Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Caroline Goes to the Zoo
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Toofers
Caroline has gotten her first tooth-- two teeth actually. We have been suspicious that they were on their way and a few days ago I thought I could feel the beginnings of something hard in her lower gums. And this morning, a sharp little chomper had pushed through on the right side. The one on the left isn't far behind, but not quite as prominent just yet.
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Sunday, April 20, 2008
Lots of New Stuff
Last night, I was feeding Caroline dinner and I turned to Chris and said, "I can't belive how much she has changed. She's not a baby anymore." And he replied, "No, she's a little person now." And it's so true. Her personality just keeps developing more and more every day and her physical abilities have changed dramatically over the past month.
No sooner than she mastered crawling, she started pulling up. The first time was about 2 weeks ago. She started by trying to hold onto her Bebe Pod chair and pull herself up with ther arms. Then, she would pull up on one of us if we were laying in the floor or on the storage box filled with clothes she has outgrown. Now, she can pull up and stand with arm support on just about anything-- the couch, her basket of toys, the ottoman, the glass door. Once she gets up, she can support herself with just one arm and use the other to play with something. Sometimes she stands with her feet really wide apart, almost in a split. When she loses her balance, she falls to the floor but holds on for dear life with one hand to whatever she was using to balance on.
The only problem with her pulling up is when she does it in her crib. When she wakes up, her first instinct is to pull up now-- but she can't get herself back down. The other night, she had been asleep for an hour or so and we heard her crying over the monitor. We generally let her go for 10 minutes now before we check on her, but the crying intensified to the point that we were concerned. So, Chris went up, and there she was, standing up in her crib holding the side rail and screaming because she was stuck.
Just in the past 2 days (since I started working on this post), she has learned to get herself back down to the floor from standing. And we assume she has learned to lay down in her crib now, because the past 2 nights, she has woken up crying (the same hard cry like before) but put herself back to sleep without us having to go in. Good Girl!
Other new stuff:
She loves to get in the baby swing at the park. She kicks her legs and bounces and talks while she's swinging. The park is only a 5 minute walk from our house, so we go at least once a day.
We went to the Tennessee Aquarium a few weeks ago with a few friends and their children. Caroline loved the butterfly room. It's a big room where butterflies just fly freely all around you. She really loved watching them.
Food: Solids are going well. She eating oatmeal cereal, apples, bananas, pears, prunes, carrots, sweet potatoes, butternut squash and peas. She really didn't like the sqaush too much. She tolerated it when I mixed a bit of apples into it though. She hated the peas, even when I tried to mix in carrots. We are doing solids 2x/day every day and working toward adding in breakfast. We do lunch around noon or 12:30 and dinner at 5:30. Still nursing 4-5x/day. Sometimes it's hard to fit a meal of solids in before her morning nap, depending on whnat time she nurses in the early a.m.
Her mobility is really great now. She can really motor with crawling and she follows me down the hallway from the TV room into the laundry room. This morning, I put Caroline down in the bedroom floor with some of her toys to play while I made the bed. Chris was in the shower. Caroline heard the water running and took off toward the bathroom. It's probably 25 feet or so for her to crawl to the bathroom and she made it in about 15 seconds.
Sleeping: Bedtime is 6:45 to 7:00 and she generally sleeps until between 4 and 5 am. She does sometimes awaken during the night and will cry but goes back to sleep in 5 or 10 minutes. After the 4-5 am feeding, it's a crapshoot. For the most part, she falls asleep nursing, but the amount of time she sleeps is random. Sometimes she wakes up at 5 and will play and talk for a while in her crib until she cries and I go in and put her back to sleep. She may be up until 6 or 6:30 and then go back to sleep until 7:30-7:45. Other mornings, she sleeps straight through from the 4 am feeding until 6 to 6:30. As for naps, I have really pushed her to go to a 2 nap a day schedule and I think we are finally adjusted. She naps in the morning around 9:00 or 9:30 and in the afternoon around 2:00 ish. The morning nap varies from 35 minutes to 2 hours and the afternoon nap is usually an hour to an hour and a half. The morning nap varies in length based on her wake-up time.
There are a million other things I could write about-- I'll have to get to the rest later.
No sooner than she mastered crawling, she started pulling up. The first time was about 2 weeks ago. She started by trying to hold onto her Bebe Pod chair and pull herself up with ther arms. Then, she would pull up on one of us if we were laying in the floor or on the storage box filled with clothes she has outgrown. Now, she can pull up and stand with arm support on just about anything-- the couch, her basket of toys, the ottoman, the glass door. Once she gets up, she can support herself with just one arm and use the other to play with something. Sometimes she stands with her feet really wide apart, almost in a split. When she loses her balance, she falls to the floor but holds on for dear life with one hand to whatever she was using to balance on.
The only problem with her pulling up is when she does it in her crib. When she wakes up, her first instinct is to pull up now-- but she can't get herself back down. The other night, she had been asleep for an hour or so and we heard her crying over the monitor. We generally let her go for 10 minutes now before we check on her, but the crying intensified to the point that we were concerned. So, Chris went up, and there she was, standing up in her crib holding the side rail and screaming because she was stuck.
Just in the past 2 days (since I started working on this post), she has learned to get herself back down to the floor from standing. And we assume she has learned to lay down in her crib now, because the past 2 nights, she has woken up crying (the same hard cry like before) but put herself back to sleep without us having to go in. Good Girl!
Other new stuff:
She loves to get in the baby swing at the park. She kicks her legs and bounces and talks while she's swinging. The park is only a 5 minute walk from our house, so we go at least once a day.
