A little of this, a little of that

I'm savoring these last few weeks while Caroline is still immobile, and dreading the quickly-approaching day where she figures out how to propel herself forward. Any time I put her on the ground she's rolling all over the place and practicing getting in the scooting position. The logistics of entrapping a mobile baby while still allowing the dog the freedom to roam is one matter. Luckily my friend Betsy alerted me to these delightful baby gates with cat-shaped cutouts. Perhaps I can destroy it modify it a bit to be pug-shaped. But then, if the pug can crawl through, I'm guessing the baby can too. 

The other matter I'm now dreading is the fact that our entire second floor of the house is hardwood and tile. I can just see her head slamming into the kitchen tile while she's learning to coordinate her limbs while crawling. Exhibit A: here she is practicing her new skills, which ends with a topple onto the carpet. And she's already crying. On CARPET. 

http://youtu.be/IQqJluXWZV4

Call me a nervous parent but I have serious reservations about letting her cranium crash onto hard surfaces. I mean, she's gonna need every brain cell she's got, no? And aside from the serious head injuries, there's always the undesirable aesthetics of a giant purple egg-shaped bruise on her forehead. Right now we enjoy the multitude of total strangers that stop us in the grocery store to say how cute the baby is. We can't let her good looks go by the wayside. 


Fear not, Amazon to the rescue. There are a bajillion listings of unnecessary baby products that cater to fearful parents, and this one is at the top of my list. 

It's not a helmet, it's part of my stylish wardrobe.

Sure, she'll probably protest at first. No one really enjoys wearing a helmet at all waking hours. But perhaps with time she'll get accustomed to it and will start to enjoy her new 'hat.' Or at least until her skull thickens up a bit and/or she becomes more coordinated.


If we can keep all her brain cells intact she has a good chance of being smart. She loves storytime and even has a good sense of humor! We read every day and she seems to enjoy it. Although she does try to eat the books.

http://youtu.be/rMgc8_9RaIU

But if all else fails and book-smarts aren't her thing, perhaps we'll just harness some of her physical energy into gymnastics talent. My sister Emily has said since Caroline was born that she has strong legs and she's always enjoyed pushing with her feet. So naturally I had to see how Caroline would react to all the flipping and tumbling on the Olympic gymnastics. She was enthralled. She bopped and bounced in her jumper right along with the gymnasts. I'm saving this video in case one day she does decide to get into gymnastics...she will get a big kick out of seeing how she exhibited her 'talent' at such a young age! Forget Tiger Woods and his 3-year-old self swinging golf clubs, we got Caroline at 5 months prepping for a double back flip with two-and-a-half twist! Olympics 2028 here we come!

http://youtu.be/rM4SSHadLKE

baptism

Before Caroline was born, Bill and  I agreed that we would have two ceremonies for her, a Presbyterian one in my church and a Catholic one in his church. I had been trying for months and months to arrange Caroline's baptism in my church, but between Bill's work travel and the church's limited baptism schedule there was never a weekend where both were available. So I finally decided to just have her baptism while she and I were visiting Louisiana in early July. Bill's parents came and stood for him during the ceremony, which was short and sweet. She was such a good girl of course, didn't fuss or cry during the ceremony or the rest of the church service. She wore the same baptism gown that my sister and I wore when we were babies. We took photos on the steps of the church afterwards, just as my family did when Emily and Grant and I were baptized. Nice to carry on the traditions! Afterwards we all had lunch at my mom's house, and then Caroline and Ms MJ and I drove back to Texas that night. I wish Bill could have been there, but we just had to make do. We'll try again on the next one! 

5 months

I'm only a few weeks late with this post...July has been a crazy busy month! We were in Louisiana for a week, home for a week, then back to Louisiana for a long weekend to host a baby shower for my friend Betsy. Hopefully we'll be home for a while now so we can get back into our routines. It's amazing how exhausting it is traveling with a baby. I know what they mean now when they say 'I need a vacation from my vacation'!

In preparation for landing please make sure your
infant is in the full upright position.

Now that we're home we can keep working on the eating and sleeping routines. The last month has been 'challenging' in terms of her sleep habits. First there was the de-swaddling, then the transition to the big-girl crib, then a trip to Louisiana, then some teething pain, a few immunizations, and another trip to Louisiana...all of which spells no sleeping through the night. Each time we jumped one hurdle, and got one or two good nights in, the next obstacle appeared and we were back to square one. Hopefully the next month will be smoother!


She has developed a world-class oral fixation that would make Freud proud. Absolutely everything goes into her mouth. Washrags. Dog toys. Paper. If she can get her hands on it, it's going in her mouth. From a biology standpoint, this seems a bit confusing to me...seems like the caveman's babies wouldn't live very long if they were ingesting every poisonous shrub and mushroom they came across. Guess that's where the expression 'bit the dust' came from...some poor neanderthal infant shoved a fistful of arsenic dirt in his mouth and that was the end of him. Luckily we keep a pretty close eye on Caroline and nothing too terrible has been ingested. (Except for the small sampling of Daddy's beer. Apparently her Louisiana roots run deep.)

