Month: February 2005

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Sarah Firsts

5 little hearts, all in a row:

The first one said, “I love you so.”
The second one said, “Will you be my Valentine?”
The third one said, “I will if you’ll be mine.”
The fourth one said, “I’ll always be your friend.”
The fifth one said, “Until the very end.”

For her first Valentine’s, Carolyn got a single pink rose from her Daddy, and a Baby Einstein gift set. She loves Baby Mozart, and she liked the Language Nursery DVD until the dead DVD player ate it, so Denis found a set with Baby Van Gogh, Baby Shakespeare, and a Bard bath puppet. We don’t let her watch a video every day, but when she does she’s totally enthralled, and giggles all the way through it.

A year ago today, Denis predicted that I was pregnant and that it was a girl. He was right on both counts. And I promised I’d mark this day on the calendar – after all, he was right for once – so consider it marked.

And Happy Valentine’s Day!

Valentine’s Eve

Sarah General

Since I have rehearsal tomorrow night, we decided to go out to dinner tonight. This was the first time Denis and I have gone out together without the baby – granted, she’s been away from both of us before, but that’s just been for transition times between when I have to leave for rehearsal and when Denis gets home from work. (Living next door to family has lots of advantages!)

It’s not like I was worried about her – she and my mom get along quite well – and I didn’t exactly miss her, because we were only gone for a little more than an hour, but I was very conscious of the fact that she wasn’t there. It’s amazing how last year at this time I didn’t even know she existed (I was just barely pregnant but didn’t know it yet) and now I am acutely aware of her presence at all times.

The baby books I’ve read all say how important it is for the parents to go out together without the baby on a regular basis and – and this is the funny part – not talk about the baby at all. Yeah, right. That would be like going to a party with a pink elephant in the middle of the room and everybody pretending it wasn’t there. It’s not as though we spent our entire meal talking about Carolyn, but she’s a pretty big part of our lives, so of course her name came up once or twice. Ah, well, I guess that’s just further proof that we’re the worst parents ever, since we can’t stop talking about our fabulous baby for even an hour!

(Notice that I can’t even write a blog post without mentioning her at least once, either? Yep, worst mom ever.)

The Medicator

Sarah Carolyn

There is a new item at the top of my can’t-live-without-it list of baby products: The Medicator. It’s basically a teeny-tiny bottle, or a glorified pacifier, that makes the medicine go down much easier than a spoonful of sugar ever could. What used to be a total wrestling match, with gooey sticky medicine ending up everywhere but in the baby, has all of a sudden become so easy that I’m actually looking forward to the next time I have to give her something. (Not that I want to have to give my daughter medicine, but we appear to be in the midst of massive teething pain and Tylenol seems to be helping.)

Anyway, someday I’ll have to make an actual list of my must-have baby things. It’s mainly stuff I didn’t register for, and didn’t think I’d need or want. A lot of the stuff I thought I needed – not so useful.

We finally got the bookcase for her room. Tomorrow we’ll have to put it together and put all her books and toys in it. I’m guessing at least half – maybe three quarters – of her books are puppy-related, since every time I see any board book having to do with dogs I buy it. I can’t help it!

Extreme Cuteness

Sarah Carolyn

In between bouts of unexplained crying – it seems a bit early, but I think there may be some teething going on – Carolyn and I had a little photo shoot today. Don’t you want to just tickle those chubby little knees? And that’s not even the cutest picture, either – this was actually the post photo shoot outfit change.

We also went to the salon tonight. Carrie sat in my lap while they dried my hair, and had a grand time flirting with all the babies in the mirrors. I need to find a giant unbreakable mirror to put up behind her changing table soon.

Oh, Pooh!

Sarah Carolyn

Here is an entirely different pooh outfit – this one isn’t cursed. This was a pseudo-hand-me-down from Carrie’s cousin Michelle. (It still had the tags on, so I don’t think it really counts as a hand-me-down, does it?) I’m not sure why I like this outfit so much, but I do. Of course, we make all the required jokes about what might be in her Pooh pants.

