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Journal Key:

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

5/18/06 (Thursday)

Cara was taking a little nap when I got home today around 4:30 after an extremely trying, frazzling day. I took a little nap myself before I woke her and gave her a bottle. I hope that her late nap doesn't make it hard for her to fall asleep! Right now she's up in her crib alone, talking to either herself or her stuffed animals.

For the past three weeks or so, Cara has awoken every Wednesday night. True to form, she was up around eleven last night. We offered her a bottle, but she refused it and continued crying. Zombified, we politely put her back down and went back to bed. I'm not sure how long she continued to howl. Steve got back up with her for a little while, but I was done.

Cara helped her Mommy today for the first time! We took a bottle of liquid soap out of the hall cabinet and carried it into the bathroom for me, so that I could refill the hand soap pump. My dad says he's going to install a hook-and-eye on those cabinet doors, and Steve and I agree that it's a good idea. Later in the evening, Cara sort of brought me a shirt to put in the laundry. She dropped it halfway.

Em said last night that the kids need about a tablespoon of food from each food group at every meal. Now I'm trying to figure out whether Cara gets that. Does she get three tablespoons of protein every day? I'm not sure. Some days she gets a lot of fruit and veggies, and other days she doesn't do so well. She had some asparagus tonight.

Somehow, twice today, Cara was on a piece of furniture with me and decided to get off headfirst. I was holding her, so I was able to lower her gracefully headfirst toward the ground. We had mixed results.

After dinner, the three of us headed down to Linwood for a visit to the 7th grade Autobiography Night. Cara got to see and be seen, and lots of teachers visited with her. She got to run around a little, and even though it was a huge room, filled with people, she did fine. There were some little boys wrestling, and Cara very much wanted to join them and also to steal their toys. When we left, we put her down in the hallway. She toddled in every direction but towards the exit.

Buster and Shelby are creatures of habit. Buster's habit, at this point, is dictated by her circumstances; her habit is to stay in her room. Shelby spends her evenings on our bed, so Cara always expects to find her there. Strangely, almost every night, Shelby visits Cara's room, looking for attention, just as one of us is sitting down to give her a bottle and the other is turning off the lights and leaving. It's getting to be a habit to lure her out before shutting the door. She has impeccable, terrible timing.

5/19/06 (Friday)

When I got up this morning, at 5:30, I could hear Cara in her crib, talking. By the time I got out of the shower, she was crying and had woken her father. She had tossed her precious cat-rag and puppy onto the floor, and I theorize that that just made her madder. We gave her a bottle and brought her downstairs, where I gave her some Cheerios and stuck her in her chair. Then I left, leaving her daddy to play with Cara and somehow have breakfast before Grandpapa George got there. Since it's Friday, that was the last I saw of Cara today!

There's been a whole lot of tushie-shaking going on. With the weather so changeable, we've spent most of the afternoon at home, playing with toys that produce music; Cara usually responds with a good rhythmic hip action and a big grin. Who needs other entertainment? Of course, it's also fun to run around and around the upstairs rooms, chasing each other in a big circle.

Cara is showing signs of language development. Today when I asked, "Where are the fishies?" she turned her face to look at the fish tank, and when I asked, "Where is Grandpapa?" she turned to look at George. When we looked at the fish together, her babbling consisted of a lot of "ish" sounds.

Great-grandma Emily brought a rag doll which Cara cuddled adorably and enthusiastically. Then, of course, she chomped on its feet. She seems attached to it, but not the way she has been with the trolls. The trolls themselves now are no more than toys she can play with and drop, not the obsession they were a week ago.

Outside, the Schmutz rubbed up against her once, and she got to touch him briefly. Inside, she wanted to grab the poor little guy while he was eating. I kept showing her how to pet him, but finally she got a grip on his tail. He really is forbearing; he seems to know that he must not hurt her even when she really annoys him. He just looked at her and then went to hide in the garage.

At this point she's had a good supper and is contentedly playing in the downstairs room while George and Claire watch My Neighbor Totoro. I'm not sure this qualifies as a baby video, but everyone seems happy so far. I've already set up the bedtime bottle. In a little while we'll run a bath and get this little girl ready for bed.

