Month: September 2005

Choirs of Angels…

Sarah General

…are singing right now! Not only did Carrie sleep from 8:15 to 6:30, but when she woke up she nursed and went right back to sleep and is still sleeping. I’m (almost) a well-rested mama today! I’m already showered, dressed and have a load of laundry in. It’s amazing what a little decent sleep will get you.

Tonight is the opening of Serenity, so Denis and I are going on a date. This will only be the second time we’re not around for Carrie’s bedtime, and the first time didn’t go so well – she cried pretty much the whole time we were gone. I’m (understandably, I think) a little nervous. But…even if she’s unhappy all this evening, tomorrow is Barktober Fest – and if you’ve got a spare $5, we could sure use a donation! – and Carrie is going to go nuts with all the doggies. It might be worth bringing the video camera just so we can capture her signing “dog” over and over again.

It was a dark and stormy night…

Sarah General

Last night, that is. The wind was just whipping around the house, and there was rain (maybe sleet?) pounding against the windows – for the whole night. Want to know how I know? Carrie was up every hour, for at least a half hour, from 1:30 to about 5. This is the second night in a row she did this. She hasn’t slept a full night since she started cutting that tooth last week, but these last two nights have been absolute hell. Honestly, I spent most of today feeling like a complete zombie. (And that was even with Denis getting up with her a couple of times!)

It’s starting to scare me, too, because when I’m this sleep deprived I end up having really disturbing, vivid dreams. Both nights I had dreams that (different) close family members had died or were dying, and I woke up sobbing, really believing that it had happened. I’m starting to have a hard time falling back asleep in between Carrie’s wake-up calls, because I don’t want to have such awful dreams.

I have great hopes for tonight, though. The past two days Carrie didn’t nurse or nap well, and today she did both. So…maybe she’ll sleep through tonight…please?

Is Your Mama a Llama?

Sarah Milestones

I think we have an official first word! Today Carolyn demonstrated that not only does she know how to say “llama”, but she knows exactly what it means. If I show her the llama, she’ll say “llama”; if I ask her to find her llama, she’ll go and pick it up.

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If you click on the image, it will open up a video (536 KB) of Carrie saying “llama”. She needed a little prompting for this one, she was too fascinated with the camera to care so much about the llama! (Sorry for the poor quality – the battery on the good video camera needs to be charged so I took the video with my cheap digital camera instead.)

Watching Carrie acquire language – both spoken and signed – is simply amazing. (Although it’s probably not as endlessly fascinating to anyone else as it is to me!)

Babies and Toothbrushes

Sarah Carolyn

Today Carrie and I went to a baby shower. She has met Nina (the guest of honor) once before, about 6 months ago. And although Carrie’s really starting to give lots of hugs to Denis and me, she hardly ever bestows them on anyone else. So I was absolutely shocked when she walked right up to where Nina was sitting on the couch and gave her a really long hug, right around her tummy. Do you think she knows there’s a baby in there?

And tonight we finally admitted that there is definitely a tooth in Carrie’s mouth – you can even feel it if you bravely stick your finger in there – so we broke out the toothbrush I bought for her when she was only 4 months old. It came with flouride-free fruit-flavored toothpaste, which Carrie apparently thought was divine. She got this puzzled little look on her face when I stuck the brush in, but then started munching away happily. (She didn’t read the directions on the box which clearly state it’s for brushing, not chewing.)

Eleven Months Old!

Sarah Monthly Updates

Dear Carolyn,

It’s only one more month until your first birthday! This time last year I was home on bedrest, watching you do somersaults and have hiccups and wondering what you’d be like. And now…now you’re a busy little toddler who still gets the hiccups and is trying to learn how to do somersaults.

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I realized the other day that it’s been two whole weeks since you crawled for any length of time. You spend most of your time walking, and you’ve even started running sometimes. The dogs are very worried about this development. We finally got you a pair of “real” shoes last week, since you’ve been walking everywhere, even outside. It’s hard to let you get down and walk when we’re out though, because you and I have vastly different ideas about which direction we should be going. You also need to stop and pick up or touch everything in your path – even if it’s the 27th pine needle we’ve encountered in the last two feet we’ve walked.

20050924_crazy.jpgWe think you have your first tooth! I noticed a white spot on your bottom gum about a week ago, and although it hasn’t gotten any taller yet I’m confident it will eventually become a tooth. It was preceded by about 4 days of total misery, especially at night – there was screaming, wailing, and gnashing of gums. I hope that they’re not all so bad for you.

You haven’t tried quite so many foods this month as last, but there have been a few: pork, honeydew, eggplant, pumpkin, watermelon, fish, spinach and strawberries. Your favorites haven’t changed much from last month, either, but you have tried a lot of different table foods. I don’t generally have to make anything special for you to eat anymore – you just eat what we do, although you aren’t too fond of meat yet.

