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| Previous Week | Back Home | Next Week | Journal Key: Green = Steve | George = navy | Janet = Purple | Evelyn = Black 3/9/06 (Thursday) Yesterday, Steve said that Cara took PJ's sippy cup and was sucking on it. He did not, however, describe how funny it was to see PJ drinking from his cup and then having it taken away by Cara, who would suck on whatever part she happened to run into. PJ then took it back from her. She took it back from him. They were either fighting or sharing, we're not sure. Today, I heard that Cara hadn't taken much of her bottles. Partly this may have been due to the bottle that I gave her at three in the morning, but I figured she'd probably be hungry. I made up some formula in her sippy cup and gave it to her. She was sitting in her high chair and she opened up her mouth as if for the spoon. I let her drink a little and then gave her the cup to hold herself. She drank, all by herself! She didn't exactly finish the whole thing, but it's a start. We went next door to invite our neighbor to Cara's birthday party, and she gave Cara a colorful, rattly rabbit toy. Cara was very happy. I was taking her out for a walk in the jogging stroller, which was a workout all by itself! It doesn't turn like the other stroller, so I knew I'd have to do a wheelie in order to go around curves. Daddy is in much better shape than I am, I think, because he hasn't said anything about how tough it is on the shoulders to be pushing down on that handle all the time! I had had a stroke of genius and attached two of Cara's toys to the harness that strapped her in, but she ignored them the whole way in order to play with her new rabbit. This evening, she took her rabbit to the gym. I was petting Shelby in Cara's room, and Cara came zooming around me faster than I had seen her crawl before. She headed right for the cat, and I thought Shelby was done for. Amazingly, Cara went right past the cat, within inches of her, and sped out into the hall to get her rabbit, which was lying on the floor. After that, she may have been coming back in to show her rabbit to the kitty. One cute thing Cara's doing now is her reaction whenever people talk to her. She pretends to be shy, turns her head on its side, and leans it against the shoulder or chest of whoever's holding her. It's adorable! She's really good at the stairs now; she can be up them in seconds. I was thinking that it wasn't that bad, since she seems really steady, and then I remembered that, once she's climbed the stairs, she will be at the top of them with no gate between her and the drop! Oops! One of Cara's favorite games is to put her finger in my mouth and have me suck on it and shake my head around (yes, I've lost all dignity). We spent quite some time on this today, and it was thoroughly enjoyed. She also enjoys putting her bath toys in the tub, at which she is quite expert. She stands up in the bath almost the whole time, so she actually dropped a toy out this evening. I think it's because she's so used to putting them on the other side of the wall from herself! I would like to add that Cara has a distinct sound she uses after she has deposited a bath toy in the tub; it's kind of a buzzy sort of "Aaaaaahhhhhh," at the back of her throat. It's very loud and aggressively celebratory. And it's really funny. 3/10/06 (Friday) It's been a while since I've reported on Cara's state and I realized it's bad when her eleven month birthday went right past me. So here's what I think is happening with Cara:
I very much look forward to her first birthday, not least because I'll be able to face her car seat forward and that will make getting in and out of the car a bit easier. Cara's evening: The moment I got home, I could see that Cara was drawn to the sunny, mild, spring-like day. We went out the back door, and by the time we got to the front of the house Emily had arrived, so the three of us headed for the park. Sometimes I let Cara "walk" on the sidewalk or the ground. Much of the time Schmutz was in sight, which greatly enhanced her delight, but truly, she was delighted simply by the experience of traveling through the glorious outdoors while the breeze ruffled her hair and the sun warmed her. We tried out the baby swings, then ventured towards the basketball court and the baseball fields, where George found us. He suggested the baby playground a little further on, where I took Cara up onto a platform where we could crawl through a large plastic cylinder to find grandpa on the other side. By the way, both George and I observe that when the cat is present Cara makes sounds like "Kee kee." We may be reading too much into that. After all that excitement and fresh air, by 5 o'clock she was hungry; she actually whimpered with anxiety when the bottle was ready, and promptly slugged down most of it, but not all. When we sat down to eat our own supper, George tried letting Cara play in her "office," but she wasn't happy. I sat her on my lap and fed her half a carton of peach yogurt. Amazingly, none got on either her shirt or mine! She also had a few grains of rice, but didn't seem to think much of