37 weeks!

Well, here we are again! Friday Night. Another week gone... the last week of summer... the semester starts Monday... And mommy is just. not. sure. how on earth she is going to do it. But this blog is not about mommy (or at least it really should be more about Caroline!) So apparently she fought sleep all day while I was at school, only taking a brief nap at midday and crashed at 4 p.m. It is now approaching 6:30 and she's still sleeping. She really needs the sleep. I decided to try to get a blog entry done and then will wake her and spend some quality time with her and just pray she is able to go to sleep tonight. Last night we finally had a normalish night for the first time in a long time. She was in her crib asleep by 8 and stayed there until about 1, joined us and more or less slept until 6. That is doable. The previous night she went to bed late, but stayed in her crib five hours that night too. I hope we're moving in that direction... (She woke herself up while I was in the midst of the post... I'm continuing to blog while she nurses for the first time in 9 hours.)

Anyhow... I've been meaning to share that Caroline has realized she can effectively carry things in her mouth when she wants to get from here to there. She often plays with a toy for a bit and then decides she wants to get something or see something across the room, or that she wants to follow us into another room and she just puts whatever she's playing with into her mouth and starts crawling- looking for all the world like a little dog! I tried to get pictures of this a few times this week, but everytime I'd go for the camera she'd drop whatever she was carrying and move on to some other entertaining activity. But, we did get pictures one night. She was playing with and carrying around the wash cloth with which we had washed her face after dinner. I was unpacking a gift that had arrived for her that day and she was pretty interested in that- the packaging of it anyhow... pics of her in the gift will follow later in the post, but first the mouth carry pics... or a sequence of out and in the mouth with the wash cloth!






So the gift was a BEAUTIFUL sweater handknit by my seminary roommate Rebecca. It is a 12 month size and is a bit big on her now, but right when things start to cool down it should fit perfectly. Rebecca, if you're still checking in here, WE LOVE IT! THANK YOU! And here's our beautiful girl in her beautiful new sweater. She was quite interested in the extra yarn Rebecca sent along with the sweater and carried that around in her mouth, which was adorable... but we didn't quite catch it on film. But the first pic shows her holding it.






Last Sunday, at the end of our day of rest and remembering we walked to the newly opened location of our favorite Mexican restaurant which is less than a half mile from our house. We eat at this restaurant once every two weeks. Last time we went Caroline discovered avocado... and she enjoyed avocados thoroughly this time too! There was another baby in the restaurant and she kept turning around and staring at him. Her big blue eyes locking with his big blue eyes. It was adorable. They would
occasionally get to squawking and it seemed they were trying to outsquawk one another. No pics of him... just of her post avocado...



No pic of this yet, but Caroline has taken to crossing her fingers. It took daddy about 24 hours to catch her doing this (that is after I did... perhaps she had been doing it before...) It is pretty cute...

It seems she's back to crawling with two straight legs sometimes. She actually manages to move this way. I'm not sure how she does it! She REALLY wants to walk.

On the food front... she's definitely adjusted to oatmeal and eats oatmeal with apple sauce most mornings. She's eating a hearty serving of whole milk yogurt with rice cereal and fruit for another meal and... this week she ate sweet potatoes at home and liked them! Hooray! And she at egg yolk for the first time and seemed to like it! And she ate bits of mozzarella cheese and liked that just fine. Really, our girl is a champion eater. We decided to give her a bite of hummus last night. It had citrus in it so we knew it probably wasn't ideal, but figured it was worth a try. She HATED it... spat, gagged... oh well... we'll try just chick peas with tahini and olive oil, no garlic or citrus and see if that is easier for her to palate! But other than the hummus she has gobbled down just about everything we've passed her way this week. And she eats LOTS of cheerios every day (almost as many as she deposits in her chair and on the floor! Just kidding... she eats more than she tosses... we think.) (Took a blogging break when she finished nursing and she had more dinner... peas and egg yolk... did well with both! woohoo! We haven't been good about getting veggies in every day... fruit yes, grains yes, protein yes. veggies... not so regular at all... but we're getting there. Glad she likes peas!)

Daddy reports that she is playing for longer and longer periods independently when he is home with her. She does have clingy days, but on less clingy days she's really self-entertaining more and more. Today, apparently, she discovered the joy of picking up wooden salad bowls and banging them together. More typically she busies herself crawling around whatever space she can access, crawling under things and around corners, exploring, exploring, exploring. She picks things up and manipulates them with her hands... there's so much to see and do!

She waves a lot these days too. Sometimes it seems she does it as a greeting, sometimes she just seems to want to move her hands about. But more often than not it looks like she's waving... and this delights people who meet her! No pics of that yet... sorry...

The neighbor girls often knock on the door and ask if they can come in and play with Caroline. They often knock at bedtime and we have to say no, but yesterday they picked a good time. I was revising my paper and Kev was doing some work in the kitchen. It was a perfect time for some extra entertainers for Caroline. I could overhear them playing though my office door was closed. Kev was keeping and ear and an eye out as well. They were putting on a play for her with her stuffed animals. It was creative and delightful. And she was having a grand time! She was a bit fussy and clingy when they arrived but she settled happily into play with them very quickly. And then I heard a thump and a scream and an "Oh no!" Kev raced over and as calmly as possible asked what happened. I heard "I dropped her." I came out and took her in my arms and started nursing her while Kev took a stuffed animal and asked them to demonstrate how they were holding her when she fell and how she fell. She was in a cradle hold and the older sister, Destiny, was holding her. She arched her strong little body back and lurched out of Destiny's arms falling onto her head and back on the hardwood floor. Not a very far distance, but potentially at an awkward angle. It first it seemed like she was holding her neck funny and that made me nervous. But she calmed down pretty quickly while nursing. A big bruise showed up on her forehead practically immediately, but we called a nurse friend and got the run down of things to look for... and she really seemed to be herself so we let it be. The girls didn't do anything wrong. It could have easily happened to either of us. We assured them that we weren't mad and that we knew they must be scared and that we'd be happy for them to play with her again. Caroline was grinning at them before they left. I think they'll be playing in the nursery from now on though... for their peace of mind... carpeted...

Poor girl had another fall while I was at school today and seems to have jammed her two little teeth into her upper lip/gums... she apparently bled quite a bit... and was very upset. She fell face first onto the bedrails underneath our bed. We're wondering if we should go to the open hours at our pediatrician's office tomorrow. She isn't showing signs of a concussion, but... two nasty falls in two days! What do you all think?

Well, even with purple forehead and a bloody lip our girl is impossibly cute, really darn cute. She got lots of oohs and ahs from good friends Jenn and Sean (who are expecting their first baby January 6th! Woohoo!!!!) when they joined us for our weekly homemade pizza night on Tuesday. S Here are some pics of her yesterday before the fall! This dress came in one of the wonderful boxes of hand-me-downs... I've realized I need to start putting her in dresses even on just ordinary days if she is going to get to wear all her dresses before outgrowing them...




As I finish up this post, Kev is playing the piano and I am on the couch. Caroline is in the middle of the living room floor between us, playing with some blocks and a stuffed animal. And now she is straight legged crawling my way. Wish you all could be here to see her wonder for yourselves. Thanks for peeking in here from time to time.