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Journal Key:

Green = Steve | George = navy | Janet = Purple | Evelyn = Black

12/15/05 (Thursday)

Today I have a sore throat, Steve feels better but is still a little sick, and Cara is still congested. We are all just kind of crawling along. Last night, I think I figured out how to do this right, though. I just decided I wouldn't even try to go to bed. I sat with Cara in the glider and she took her whole eight-ounce bottle. She struggled a while and went to sleep. She slept fitfully, with a lot of rearrangement, writhing, and crying out. I slept, too, off and on, until about three thirty, when I did put her down and head for bed. I left her my robe, which she snuggled. Ironically, in some ways I was better off in the glider than in bed; as soon as I lay down flat, my nose was stuffed up!

I was kind of a zombie all day, but I did all right and even made a good dinner! It's fortunate that Steve felt up to eating. Now I have sent him off to amuse the baby for a while, figuring that that's my due. He thinks maybe she'll go down nicely tonight, but I have doubts. When I got home at four, my dad was giving Cara a bottle. She fell asleep and slept until five or so. At five, though, she was not happy. No toy pleased her. She wanted to stick my sweater in her mouth, she wanted to rub her face. After twenty minutes of this, we settled in the glider. She fussed, she writhed, she cried, she fell back to sleep for the next half hour. She's been in a better mood ever since, but I think she is still on the tail end of her cold, which perhaps I ought to call our cold. She is still snuffly and somewhat needy, although it seems to be mainly her sleeping hours which are affected.

It's been a good eating day! I hear that Cara ate an entire jar of applesauce earlier, and she just had a whole bowl of bananas. She is also still practicing rocking back and forth on her hands and knees. She loves to be held upright as if she were walking; my only concern is that she may believe that she will get everywhere by hopping, like a little astronaut on the moon, possibly because of her doorway jumper training. However, I'm sure that reality will set in soon enough.

My plan is to get myself ready for bed and sleep with my baby in her glider for a while. Tomorrow is a wonderful day; it's jeans day at school and then I'm going to the faculty holiday party after work. Steve is coming home early to let my dad go, so I'm free, free, free! I'm going to wear denim to spend two hours in the basement of a local VFW after working a full day on my fourth-in-a-row night of incomplete sleep. I'm truly and unsarcastically ecstatic.

12/16/05 (Friday)

I was awfully whiny last night. I wanted to set the record straight this morning. Last night I gave Cara a big bottle and she took the whole thing. I then bored her to sleep. At 10:30, I put her down without even my bathrobe and went off to bed. She woke up between one and two, and Steve got up. I think he gave her a bottle. Anyway, she was put back down in good order and slept through the rest of the night. I was lazy, Steve was good, Cara was pretty good. Now I'm off to work.

This morning, for the first time in two or three weeks, I took Cara for her walk around Nancy Circle. Cara's cold is much better--I want to say it's gone and the temperature was in the forties so it was pleasant enough. Otherwise, the day was ordinary, a relatively rough morning, a nice 10-12 nap and a pleasant afternoon. Cara finished another bowl of banana baby food.

Well, as Evie said, she had her holiday party at work this evening, so I left my work early and got home around 3:30 to take over on babywatch. All the snow melted! Baby was watching one of her movies. After the movie was done, I discovered she had wet herself, so she got to try on a new outfit which has little feet at the bottom that can turn inside out in such a way that baby can get her real, naked feet sticking out. I didn't work them right and for a long time she had one bare foot and one covered foot. I called George after a while to figure out when she'd had her last bottle, and it turned out it had been hours (!), so I gave her a bottle around quarter to 5. She got sleepy, but when I put her down she woke up. Nevertheless, I went and did some chores for about 15 minutes, then came back and saved her.

