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Journal Key:

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

3/16/06 (Thursday)

Cara was up again last night, and like the night before was not interested in a bottle, so I sat with her until she went back to sleep. It's interesting that she does not seem to be waking up from hunger. I am contemplating letting her cry it out, but I'm just not sure it's going to teach her anything, and it's certainly not going to help me sleep, at least in the short term.

Anyways, Cara was very good for me today. I understand via a chain of hearsay that would not be admissible in a courtroom that Cara was good for George, and she was good for me this evening. Evie had to do conferences at work in the evening, so I came home a bit early and Cara and I hung out. First she very much enjoyed watching her Curious Buddies (on the farm) DVD while I did some tidying and ate my dinner. Then we had some yogurt with pears, and I did not do any dipper experimenting so we all came out of the experience fairly clean. Then I put Cara's jacket on her and we went out to the Babies R Us. My quest: to find some good sleepers in her size. I was not particularly surprised to find, as on previous expeditions, that they are strangely not well stocked in nice one-piece sleepers with feet in Cara's size (which is currently 18 months, even though she is only 11 months). I bought a large variety of what they were offering in pajamas in her size, and to top it off I bought a new sleeveless sleep sack to replace the one that she could barely stand up in without popping the seams, and another pressure gate to put at the bottom of our staircases so that we don't have to constantly be hovering nearby in case Cara decides to take a climb. We had a pressure gate from my parents which was perfect for this, but it is currently in use keeping Buster the Cat safely blocked away in the game room!

Cara was very good in the car and in the Babies R Us, even when we had to wait in line at the cash register. She stared at everyone and babbled at a woman who came near us in the clothing area. She decided it would be fun to constantly drop her bear rattle off the edge of the shopping cart so that I would have to pick it up for her. When we came home, she was very good while I did a few chores, and then amused herself in the living room pretty independently while I sat with the TV on. Eventually we changed for the night. In the process I discovered new ways to make Cara giggle. I kissed her on her belly, and rubbed her a little on her chest, and kissed the bottoms of her feet. The feet stuff I've done in the past, but she just seems to find these things more funny now--hilarious, in fact. It was cool. Then her Mommy came home, and she was very energized and excited for a while, but Evie managed to put her down with the night time bottle. It probably won't last through the night, but we'll see! It's been a very pleasant evening, anyway.

3/17/06 (Friday)

Our adventure of the day was our trip to the park. The moment George and Cara arrived, we set out for the baby swings, which she thoroughly enjoyed. Along the way I gave her several opportunities to "walk" over the grass and among the trees. After the swings, we went on to the newer play equipment. As we did last week, we climbed up to the platform and let Cara crawl through the big yellow tube. I held her on the little slide and let her slide down it. Then some other children came along. Cara observed their approach with interest. There were two little boys and a little girl just 20 months old who was remarkably tender and helpful to Cara. All three of them wanted her to play and offered their toys to her. In the course of this play, I took her up to the bigger slide and went down it with her in my lap (even this one is not very high). She climbed the metal stairs many times, and tried to climb back up the slide; alas, she lacked traction. By the time her three new friends went home, Cara was a tired little girl who consented meekly to be carried all the way. Now that she was resting in my arms she had attention to spare for the sounds of birds, and she swiveled her head trying to see them. On the way home we met Grandpa, who had gone home to put on his running things. No matter how tired Cara may be, her legs kick with joy when she spies her Grandpa!

Back at the house we had our weekly visit with Great-grandma Emily. Cara showed off her stair-climbing skills, but stopped midway up to wave bye-bye to Emily. Around five p.m. the baby sucked down most of a bottle, and while we ate our supper she had a few ounces of vanilla yogurt. Once again, I have fed her in my lap without getting yogurt on either one of us! It seems miraculous. Throughout the evening, while she has been playing happily, she has also been showing signs of fatigue: eye-rubbing and occasionally that little sleepy sound she makes. We figure on an early bed time. Right now she is watching her video with her usual delight. In fact, fatigue probably enhances her appreciation, as she is sitting still for it. After a while we will try a bath and a bottle, and see if she will go to sleep.

3/18/06 (Saturday)

Cara had a nice, splashy bath, for much of which she actually sat or crawled in the water. Clean and dry, she had a bedtime bottle and was sound asleep by about 8:30 last night. At one point in the evening she snuggled up to my shoulder and took a nice chomp, which I regard as a sign of familiarity.

This time she slept through the night, but rose like a little bird at about 6:30. Luckily, I was up first and had a bottle ready. For the first time, when I came down to pick her up, she was standing in her Pack'nPlay. In fact, her balance and confidence are both greater than they were a week ago. She often lets go and stands unsupported, and even tries to take a step that way.

