Posted Thursday, April 24, 2008 9:34 AM
From the backseat of the car this morning I heard a babbling Caroline talking into her play phone. As of late she has become really fixated on phones of all shapes and sizes. In the car it is the squishy soft one that makes noise when you push the buttons. At school is the old style with connected cord that she has to be physically pulled away from at the end of the day. (seriously, when did the phone become more interesting than Mommy???) At home it is my phone, which she flips open and not only babbles into, but also masterfully adds things to my calendar and contacts. I have even caught her surfing the web a few times.
Phones.
She places them up to the side of her head, not necessarily her ear and loves to hand them to us to watch us hold them. A favorite is for us to talk on the phone, have the unknown caller ask to speak to her, and hand it to her with an "it's for you Caroline!"
If you value your ears or your sanity, you will not separate her from her phone. This often results in screaming, crying, pouting, whining, and even her laying herself on the ground in utter despair.
Her teen years are going to be AWESOME!
There is a tiny heart exploding detail about this morning's ride to school with the phone that I left out. I asked her who was on the phone. I asked her to say hi. She said "hi". she. said. hi.
Posted Wednesday, April 23, 2008 4:22 PM
For my birthday Caroline gifted me with a very challenging evening. She was so wiped from school where she must have napped for barely a nanosecond that she passed out in her carseat. I didn’t want her to sleep too long, but I also wanted to enjoy my sushi birthday dinner with Steve, so we let her take a short nap while we ate roll after roll of spicy mayo delights. She was exhausted and also covered head to toe in playground sand, but after her bath she refused every effort, every soft lullaby, every tush pat. A combination of a very exciting Monday and virtually no nap does not make for a happy Caro. I hate those nights. I try to approach them calmly, but what I find is that I remind myself exactly 1 billion times often through clenched teeth that she usually falls right asleep on her own and this one little exception is surely not going to upset me. On my birthday, my 30th birthday, when all I wanted to do was have 2 glasses of wine and relax, well you can imagine that those reminders weren’t exactly helpful. Did I fail to mention that I also located her 5th tooth while brushing her teeth last night?
I’m sure that stubborn third top tooth had NOTHING whatsoever to do with her sleep refusals. NOTHING AT ALL. Our hot bod baby finally fell asleep around 9pm for her first ever night sans feetie pjs and rested well past 7am this morning.
Posted Thursday, April 17, 2008 1:22 PM
Bath time is fun time in the McHousehold. Our baby girl is barely stripped to her diaper before she is trying to climb into her warm bubbled up tubby. She delights in touching the warm water from the faucet and recently began tasting the water via her washcloth, which by the way I think is absolutely disgusting. Caroline makes washing motions with her hands on her own body and circa watching mommy fold clothes will lay the washcloth out on the bottom of the tub and push it flat repeatedly with all her might. She doesn’t even mind having her head rinsed, so long as the washcloth is there to mop up her face afterwards. What she doesn’t like about bathtime is getting out of the tub. The End. She seems to be doing just fine with just a pair of improvised bath cups (clearance dish drainer utensil cups), a squirty gator and whale, and her washcloth, but I think she would have even more fun if she had some other things to play with. I don't want to overwhelm her too much and I also don't want to spend oodles of time giving her time to play in the bath. What would you recommend for a bath lover???
Posted Thursday, April 10, 2008 10:01 AM
Our Caroline is terrifyingly grown up; standing, walking with rigid legs, catching her balance. This morning per our usual routine, she stood in our bedroom while I did a once over in the mirror and instead of contemplating ambulation like she usually does, she just took off in an almost run. This of course resulted in her falling to her knees, catching herself with her hands, but I do believe that this counts as her very first run. Watching her waddling in front of me, the months pass before my eyes and I can barely recall a time that she was not moving herself. Did she really sit idly in a comfy baby seat just hanging out for hours at a time? The stairs seem to be a beacon of some kind and she often takes off for them at frighteningly high speeds not to be deterred, not even by a passing glimpse of the cat, her frequent prey. She’ll wander off towards the kitchen, only to turn around and make sure you are in fact coming with her. She glides effortlessly from wall to fridge to stool to wall again, touching each item lightly, more for security than strength. She hangs like a monkey from the oven door on her tippy toes, belly laughing before pulling each dish towel down to the floor. She walks into our open arms at the end of the day and rests her head on our shoulder and recently when I lovingly patted her back and told her I loved her, she patted mine.