them. Peach yogurt, on the other hand, is a hit. My baby-proofing is much better this week. After last week's visit, I found new, safe places for everything that had been whisked out of her reach. Well, most things. That simplified today's activities. Most things she can reach are OK. In a little while we will run her a bath and get her ready for bed. For now she seems quite happy to crawl around and play. (And I thought our expedition to the park would tire her out! Hah!) 3/11/06 (Saturday) Cara slept until nearly 9 a.m., and only woke because Grandpa George insisted. He's so strict! She needed sleep, to make up for her extended social session during the night. After all the fresh air and exercise she had yesterday afternoon, I figured we had decent odds on a good night's sleep; I was wrong. When she did wake up, around 2:20, she wasn't hungry. I offered a bottle and she had no interest at all. At first she just wanted to be held and comforted; I walked with her and sang to her. Then I decided to try Grandpa George's method of getting Cara back to sleep, so we lay side by side on the sofa with a blanket in the dark. Cara was happy as a clam. She seemed to like my singing (what a great audience!) and at times accompanied me. She played with the blanket and sucked on it. She rolled on her side to look me in the eye and talk to me. We went on in this friendly fashion for some time. Eventually I checked the clock and saw that we had been enjoying ourselves for over an hour, so I invoked the rules of tag-team baby wrangling and sent in my teammate. I'm not sure how long he was up with her; if she needs a nap today, you'll know why. When we woke her this morning, Cara slugged down a whole bottle without pausing for a moment. She then brightened up and enjoyed everything. She loved getting dressed and giggled when I clowned with her. She loved looking in the mirror, looking at the fishies, and watching the shiny beads swing in the front window. While George fastened her into her car seat I played peek-a-boo through the window, and she laughed at that. (That grandma - what a wit!) A few observations from yesterday: Drool production is up, which suggests one or two more teeth should appear soon. Cara seemed to like practicing on the stairs - we went up, and then we went down - and seemed to be thinking about the problem of how to climb down them. It might be possible to teach her a safe method of descent, if you can think of one. I'm not sure she could manage the bumping down on your tushie approach yet. In this she reminds me of Evelyn; as a baby Ev obviously practiced new physical skills, doing them over and over. Toys of the week: last night the sparkly yellow rubber ball came into play. It's a nice size for her to hold, and chew on, and when she let it go it rolled just far enough for her to enjoy chasing after it and catching it again. She also got great pleasure from something that is really a cat toy: it's a long wand with a bunch of bright, shiny ribbons at one end. When she was crawling where I did not want her to go, I could lead her away just by waving those ribbons at her. She loved them and would follow them anywhere! Today was strange; I have many wonderful things and good times to report, but I also have to admit that Cara spent a lot of time being cranky. This could be for any of a variety of reasons: fatigue, teething, upset stomach, hunger--I just don't know what! Jim and Janet came up today, and we took Cara to Johnson Park. (Spring decided to spring early this year, and I really hope it stays!) Cara sat as far forward in her stroller as she could so that she could watch everyone. Her little hands grasped the snack tray and pulled her upright. We saw all of the animals in the zoo, and Cara noticed some of them in between all of the people she was staring at. It's fun to walk along and watch people catch her eyes on them and smile. Near the little pond we took Cara out and I let her walk on the ground, possibly for the first time. She was quite surprised when she came to a large tree root. I think she would probably have liked to get down and crawl around so that she could get things in her hands and then into her mouth, but somehow that didn't seem like such a great idea to me. We met another little girl who was 13 months old, and she was shy but Cara happily checked out her and her mother. We let Cara walk near a stream and see running water up close for the first time. She got to see geese; I'm not sure whether she tried to chase them, but I know that that's in our future. Grandpa Jim got some good pictures; one is of Steve tossing Cara into the air, and there are two nice ones of the three of us. (Actually, I think my face looks very big in them. Aside from that, they're great. I'm relieved to be able to report that Steve took some video tonight with me in it, and I think I look pretty okay.) We put Cara on the swings, and she had a great time. She alternated between craning her neck to watch the other kids and just plain enjoying the swinging. I know Grandpa George takes Cara there all the time, but I haven't taken her to that park in months. For all I know, he lets her walk