5/20/06 (Saturday)

Cara went to sleep like an angel last night. After her bath, in which I did wash her hair, we spent a little time cuddling while she was wrapped only in her towel. She seems to be at her most relaxed right after the bath, warm, cozy and contented. Then we got her dressed in her PJ's and she drank most of a bottle in the dimly lit room with her sleepy music playing. By then she was quite drowsy, although she kept a grip on her trolls. I held her in my arms for a few minutes, then laid her gently on her back and put a blanket over her. She gave a couple of cries, but stopped by the time I had tiptoed upstairs to the kitchen, and not another peep was heard from her until 5 o'clock this morning.

Much like Friday morning, she had dropped one of her trolls out of the crib, and that seemed to be the immediate issue. Grandpapa kindly came downstairs to make her a bottle, and she wanted it, but her little nose was snuffly and she couldn't suck, so I fed her a handful of Cheerios and a slice of cheese instead. Later on, while Grandpapa ate his breakfast, she enjoyed a piece of toast and some juicy strawberries, the consumption of which involved a great deal of lip-smacking. Strawberries were so tasty that she had no interest whatsoever in the eggs I tried to feed her. As always, for me, the pleasure of holding the baby far outweighs the inconvenience of waking at 5 a.m. on a Saturday.

We had a fun day playing with Cara, who successfully had a bottle around noon. I would have given her one earlier, if I had known about her troubles! She was very proactive in playing with her laundry basket in the morning; she climbed in herself for a ride, and she managed to (sort of) steer when she was pushing it about herself. She's having some sort of thing about her washcloths today. She was taking clean ones out of their basket and putting them into the laundry hamper in her closet. Later she was putting them into a large empty box that was in her room.

Cara and I went out to do some errands. We bought a new gate at Babies' R Us. This is an extra-wide one for the stairs outside. We also ran into a friend at the store, the mother of the twins who were at Cara's birthday party. We may set up a playdate with them soon. Cara got to get out of her stroller and walk around a little bit; she messed with an inaccurate Caution: Wet Floor sign, and she kept heading for the entrance doors. Fortunately, the motion detector would not detect anyone on our side. She repeatedly moved towards a group of women who were talking, holding their purses dangling at their sides. Cara went at them with her hands up, ready to snatch and run.

Steve was holding Cara while I got ready for company, and she saw a bowl of grapes on the table. She reached for them, and Steve gave her one. She held it, but that was really no good. He tried to show her that he would eat one, but she grabbed it. Having one in each hand, she was ready to try one. Cara ate grapes, apparently liking them, for the first time! Steve says, and I agree, that she liked them this time because she discovered them herself and requested them.

In the afternoon my friend, Rich, came over, and he brought Cara some books. Most of them were from the library book sale, so she's not too spoiled. We got a nice copy of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass with the old illustrations, and we got some A. A. Milne, whom I had just noticed I was missing. Those will be great when Cara is older. He also bought a beautiful board book that has simple, four-piece puzzles in the pages. It is a very pretty book about animals. He got Cara a set of board books that are shapes like little train cars; they hook together and you can pull them about. Cara has already tried taking them out of and putting them back into their box, and she has thoroughly played with and even chewed on them.

Cara was a little bit shy of Rich, probably because she was tired after having been up so early! He managed, though, to be very funny and get her to laugh several times during the evening. During dessert, Cara got her little face and her right hand all chocolatey and covered with crumbs from the cake. Her eyes got heavy. She blinked. She blinked. She fell asleep. We talked for about 45 minutes, and then she woke up. Just like the other times she slept in her chair, Cara woke up very upset.

We wound up having to just put her in her pajamas, give her a bottle, and toss her into bed. Nothing else would do, and in a little bit she fell asleep. It was early, of course, and I wonder whether she's forming a pattern of going to sleep earlier and getting up earlier. If she does, we'll have to reshape our morning routines!

5/21/06 (Sunday)

Cara slept until about eight today, so I hope that my fears were ill-founded. We had a lovely day today. In the morning we gave Cara some breakfast and went outside. The three of us took Cara's morning walk along Lloyd street, and we met several neighbors along the way; it was very pleasant. Cara also got to meet some nice dogs. We put her down a couple of times, and although she did occasionally just wander over to the grass and start picking up things she oughtn't to play with, she also showed great initiative in walking the length of a yard once in a while. She knows where she lives, and when Steve put her down in front of the house she knew exactly where to go. When we got home we didn't even go inside. We got the stroller out from the trunk of my car and headed out for the playground. Cara had fun on the swings and a really great time on the playset. She climbed the stairs and both of us got to take her down the slide. I also brought along our purple ball, and we let it roll down the slide a few times. Steve and I enjoyed trying to catch it, and Cara enjoyed watching it.