Posted by
McCashew
Filed under: milestones
Posted Wednesday, April 02, 2008 9:25 AM
Yesterday was the first time anyone has ever told me that my daughter was “hyper all afternoon”. When I picked Caroline up from school, the caregiver who was holding her explained that she had been giggling all afternoon. I think maybe she meant that she was energetic? Is it even possible for a 14 month old to be hyper?
Maybe she was because she crashed out on the car ride home, so much so that I was not only able to remove her from the car and take off her coat, but also get her into her crib without so much as a thumb suck.
Maybe this particular caregiver just isn’t used to spending time with such a happy to be alive girl? I WISH I had Caroline’s zest for life! I wish that toddler forks and bananas were exciting, that hiding under a blanket would reduce me to tummy hurting giggles, that the simple reminders of spring; the birds, the buds on the trees, and the fighting to push up from the earth flowers would be gasp and point worthy.
No wonder my daughter is “hyper,” New England is finally waking up from winter and she is “awake” enough this year to experience the rebirth of her little world.
Posted by
McCashew
Filed under: milestones
Posted Thursday, March 20, 2008 10:16 AM
Rash exiting, stage left. We hope.
We are crossing our fingers and eyes that this terrible rash/yeast infection is really on its way out and not just teasing us. This morning we did the now all too familiar gasp and retract diaper move when Caroline woke up and we were pleased to see a still very red and somewhat unhappy diaper area that no longer screams "PLEASE DO SOMETHING, I AM THE WORST RASH EVER!" It still looks not so good, but we hesitantly agreed that it looks a whole lot better.
All babies must have a terrible rash at some point right? I am wondering about people's preferred methods of treatment, old tricks their moms and grandmoms handed down to them. What about things to AVOID AT ALL COSTS? What about naked diaperless time? How exactly does one execute this maneuver with a toddler who cannot say "I have to tinkle?"
We do cream every single night before bed. We have used Desitin, A&D, Aveeno, and Aquafor. We tried rather unsuccessfully to do as much naked time as possible, diaperless playtime with the dishwasher on the easy to mop up kitchen floor. We did a baking soda bath which had little effect and we learned to AVOID the bubble bath when you find yourself in the midst of a terrible rash. we plan on mixing it up with a brief shower and hair wash instead.
Posted by
McCashew
Filed under: parenting, rash
Posted Wednesday, March 19, 2008 9:15 AM
The diaper rash is in fact a yeast infection and we are treating with Nystatin ointment as well as two coveted and not to be wasted sample tubes of another cream called Vusion, which our insurance would not cover. If we wanted to actually own our very own non sample tube it would have cost us a whopping $275.00. So needless to say, we are slathering on that Vusion while we have it. From the reading I did on this medication is it the only FDA approved medication for treating diaper rash complicated with yeast infection. One would think that our insurance would cover the ONLY FDA med that treats our daughter's ailment, but I digress.
I was hoping that we would see an instant improvement in the rash after a couple applications, but I am fearing that we may have angered the blotchy painful looking area as it actually looked worse this morning than it did at the doctor's office yesterday afternoon. (Is that even possible???) I am hopeful that this is a gets worse before it gets better situation? I know that Caroline has sensitive skin, but seriously, I just want this rash gone. Vusion's own testimonials section state that most reviewers saw an improvement within 72 hours.
56 hours to go.
In an interesting turn of events, Caroline was barely able to keep her eyes open for bedtime stories at 7:30 and then woke up at 10 when we were heading to bed ourselves. She may have scratched her nose with her talons claws nails which may have woken her up or more than likely WHO KNOWS? I am at a loss as to how to keep her nails in check. I used to file them while she slept and now I clip them if she will allow it and file the edges. Usually I end up securing her in my lap, taking a deep breath and filing until a. I can no longer listen to her complain or b. she pulls her hand away approximately 1 billion times or c. both a and b.