We had some good times playing, though she preferred not to be left alone. Evie got home a little after 7 and watched baby while I had dinner, then I gave Cara some more bananas and some carrots. She's doing very well on the solid food lately! I also noticed that someone seems to have tried our dippers again, and I gave it a shot, and I have to say that, though we had some reservations about them, they are actually very good feeding implements. Having become accustomed to a lot of food slopping out of baby's mouth with the spoon, and her not knowing how to get food off of it or how far it should go into her mouth, I was pleasantly surprised to find that the dipper works much better. It is too short to cause any danger of gagging, and baby has a much easier time getting food off of it, and also can enjoy sucking on it a bit, just like her popper (this didn't work as well with the spoons).

Anyways, after that it was more playtime. I won't go into any more details, she just messed around with a lot of toys and we had fun with her. She spent some time in her jumper laughing provocatively at Shelby the cat, who several times was forced to run the gauntlet past Cara (which she did very hesitantly, with great trepidation, slinking low to the ground). Now Evie is once again taking the nighttime duties. Cara is still congested and a little snotty (though clearly not bad-tempered and seemingly with her old energy level), so she will probably still be a bit of a chore getting into bed. We'll see how it goes. Hopefully no horror stories in tomorrow's entry!

12/17/05 (Saturday)

Cara slept through the night! She also had a very good day. She saw all of her grandparents and played nicely with each one. In the afternoon we went down to my folks' house, and a few cool things happened. Cara has an equivalent of her exersaucer there, and it has a mirror on it. Cara can spin the mirror, and she discovered that it made a little patch of light move up the wall and across the ceiling. This was very exciting. Also, Cara practiced pulling herself up by holding onto things. She sat in her play yard to look at the fishies, and she could get up onto her knees, almost squatting, sort of, by grabbing the bar.

Now it's ten o'clock. She slept, slumped, all the way home. We brought her in and got her ready for bed, and now Steve is giving her her bedtime bottle, but I hear bawling. I'm just going to hope it stops.

12/18/05 (Sunday)

I hadn't put baby to sleep in a while, and I assumed last night's down-putting would be an easy one, so I volunteered. For some reason, it was a nightmare getting her to sleep. She didn't want the bottle in her mouth, she screamed and writhed when I tried to hold her, and it took me quite a long time before I was even able to calm her down enough to lie with me in the glider with her popper in. After a very long time, she settled on her side with me holding her rather awkwardly away from the arm of the glider, and her breath stopped hitching so much, and she was sleepy enough for me to put her down--without having eaten a bit of her bottle.

Of course, she woke up in the night, but Evie handled this, and told me that baby took her bottle and went back to sleep. She slept a bit late into the day. Our plan was to get started rather early and search for baby gates. We actually kind of got baby up around 9, bottled her, wrassled her for a bit, and then around 10 went off into the cold with baby nicely bundled. Our first stop was Babies R Us, who, it turns out, open at 11 on a Sunday (the doors appeared open, but when we approached, we were told that there was a private birthday party occurring within--birthday party?!?!?!!?!?). So poor Cara, who we had strapped securely into a shopping cart, was quickly wheeled back to the car, unstrapped, and strapped back into her car seat. She took this all very well, however, and was in a remarkably good mood for the entire adventure. Next we went off to Burlington Coat Factory, whose Baby Depot area had one small section of baby gates, none of which was available as a sample to try the mechanism, and none of which were really what we were looking for. On a long shot we tried the Walmart next door, but their store section which might have once contained baby gates looked like it had been attacked by wild desert animals. We have decided that ordering the gates from the internet may be the easiest way to go.

Meanwhile, we had other concerns for today, so it was back to the house to await the arrival of Aunt Claire. Ev and Claire went off to do some shopping and I hung out with baby. We watched an episode of Doctor Who and hung out in the living room with her toys. I also had a nice keyboard session with her. When Claire and Ev returned I had given baby her second bottle and she was having her morning nap. Soon it was time for other visitors to arrive (Heather, Uncle Jim and Aunt Sarah!). Baby may have been aware that something interesting was going on, because she woke up after only an hour of nap time, and came down to stare and everyone. She was shy at first, but was soon babbling and falling about on the living room rug. She gave smiles to all.