She has had her morning bottle, she is dressed, and we have read through the dinosaur book three times. She clearly prefers it to the Very Hungry Caterpillar; there's no accounting for taste. She has declined a taste of George's omelette, and now she is on her way home again.

Cara got up good and early this morning, which we theorized may mean that she has her own internal clock and has realized that it is getting lighter sooner. We hung out with her in the morning and I gave her some pears. Some time after 10 we decided baby really needed her nap, but she didn't really go down until maybe 11. Aunt Claire arrived and she and Evelyn left to get some lunch; while they were gone, baby awoke and I finally gave her her second bottle of the day, at nearly 1 pm. We ate lunch with Cara in her walker with some puffs, and mostly she was very good and talkative. Somewhere in there in the afternoon, baby had some yogurt.

Then we decided to take Cara to the park--not Johnson Park, but our other nearby park which we like. We stopped at a little playground area and Cara was absolutely thrilled to be there and to see the other children playing. She "walked" a little and then we let her do some climbing on the steps and across a bridge. Evelyn and Claire very carefully handed the baby between them down a short, wide slide (Claire was standing at the bottom of the slide and Evelyn delivered the baby to her from the top). This was OK for Cara, but nothing special. She crawled over to a very forbidding looking tube slide which twisted and turned down to the ground from high up. She seemed to want to do it, so Evelyn sent her down and I caught the little thing at the bottom. While she was going down, she looked ready to freak out, but once I scooped her out she looked as if it had been an exciting occasion. We didn't do it again--baby spent some time on the swings, which she enjoyed, but we decided after a bit of that that it was just too cold out for babies and stuck her back in the car.

We then had the idea of taking her to the mall, but for some reason there was very heavy traffic on Route 1, so we turned off home. Cara went grocery shopping with Claire and Evelyn while I did some vacuuming. Somewhere in here she had another bottle. Then it was time for Claire to go. Cara enjoyed looking at Claire and thought she was funny.

After Claire left, we were all down in the dining room and Cara was standing next to the chair by the keyboard. She was free-standing for a little, so I decided to squat down and spread my arms wide from across the room to encourage her to come to me. Instead of collapsing and crawling, Cara took a few steps. This may count as her first unassisted walking! Evie counted four steps, but really she just kind of shuffled a tiny bit and then reached out for her walker toy nearby. Still--walking! It's not far off now! Kitties beware!! Cara has been getting more and more visibly frustrated lately that she can never catch Shelby. Not for long...

Cara was in a fairly good mood for most of the evening, and mostly we hung out in the living room. We read some books and such. There was plenty of stair climbing as well; we did make some use of our new pressure gate so that we didn't always have to watch while Cara grabbed stair railings and stuck her hands between them, but a lot of the time we left the stairs unblocked and let her climb (I figure it's good practice). For dinner Cara finished her pears and had some more pasta. She also had some juice from her sippy cup. Around 8:00, though, Cara had clearly had enough and was very tired (it was a long day!). We decided to toss her in the tub and put her to bed. She had a very splashy bath which she enjoyed--she really wanted to get in the tub and was very angry at having to have her clothes taken off beforehand. Now as usual Evie is applying the sleepytime bottle.

Tomorrow Cara goes south to visit her grandparents--maybe they can coax a few more steps out of her!

3/19/06 (Sunday)

It was really a magical moment when Cara walked yesterday; I feel really lucky that Steve and I were both there. (It has occurred to me that she may have done this before, but nobody wanted to tell me I had missed it. However, this is probably unlikely.) I did try suggesting to Steve that she had taken four steps, but I was quite ready to admit that it was really two steps and two stutters. Today, Cara may have taken one more step. It was not a big walking day.

Cara went to bed early last night, but then she was up and quite upset for about two ours last night. That meant that the whole family was up, though I did get to snooze for part of it. Tonight she's tired early again, and this time it's my turn to get up in the night! I hope it's not too bad. I have a bottle ready and waiting.

Today, somehow, Cara missed a bottle. She had one when she woke up, but then she was somewhat cranky and seemed tired. We tossed her in the car and headed to Grandma's house. Cara was happy to play there; she had some Cheerios and some of our lunch for a snack. Her second bottle was not until maybe two or three o'clock. Later she had some pizza, which is arguably her favorite grown-up food. She also drank four or five ounces of pear juice, and she seemed awfully tired, so we skipped her pre-trip bottle and tossed her in the car to head home. She had a lot of yogurt and then was extremely miserable and tired, so we are currently giving her a bottle and tossing her into the crib for the night. Well, Steve is doing those things.

As usual, Cara had a great time playing with her grandparents and their wonderful toys. She's getting much better at fine manipulation. She can pull her wooden puzzle pieces out by their tiny knobs. (Do you remember puzzles like that? I remember them from my childhood, but I don't know whether they still make them.) She cruises all around, and she raced her grandma, both crawling, down the hallway. Cara won, but I suspect that it may have been fixed. Cara also enjoyed shaking almost all of the dvds out of their rack. Later she went back for the ones she had missed.

