Carolyn

I’m working on an alphabet book for Carolyn, made up entirely of pictures. So, for the letter ‘T’ I needed a picture of her with a bunch of teddy bears. These are a couple of the shots I didn’t pick. (It was very hard to pick one, because she was having such a good time all of them came out great!)

In other news, Carolyn is this close -> <- to crawling. She can definitely move forward under her own power, but it's the most inelegant thing I've ever seen. She gets up on her hands and knees, tucks one foot under and pushes off. This causes her opposite shoulder to crash into the floor. Then she gets back up on her hands and knees, tucks the other foot under, and does it again. Lather, rinse and repeat. Believe it or not, this is a very fast way of moving around the room - usually either towards the nearest plastic bag or tote bag with a long strap. Or any other potentially dangerous object.

She’s also starting to get up on her hands and her feet, with her butt sticking way up in the air. According to my mom, I never crawled, I just walked on my hands and feet – but I didn’t do that until I was 10 months old.

Since Carrie’s gaining a lot of height with these new maneuvers, we dropped the crib mattress down yesterday. We probably could have gotten a few more weeks out of the higher level, but why take a chance? It’s actually much easier to get her in there while she’s asleep than I expected it would be. It also puts her right at eye level with the dogs when they’re allowed in her room (which is only under supervision, no need to worry) which makes Carrie very happy!

Carrie is rapidly becoming more and more mobile, and summer is coming and with it opportunities to stand outside. On the ground. Where there’s dirt. So, I thought I’d look into getting her some shoes. (Not that I have anything against dirt, but her choices are barefoot or shoes. No socks in the dirt, please.) These are my current favorites (although there are so many designs I like it was really hard to pick one!)

The only thing is, I can’t figure out which size to get. I tried some on her the other day. The 0-6 month size should fit lengthwise, but her chubby little feet won’t go in them. The 6-12 month size fit over her feet, but extend a good inch or so past her toes – they’re like baby clown shoes. I have no idea how fast baby feet grow – if I get these now, will she even be able to wear them in a couple of months, or will they still be huge? I suppose it doesn’t matter if they’re big, since she’ll grow into them eventually, but I don’t know what to put on her until then. Or maybe I won’t really need them until she grows into them anyway.

And I thought buying shoes for myself was hard!

Sweet potatoes weren’t such a big hit tonight. Although, once I mixed them with some rice cereal and milk Carrie was a little more receptive. Maybe they’re just too strong a flavor for her little taste buds? It wasn’t a total rejection, I just think she was shocked at the new taste. And maybe it was initially a bit thicker than it should have been. That’s the only downside to making my own baby food – it’s a guessing game about how thick to make it.

We’re leaving Carrie with my parents tomorrow for several hours to go take an infant CPR class, and I think we’ll leave them her beloved pears instead of making them deal with a sticky orange mess!

(I’m really nervous about the CPR class. I know it’s important, but thinking about all the scary things that can happen to a baby is going to be hard. I’d better bring some tissues…)

We introduced Carrie to pears yesterday. (Carrie, meet Pears. Pears, meet Carrie.) I think it would be fair to say that she absolutely loves them. This afternoon, I mixed two tablespoons of pears with a tablespoon and a half of rice cereal and maybe an ounce of milk. I totally expected to toss half of it when we were done, but I was too lazy to put some in another bowl for tomorrow. Well, we were practically scraping the bottom of the bowl by the end of her meal!

I have to confess, I tasted it – Denis thinks that’s weird because it’s my milk…but then again, what’s weirder: my milk or milk from some cow I’ve never met? – and I can totally see why she couldn’t get enough. It was pretty tasty. (Have I totally grossed everyone out yet?)

Anyway, it’s pears and rice for a couple more days, then either sweet potatoes or apples since I have both on hand. Or carrots, although I think I’ll save those for later. And then on to…bananas? Squash?

Actually, at one point I was trying to figure out what order to have her try new things in, and I was tempted to do it alphabetically: apples, bananas, carrots, dates, eggplant, fennel, grapes, horseradish, ice cream, jerusalem artichokes, kale, lima beans, mandarin organes, nectarines, olives, pears, quince, red peppers, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, uniq fruit, vegetables, watermelon, ‘xtra tasty berries, yellow squash, zucchini. My mom, my cousin and I had a lot of fun brainstorming that list. We couldn’t think of any produce that starts with ‘I’, ‘V’ or ‘X’, though. And no, I’m not really going to give my 6-month-old horseradish, there’s no need to call CPS.