The quilt she’s laying on is her tummy-time quilt, and it was made by my great-grandmother for my youngest brother 20 years ago. Aside from the fact that it’s generally got quite a bit of dog fur on it, it looks pretty darn good for being 20 years old. No, the dog fur isn’t 20 years old, and yes, I wash it regularly. Dog fur is just a fact of life in this house. If exposure to allergens during childhood helps prevent allergies, Carolyn is going to have an anti-allergy to dogs. That will be one of her super powers. (The other, of course, being extreme cuteness.)


(Is it pathetic that I coordinate her toys with her clothes for pictures sometimes?)

The Curse of the Puppy Outfit

Sarah Carolyn

There’s apparently an unwritten rule that baby clothes with puppies on them have to be blue. So, even though it causes Carolyn to look like a boy*, several weeks ago I bought her a really cute teddy bear and puppy outfit that’s blue, white, and teddy bear brown.

It’s cursed.

Carrie’s worn it maybe 4 or 5 times, and each and every time she’s had a major diaper blow-out. I just finished cleaning up the most recent one. Well, “finished” may not be an appropriate word, since I still need to put my jeans through the wash, but I figured the baby clothes took precedence. This incident actually required a bath and everything, and I’m afraid her white socks won’t ever be the same again.

I’m going to rename it the Poopy Outfit, and I think I’ll wait until she’s in the next size up diapers to try it again.

*I’ve actually been asked, while Carolyn is dressed head-to-toe in pink, if she’s a girl or a boy, so I suppose it really doesn’t matter if she wears blue occasionally…

Happy Chinese New Year’s Eve!

Sarah General

Today is the last day of the year of the monkey. (I think it’s pretty neat the Carolyn is a monkey. I’m a rabbit and Denis is a tiger, which means we shouldn’t be compatible, but it seems to be working out anyway.) My parents know the owners of the local Chinese restaurant, and they invited all of us to their celebration tonight. So, we put Carrie in her new red dress, packed her into the carseat, and went and had yummy Chinese food. (Unfortunately we were running late, so there are no pictures of the cute red dress – by the time we got home it was somewhat covered in drool and spit-up.)

I know it’s cliché, but I’m kind of hungry now…

The Bills Didn’t Win.

Sarah General

Yes, I know, they weren’t actually in the superbowl, so it really would have taken a miracle for them to win, but Carrie and I were rooting for them anyway! It was actually a pretty good game, and there were a couple of pretty funny commercials – the ones with the monkey office workers were probably my favorites.

Get iLife!

Sarah General

iLife ’05 is fantastic. Especially the new version of iPhoto – I’ve been obsessively compiling pictures of Carolyn into albums and books since I installed it last night. I think maybe for Christmas this year we might splurge and get keepsake albums for Carolyn’s grandparents that have pictures from her first year. That is, if I can somehow manage to keep it under the 100-page limit. Just for her first three months I have a 38 page album! (It’s really hard to leave things out!)

<photo-snob rant> I ordered a whole bunch of prints through iPhoto. I hope they turn out well – I’ve been having trouble getting good prints, which is ridiculous when you realize that they are 6 megapixel images. Ofoto seems to oversaturate the colors, although at least they don’t introduce image artifacts. I got a handful printed at Target the other day just to see what they’d be like, and they look as though I took them with the cheapest digital camera ever made. In several, Carrie’s cheeks and lips are an alarming (and pixelated) red. And they weren’t retouched in any way – just the jpeg files direct from the camera. I had to bite my tongue when the photo counter guy and a randomly passing employee were gushing over how good the prints looked. If I still worked at Kodak I’d be ashamed to see my company’s name on the back of those prints. </photo-snob rant>

Anyway, iPhoto ’05 is fantastic, and if you have a mac and a digital camera, it’s worth buying even if you don’t use any of the other programs. (Although I do intend to play around with iDVD one of these days…)

Only Six More Weeks?

Sarah General

So the groundhog saw his shadow, meaning six more weeks of winter. But after the past few days of sunny, practically balmy (near freezing instead of below zero) weather, that doesn’t seem too bad. Besides, winter ending any time before mid-April around here is pretty unusual.

One of these days I really need to take those electric candles out of the front windows, too, since the days are getting longer and brighter.