With all her interest in her mouth, I figured it was a good time to start introducing solid foods. We started with rice cereal. She seemed completely confused, but smiled at us because we were making idiots of ourselves trying to get her to open her mouth and swallow.

I decided perhaps the cardboard-like taste of the rice cereal was a deterrent to her swallowing, so this week I tried sweet potatoes. Again, not terribly successful. She just sits there with her mouth open and a big glob of food perched on her tongue, making darth vader noises.  Or else she sticks her fingers in her mouth and it ends up in her ears, eyes, hair, pretty much everywhere EXCEPT down her throat. This looks like it might be a long training process.

This should be fun to clean out of her fat rolls....

http://youtu.be/0eUbimesOoU

Her movement/motor skills are right on track though. She's rolling over like a champ, forward and backward. Any time I put her on the floor she rolls her way around the room toward something interesting. If she's laying on her tummy she waves her arms and flails her legs in preparation for crawling. As busy as she is, I think she's gonna be an early crawler. This poses a bit of a challenge in our 3-story house. We will need at least 4 baby gates, and I'm at a loss trying to figure out how to keep her off the stairs while still allowing Winnie to freely roam the house. 


She desperately wants to sit up and is trying her hardest to master this. She does sit ups/crunches whenever we lay her on her back on the couch, trying to tell us prefers to be upright. She can sit up with some assistance but not completely on her own yet.

And last but not least, the love/hate relationship between Winnie and Caroline continues. She LOVES him. He hates her. Well, maybe not hates....but definitely prefers to pretend that she doesn't exist. If I take her hand to pet him, he looks the other way. Whatever happened to pugs' reputation as being 'great with kids'?? Ha. Not this pug.

Laissez les bon temps roulet!

Caroline and I just got back from a whirlwind tour of Baton Rouge last week. Bill is traveling for business for two weeks, so we decided it was a good time to head home for a visit with friends and family. 


She's at an age now where she's much more aware of her surroundings and gets bored after about, oh, 10 minutes of the same activity. Hence I was a little nervous about trapping her in her carseat for 4 hours on the drive back. My mom flew in on Friday night, we packed stuffed the car on Saturday night, and struck out at 6 a.m. Sunday morning. It seems the amount of baby gear that needs to accompany her on her travels increases with her age. In addition to the stroller and suitcase of clothes, bottles, etc. we also loaded the bumbo chair, the high chair, the travel crib, and made arrangements to purchase a jumperoo in Baton Rouge. We looked worse than the Griswolds headed to Wally World. I was only barely able to see out the back windshield. While on the road I spotted this clever contraption that some entrepreneurial parent had attached to the car. Note to self: must purchase one of these!!

All it needs is a dog on a leash trailing behind and the
scene is complete...

In Baton Rouge we made the rounds and spent lots of time visiting. Her social calendar was booked before we even got to town! Caroline met my friend Rachel (interior designer extraordinairre who designed her nursery), and my friends from LSU landscape the Lemoines and Laura. The Lemoine girls kept Caroline quite entertained with their chatter and activity. 

Apparently finger-sucking is a prerequisite for visiting
the Lemoine household. Mmm fingers.

Also spent a good bit of time hanging out with MaMa and Nana, the doting great-grandmother and grandmother. MaMa is in the midst of packing up her house and moving, so it was our last trip to stay there. Sad to say goodbye to the house where we spent all our Christmases, Easters, birthdays, crawfish boils, Sunday dinners, and an entire lifetime of memories. But we'll still have our MaMa! 

Nana is convinced Caroline needs to spend more time outdoors, since we have no yard in Houston and are inside pretty much 24/7. We enjoyed sitting on Nana's carport on the swing, watching thunderstorms and playing in the mud! (click the video link below.) Caroline looooved squishing her toes and jumping in the mud. I forsee a copious amount of laundry in her early childhood, but that's ok by me. I loved playing outside as a kid, and I hope she does too. Our next house absolutely MUST have a yard. 

http://youtu.be/ceULCd4J14M

Of course with it being hot as hades in mid-July in south Louisiana we had to take a dip in Nana's neighborhood pool. Nana's BFF Susan has a membership and treated us all to an afternoon of splashing around and making sure Nana didn't drown the baby. (She insisted babies her age can go underwater. I wasn't about to find out if she was right.)

Winnie spent the majority of the visit digging out toys from the garage sale stack in MaMa's house and trying to convince her they were still needed. When not searching for buried treasure, he preferred to be as far away from Caroline as possible. He still wants to pretend she doesn't exist. He found the perfect hiding spot to escape and sulk over the lack of attention he now receives.

We'll be back in BR next week for another short trip for my friend Betsy's baby shower. This time Caroline and I will be flying. Having learned a few lessons from our last flying adventure, I think we'll be better prepared for air travel this time. Looking forward to more fun soon!!