaned up and away. Cara got to wear her Winnie the Pooh sack, which has long sleeves with no openings for hands and a hood with little bear ears. She looked very cute, and it may be the last time she gets to wear it, since it's almost too small. She sat in her carrier on the lawn and looked at the trees and felt the breeze and watched her mommy and daddy wrestle with things. She was very very good; I think she liked being outside.

When Cara's on her tummy, she can kind of maneuver herself around in a circle. Well, she's never even gotten a full 180 degrees, but she's heading that way. I like putting toy around her so that she has to turn for them. I'm experimenting with putting things under her little torso, which does seem to get her to move her legs more the way she would if she were crawling.

Cara seems to get cranky earlier these day, as if she wanted to go to bed, but then she just isn't interested in going to sleep until about ten. I plan on holding off on her bedtime routine until then, if I can, to see whether it works then. Today Cara had 28 ounces of formula and some baby food with rice cereal. I also nursed her a little. I think she consumes an awful lot; I have to try to find an average.

10/17/05

Steve here!

I have seen a bit of Cara today, but most of what I can put here about her is stuff I was told by the wife. One is that apparently baby spent 25 minutes in her little jumper toy today, watching the cats get only mildly interested in the laser pointer Evie was shining around for them. It's been so long since we played with them with the laser pointer, I think it was natural to expect the kitties to go after it with gusto. They did not, but it was still a good enough show for Cara.

I have also to report that Cara has learned to like being tickled. This is a step in the right direction. I can attest to this from my own experiences of having tickled her.

This evening, Cara consumed an ENTIRE BOTTLE of apple sauce. That's a lot! We've decided not to leave the toy part in her high chair, and that way she doesn't get as distracted--and she also doesn't smear food all over the toy. She really goes after the spoon, with her mouth if you're lucky, with her hands if you're not. I've developed a tactic of "coming in low" with the spoon, as her mouth lunging is generally at a downward angle.

We have thought on many occasions in the past months that Cara was teething. There have been several times in the last three or four months when we've been out with her, and maybe she's been a bit cranky, and people have asked, "Is she teething?" We usually provided noncommittal answers. Now clearly, Cara has not actually been teething for the past few months, or else something productive would have happened. But just lately she has been drooling rather copiously and getting rather screamy for no discernible reason. Probably we are being led down a blind alley again, but I suspect we may actually see a tooth fairly soon--PJ down the street has two teeth and he's only a few weeks ahead of her.

Evie sometimes calls Cara "Caribou," or perhaps "Cara-boo." I think this is a wonderful little pet name. Also, when Cara wakes up, Evie says "Great Boo's up!" This is kind of an inside joke referring to a rather raunchy episode of Black Adder, but it's also cute.

I really can't wait for her to start crawling. I could go on, but I don't want to get into the habit of writing long entries again. Just filling in. So good night!

10/18/05

George here:

On the issue of teething--I think it is happening. Cara is drooling copiously. Yesterday she and I were playing the piano, which is fun for both of us, and where usually she tries to grab my hands (I suspect to figure out what they are) today, she tried and sometimes succeeded at getting my fingers into her moist little mouth. After finishing playing, my hands were a sopping mess!

Also, Cara is more cranky. Yesterday, she didn't want to be anywhere other than in my arms walking around and looking at things. Even the old standby--Cara lying on her back and me rattling her caterpillar toy--worked only for a few minutes. Usually it's good for hours.

Cara is starting to get into the Beatles, though, while having a bottle upstairs she would stop to listen to the Beatles White Album. There's quite a bit that's good for little girls--Obla Dee Obla Da, anyone?

I'm trying to have Cara's day go in an organized fashion, though this might be asking too much of a six-month old. Cara wakes up at 8 A.M. Then Cara has her bottle, a tour of the house and the neighborhood, then she's played with a little, perhaps some solid food. Today Cara seemed obstreperous in the A.M. so we went for a walk to the park where one disgustingly amusing thing happened. Today, Cara is sound asleep in her crib at 10:15, which is right on schedule. The plan is that she'll awaken about noon or 1 P.M. and then the cycle starts over again, just in time for her mommy to come home at around 4 P.M. and feed her and/or play with her and the cats, who we mostly ignore during the day.