It was great to do all this stuff with Steve. He really took charge; he carried Cara on our original walk, and he carried her part of the way to the playground. He pushed her on the swing, and he played with her on the stairs and the slides. It was so nice! The only thing I do better than he does is push her on the swing (now we'll see whether he reads this).

Cara had been up for four hours, so we put her down for a nap. Steve took the time off to put up a whole lot of new movies on the site! He did a lot of whittling down, but there are still at least ten new ones. Some are from her birthday party, but there are also a couple from before that and some from after.

When Cara woke up, Aunt Claire was here! The three-and-a-half of us went out to lunch, and, as usual, Cara had a great time. She really seemed interested in watching people bus tables. She may be interested in a career. Cara ate lots of bread, a couple of French fries, a little bit of chicken, and a lot of French onion soup. The soup spoon was a regular, round soup spoon, but she still got it all the way into her mouth once. No one but me saw this feat. We got Thai chili wings, and Cara sucked some of the sauce off of my finger, eagerly opening her mouth for more.

Back at home we went outside to install our new baby gate across the top of the outdoor stairs. Claire and Steve did all the work, while Cara and I traipsed around aimlessly. I feel much safer, now that that gate is up.

We went back inside, since it was cold, and watched the Muppet Show. Cara was clearly tired, as she often would stop and rest her head for a few seconds on my lap or Steve's. It was really cute and I wish she would have done it for a little longer. However, three seconds was her limit, and then she would be up and running again.

When she got a little cranky, Claire suggested that she might be hungry. Duh! I followed her into the kitchen, and she reached up toward her highchair. I pulled it out into the living room and sat on the stairs beside her (she eagerly followed it, reaching up to me) to feed her. She had some Cheerios, an entire cheese stick, and a whole lot of honeydew melon. Then she was much happier.

We played a rousing game of I'm-gonna-get-the-baby, and then Cara had her bath. She wanted to put some important paperwork she had found into the tub, but Daddy thwarted her. She wanted to put her socks into the tub, and she succeeded. Congratulations, Cara.

5/22/06 (Monday)

Cara had an extra nap today. This is an experiment based on Spock's advice that most babies should have two naps a day. One possible down side will be that Cara won't need as much sleep in the night and will wake up earlier.

Today Cara showed her true intelligence by pointing the DVD remote in the right direction and hitting a button. Fortunately the DVD player was not on. Yesterday she did successfully turn the TV set off a couple of times while we were watching the Muppets.

Another clever thing Cara did today was that she discovered how to climb up into the seat of the stroller! Once she got the hang of it (even, with some difficulty, the getting down part), she was up and down all evening. The really thrilling part is when she stands up on the seat of the stroller and grips the sun canopy with both hands. This will have to be monitored.

However we did get her outback tonight, and while I was diligently setting some hot dogs on fire, Cara wandered about and we didn't have to watch her really closely because of the gate--it was very nice. Of course, then Cara decided to go over and climb our outside staircase.

For dinner Cara had lots of tater tots, which I don't think she's had before and she enjoyed very much. She also had lots of grapes, which she mostly seemed to chew a lot and then spit out into her hand so that she could wave the remains in our direction. I theorize she wanted the juice.

There were a lot of "dot"s from her tonight. The babbling is quite varied and wordy-sounding, though she still harps on her old favorites. It's easy to imagine at times that she is saying real words, but as very little is repeated other than "bee-yah" and "duppa duppa," it's hard to tell. But I think the speaking will come along soon (usually when I say something like this, the event is still several months away). Anyway, it's fun to listen to the babbling.

5/23/06 (Tuesday)

Decided, with help from parents, to change Cara's nap pattern. Here's how it went this morning: Cara was up at 6:30 A.M. (much too early). So instead of putting Cara in for her 10 A.M. nap, I took her to Johnson Park in the morning! This was a very nice visit to the thirteen baby goats and the several very nice children we met. One of the children was a little blond boy named Caleb who was born on April 9!

So the morning was eventful and fun. On our way home from the park at about 11:25, we stopped for ice cream. This would be, I believe, Cara's first attempt at eating ice cream and let me say that it was not a resounding success. Cara took a couple of spoonsful and then let me finish the rest of the heavenly vanilla stuff. Gee, I wondered, what's wrong?

