| Previous Week | Back Home | Next Week |

Journal Key:

Green = Steve | George = navy | Janet = Purple

11/10/05

I'll try to make it a quick one tonight. I got home late again, but baby was in good hands. She had met her Genzano grandparents earlier in the day, and was in the process of getting some nice butternut squash from her Grandma Janet (Smuga) when I got home. The squash was apparently the sequel to some peas, so baby had a nice meal. Not long after that, I gave her a small bottle, which she fell asleep to. While she was lying there, Evie decided to come in and take our phone out of the room. This was very fortuitous, as it rang just as she got it away from the sleeping baby (otherwise it would have very unceremoniously woken Cara). Meanwhile, I tried to put baby down--unsuccessfully, which was just as well, as it was her bath night. She sat propped in her crib and watched her aquatic toy while I talked on the phone, then I got off the phone and Janet drew a bath for baby. I had the usual fun antics with her that I have when I'm taking her clothes off in preparation for the bath. Then Janet actually bathed the baby--she had a nice long bath, as Daddy went off to do some chores while it was going on. Then we got her all ready for sleep and I went and got myself ready for sleep and then I came back and sat with baby in the glider until she dozed off. This time I seem to have successfully put her down, so let's all cross our fingers. Hopefully Evie will make a journal appearance this week, so she can choose her color and put in some words from her side of the story. It's almost the weekend. Actually, it has occurred to me that it's very unclear from this journal what day of the week it is (especially for someone from the future coming back to look at it), so maybe I should start mentioning the day of the week in the date heading. Hmmm....Innovations all the time.

11/11/05 (Friday)

This is Janet (Evelyn's mom). It's noon and Cara is totally zonked, sound asleep in her stroller after our trip to the park, which she thoroughly enjoyed right up to the moment when she fell asleep. I love to hear her laugh - more about that later - and this morning I succeeded twice. First, I sat her on the sofa and waved a receiving blanket over her. Every time the blanket floated past her face and we made eye contact again she smiled or chuckled. Later, about the time George says she likes to nap, I bundled her in the stroller with a blanket over her legs against the chill, and we went to the park. Not sleepy at all, she went in the swing. At first I simply pushed and cheered "wheee," which made her smile, but then I tried grabbing her legs as she approched me - more laughter! We followed this hilarity with some very Zen moments scuffing through dry leaves and then started home. As I said, she seemed perfectly content until the moment she zonked out.

If you really enjoy baby's laughter, you need to be around when Steve changes her. Steve is a wonderful Daddy. Yesterday, whenever I laid Cara down for a diaper change she grumbled and kvetched - she did not want to lie down! But when Steve did it he fooled and played with her in such a way that she really laughed with delight. She loved every minute.

Yesterday I got to enjoy the full grandma experience; I fed her, I bathed her, I played with her. She has definitely got the hang of eating from a spoon, The little mouth opens wide, wide, wide, and then snaps firmly shut as soon as the spoon is inside. Most of the food went in, and only a little got on her face. Nevertheless, it seemed right to give her a bath later on. This baby loves to be in the water. She enjoyed catching the rubber duckie (and sucking on it noisily - oh well. The water was really clean, so I guess it's ok.)

Ah, I hear some noise from downstairs. Thank goodness I had the foresight to fix a bottle before we went out. I'll start it warming now.

I'll just put down a few things about this evening. One was that I was sitting Cara down in front of her little mirror toy. It's a nice little toy that can be tied onto the slats of her crib, but usually we just stand it up and let her mess with the things on it. One of the things is this little orange spotted ball that is set into a hole in the frame and attached to a pivot, so that it can spin. Now Cara has seen this toy many, many times before. But for some reason this evening when I spun it (or when she managed to spin it, which she can do with reasonable success these days) and it came to a stop, she thought it was absolutely hilarious. She was laughing and laughing at the little spotted ball.

