| Previous Week | Back Home | Next Week |

10/27/05

Steve here again. We forgot to write an entry last night--oops! Ironically, my mother was here in the evening, so we had an even better opportunity than usual to sit down at the computer without worrying about the baby. But there you are. The upshot is, I get to fill you in on not only today and yesterday, but the night before that (the night of 10/25 into early morning 10/26). It was a fun night. Cara woke up some time past 1 am and Evie went in to deal with her. I don't remember that bit at all, but I do remember Cara waking Ev and I up again at around 2 am, and Evelyn saying (quite rightly) "It's your turn." So up I got. I spent about 45 minutes very carefully getting Cara to sleep in the glider, then very carefully getting up and very carefully approaching the crib--but as usual for me, when it came to actually putting her down, I failed. She woke up and went off again. Evie reappeared and took over. She worked at Cara for a while, but that baby was just not ready to go to sleep. At this point, we both decided that we'd done what we could and it was time to let baby cry a little. So Evie went back to bed with me. This was around ten of, or five of, 3 am. By approximately 3:10 am, I had heard enough of Cara crying.

I knew what had to be done. I got up, put on my pajama pants, my heavy sweatshirt, and my slippers, and marched into the nursery. I put a popper in Cara's mouth. I took her out and sat in the glider with her. For a while we stared at each other. Then I decided to pick up the book Evie was currently keeping in the room to read as she takes care of baby--it was a collection of short stories by Margaret Atwood. I read the first story, which was very creepy. Then I put the book down. I tried to nap, but I had no luck--I realized I was asking a lot of baby to sleep on command, since I'm so bad at it myself. But actually baby did eventually fall asleep, and popped her popper. However, I knew I was there for the duration--I simply did not trust myself to put her down without her waking up. So I stayed there with her in my lap until about 5:20 (Evelyn's alarm goes off at 5:30). By that time, she was so deeply asleep that, even though she did kind of wake up when I put her down, she decided to go back to sleep. I went to bed and may have slept a little during the next 45 minutes before my alarm went off.

Well! That's that. On 10/26 (Wednesday), I went to work with the idea that I would probably not be functioning at full capacity that day. However, for some reason I did fine, and was not very tired. It was a usual day, until on the way home the entire Parkway southbound was stopped because, about a half mile in front of me, a car was on fire. News choppers circled the skies; emergency vehicles raced past us on the shoulder; a nearby car emitted gawking young men who tried to take pictures of the scene with their digital camera. I read my book for a while. Then we started moving again and I managed to get home at a fairly respectable time of 6:30 pm. My mother arrived not too long after that. Baby was okay (she had strongly rejected George's offering of carrots earlier in the day, and was not interested in the solid food we tried on her that evening)--she had her first bath without her tiny baby tub! It had become clear to Evelyn and me the last time Evie bathed Cara that the baby just didn't really fit in the thing anymore--it had gotten to the point where she had to scrunch her legs up just to get her upper body wet. So this time Evie filled the real full size tub a few inches with warm water, tossed in a lot of bath toys (Cara has piles of bath toys, very few of which she has really had a chance to try), and then tossed in the baby. Baby as it turns out is very slippery, and it was very hard to sit her up--we may have to get one of those non-slip mats for the bottom of the tub. Cara did do all right kind of lying down in the water; she floated all around under Evie's supervision, and her kicks made even more satisfying splashes than they used to--some drops of water even managed to find their way onto the back of Evie's shirt.

That was exciting, but we were all dreading the night, and my mother was bravely volunteering to get up and deal with Cara if she decided on a repeat performance of the previous night. However, Cara seems to kind of vacillate in her sleeping patterns, because that night she went to sleep on cue and stayed asleep all night, easy as pie. It was nice, and we all got a good night's sleep.