Of course, none of this works as planned. Cara wakes up at 11 A.M. and has a little squash and then a full bottle. But she's grunting and groaning throughout. I give her some Tylenol and I guess I'll take her somewhere this afternoon, since I don't want her to sleep until Evie gets home.

So picture this: Cara is in the swing at the park. It's a gorgeous blue sky day. She's swinging happily back and forth, back and forth. How's this for disgustingly funny: at the forward apex of a swing, Cara spits up disgustingly but since the swing has started back, none of it gets on her clean clothes. Then Cara swings forward and at the forward apex of the next swing, does it again! That's one neat baby!

Evie:

Last night Cara was ready for bed around 9:30. We settled in the glider and I nursed her and she fell asleep pretty fast, but I was reading my book and I figured it wouldn't hurt to sit a little. I put her down around ten. She woke up and yelled. I had to pick her up again. She fell asleep, and I put her down and she woke up and yelled. This was repeated several more times. I considered calling my father, because he's so good at putting her down. I think he kind of lets her cry it out, though, but Steve was asleep, and I really wasn't up for that. I changed her into a long-sleeved onesie and her sack instead of her sleeper, and I gave her some Tylenol, and finally around 11:30 I got to bed. As I've mentioned, I've been awfully tired lately.

Steve says he wasn't really asleep. This irrationally annoys me. I don't want him to some and help or anything; I think that that would also be annoying. I want him to be asleep. I mean, it kind of means that I can't complain about being up with the baby, because he was up, too. It really doesn't give my feelings the validation I'm looking for. We've decided that he gets to put her down some nights. Those nights, I will be asleep.

I agree with my dad about Cara being strangely cranky lately. I'm not sure that the drooling has increased, although Steve has mentioned it, too. She's just not happy. However, Steve is right that she has begun to like being tickled. It's quite funny. I tried her back today, and I'm not sure how she reacted, but her tummy gets a big laugh.

Today we played for a while and then Cara and I took a nap. It started around five and lasted longer than I planned, since Steve got home later than usual. It was nice. I just hope it doesn't make it harder to get her down tonight! Maybe I can let Steve do that.

When I feed Cara in her high chair, her toys are always a distraction. There are two toys, her crab and this other strange sea creature, who dangle on rubber ropes from the sides. I've been just dropping them out of her reach. There is also a sort of console that snaps into the tray that has a few toys on it. It's been getting awfully sticky, so I decided to take it out altogether. Now it's just her, me, and the tray. This evening, I had a tough time getting rid of the crab. She had a tight hold on his rope, and it turns out that she can pretty much wave him around! He's pretty big, comparatively, and so I'm quite impressed. I had to wait a while until she happened to drop him. Unfortunately, with all other distractions gone, Cara has now focussed on the bowl. She can reach it, no matter where on the tray I put it! This is Not Good.

10/19/05

George:

Another in my collection of mildly funny moments. This one is I'm sure in every parent's history.

I've just finished feeding Cara in the high chair and now I'm trying to coax a burp from her. None comes. I get up and carry her into the bathroom so she can get a look at herself. Then I burp.

Evie:

For the record, that hasn't happened to me. Yet.

Last night Cara decided that it was so much fun staying up to eleven the night before that she'd do it again. Steve wrassled with her, and then I did to him what I hate for him to do to me. I showed up and took her. I nursed her and got her to bed around eleven.

She was up again and yelling at midnight. I nursed her back to sleep.

This morning, I am sure she was awake. I heard her thumping in her bed. I tiptoed through my routine and fled the house.

At school, I got lots of coaching from all of the older moms. Basically, Ida and Bev say that Cara is training me and that I have to just put her down and let her figure out that I'm not coming. This is either neglect or a wonderful lesson in self-sufficiency. I guess I knew I had to do it; it's what my dad does. So, tonight we'll see what happens.

This afternoon, Cara and I had a good time. I raised her jumper, and now she can bounce. I'm feeling a little bit guilty for not having tried it before, but I really couldn't help it. She seems to like it more, now. I also put her in her high chair. She had a great time with her crab and demonstrated to my surprise that she can reach the faraway toy, the little fishies who can move along a bar they're kind of impaled on. That's not a good way of putting it, but anyway Cara can now move them around on their track.

I think she's tired. I let her take a twenty-minute nap, but then I woke her. It's eight o'clock, and she's crabby; I know she wants to go to sleep. This is trouble.

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