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Journal Key:

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

5/11/06 (Thursday)

Cara has a cold! She was up during the night and then woke up at 7:55. She drank only half a bottle of milk and was then alternately sniffly and then crabby. I put her in for her nap at 9 A.M., which is about an hour early but she was quiet quickly and then slept until eleven. Then it was back to the same routine: Cara sniffly and Cara crabby. I put on the Muppet Show and she watched that for a while; mostly I got to watch it.

At about 1:15, I gave her a scrambled egg which she ate between sniffles. Then it was more crabbiness.

One bad thing happened: we were upstairs and I didn't latch the gate, thinking that we'd only be upstairs for a minute. Instead we were up for a while and then Cara marched out of her bedroom. I forgot that it was unlatched and heard Cara tumble down the stairs! An awful sound, one I hope never to hear again. I got to her and she cried for a minute or two. I think I was more upset than she was. Thank goodness those stairs are carpeted.

After that event we sat down some more. She got over her immediate troubles while watching even more Muppets. Then I noticed her trying to find a nice comfortable sleeping position; I needed no additional clues as to what I should do next. I scooted Cara up the stairs into her bedroom where I gave her some Tylenol (a second dose) and put her into her crib at the unheard of hour of 1:30.

Evie reports that Cara slept until 3:30, then the two of them hung around with more muppets. Poor little girl; in addition to her cold and her tumble down the stairs (which doesn't actually seem to have left her much the worse for wear, only a couple small red spots on her face that will probably turn into bruises), she was running into our bedroom this evening and accidentally ran straight into the wall!

She was a bit needy this evening, and was not particularly interested in eating dinner, although we did manage to get some fruit and a piece of bread into her. A lot of muppets were involved again. I also spent some time at the keyboard while Cara wandered about in the bay window. You'd think that after falling as she did Cara would have learned a bit about not walking off of ledges--not so. This evening I saw several instances of her blithely walking towards edges, one example being the edge of the bay window; she even found it amusing when I grabbed her right before she tried to walk out onto my keyboard. Ah, well. She has definitely learned to be afraid of being submerged in her bath, as she spends the great majority of the time standing in it and walking very carefully through the water.

One thing from Wednesday or Tuesday, which is that Cara knows how to make the Cookie Monster come out. This is part of her Sesame Street toy which has various doors and windows that will spring open if you push or twist a button the right way. I showed her how to work the Cookie Monster door and she then did it herself.

Here's a development which we may or may not have mentioned before. Evie plays a kind of game with Cara where she says "I'm gonna get the baby!" and then chases after her. Lately Cara seems to be misreading the point of the game, or else she is using a preemptive strike tactic, because now instead of running away when Evie says this, Cara walks cheerfully toward her Mommy.

5/13/06 (Saturday)

Aunt Claire has been teaching Cara a wonderful new social skill - they stick out their tongues at each other! Claire stuck out her tongue and Cara, oblivious to the subtlety that she had food in her mouth, responded in kind. They went on in the same fashion for several rounds, and I found that she would also stick out her tongue for me. This could become our new secret greeting!

In another instance of imitation, Cara copied something I do when we read her favorite book, Dinosaur Opposites. On the page where one dinosaur is knocking on the door, I always knock-knock-knock on the page. This time Cara did the same. When we read it again she couldn't participate because her hands were full of trolls.

The trolls didn't make it into the bath with her this time, but she maintained her penchant for symmetry by holding onto both washcloths. It was during the bath, when she opened her mouth wide with glee, that we noticed a new little tooth on the bottom right! Since she was obviously congested all day, I skipped the shampoo.

Most of the day we followed our regular Friday routine - the park, Grandma's visit, supper, etc. During our video I got slimed when she sneezed vigorously onto my hand. It was at bedtime that trouble started. The poor baby can't suck down a bottle very well while her nose is stuffed up; she drank most of it, but it was difficult and frustrating for her. Even before that, she got cranky coming out of the bath, and while we were getting her dressed in her pajamas. Usually she laughs and cooperates, but last night she cried and struggled.