around by the lake all the time! Janet and I sat in the back seat with Cara, and Cara and her grandma had a long discussion about that other baby who was riding with us in the mirror. Janet got Cara to wave at that baby! Again, I have seen it happen but I have not been able to duplicate the phenomenon. When her grandparents were leaving, Cara said, "ba-ba." That's close enough for all of us! Later, Steve and Cara and I went out. When we got home, Cara was sound asleep in the back seat. Instead of waking her right away, we went over to the 7-11 and Steve went in and got slurpies. We sat in the car in the parking lot and drank them while Cara slept. Everyone was happy. This evening, Cara and I played on the stairs. She crawled up them, and then I held her while she headed down. Going up went well, except that sometimes she decided to sit down on the stairs. Small as she is, she is not tiny enough to sit Indian-style on the stairs. I was awfully pleased with Cara when she tried to descend. She seemed sort of able to walk out to the edge of the stair, sit down with her feet over the edge, and stand up on the next step. There was a lot of weaving and dancing involved, and I certainly don't think she could come close to doing it without someone holding her, but it went better than I had expected. Later, Steve tried to videotape this. She started up the stairs and became distracted by the railings, as I have described. Eventually she reached the summit and we started back down. She was still distracted by the railings. We have a lot of tape of me holding onto her while she clings to the railings and talks to the living room. Since we had the camera out, we thought it would be good to capture Cara putting her tub toys into the bath. I put out a toy for her, and she picked it up. She started saying something and waving it around. This continued for some time, and the toy was not put into the bath. Cara almost but not quite flushed the toilet on camera, and eventually she crawled away, loudly, with her toy. Steve turned off the camera and went and got Cara ready for her bath. Off-camera, of course, she suddenly remembered where her tub toys were supposed to go. The bath was stressful; Cara may have figured out that some things she doesn't really like happen in there and lost some of her enthusiasm. She hates, for instance, to have her hair washed. She spent the whole time, as she has spent the past few baths, standing up. We're going to make sure to let her play in there plenty, so that she keeps liking it. She did apparently enjoy sucking on the rim of the tub this evening. Having wrassled with the baby a little bit to make sure, I can report that I think I see a tooth coming in on Cara's left upper side. It isn't there yet, but I do think I see that white line under her gum. When Steve and I read to Cara, we point at things in the book. He now reports that she has begun to point at the pages, too. I have noticed that, with some books in particular, she is getting fairly good at turning pages. 3/12/06 (Sunday) Cara slept through the night for some reason, and we went and got her up at around 8:30. We hung around the house for a while. I stayed with baby while Evie went out to do the groceries, and we went up the stairs a few times, also trying down, and I began to see how Evie was working that part. Later in the afternoon we went to Middletown and Cara got to see her grandparents again, and her Great-grandma Emily. She wowed everyone with her stair-climbing ability, and developed her skill at going down. She couldn't do it unassisted like she can going up, but if you lightly hold her, she has a method for descending which involves scooting her butt to the edge of the top step and then just sort of standing up on the next step down. Then she contrives to kind of collapse into a sitting position on that step, from which the process can repeat. If she can master the sitting down part, she might be able to work this without our help--in time. The really impressive bit is that she seems to have worked this out by herself. Another impressive thing Cara did today was eat a whole lot of bread. George had the baby in his lap and she had had a few little pieces of bread fed to her before, but this time he gave her a huge hunk, from which she very maturely was able to bite mouthfuls off. She did a whole lot of this and then drank some water out of George's glass. Cara somehow managed to also polish off a bottle not long after that. She also tried a little of George's birthday cake which we were eating, but this made her make a funny face--it didn't taste like the bread! She did some cat grabbing, so the cat decided wisely to go outside and pretty much stayed out for the rest of our visit. When it got to be after 6:30, we got ourselves together and packed Cara back into the car. She fell asleep on the ride home and was never quite happy for the rest of the evening after we woke her up. She had some nice moments of playfulness in the hallway and in her room, but was very unhappy whenever things didn't go her way. The last straw came when Mommy wouldn't let her eat a bottle of shampoo. Then we decided she was