This evening I attempted to put baby down the same way I had last night, with our normal nighttime routine. I was in the glider with her and she had a popper. However baby wanted to have a conversation with me. She stared at me and went "Aaaaahhhhh," not yelling, just in a conversational tone, and messed with her hands. After a while of this (which is perfectly adorable), I decided I should try with a bottle. So Janet made a bottle and I gave it to her and Cara sucked on it for a while, but was just not that interested, and went back to "Aaaaaahhhhh," deliberately plucking her popper out of her mouth if I tried putting that in. The reason I am now able to write this entry is because I gave up trying to get her to sleep manually and have stuck her in her crib. In all the time I have been writing this, I have heard no noise, so who knows? It may work. Part of baby's wakefulness now may have been due to a nap we got her to take in the evening while the rest of us were having dinner. But anyway, it was nice having that little chat with her, and she seemed to be in a perfectly good mood. At a point a little earlier in the evening, baby was a little crabby and Janet was trying to carry her around and make her happy. Eventually though she plopped baby down sitting by Evie, and Cara quieted down nicely and played with her toys.

I hear from George that baby drank a good deal of one of her bottles while in a sitting position. Wow!

11/12/05 (Saturday)

It's been a long day. We started out with Janet, but it turns out that she has a life of her own, so we decided to let her get back to it (after many days of invaluable support!! and some journal help, even). Meanwhile, Cara's Uncle Jim and Aunt Sarah came up to see us all, so that Daddy did not have to do too much baby wrangling--and also for visiting and shmoozing and so forth. The plan was that Sarah would take charge of baby, Evie would rest, and Jim and I would hang around and do men things. This was not exactly what happened, as I felt guilty leaving Sarah holding the bag (so to speak) entirely, so Jim and I hung around the house and watched a movie, but we also had some baby time (I have pictures of Jim and Cara which will hopefully get up on the site soon), and I managed to do some household chores with their help.

Sarah took baby for a nice walk in the stroller, and played with her for a good part of the day. I think Cara's sense of humor is improving lately, and she had some smiles and giggles to dole out to her aunt and uncle. We ate lunch while baby watched a movie (much later in the evening, we were to eat dinner while baby watched her other movie--I think even baby may begin to get sick of those movies soon!), and later we left Ev at home and drove baby to the mall. I for one had forgotten what a Saturday night at the mall in mid-November would look like, but it wasn't too too crowded, and we wandered about the upper floor of the mall fairly happily. On the car ride back, Cara got crabby, probably due to hunger, but thanks to Evelyn's foresight we had a bottle ready to give her. When we got home, I took out the solid food which Cara had rejected yesterday and she promptly gobbled it all up. Inspired by this behavior, I took out more food from the fridge and heated it up, but by that point baby was simply no longer interested. Still, she did not get upset, and we had a nice eating experience.

Later in the evening, when Cara got crabby again, her mommy went to see her in the glider and Cara slept a little, even got put down. Jim and I went out to pick up dinner, and when we came back Sarah was downstairs trying to comfort the baby, who was very very unhappy. Baby made noises of distress that were more plaintive than I usually hear. I realized this was probably due to pure hunger, and fixed up a nice 8-ounce bottle and rushed to feed it to her--and of course, after working fitfully but determinedly on the first 5 ounces, she left 3 ounces of formula in the bottle. She was happy again, though. Baby took a lot of work today, but she wasn't as crabby as my description may have suggested.

Anyways, eventually Jim and Sarah had to go home, so off they went and I got to work putting baby into a bath. This was my second time bathing baby, and I flew totally solo, and it went rather well. I got her nice and wet and rubbed the washcloth all over her, and then let her lie back in the water for a little bit. This was a good time for all--even Buster the cat swung by to have a look over the rim of the tub at the baby sitting in there (and the dripping water of the faucet--admittedly the dripping water is probably the main draw for kitties). After the bath, it was bed time: tonight Cara decided not to waste time going "AAaaaaaahhhhh," probably at least partly because I had the tail end of her last bottle to feed her, which helped knock her out. She seems to have gone down smoothly. Tonight, Aunt Claire will sneak into the house and be ready to help us out come the morning, and I believe the other Grandma Janet will be with us tomorrow evening. Cara has not lacked for visitors lately.