We went to the Tennessee Aquarium a few weeks ago with a few friends and their children. Caroline loved the butterfly room. It's a big room where butterflies just fly freely all around you. She really loved watching them.
Food: Solids are going well. She eating oatmeal cereal, apples, bananas, pears, prunes, carrots, sweet potatoes, butternut squash and peas. She really didn't like the sqaush too much. She tolerated it when I mixed a bit of apples into it though. She hated the peas, even when I tried to mix in carrots. We are doing solids 2x/day every day and working toward adding in breakfast. We do lunch around noon or 12:30 and dinner at 5:30. Still nursing 4-5x/day. Sometimes it's hard to fit a meal of solids in before her morning nap, depending on whnat time she nurses in the early a.m.
Her mobility is really great now. She can really motor with crawling and she follows me down the hallway from the TV room into the laundry room. This morning, I put Caroline down in the bedroom floor with some of her toys to play while I made the bed. Chris was in the shower. Caroline heard the water running and took off toward the bathroom. It's probably 25 feet or so for her to crawl to the bathroom and she made it in about 15 seconds.
Sleeping: Bedtime is 6:45 to 7:00 and she generally sleeps until between 4 and 5 am. She does sometimes awaken during the night and will cry but goes back to sleep in 5 or 10 minutes. After the 4-5 am feeding, it's a crapshoot. For the most part, she falls asleep nursing, but the amount of time she sleeps is random. Sometimes she wakes up at 5 and will play and talk for a while in her crib until she cries and I go in and put her back to sleep. She may be up until 6 or 6:30 and then go back to sleep until 7:30-7:45. Other mornings, she sleeps straight through from the 4 am feeding until 6 to 6:30. As for naps, I have really pushed her to go to a 2 nap a day schedule and I think we are finally adjusted. She naps in the morning around 9:00 or 9:30 and in the afternoon around 2:00 ish. The morning nap varies from 35 minutes to 2 hours and the afternoon nap is usually an hour to an hour and a half. The morning nap varies in length based on her wake-up time.
There are a million other things I could write about-- I'll have to get to the rest later.
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Hilton Head Pictures
This is a link to a few of the pictures from our trip. Thanks to L for taking them and sharing them.
http://carolinehiltonhead.shutterfly.com/action/
http://carolinehiltonhead.shutterfly.com/action/
Monday, April 14, 2008
Girls' Trip
Caroline and I took a trip to Hilton Head Island, SC from Wednesday through Sunday last week with my two best friends from high school and their children. My friend A's husband's family has a house there-- a very nice house with 5 bedrooms and a wonderful deck on the back that looks out onto a beautiful marsh. We had great weather for the most part and spent some time at both the beach and pool and even managed to relax with margaritas on the deck during the kids naps.
My friend A has three children-- SG is 6, W is 4 and V is 1. My friend L has a daughter A who is 19 months. Caroline, V, and A are each separated by about 6 months. The babies aren't really old enough that they can play together, but they definitely take interest in one another. Caroline and V even had a few conversations in baby language.
Caroline went in a swimming pool for the first time. The pools had just opened for the year and were quite cold. I had bought a little baby blow up raft that has leg holes in it. I put her in it and she was definitely shocked by the cold water but she didn't seem to mind too much. She stayed in the float and kicked her legs and was able to propel herself forward a little. She especially enjoyed sucking on the side of the raft and even managed to suck down some water and choke herself. Nothing a few whacks on the back didn't fix.
We also went to the beach. It was a little windy and chilly still for a full on beach day with the kids, so we just walked over in the late afternoons before dinner to let them run around. Of course, Caroline isn't really running around yet, so A had taken a little tarp for Caroline to sit on. I put her down on it and she immediately crawled to the edge and proceeded to put her face down to the sand. And up she came with a mouthful. The face she made was priceless, but I spent the next few minutes scooping sand out of her mouth.
Caroline was completely amused by all of the activity of the other kids. She was overwhelmed at first and just sat watching them. But, by the end, she was brave enough to get in the mix and even steal a toy or two.
It was a great trip! Hopefully, we will be able to make it an annual event.
My friend A has three children-- SG is 6, W is 4 and V is 1. My friend L has a daughter A who is 19 months. Caroline, V, and A are each separated by about 6 months. The babies aren't really old enough that they can play together, but they definitely take interest in one another. Caroline and V even had a few conversations in baby language.
Caroline went in a swimming pool for the first time. The pools had just opened for the year and were quite cold. I had bought a little baby blow up raft that has leg holes in it. I put her in it and she was definitely shocked by the cold water but she didn't seem to mind too much. She stayed in the float and kicked her legs and was able to propel herself forward a little. She especially enjoyed sucking on the side of the raft and even managed to suck down some water and choke herself. Nothing a few whacks on the back didn't fix.
We also went to the beach. It was a little windy and chilly still for a full on beach day with the kids, so we just walked over in the late afternoons before dinner to let them run around. Of course, Caroline isn't really running around yet, so A had taken a little tarp for Caroline to sit on. I put her down on it and she immediately crawled to the edge and proceeded to put her face down to the sand. And up she came with a mouthful. The face she made was priceless, but I spent the next few minutes scooping sand out of her mouth.
Caroline was completely amused by all of the activity of the other kids. She was overwhelmed at first and just sat watching them. But, by the end, she was brave enough to get in the mix and even steal a toy or two.
It was a great trip! Hopefully, we will be able to make it an annual event.
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