During the five minute trip home, Cara fell asleep in the car; she fell asleep as I carried her into the house and took off her sweatshirt; she fell asleep as I changed her diaper; and, lastly she fell asleep at 11:50, in her crib. We'll see how long this lasts and if has an effect on how she sleeps at night.

How cute! I hear that Cara slept until about 2:45, and then she had lunch. We had a pleasant afternoon. At one point I took Cara into the office upstairs, the door to which is kept closed all day because she likes to pull books off the shelves. She enjoyed pulling books off the shelves. However, Cara also pointed up at a Godzilla toy we have on a top shelf. I got it down and turned it on; it walked toward Cara, waving its arms, growling, with its eyes lighting up red. She didn't know how to react; she may have almost been frightened. I showed her how to "pet it nice" like the cats; I patted its head. Cara didn't go near it. She played with some other things and was in and out of the room. Finally, she patted its head, just as I had done!

Cara and I went and did the groceries, and for dinner we had Chinese takeout. Cara is really able to communicate her desires now by pointing. She let us know what she wanted! For dessert I gave Cara, on her grandfather's suggestion, the remainder of a cup of peach yogurt. Boy, was he right! Her mouth was like a gaping hole. I think she was disappointed when it was gone, although she was clearly tired of being in her chair. After dinner she got a little bit cranky, and so I put on the Muppet Show (I have a high tolerance for repetition). Cara was instantly happy; she danced! She has a new dance, which I think may just be a seated version of her usual tushie-wiggle. She shakes her shoulders violently, almost as if she were doing the twist. I don't think that I could accurately imitate it, because she gets up to very high speeds. It is extremely funny.

Cara clearly was tired; she was able to sit still for up to a minute at a time. We headed for bed a little bit early, but she had a lot of fun in her bath and made up for that time. Steve was making some sort of funny noises with her bath toys, and Cara was shrieking with laughter. Personally, I couldn't see what he was doing with my contact lenses out. Cara was cold and shivery after we took her out. I put her pajamas on and she lay on her back in her crib nicely. She was definitely tired! She didn't take her whole bottle, but she and her cat-rag are happily curled up in bed.

For the record, Cara's first taste of ice cream was, I think, on her first birthday, when a nice lady at On the Border gave her a little sundae. Her reaction to it was very similar, however. Also, what Cara found so funny in her tub was that I was inverting her stacking cups and letting them fall from very high up onto the surface of her bath: whap! First she was going "Ah!" or something of the sort, seemingly in imitation of the sound. Then it was just funny.

5/24/06 (Wednesday)

I decided to try to amuse Cara this afternoon, just for a change. She'd been to Johnson Park a lot, so I took her to the closer park, the one by the bridge. Is it Donaldson Park? I'm not sure. I parked at the far end and we walked to the farther playground, where Cara met a little boy who was almost three. He was out with his mommy and his little sister, who turned out to be nine days old! The baby was tiny and just adorable; remember when Cara had flappers? The older kids (Cara and the brother) were very interested in the baby. The boy played with Cara; basically they got themselves into standoffs and made faces at each other. He called her a baby ("bebe"), but when I was showing the newborn to Cara I told her that that was a baby, and she wasn't a baby. Then he said, "not a bebe."

Cara also played on the playground. There was a climbing wall of a sort on the jungle gym, and Cara decided she was interested when we were looking down at it from above. I took her around to show her that she couldn't climb it, and up she started! I helped her through a few slips, and she made it to the top. We walked to the closer playground, where we met a seven-month-old girl. She was very cute, and I got to be the older, more experienced mom. That doesn't happen often, and it was fun!

Since it was Wednesday, we went over to PJ's house. The great toy exchange continued: we brought over Cara's playground interactive book and her activity-ball-guy-thing that she got for her birthday, we brought home a book of the itsy-bitsy spider and PJ's motorized Pluto, which terrifies him. The little dog will walk, shake its head, or wag its tail, controlled by a device at the end of its leash. Cara loves it!

The kids played outside. They had a great time playing together for a while. PJ has a big toy that will be a little wading pool, and it had some standing water in it. Both kids had a ball splashing away, getting their sleeves wet and getting water in their hair, until Ron dumped out the water. PJ is great on the slides, but Cara seemed to decide she was going up them. It didn't work out very well. Besides the splashing, the highlight of the evening was probably when Em grabbed PJ as he was upside-down, apparently about to somersault down his slide. Eventually we went inside, and the kids fought over the shapes for PJ's very cool shape sorter. They were both exhausted and cranky, and they kept grabbing things away from each other.

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