11/13/05 (Sunday)

As promised, when baby awoke us this morning, Claire was already in residence. Baby was a handful in the morning--actually I've noticed a trend in her behavior, where she seems very hard to please in the mornings between her first bottle and her second. We tried various toys and devices, but nothing entertained her for an extended period. However, the second bottle worked very well. She got this around 10 am, and it knocked her out. I put her down for a nice extended nap: from somewhere around 10 to well after noon, Claire and Ev and I were able to watch episodes of Futurama on DVD, because baby was asleep. Later in the afternoon, George came by to help with baby and to watch football. We had pizza and potato chips, and some of us had beer. While the game was still on, I decided to take baby out for a drive. We went to Barnes and Noble and I bought her another Baby Einstein video, this one about parts of the body (though nothing dirty, I imagine). We actually haven't tried it yet.

When I got back, the game was pretty much over and George took off, and then Claire helped entertain baby for a while, until my mom arrived. She has been helping out ever since. I have to say that after a full weekend of baby handling, I am ready to go back to work! It's been tough. I tried to feed baby some sweet potatoes mixed with cereal and formula, but she was just not interested. She's been pretty good today, though. When I was driving her to the book store, she was looking out the window and decided something she was seeing was funny, so I had a baby laughing to herself in the back seat. I've found that if I hold her against me and she has her knees bent, she will kick out with her legs and basically stand up. I think she's getting a lot better at picking things up and--even better--putting them down. She's very vocal and I have a theory that she's going to start talking at an early age; though, on the other hand, she has yet to recognize any words. Evie has been hearing things about baby sign language and thinks we should give it a try. I don't think we'll have to worry about that for another few months, though.

11/14/05 (Monday)

Last night baby had a full meal of a bottle to drink at bedtime, but she didn't get through nearly half of it before falling asleep. I went off and was reading in bed, and then she woke up, so I poppered her back to sleep. Then I went to sleep. Then baby woke up again, past 11, and my mother took one for the team. I made a small bottle (kicking myself repeatedly for having poured the half she didn't drink of the last one down the drain) and Mom gave it to Cara and put her to sleep for good. Tonight we are in a similar situation, and I did a sloppy job of putting the baby down. We'll see if she wakes up again.

Well, as usual during the week, I got home late in the evening, but as far as I know, baby was good. She was very amenable to most things we tried on her this evening, and I played with her on the rug in the living room in front of the TV for a while. I also gave baby a bath again--it went okay, except that it's very hard to get her into the towel when you're only one person. Poor baby got shivery. This time I used more soap and actually saw some suds on the baby, so I know she got somewhat clean. She liked her duckies. I understand Janet was able to give her some apple sauce earlier in the day, but I didn't try any solids on her tonight.

11/15/05 (Tuesday)

Back to the old grind, with one difference: Evie is here and she's feeling a bit better. Cara, however, is more fun to be with. She's more responsive, more active, can do more with her wonderful little body. For example, last week she could sit up, but this week she's getting obnoxious about it--sitting up and hardly ever lying down on her back. She laughs a lot. She babbles on like a trooper, she is very active, but I can see how frustrated she is when something is juuuusssstttt out of reach.

Cara is up at 8 A.M. and then has a nap from 10:30 A.M. to 12:30 P.M. Cara and I do some errands in the afternoon, visiting the office at Linwood School, and going to the A&P. Cara is a good girl throughout, interested in her surroundings and even smiling at people as they go by.

In the parking lot of the A&P a guy coming toward me thought I was nuts--talking to myself and acting like an idiot--until he saw Cara in the baby seat. Then he knew I was okay.

Cara sat for about an hour and played with her toys. I helped just a little bit but she showed good stamina. At about 3 P.M. she had a half a jar of carrots. I only wish that I could reward Cara for being such a good girl by taking her to the park and the swings, but alas at 4:30 it's already getting dark.

I'm very glad that George got some solid food into Cara, and it's kind of ironic that the last thing I said in my last entry was about how I'd decided not to give Cara any solid food that night. It turns out that maybe I should have. As she had the night before, baby woke up after I put her down, I think around 11 or so again. But this time, I was ready, because I hadn't poured out the bottle she had only half-finished before falling asleep. After working more on the bottle, down she went again, and off I went to bed.