She went to sleep around nine, but was awake and crying about an hour later. I sat up with her and The Muppets until about midnight; I had hoped she might fall asleep in my lap, but finally I laid her down, protesting, in her crib and put myself back to bed with instructions to Claire to wake me if she was still crying by 12:30. And so we all slept until five in the morning, except for Schmutz who needed to come in at 2 and leave again at 3. It's been a heck of a night.

I didn't bother with a bottle this morning, reasoning that it is likely to frustrate her again. I might try some formula in her sippy cup. I've already offered her some toast, but she wasn't really hungry. I suspect her mommy and daddy are in for a bit of a rough day.

Well, oy!

The morning was pretty nice, really. We just hung around and played and I gave Cara a bottle. Around 9:30 we put her down and she had a two-hour nap. The afternoon was not great.

Cara was not awfully interested in her lunch. Afterwards, in the living room, she shared a couple of mozzarella cheese sticks with us. She likes sharing. She also dribbled some watermelon on her nice green pants. We went out to do some errands, and Cara had an okay but not great time. We got home around 3:30, and we gave her another bottle. We tried putting her down for another nap, but it didn't work out. We had some popcorn, and Cara enjoyed sharing that with us. She was quite enthusiastic.

She had been mildly crabby all afternoon, and it got worse as it got later. I went out to do groceries, and when I got home she was screaming. Steve reported that it had been bad for a while. We decided to just have dinner, so we put her in her chair. I was standing at the fridge, trying to figure out what to give her, when I looked back at her. She blinked at me. She blinked again. Then her eyes closed. She slept for about half an hour.

When she woke up, around 7:20, the back of her head was sweaty from the vinyl seat and her arms were red where they had rested on the tray. She was mad. I put her in her crib, but she was mad. She was too mad for a bath. Steve tossed her in her pjs and gave her her drops, all of which dribbled back out as she screamed. I gave her a bottle, which she guzzled. She was upset when it was over, and I put her down. She kept screaming, so I made another bottle. When I went into her room she was curled up as if she were going to sleep, but she was still screaming. She cuddled up to me in the chair and wanted to go to sleep, but she just couldn't. I tipped her back and gave her the new bottle. She didn't take the whole thing, but about six ounces in she fell asleep. We stayed like that for a while, and then I finally put her down.

5/14/06 (Sunday)

Cara slept nicely through the night to about 7:30 in the morning. She was still crabby today. You may wonder, what are some of the signs of crabbiness that Cara manifests? Well, it's easy to tell whether she's crabby when you see her fall down. On a normal day, she gets back up (or crawls) and gets going. If she's crabby, she cries. In a more vague sense, she's just not as happy as usual. On top of her crabbiness, her nose is running. She absolutely hates to have it wiped. This adds to her crabbiness, of course.

It's Mother's Day. Steve and Cara bought me some really cute cards, and I am getting a hydrangea to plant by my bulbs whenever we happen to find a nice one that isn't already in somebody's yard. We went down to Middletown to spend the afternoon with my family. Cara had a great time with her grandparents and her great-grandma, as well as with her aunt. She stuck her tongue out at Claire unprompted a few times, remembering who had inspired her in her new hobby. Unfortunately, she sticks it out with her mouth wide open, which I believe is not really the preferred technique.

We took Cara to the mini-park, and the whole family had fun on the swings. Cara went down the slide a couple of times and also, to my amazement, crawled through a tube! She wouldn't do that the last time I had her at a park with tubes.

At home once again, we went over to PJ's yard. He has three slides, a seesaw, a sandbox (unfilled), and a bouncing pony. Cara was excited to see PJ, pointing at him and talking to him. Surprisingly, he did not respond to whatever she was saying. After the initial greeting, they played happily in tandem, ignoring each other. PJ, who is only six weeks older than Cara, can climb to the top of a slide that comes up to my rib cage, get his legs pointed the right way, and slide down by himself! Of course, he has a lot more opportunity to practice. We also played out back on the patio with Cara's house, kitchen, and car. She had a great time, and I think it's a good setup for her.