Rusty and Cara have an interesting relationship. We spend half of our time pulling him away so that he doesn't trample her or lick her really hard or anything, but today Cara was chasing him, too, and he decided that maybe he didn't want to be grabbed by a baby. He hid behind me for a little while, and he also tried sitting up very tall to keep his face out of reach. One of the high points of Rusty's day may have been his discovery of puffs. Once he knew what they were, he was quite attentive while Cara had her snack trap. One puff was shot out about five feet, and Rusty was all over it. It was very helpful. At the dinner table, though, he missed out on some pizza by not paying attention to the baby. I'm sure, as time goes by, he will learn. If he doesn't mind being poked, he and Cara may eventually be the best of friends.

3/20/06 (Monday)

Cara can almost stand up...she's going to be walking with some confidence in the next two weeks!

Two events today: 1)while reading an article about the Everglades to Cara, she made a surprise grab for my glasses and I yelled (too loud) at her. She was upset for whole minutes afterwards, a logical reaction to baby-level hardship 2)I read that yesterday Cara mysteriously skipped a bottle and I thought that maybe today we could skip the 4 P.M. bottle as well, if only I could fill her up beforehand. So I gave her a big piece of banana, dozens of cheerios, a large helping of apple sauce and I watched her drink apple juice from her cup. I thought she could skip the bottle after having had all that--but I think I'm wrong. When I went to pick her up from the high chair, she had almost become glued to the seat with uneaten banana and cheerios. But I still think it's a good idea to begin skipping bottles.

This afternoon I took Cara down to Johnson Park and had a three plus mile run, pushing the new jogging stroller. It is a cool and windy day so I bundled Cara up in her bunny suit and then put the plastic shield over the baby compartment. I didn't think much of the plastic shield when we got it but it certainly kept the wind off Cara; I know she was awake and without complaint for the first twenty minutes of the run but somewhere in the last ten minutes she fell sound asleep. She was so asleep that I managed to get the bunny suit off her in the back seat of my car before she woke up. So thanks everyone, for the effective jogging stroller, a fine birthday present to me.

It was my turn to put baby to sleep last night, and I had such a hard time getting her down that eventually I just plain gave up; for a little while, it looked like she was going to get quiet and go to sleep, but then she went off and Evelyn went in and got her down. Then she slept through the night (yay).

Tonight Cara did two things that I thought were very impressive. But let me go in order. When I got home a bit after 6, Evie decided that Cara needed her bottle after all, so she administered it. We (meaning the wife and I) then had our dinner with Cara in her walker, which she was OK with for a while, and when she got tired of it I picked her out. We played nicely in the living room. Usually Cara gets fidgety quickly in the living room, and wants to run off and climb the stairs or something, but tonight she was quite good and stayed put playing nicely with the toys that were there--possibly the books I showed her helped calm her and keep her in place. She loves to turn pages, but when she comes to try to open and flip through a book herself, it often ends up sideways or upside down.

Evie decided we should go down and hang out with poor Buster the cat, so operations moved to the dining room. We have put the new pressure gate I bought in the doorway of the game room to keep Buster closed up and safe from harming herself, and Cara went over to cruise on it. Evie was in the game room petting Buster. Cara proceeded (and by the way, this is Impressive Thing number 1) to play peek-a-boo with her Mommy. She would squat down below the top edge of the gate, and then pop up again with a grin on her face. She did this approximately one million times, while Evie managed to look surprised and happy every time Cara popped up. It was the Cutest Thing I have ever seen the baby do. She needs to work on her timing, though, because she would pop back up almost immediately, with no time to build the suspense.

When we had decided that it was probably time for Cara's bath, she walked over to the steps and started climbing, Evie coaxing her all the way up to the hall, from whence Cara could hear the water running and we pelted off to the tub. Cara really loves her bath. She gets all psyched up dropping her toys in, and then is highly frustrated when I pick her up to take her clothes off. While in the tub tonight (Impressive Thing number 2), Cara intentionally plunged her face into the water! I am not sure what her intention was--maybe to drink some of the water--but she was definitely doing it on purpose, which is a big step, since she has been quite afraid of dunking herself in the past (maybe because she could tell that it scared me!).

Baby loved her bath so much that she did not want to come out, and when Evelyn took her back to her room to dry her off, Cara got loose and crawled past a vulnerable Shelby and into the bathroom to try to climb back into the tub. Poor baby, she had to leave and get into her pajamas. Now Evie is bottling her to sleep. A busy day!