just tired and cranky and needed to go to bed. Her Mommy is seeing to that now. We will cross our fingers and hope for two sleepful nights in a row! 3/13/06 (Monday) My calendar says that it is Eight Hours Day, Labour Day, and Commonwealth Day in Australia. They get all the good holidays. Anyway, we have two nights in a row of blissful sleep from Cara! She did not wake up last night and lasted until after I left for work. Evie said that Cara was very good this afternoon. She ate lots of interesting things, including a little asparagus and some cheese, along with the more typical puffs and yogurt. She climbed the stairs, of course. What she is doing now is climbing a few, then getting distracted. Sometimes she went off to hold onto the railing, or decided to sit down--this was very dangerous if she was in the middle of climbing up the stairs, as she was preparing to sit down on thin air. She also sometimes climbed up a little and then turned around and went back down, and vice versa. The descending she still needs assistance for, but she is trying to make the sitting-down-on-the-step part into a smoother motion. I definitely wouldn't let her try and do it on her own, though! Poor PJ, we learned today, has caught "the croup"! A cough with a fever. He caught it from a kid in his daycare. We will not be visiting PJ on Wednesday. Cara will have to find something else to do. Evie tried holding Cara by one hand tonight and walking with her--it didn't work yet, but I have confidence that Cara will figure it all out soon enough. She is really watching us and thinking about how to do stuff. She is waving at people more often (she waved at Em and Ron from what I hear). She is turning the pages of her books with gusto, almost faster than we can read them. Also, tonight in the bath, Cara really discovered splashing. I was dedicated tonight to make the bath more fun for her than last time, when she was a little annoyed with all my poking and prodding and didn't have enough time to play. This time she played with her squeegee and her bath toys, and as I say she splashed like anything. Cara has splashed in the past, somewhat inadvertently, but somehow it just didn't seem to occur to her until tonight just how much fun it could be. She took both hands and flapped them into the water repeatedly. It was great. She was a little shocked when she soaked her own face, but this did not seem to deter her. When Cara got to the tub and the water was ready, she actually tried to climb into the tub! She grabbed the edge and lifted one leg. I tried to tell her she was much too small. Of course, once she got into the tub, she tried to climb out the same way. I was highly skeptical--but darned if she didn't actually manage to lift her foot up to the top of that tub! I doubt she'd have been able to make it the rest of the way out, but it was very impressive flexibility. All this climbing stuff she learned from the stairs, and she is now re-applying her knowledge in a different situation. Tonight was probably my night to bottle the baby down, but Evie was in the mood to snuggle and nap with her baby, so that's what they're doing now. I'll probably have to go brush my teeth loudly to wake my wife up and get her into bed. 3/14/06 (Tuesday) Today, Cara was delivered to me at school at a little bit after two o'clock. The students had been dismissed early, but the staff had to stay until three; I decided it would be a good day to give grandpa the afternoon off and to show Cara off a little bit. We spent a fun hour visiting around the school. Cara was cooed at by at least two dozen people, and she was in her element. Everyone was astonished at what a happy, good-tempered baby she was. (Of course, everyone also says that she's a beautiful baby.) She smiled at everyone, kicked her "happy feet," and even waved at a few people. We spent a good deal of time with Linda, the secretary. She gave Cara a toy lion to play with, and Cara took it and walked away (I was holding her up on a table). She enjoyed waving it in the air. Later, the same thing happened again: she took it and walked away. There were balloons in the office, and Cara loved them. There were a whole bunch of them tied to a little weight, and Cara held the weight and waved it around, moving the balloons. She had a great time. At one point, Cara crawled under a table. When I pulled her out, she had something in her hand. It was a Cheerio. Either there was a cheerio under Linda's table, or Cara located one on her person. I incline to believe the latter explanation, but I decided to take no chances. Cara really is getting into climbing. Steve mentioned that she wants to climb in and out of the bath tub. At school today, Cara tried to climb up me. When we got home, I took her sweater off and went to put it down. I heard crying. She had fallen headfirst into the recycling bin, and she was lying there with her legs sticking out. I picked her up and she was instantly fine, contrasting sharply with times when she bumps her head a tiny bit and is then inconsolable. I put her down and she tried climbing into the bin again. We spent a lot of time climbing up and down the stairs, of