5/15/06 (Monday)

Cara slept late, almost until 9 A.M. When she woke up, it was rainy and cold outside so we didn't have our walk--for those reasons but mostly because her sinuses are very congested. Her nose is running so much that I had to use the suction device that someone helpfully left out on Cara's dresser. It was a struggle but it seemed that the device did a good job of pulling out lots of nasty snot!

For the first few hours that Cara was awake, she continued her crabbiness, crying at the least little thing. When the time came, I did not hesitate to give her some Tylenol and toss her into her crib. She went to sleep quickly and slept for three hours.

When she woke up it was a different Cara. This Cara was smiling and laughing at seeing me! Her nose didn't seem to be running any more. This was the good Cara, not the baby godzilla that she's been the past few days.

Yes, Cara has been off and on with the crabbiness. In the late afternoon into evening, she wanted to be carried around everywhere and paid attention to, but Evie reports that she took an additional two-hour nap from 3 to 5. At 6:30 I finally arrived home and paid attention to Cara while dinner was made. She is a clever little girl when she's not upset. We were going up the stairs and she was babbling as usual, so I used one of her own favorite babbles on her: "Bee-yah bee-yah." She had not been saying it before, but she repeated it after me. I also tried another favorite: "Duppa duppa duppa." She also repeated that. It was very cool. Unfortunately none of these are real words, but she's definitely getting the idea. She will point at things that she wants or places that she wants to go.

Evie is working on getting her to say "cat" instead of kitty. This is because her favorite noise is a variation on "da," so she says "dot" a lot, which is very close to "cat". No breakthroughs yet.

Cara decided either that we were funny or that she must be doing funny things while she was eating in her high chair, so that for a while whenever we looked at her she would laugh. We did think she was a bit funny early in the meal, when Evie gave her a piece of broccoli. Cara stuck it in her mouth, worked it around, and took it out. Then it went back in for another fruitless session and was removed again, and so on. The broccoli survived this ordeal almost intact, until she finally decided to chew on it.

Cara needs to figure out about pacing herself when eating. She was coughing on a piece of bread tonight yet still insisted on shoving the rest of it into her mouth. Then later when she was in the middle of chewing her broccoli, she decided it was time for the bread again, so all the broccoli just got spat out to make room for the bread. The only thing I'm sure she ate a large percentage of was the mozzarella cheese stick--she has really become fond of those.

In the evening Mommy was making cookies. This annoyed Cara terribly, because she did not understand why her Mommy would want to do anything that did not directly involve Cara. So I spent a lot of time holding her so that she could watch the dough be made without grabbing something that she shouldn't (in between that we were once again looking at Muppets). For the last minutes of the Muppet show, Cara was actually sitting on the living room floor watching the show--this was a measure of just how tired she was, as normally we can't get through that much of a DVD without a trip up the stairs or into the kitchen. So we went up and had her bath, which she very much enjoyed, and then she got dried and into her pajamas and we tried to give her her drops, which she very much did not enjoy in the least bit. But now she is asleep, which we all enjoy.

5/16/06 (Tuesday)

We've talked about how Cara likes to hold two things at a time, one in each hand, for extended periods of time. She's been known to carry about her trolls, her bubble pipes, or her highchair toys. Today, my father reports, Cara emptied her dresser drawers and carried around two bathing suits. I can corroborate this, because I've seen the evidence.