Just in the past couple of weeks your signing vocabulary has exploded! In addition to “milk”, “more” and “all done”, you now sign “cheese”, “ball”, “binky”, “shoes”, “dog” and “play”. I’m pretty sure you’re trying to sign “peas”, and you’ve made up your own sign for water (you pat your flat hand against the side of your head). Your babbling also sounds a lot like words sometimes. I think you really do say “dog” (“daw”), “duck” (“duh”) and “llama”…but we haven’t decided which is (was?) your first word yet. Your “mama” and “dada” can really mean anyone or anything at this point – we’re still waiting for you to figure out which of us belongs to each name.

Your favorite things to do are generally pretty simple – you look through books (sometimes babbling to yourself as you turn the pages), you nest your stacking cups, you try to climb in and out of your little rocking chair. You love to feed the dogs Cheerios from your snack trap: you sit in front of the gate and drop them over the bottom rail.

20050924_kneeling.jpgIt’s great fun watching your personality emerge, even if sometimes it’s a little more stubborn than I’d expect! I love watching how busy you are, walking from toy to toy and making little puttering noises. (Your grandma says your little engine is running.) You’re definitely unhappy about being contained anywhere – even the living room and dining room, which are very toddler-friendly and packed with toys. And you can immediately pick out the things you shouldn’t be doing wherever we are – like pushing the buttons on Grandma and Grandpa’s television – and will repeatedly go do them, all the while looking back at me to see how I’ll react. It’s OK, though. If you weren’t so persistent, you probably wouldn’t have learned half the things you’ve learned so far. And there’s a benefit to me, too: eventually, all the running after you I’m doing will get me in shape, right?

Love, Mommy

See more pictures!

Giant Pink Bunny!

Sarah General

mountainview.sized.jpgAny guesses as to what this much pink wool is going to look like in 20 years? Seriously, though, how cool would it be to hike up a giant pink bunny mountain? Too bad it wasn’t there 18 months ago, maybe I could have talked Denis into making a pilgrimage while we were in Italy.

(There are more pictures here.)

Hugs and Kisses

Sarah Carolyn

The other night at dinner, Carrie did the cutest thing ever. (I say that a lot, don’t I?) My parents were over, and we were all sitting at the table together. Carrie looked at my dad and blew him a kiss – her kisses are preceded by a sort of lemon face, she really works hard at them – and waited until he blew one back. The she looked at the next person at the table, Denis, and blew him a kiss. And so on all around the table. It was so sweet!

She also gives really good hugs now, to people and toys. In fact, my mom bought this enormous stuffed dog for Carrie to play with at her house, and if you tell Carrie to go hug her dog she’ll run over to it and collapse on top of it to hug it. She really likes it if you stand the dog up on its hind legs – it’s about her height, actually – and make it hug her back.

(Sometimes I worry that my blog is becoming an incredibly boring “look how cute my kid is” sort of blog, but I don’t want to forget any of this. Besides, it’s my blog, nobody else has to read it if it’s that boring, right?)

Baby Jayne

Sarah Knitting

Remember the Jayne hat I made a couple of weeks ago? Well, I just finished knitting not only the second adult hat but also a baby-sized Jayne hat! How cute is this, I ask you? (Denis and I have decided that it definitely falls into the “really stinkin’ cute” category.) Click on Carrie (or here) to see more adorable pictures!

It was almost beyond my math and measuring skills to make this hat, because I basically knit the equivalent of three hats to get this one. The first time it was too small – I didn’t believe Carrie’s head could be 3/4 the circumference of mine, so I rounded down. The second time it was too short, because I really didn’t have enough gold yarn left but I was trying to make it work anyhow, so I ripped out all the way back to the orange and added a couple more rows. The third time I had used a different yellow to try to lengthen the top and it just looked awful, so I ripped out the top third again. And then I had the brilliant idea to finish it off in orange. And left it that way, because, well, it’s so stinkin’ cute!

Of Balls and Binkies

Sarah Carolyn

We’re having a mini sign explosion here!

Today Carrie signed “ball” and “binky”. (There isn’t a standard ASL sign for “binky” (or pacifier) that I can find, it’s just something we made up because she was using “milk” sometimes when she really just wanted a binky – I just point my index finger to my mouth.) “Ball” was completely out of the blue – she was rolling a ball across the floor and I asked her if she was having fun playing with her ball. She signed “ball” right back to me, and that’s not one I’ve really used all that consistently lately. She also signed “shoes” yesterday. I think. At least, she banged her fists together and tried to take my shoes off my feet. So I think that’s “shoes”.

So Carrie now has a vocabulary of 7 or 8 signs, not counting waving bye-bye. And all but three she’s picked up in the past week!

Oh, and there’s a funny thing she’s been doing lately. Every morning I ask her if she has any teeth in her mouth and stick my finger in there to check. (Brave, I know.) Now if you ask her if she has any teeth in her mouth she sticks her own finger in her mouth. But no teeth yet. My brother says I ought to stop pushing them back in, because I check so often.