Today, my mother (and for a little while my dad) watched baby. I was not here to debrief them afterwards, but according to my wife they had a hard time of it--a screamy baby who was quiet for her bottles but not for much else, and had a grand total of 20 minutes nap time. In the afternoon, Evie put Cara in her jumper for a while and had a nap of her own--on the floor in the hallway, right next to the jumping baby. I got home early so that Evie could go off to some parent-teacher conferences, and got to take care of baby. True to my vacillating theory of the previous paragraph, Cara was bad for my parents but very good for me. We had some nice play time, listened to some music, played with blocks, baby was in her saucer for a good long while, and she even consented to eat some sweet potatoes. After the main course, I was holding her and remembered that I had meant to try her "dipper" thingies, which I think we described in a previous entry. It's a big rubber handle with a fat stubby wand at the end, and baby is supposed to learn to eat with it, but as a preliminary one is supposed to get her used to the thing by feeding her with it. What I did was, while holding her, I stuck the dipper in the remains of her sweet potatoes and showed it to her. She promptly grabbed the handle and shoved the business end at her face. Unfortunately, her first attempt missed its target and smeared her cheek, but she did stick it in her mouth a bit afterwards, so maybe this is the beginning of a good thing.

Anyway, tonight was my first time feeding the baby solid food all by myself--I admit I'd been letting Evie handle the heating-up part for some time. But I've realized that I'm a bit too afraid to try new things with the baby, so I'm trying to force myself to be a more independent caregiver. I certainly don't have to force myself to write long journal entries; even now, after several large paragraphs, I am convinced that I should include more information about my play time with Cara this evening. But I think I'll stop here, and just end with the hope that our evening will not vacillate back towards the kind of experience I had two nights ago.

10/28/05

It's Evie. Yesterday, in the afternoon, I put Cara in her jumper and she was quite happy. She bounced and bounced. I amused her with the cats for a while and then I amused her by being her mommy, and it was very comfortable on the floor on the hallway. It was nice to sit on the floor. It was nice to lie on the floor. Soon, it was nice to nap on the floor. It was nice to nap on the floor for half an hour with the baby jumping about a foot from my head.

Today, my father reports that Cara ate some carrots for him with enthusiasm. I made her some carrots tonight, and I dipped the dipper and she got all excited and I got it in her mouth and she snapped it upand opened her mouth wide in dismay and screamed in horror. That was how it went. She claimed that she had never tasted anything as horrible as carrots before and would certainly not consent to swallow them.

Daddy (my Daddy) discovered something interesting today. Almost every day, he's been putting Cara down around ten and she sleeps for up to three hours. Today he put her little plastic keys in with her, and since they're so loud when they're played with her found that she's actually up for a good deal of the time, but she seems to be content to play alone.

I went to Walmart today to pick up some prints, and I also got a really cool nonskid bath mat for Cara. I'm not sure I'm using the right term; I mean the thing you stick in the tub so that you don't slide all over. It's clear (I was sorely tempted by the bright blue one, but I restrained myself. Coincidentally, restraint was our vocabulary word of the day today in school.) and very floppy, and it kind of reminds me of that artificial grass stuff with the plastic filaments sticking up about half an inch or so. This, though, is very soft, almost cuddly, really. I've never liked a bath mat so much. I've never really liked a bath mat.

This evening, we filled up the tub and stuck the mat in. I stood Cara on it, and soon I convinced her to sit down. I showed her how to splash, and she watched me for a while. She splashed a little, but I think she was just forcefully going after her feet. She did reach down and play with the mat a little, making a squelchy noise. Eventually I laid her down and washed her. It's much better than in her little tub! Again, she may not do much with her arms, but her feet can splash up a storm!

The only other interesting thing today is that we went out to BJ's this evening and used the shopping cart seat that we bought Cara weeks ago. It's a big cloth that covers the seat and has toys attached. It was Cara's first time sitting up in the cart like a big girl instead of sitting in her baby seat, and she did very well after some initial slumping. She had a good time sticking the toys into her mouth; she got a lot done.

10/29/05

Steve says: Last night, Cara had another gold-star night, going down and staying down, yea, even until 9 am this morning. For a series of perfectly logical reasons which I will nevertheless not go into, Evelyn went off in the morning to take my car to BJ's to be serviced and to have new tires put on it. Therefore, I got to stay home and have a nice breakfast, do some little chores of my own, and then go bring baby her 9 o'clock bottle. Cara and I then puttered about the house for a while, I mainly sticking her into things (such as her saucer and her jumper) so that I could try and do other things. Then Evie got back and our day really began, with showers and getting ready to go off to Ev's parents' place to visit with Cara's great Aunt Nancy and great grandmother Anne (I have to admit that I'm not really sure the correct way to write either great aunt or great grandmother, so I don't think I've been very consistent with it in the journal). Nancy and Anne are unfortunate refugees from their home state of Florida due to the recent hurricane, which has left many without electricity and hot water and phone service for an extended period. This of course gave them the chance to come to New Jersey and see Cara (surely compensation enough for all of their inconveniences!!). Cara was fairly good. This weekend she seems to have decided that she is going to groan and growl a lot. It's one of the noises she can make, which we often interpret as the harbinger of a lovely bowel movement, but apparently Cara has decided it has many more uses. She still enjoys very much looking at the fish tanks.