Baby was a model citizen during our long "party," which lasted from around 1:30 until 9 pm. She went down for one more short nap at around 6 or so. We had no time to even attempt solid food on her, and spent a lot of the day with her on the living room rug while we tried to watch stuff on TV and talk to each other, but she was very good through all of it and never got crabby. She showed everyone how she was almost ready to start crawling, and showed off a nice cute outfit which one of Ev's friends got for her (and which we sadly did not get a picture of!!). She watched a movie while we ate our first meal and was good in the high chair when we had some more to eat later in the evening.

Tonight, we realized it had been a long time since baby's last bath, so into the tub she went, and enjoyed a two-man cleansing procedure. Evie wiped her nose vigorously, which we'd been doing off and on all day (Cara is still a bit congested and snotty). Cara hated it whenever we tried to go at her with a tissue, but when Ev went at her with the wash cloth, Cara seemed to take it as a friendly challenge and almost seemed to have fun arching her back away from the thing. However Ev was the winner in the end, and baby is hopefully going to sleep now with a much cleaner nose. Before Ev went in to give her the bottle, I watched baby in the crib and was amused to see her entertaining herself by knocking all of the hanging fish off of her mobile and climbing onto the console to play with all of the buttons--she managed to get some music playing before being pulled away.

12/19/05 (Monday)

Steve said that Cara was up late last night. I wanted to wake her at the usual time (8 A.M.) but she didn't want to wake up! This morning she slept until 9:15 . I gave her a bottle, walked around Nancy Circle with her and generally played with her until around 11:15 when it was very clear that little Cara needed her nap. At 1:15, I went upstairs to wake her from the nap, but she was sleeping with determination so I've let her be. There will be plenty of times in her life when she has to wake up, but this isn't one of them.

The reason Cara slept till 9:15 is that she was up at five. I gave her a bottle and she was very cheerful but not sleepy. However, I had to take a shower and begin my day, so I popped her into her crib. I gave her my robe and a popper and turned on her fishie mobile. In addition to all this, she had her hippo toy to wave around. I figured I'd let her sit in the bathroom with some toys while I showered, but she seemed fine in her crib, so I went ahead without her. When I got out, she was still waving her hippo and her popper around. I got dressed. Still happy. I knew I'd have to take her downstairs with me while I ate breakfast, but she just sort of never got mad and eventually she went back to sleep. I had a nice breakfast at home in the meantime. The whole thing was rather pleasant. Usually I shower and dress in a house full of closed door with people sleeping behind them, and I'm awfully careful to keep things quiet, so in a way it was nice to have company. I won't mind if she doesn't repeat the performance, though.

I got a lot done this afternoon, having gotten home at about 3:40. Cara and I went and delivered boxes of biscotti and peppermint bark (not in the same box) to a few of our neighbors. Cara wore her snowsuit. I was cold! It's bitter out there. I also wrapped the last of Steve's gifts and took out the recycling and made dinner. So much of my time alone with Cara is spent getting her to occupy herself so I can do other things, I feel like I'm barely spending time with her! I feel kind of guilty. Tomorrow I'll try to be nicer. I had her sitting on the kitchen floor for a change today while I cooked. I sat her on her shopping cart cover, which makes a nice cushy activity mat. She had a good time, but she has no traction and there was some falling over. She also had a great time in her saucer, blowing very wet raspberries. Really, she does have a good time, while I'm working.

This evening she jumped and played the piano, and now she's having her bedtime bottle. She was almost falling asleep when I gave her a bottle around five, so I hope she's having the same reaction now!

12/20/05 (Tuesday)

Today is one of our first real landmark days; Cara has two teeth! Yes, two. This means, of course, that she got one a few days ago and I didn't notice it until now, but that's okay. I kind of thought her gums looked funny, but she really didn't want anyone touching them, so it's been hard to investigate.

I got home at 3:30 today and my dad reported another sleepy day. Cara was up in the night for quite a while and was very unhappy. She didn't want her bottle and she really didn't want to snuggle, either. Steve gave her Tylenol and I guess I bored her to sleep. Anyway, I woke up at 2:30 and there she was, asleep in my arms. She slept until after 9 and then had a long nap, even though Grandpa tried to wake her at her usual time.