At 4:45 am (you heard me), baby woke up again. I got up and decided nothing would do for her but another new bottle. So I made one and gave it to her. After she was done the bottle, and was looking around bright-eyed, it became clear to me that she wasn't going to go back to sleep and let Daddy get a little more sleep in, so I stuck her in front of her movie and took a shower. Then Ev and I kept her busy with various things so that I could get ready for work and have breakfast. When baby got crabby with us trying to pawn her off on her swing and her saucer, Evie actually sat with baby in the glider and quieted her down, so that when George got in Mommy and baby were upstairs having some quality time.

Anyway, what I think all this should tell me is that baby needs more food, the kind of sustenance that only solid foods can give her, so that she doesn't wake up hungry in the middle of the night. Hence I am glad about the carrots.

This evening, George kindly stayed until I got home (late, as usual! two accidents on the Parkway, one involving multiple cars), and baby had some jumper time while I was eating dinner. Evie then showed me a trick that she can do with the baby: we have been able in the past to make baby sit up from a lying down position by tugging on her arms. But Evie has taken it one step further and can now tug on baby's arms and get her to go smoothly from her back to a standing up position! It's a cool move.

Thankfully, Evie was feeling slightly better tonight--she even offered to help get baby down. As it happened, however, baby fell asleep in a rather ridiculously unplanned fashion (she'll probably be back up again tonight). I was giving her a bottle a little after 8 pm, and we had been rocking along to some very loud Steely Dan which I was singing along to. Regardless of this racket, baby proceeded to fall asleep and stayed asleep when I put her down. So, without her sleep sack on and without her nightly dose of vitamins, baby is down in her crib with the lights low. I am not holding out much hope, however, and am again leaving the remnants of her bottle for when she awakes.

I like what George says about his encounter in the parking lot--I have noticed that having a baby around is a very good advantage because you can pretty much talk to yourself without anyone thinking you're crazy.

11/16/05 (Wednesday)

This continues my observations of Cara's growth: just a couple of weeks ago, Cara could become inconsolable if left her alone under any circumstances. Now, I've left Cara in her exersaucer for the entire time that the Burl Ives CD plays! I've left her upstairs sitting on the floor playing with her toys for twenty minutes at one time. Granted, Cara is much more comfortable if a person is in the room with her, but these examples of independence are warming.

This afternoon, Cara grew grumpy and clearly a nap was in order. At about 3 P.M. I put her into the crib. At 3:30, I went up to check on her and I saw that she had her eyes wide open--she wasn't asleep, but was merely lying there quietly.

Cara slobbers on everything: those two front teeth, while not yet visible, are coming! I tried to replicate yesterday's success with the carrots but today, she wasn't having any and seemed much more interested in spreading around the carrots she could reach onto her clothing, her bib, her face and the pristine white tray directly in front of her.

I made a dramatic miscalculation of timing this evening. It was bath night, and baby was scheduled to be hungry at around 8. So when it got to be around 8, I decided the best thing to do was give baby a bath, and then by the time she was done her bath and all dressed up for bed, with the lights low and her vitamins in her, it would be about the time she usually gets in bed. Well, I was wrong, because I put her down several minutes ago and it's only a little past 9. I seem to be sending baby towards an earlier bedtime, and I'm not sure I really want to do that, especially considering that she woke up early again this morning.

The evening was pretty good; baby did wake up again after her Steely Dan nap, as I had expected, but once I gave her the rest of her bottle she went down and stayed down. However, I could already hear her making little noises at around 6 when I was getting up. I decided to ignore them in the hopes that she would go back to sleep. This seemed to work, or at least she stayed pretty quiet until George arrived. It seems that baby was good today, and she was good this evening, too, except for the not eating her solid foods--she's very off an on with them, which is a shame, because I'm almost sure that's what she needs to get her through the night (whoa, I just reminded myself of the chorus to that song "dreamweaver"--which is doubly weird, because that also happens to be the name of the program I use to create these web pages!).

Anyway, baby will probably continue in her growing trend of waking up after her initial sleep time, since she only drank around 3 ounces of her last bottle. We'll see what happens.

By the way, baby dunked her face in the water during her bath tonight. She was going for her duckie, which is always getting away from her. It was an interesting experience for her, which she didn't particularly like.

Also Cara is getting good at dumping her barrel which is full of different shaped "blocks." She upends it regularly. She's really getting good at grabbing things.

| Previous Week | Back Home | Next Week |