We (by which I mean myself, George and Claire) walked baby out to the park behind the house and stuck her in the swings, which she enjoyed for a short time, before we all decided it was too cold and brought her back inside. I've begun to realize that we are coming to a part of the year where all of baby's trips to the park and stroller walks will have to be put on hiatus. By the time she sees warm weather again, she'll be about a year old! Fortunately, we have plenty of toys inside to compensate.

In the evening, we had a nice dinner but then decided that baby had run out of steam and it was time to stick her in the car and take her home. George predicted that she would sleep well tonight, to which Evelyn replied that he had jinxed the whole thing. It is possible that she's right, since she currently seems to be having trouble getting Cara down. However the girl must be tired, since when we got her home she had a long session in her jumper again (while Ev and I alternated waving a ribbon around to entice the cats), and exerted herself rejecting the peas we tried to feed her. She was a little fussy in the car on the way home, but before we were halfway home she had tuckered herself out and when we got out of the car she was asleep. I hope she didn't nap too much today...Anyways, tomorrow Cara is off visiting again, this time with her other set of grandparents. I have taken some pictures today and may take more tomorrow, though I doubt I'll get them up on the site until some time into the coming week. I am also still trying to find time to make some little Quicktime movies from some of the footage we shot on the digital camcorder in the past few months.

10/30/05

Today we got off to a very slow start, but we eventually got down to south Jersey. Cara sat nicely in her booster seat and played with toys for a while, but she seemed a little bit cranky all day. She really enjoys the big plastic stacking rings that her grandma has for her, though. Janet and I went out to a consignment shop and got Cara a few things while the men took her out to the park. We got her a little snow suit that comes with a hat with ear flaps, a couple of pairs of overalls, and a really cute little dress for Christmas.

When we got home, Cara started crying and wouldn't stop. Eventually, I just tried everything. I changed her from top to toe, gave her baby oragel, and gave her a bottle. I had been nursing her, but it wasn't good enough. Somehow, something worked. She was in a fine mood for the rest of the evening. We gave her some bananas and gave her a bath. I think that Cara has learned to splash. This is both a good thing and a bad thing. She seems to keep splashing herself in the face, though, which is kind of funny.

Tomorrow I'm staying home from school and taking baby in to the doctor for her shots and check up. After that, Grandpa George is coming up so that I can take myself to the doctor for my check up. It'll be a fun day for everyone.

10/31/05

Cara's first Halloween!

This morning I gave her a bottle and then we played for a couple of hours. Cara sat up for a long time in her room and played with her toys, but a couple of times she just toppled over backwards and hit her head. She cried! She didn't like it at all. Usually I try to just laugh at things like that, so she won't get upset at every little thing, but I think she really did hurt or at least scare herself. Cara jumped in her jumper for quite a while, and Shelby and I played with a ribbon. Around nine, Cara got cranky. I figured that, for her, it was ten o'clock, which is her naptime. We changed the clocks yesterday, and I'm blaming a lot of things on that. So I gave her a popper and snuggled her up in the glider and she had a nice little nap, which culminated in her wetting herself and me, getting my sweatshirt, my T shirt, and my jeans. It was because I was holding her on her side; the diapers aren't absorbent there.

We went to the doctor around ten, having both just changed. While we were waiting, Cara sat up on the examination table. She was happy playing with her toys, and I think she has started to reach for me. I'll have to continue to observe and then report back to confirm this.

It was a doctor I hadn't met before, and she was dressed up as Scooby-Doo. Cara weighs 16 pounds and 12 ounces, and she is 28 inches long. I think that the nurse may have mismeasured her, because I was trying to watch and it looked like she was around or somewhat past 27 inches. However, I wasn't really at that end of the ruler. That puts her in the 95th percentile for height. She's in the 75th for weight as well as for head diameter. I don't remember her head diameter, alas.