course. This evening, Cara and her daddy played the piano. Cara proceeded to climb onto the piano, heading for the bay window. I got a few pictures. When Steve took her off she got very mad, apparently feeling that she had not been allowed to explore sufficiently. We went upstairs to play in her room before bed. She tried to climb up her playground toy in order to reach a pair of pants hanging off the edge of her changing table. My instinct was to help her climb in some way, but Steve cleverly lowered the pants. She enjoyed waving them around. Adventures in Eating: I hear that Cara had a scrambled egg yesterday with her grandpa. They also share a banana every day. Today, around four, I gave Cara some pasta. I warmed it up just a little and put just a little bit of salt on it. I know that Spock says that babies don't need spices, but she just wasn't interested in it at all before, when I left it bland. She ate all ten pieces. She ate some puffs. She drank from her sippy cup (the real one, not the one with the straw). Then I gave her a bottle. In the evening, while I was out, Steve gave her some pears with rice cereal. Cara got to eat with her dipper; her daddy reports that she knows that it needs to be dipped and that she attempts to accomplish this by dropping it into the bowl. I am very impressed. Toy Notes: We are missing two alphabet blocks. I've looked everywhere, and I can't find them. Actually, we were missing three, but I found one. I'm out of places to look. Also, Cara's purple hippo fell behind the crib a week or so ago. Tonight, I got him out. There was a very happy reunion involving hugs and rattling. 3/15/06 (Wednesday) I found the alphabet blocks carefully hidden under the cart that holds all the blocks. Cara was very funny in hiding them there. She was also very funny today when instead of tumbling one of my block towers with her hand, she knocked it over with her nose and then turned to laugh at me! Here's our food routine. We've followed this the first three days of the week and so far it seems at least tolerable. In the morning, after her wakeup bottle and our walk around the neighborhood I scramble up an egg and warm up a piece of bread. She takes a few bites of the egg, which is sometimes quite warm, and takes some of the bread as well. In the afternoon, after her wakeup bottle and a bit of playtime, she has a piece of a banana which she watches me share with her. This is good messy fun. Last night, Cara was up for a few hours. This morning I woke her from a sound sleep at 8:20 and while active and happy most of the morning, she rubbed her eyes and yawned quite a bit. Then, promptly at 10:10, I put her in for her morning nap and I haven't heard a peep since. I'm terribly relieved that the blocks were found! I hate for things to be disorganized. Cara and I made a real mess of the house this afternoon. In her room, we took everything out of several baskets and moved it around. One of us took everything out of the shape sorter and left it on the floor. We played in the office. Cara took several books off of the shelves and left them on the floor. She kept looking up at it, so I took out the old godzilla toy we have, which sort of walks and which growls and has eyes that light up. We enjoyed that and left it in the doorway. Cara also dropped her purple hippo in her excitement. We played in my bedroom, so several things from my nightstand were rescued and left on the bed. In the living room, we upended the basket of toys. In the kitchen, we had several toys to play with on the floor, which we rejected in favor of taking all of the pots and pans out of the cabinets. The walker was also in the middle of the floor. We played in the dining room, but somehow we didn't make a mess. Just picture the rest of the house and then sprinkle Cheerios over whatever you picture, and you've got it. While Steve was busy this evening, Cara and I played on the stairs. She got to the top, and she gave me a funny look and then crawled away into the bedroom. "I'm gonna catch the ba-by!" I announced, and the chase began. I would catch Cara and tickle her, then she would crawl or cruise away. We played for about twenty minutes, and I really think she knew what I was saying. At least, she knew the idea and recognized the sounds. She giggled and crawled away fast, but she liked getting caught. Sometimes she would stick out her finger for me to put in my mouth, which is really fun for her but isn't quite in the spirit of the game. Oh, well. Cara is getting much better with her dipper; she is trying to dip it. However, she often gets the wrong end either in the bowl or in her mouth. This gets to be okay, since her hands and the entire dipper are coated with yogurt anyway. This evening she wound up looking like Santa Claus, with a white mustache and beard. She also had very dainty white gloves on. A good time was had by all. Lately, Cara has been running away while we undress her for her bath. It is very funny to see her crawling furiously down the hall in her diaper. While Steve was carrying her back, having captured the naked runaway, she waved at me. | Previous Week | Back Home | Next Week | |