For the second day in a row, Cara slept until about five. When she awoke, I was there with a bottle. I divided the milk between the bottle and a sippy cup, thinking that we really need to make progress towards weaning her. However, Cara seems to have an internal measuring device that tells her when she has or has not had an entire bottle. She drank what was there and got mad; she threw a tantrum. She doesn't throw herself on the ground or anything, she comes screaming to me with her arms up. I knelt down and hugged her, and she kept screaming with her arms clenched around my neck. Finally I peeled her off and gave her the milk in her bottle. I figure that, in this case, she was trying to communicate something fairly valid.

We played outside. It poured this morning, so the back patio was pretty filthy. Mud had spattered up the sides of her toys, and I wiped it off with a whisk broom of leaves; I have to find a little broom to keep out there, I think. I poured the water out of her little car, and of course Cara then climbed into it. She didn't open the door, she just snaked her way in through the window. She didn't really like the result, so I helped her out by opening the door. I was going to straighten her out, but she did it herself. She loves her car, and I think she's pretty good at getting into it now. Out seems to be a different story. Going out headfirst over the door is not as effective as going in over the door. However, it all worked out in the end. She did eventually leave the door open and climb out without even touching the ground with her hands.

Cara's kitchen has a sort of pan that fits into an indentation in the countertop. Both of course were full of water. I dumped the pan, but I had to let Cara play with the other water. She was quite surprised when she first got wet in it! She had a great time splashing her hands, and she may possibly have gotten the idea that you can use water to wash stuff off your hands. I showed her how you can use water to "paint" on the doorstep close by, but I'm not sure that that got across to her.

We played hide-and-seek with her house, her inside and me sneaking around to different windows. There are rocks around the bushes in front of the house, and Cara likes to pick out nice ones and bring them with her. One funny moment was when she dropped one out the window and stood in her house, looking out at it and talking to it. She is able to pick up several rocks at a time now, and she is dedicated to the idea that they belong in her mouth.

Cara was wet and filthy, so I stayed outside until Steve came home and I started dinner, so he had to change her clothes. We had tacos for dinner, so Cara enjoyed some lettuce, guacamole, refried beans, tortilla, and, of course, mozzarella cheese. She got crabby at the end before we were quite done, so I gave her a cookie. She held tight to it, mushing it into her mouth and smearing it all over her hands, her nose, her face, and her shirt, not to mention the tray in front of her. Her second shirt of the day was done!

This evening Cara missed seeing a deer in the front yard, got to wave at her daddy through the window, got to carry around her own diaper before her bath, and escaped wearing only her new diaper afterwards. It's been a very fulfilling day.

5/17/06 (Wednesday)

After at least a week of having her cold, Cara seems to be improving at least in her mood, but she is still congested. My parents came up to hang out with her today and took some pictures (it's a good thing, since we don't keep up--I'm still trying to find time to get the movies from her birthday on the web!). My wife tells me that Cara only had a single half-hour nap today! That's not so good, but it does show a change in sleep pattern from when she was really sick.

It's Wednesday, so PJ and Cara were reunited. PJ was walking down the sidewalk to our house so I put Cara down and they...sort of...walked towards each other. Cara did a lot of pointing at PJ and calls of "Da!" They didn't exactly play together, but they did interact more than in the past tonight. We went out back to Cara's toy house, and they spent a lot of time going in and out of that and peeking out through the windows. As Ron noticed, when one kid went into the house, the other one came out. But there were some times when they were both in there. They didn't do much fighting with each other.

Cara had a pretty good dinner, and I was very surprised at how well she was packing away the cheese stick I gave her. I knew she liked it, but it just seemed to disappear. I couldn't find it in her chair or on the floor, so I assumed she must have eaten all of the pieces I handed her. When she was outside walking around, though, Evelyn noticed a suspicious lump in the front of her shirt--indeed, inspection revealed a gross sliver of cheese stick cuddled up next to her skin.

Cara and PJ have traded objects; Cara now has a cool book which PJ very much enjoys that makes a different noise on each page. PJ in return gets Cara's elephant toy. I haven't really seen PJ play with it on his visits, but hopefully with it all to himself he will get some mileage out of it.

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