Cara got her shots and cried and cried. She was better, though, when I picked her up. Unfortunately, you have to put her down to dress her. We have to go back in a month for another flu shot; when you're a tiny baby you get two.

I took Cara home and left her with her grandpa while I went out to my own doctor. When I got home the two were out; they had gone to the park and had fun on the swings. The three of us went outside to plant some bulbs I bought. What actually happened was this. Cara sat nicely in her bouncer with her bug toy for the whole time (about 45 minutes). My father planted my bulbs. I was allowed to water them. At least I was able to contribute in some small way. Our neighbor came over when we were just about done and visited with Cara; she tickled her and everything, and Cara smiled and smiled.

Cara and I hung out in the dining room for the rest of the afternoon answering the door for trick-or-treaters. Cara sat up and played for a long time, and then I put her in her jumper. She helped me fold some laundry. The cats were locked in the basement, but I let Shelby out for a while. Cara got to grab her a little. All in all, we had a good time. I let Cara smell a peanut butter cup, and I couldn't gauge her reaction. Later, Steve and I let Cara smell a kit-kat, and she got her little mouth on it. There was some thoughtful lip smacking after that.

PJ came over; he was dressed as Pooh Bear. He and Cara kind of vaguely swiped at each other with their hands, but she was cranky by then. PJ is trying some real people food at this point, including guacamole and a cheese doodle. The doctor tells us that it's fine that Cara isn't really into food yet; she'll let us know when she's interested.

Now it's nine o'clock. I think Cara thinks it's ten o'clock. Steve thinks she has no idea. However, she is starting to get cranky.

On an unrelated note, Shelby the cat has gotten onto the kitchen windowsill twice tonight. We are horrified. I got to squirt her with the squirt bottle.

11/1/05

Today when I got home, my dad told me that Cara was rather demanding. I discovered that he was quite right. She just didn't want to be put down anywhere. We did curl up for a nice hour-long feeding/nap, but aside from that I had a hard time making her happy.

After I fed her again, around 7:30, Cara was happier. We played with her and she jumped in her jumper for quite a while, and then eventually it was bath time. The real challenge there is getting her to sit down; she likes standing up. She's awfully cute in the bath, but I think that the best part is after she gets out, when Steve's holding her in her towel. She gets the little hood over her head and she rolls up and grabs her feet and the towel, and she just doesn't know what to put into her mouth first!

It's ten o'clock, and I just got her down. There goes my theory about daylight savings time!

11/2/05

George here.

Cara is sitting in her bouncer, crying. But we've had a nice busy day. I write because I want to contrast yesterday with today. Yesterday, we had a long walk in the Woodbridge Mall, a mega-place if there is one. Cara was kind of interested in the things around her (the Christmas decorations are going up, people approach us to sell us things and tell us what a nice baby, etc.) and I would say she had a good time, capped off with a friendly visit to the swings in the park.

Today, we went down to Johnson Park, where there is a tiny zoo. Cara saw new animals and heard them make new sounds. Roosters crowed, etc. Little children came over to Cara and told her what a nice baby, etc. Cara went on swings in Johnson Park. Then on the way home we stopped at the supermarket in Highland Park.

Cara is tired out and hungry. I fed her some peas and while she ate four bites, the last two she made faces at me like I was poisoning her, so I stopped...now she's in her room, sitting up supported by her pillow. Steely Dan is playing and she's talking to herself up there. Cara, it is clear, is one very well adjusted baby.

Steve would just like to point out that, since we have taken Cara to that park before, the animals are not, technically, all new to her--though she wasn't paying much attention before, it's true. In case Evie doesn't get a chance to do the journal tonight, I can write a short description of our evening. Cara was crabby. That pretty much covers it. We tried her in various things and with various toys, and sometimes she was amused for a short time, but never for very long. At one point Evie decided to try a small bottle on her (after having nursed Cara off and on for a good hour before I got home), which she sucked down. Perhaps Cara is trying to tell us that she needs to have more solid food (even though half the time she won't eat it)? Or she's teething (but if so, where are the darn teeth already???)? Or she's just in a bad mood because we're really boring? We watched the opening night Nets game for a bit. Now baby is hopefully going to sleep. By the way, I think it may have been the night before last that baby woke up at around 2 am. I was able to get her back down in about a half an hour. I'm not going to say that I think I'm getting better at that, or the next time it won't work.

| Previous Week | Back Home | Next Week |