3/21/06 (Tuesday)

Cara took a few quick shuffle-steps over to her Mommy this evening. I think we may have successfully skipped her afternoon bottle, as well. At dinner time, Evie suggested we try keeping her in her high chair in the hopes of beginning to get her used to sitting with us when we eat. She was given Cheerios, pieces of grapes and pieces of cheese, and she ate many of them and managed to stay in her chair for a long time--she was a bit antsy, but it's been much worse. Evie was off to her personal trainer in the evening, so we blocked off the stairs with a gate and I plopped down with baby in the living room and turned on the TV. We watched an action movie which was very inappropriate for babies, but fortunately Cara did not spend much time looking at the screen, and after all Vin Diesel has a soft, rather teddy bearish type of face.

Tonight she finally managed to tear out one of the flaps in her first lift-the-flap book (the riveting Where is Baby's Belly Button?). It had been hanging by a thread for a long time. I cleverly replaced the loose flap in the book, and she fished it out again, and I put it back again. George will probably find her with it in her mouth some time tomorrow.

Cara was well-behaved and cheerful for the evening, though as usual she was a bit crabby when I first got home--her Mommy has to make dinner and can't always pay as much attention to Cara as she thinks she deserves. Evie was not gone for long and when she came back we went downstairs to the dining room. Cara tried her popping over the gate thing with me, but it didn't go very far, I think because I was not able to muster the joyfully surprised expression Evie put on last night. Later, though, when I was supposed to be getting her ready for bed, Cara and I did some racing around the upstairs hall, which she enjoyed very much. In addition to trying to catch the baby, one thing I did was to crawl ahead of her and then look back and giggle. This had her chasing after me for a change.

Eventually though all babies have to get in their pajamas, which they greatly dislike as they would prefer to run around all night (apparently). But anyway, since Evie enjoys it she is up there getting Cara to sleep, and I am done doing the journal for tonight.

As a somewhat unbaby-related postscript, our new cat night time arrangements have Buster in the game room and Shelby in her usual place in the basement. However, I guess because she is alone down there, Shelby has been getting very noisy in the mornings. All the way up in the upstairs bathroom, even over the sound of my toothbrush, I hear her piteous and importunate meows. She used to stay quiet until 7 AM, when I generally let her out, but now it is up and at them at somewhere around 6 AM: "Meeeeeeeoooooowwwwwwwwrrrrrrr!" Cara thinks it's funny when we make that noise. Thankfully Shelby has yet to wake her up in the morning.

3/22/06 (Wednesday)

Every morning Cara and I go out to see the deer that sometimes congregate at the foot of Lloyd Street. We're successful only about 2 of every 5 trips but yesterday and today Cara butted her head up against the problem we all have, the difficulty of distinguishing reality from fiction.

At the corner of Nancy Circle someone has put a very lifelike statue of a deer among the shrubs in front of their house. A few days ago Cara noticed this and reacted with enthusiasm. Today, there were no deer on Lloyd Street but when we walked past the deer statue, Cara reacted with great enthusiasm, using her all-purpose noun 'keeee'. Even as we walked away and the statue receded in the distance, Cara kept kicking her feet and calling to it, fully expecting to see the deer stand up and walk away, just as deer have done so many times for us.

This morning Cara spent a good twenty minutes in her high chair drinking apple juice from her sippy cup, having a slice of hard bread and about forty percent of a scrambled egg--today I put salt and pepper into the egg and she ate it with much more enthusiasm than on previous days.

Cara had a wonderful Wednesday with Grandpa Jim and Grandma Janet, who came up to spend the afternoon with her. They fed her such a nice lunch that she did not want her second bottle of the day until around three, and they took her to the park. Cara liked the slide more this time, and I'm sure she had a good time on the swings.

I was finally successful in giving Cara a banana. The last time, I cut her slices. She ignored them. This time, I gave her a big hunk a couple of inches long. Cara seized it and went to work. She finished a couple of pieces in that manner, and the only problem is that she doesn't know what to do when she gets to the end. I do believe that she ate at least a third of the banana, but I also found several mushy, slimy banana ends in her lap.

Cara and I went shopping for new storage for her toys, but we were not successful. I stuck Cara in her stroller and put a fluffy blanket in her lap. She was snug and warm, and she enjoyed spending her time watching people and smiling at them. No one in the store rated a wave. On the way home, Cara fell fast asleep. I think it was because she was so nice and warm under her blanket. Also, her grandparents may have tired her out! She didn't wake up until I had unstrapped her and was physically lifting her out of the car, at which point she announced her awareness with a raspberry.

Steve and I have been letting Cara drink water from our glasses occasionally. She is very enthusiastic, and her technique is improving. However, there is still a lot to learn. Cara believes that she will get the water if she leans her head forward, and we cannot convince her to remain upright and allow the glass to tip. I tried having her drink while standing up, as we've seen PJ do, but it didn't help!

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