I did no chores this afternoon; instead I devoted myself to playing with Cara. We hung out in the living room, but she got cranky pretty fast and I made her a bottle. It was only four, so I made just six ounces, planning on giving her more between six and seven and still having her hungry enough to take something at bedtime. It was when she was howling as I laid her down on the changing table that I really discovered her teeth! I can see two lines in her lower gum, front and center, and I can feel the teeth when Cara lets me.

She took most, but not all, of her bottle, and we played in her crib. I wanted to see her try to pull herself up on the railings. She can't sit up yet from a recumbent position, so it's not urgent that we lower the crib bed, but we'll have to do it soon. When Cara pulls on the side railings, the lower ones, she can get herself into this weird, twisted kneeling position that she frequently finds herself in. It does her little good. I helped her up a little bit and let her hang on to the higher railing at the foot of the crib. She had a wonderful time! She was standing by herself, and she could look over the railing at all her toys and look up at the mural, and I could peek at her from over or under the rails. She stood for about ten minutes. Then we played with her crib toys for a long time. They're pretty exciting, too. When she got cranky, we got out of the crib and played on the floor. She stayed cranky. I took her in my arms and gave her some Tylenol, then gave her her popper to get the taste out of her mouth. She fell asleep. I moved us into the glider, and we napped, off and on, until about six.

After that we had to wait for Daddy so we could have supper. We played the piano, but the kitty cat was more interesting. Cara hopped like a little moon landing astronaut all the way into the game room after poor Shelby. Once there, she found my shoes more interesting. Denied my shoes, she was willing to take a part of one of my spider plants. That is definitely not a room to leave her unattended in.

During dinner, Cara watched her movie. Steve put her on the carpet with pillows behind and beside her. Whenever we looked, she was at least three feet ahead of her pillows. Twice she got herself off the rug entirely and onto the hardwood, which must have been interesting for her. Her hands would find purchase, but anything covered with cloth would have no traction. She seems to have been moving backwards, because I had to pull her out from under the ottoman (just her little legs can get under, don't worry!). We haven't really seen her moving, but it's clearly happening somehow.

Yes, we ordered some baby gates.

Cara was cranky in the evening, and around 8:20 we decided to just give her her bath and put her to bed. Then I suddenly remembered that she was starving to death! Steve bathed her; they had a good time. Cara got to chase her ducks around the tub a little, and Steve showed her how to make a cool squeaky sound on the wall of the tub. After that, I gave her her bedtime bottle. She took her eight ounces, and I asked Steve to make another bottle. I figured she'd take a little bit and fall asleep, and we'd have most of the bottle in reserve for the night. We have four ounces.

Random things: I really enjoy sleeping with Cara in the glider. It took considerable willpower to stay awake tonight, put her down, and come write this. I mean, I love writing this, but I also really love sleeping in that chair with that baby. The other night, possibly in the middle of the night, but I don't remember, Cara held her own bottle and drank out of it. It was almost empty, so it was fairly manageable. Still, I was impressed. Shelby the cat has a routine: in the days, she goes around bothering people. In the evenings, she sleeps on our bed. When Cara has her bath, Shelby comes and lies outside the bathroom door. It's cute. Now that I said it, she'll never do it again.

12/21/05 (Wednesday)

I hear reports that Cara slept until nine again today and had a nice nap later on. She also slept through the night. I'm delighted to report that I slept through the night, too!

This afternoon Cara and I had a good time playing together. She spent a lot of time in her crib again, standing up at the ledge and playing with her toys. It's fun to turn the lights off while her fishies are lit up. We tried it all again just now to show Steve, and it was still fun.

Cara sat very nicely while I made dinner, and then we played together on the kitchen floor. I think that she can scoot backwards fairly well on non-carpeted surfaces by pushing with her hands, but I also think she doesn't really know it. Also, I don't think she's capable of planning to get anywhere that she can't see.

It's almost nine and the baby's certainly hungry, so I'm off to send her to dreamland, I hope!

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