We heard Caroline moving around before we closed up the house. She was probably sitting up wide awake in her crib and when she heard us climbing the stairs she made a noise. This noise "made" Steve "fall up the stairs" and there was crying and lamenting to be comforted (from Caroline, not Steve). It took nearly two hours and stories about the Color Kittens (love that!) to get her back into bed, rubbing her eyes, and relaxed but not yet asleep. I didn't dare attempt to blanket her because she was still in the moving around slightly complaining stage when I finally had enough and tried to put her down. My attempts to stay awake until she fell asleep so that I could go in and put her blanket on her were futile. I recall falling asleep, waking up, glancing over at the monitor seeing her eyes wide open. I did this no less than 10 times in a silly attempt to assure her warmth overnight. I lost that battle because when I turned over this morning at 6 and saw my poor blanketless baby stirring slightly.
Mommy is sporting glasses, barely styled hair, and a pretty bad attitude this morning. Let's not even discuss this weather.
Posted by
McCashew
Filed under: sleepless, rash
Posted Tuesday, March 18, 2008 10:06 AM
The McFamily had a great weekend down in the City of Brotherly Love with Tasha and Tony. We got up Saturday morning, had breakfast and loaded Caroline into the car for the exactly three hour ride to PA. She slept until the third rest stop on the Jersey Turnpike (Molly Pitcher? I think?) and then amused herself with books, an empty ice tea bottle, cheerios, and a Dentyne gum box until we officially arrived at Chateau T and T. We had such a nice visit with lots of time for talking and Old School watching. Did I mention there was Yuengling? She tired herself out on Sunday before we left playing with their puggle Fletch and many successful attempts at a handful of steps at a time. Caroline slept until just past the George Washington Bridge and was fairly amused in the car for the stretch of parkways between us and home, just about an hour. Thanks T and T for a great weekend, we cannot imagine that the next time we see you your family of 2 (plus Fletch of course) will be a family of 3! Can't wait to meet TJ!!!
So the steps... Caroline is still fairly uncertain of herself (she spends a lot of time standing solo) and seems unconvinced overall that walking is really the preferred method of ambulation for most humans. She will take several steps in a row to Mommy, not usually to Daddy still (but we are working on it), and a fav activity is is walking with her stride to ride toy back and forth between the couch and wall. We noticed that when she walks with it she does not seem to be RUNNING behind it anymore which means she is not using it as much for support as she used to. She took major steps while we were in Philly this weekend, maybe because the new surrounding and puggle were a distraction? Sara said she has never seen her walk and that they try often to stand her up, but that she gets jello legs immediately. We did a demo at drop off this morning, using Mommy's car keys as bait, and she walked four or five steps into my arms and Sara was speechless. I told Sara that she could feel free to divulge any and all walking news because we see that she is taking some steps and is on her way and it wouldn't CRUSH me to hear that she had been walking all morning like it would have a couple days ago. She is on her way and when she decides she is ready she is going to be off and running. We will just wait patiently until then, but playing Walk to Mommy is such a fun game that I don't see us stopping that anytime soon.
Can we talk about diaper rashes please? We have a terrible awful one right now, likely courtesy of evil antibiotic that I loathe. We noticed it starting late last week and it was AWFUL, made her cry when we touched her and resulted in her saying "all done" (ahh daa in Caro-ese) halfway through the change. If she had words they would have been "please for the love of god, I am ALL DONE people!!!" It got a little better, mainly because we were diaper cream tyrants loading her nether regions with enough diaper cream that it looked more like cake icing than diaper cream. We tried different creams, we switched between them (Aveeno now, then Desitin, then Aquafor), we tried cornstarch, a baking soda bath, and I let her sit naked to let the air get to her little bod twice yesterday. It gets a little better, but mainly it is sticking around. I suppose I should call the doc, but am I missing some brilliant method we should have tried days ago? I just want her rash to go away and never come back because it pains me to change her diaper and have to reassure her that yes, we are all done and mommy won't torture you again for at least another hour. I am calling the doc shortly and hoping they can see us later this afternoon after I pick her up from school.
What's Caroline eating is being replaced with something new because A. she's eating pretty much everything these days, and B. how interesting can it be to read about yogurt and gardenburgers over and over? So in lieu of all the recent look what she's doing now updates, I give you...
Cute Caroline Chronicle
We went the grocery store (sidebar, we love Big Y!) and it was close to lunch when we returned home. I wanted to at least unload the cold items before setting Caroline up for lunch. So I sat her on the kitchen floor to eat some Cheerios while I put away buy one get one Friendly's ice cream (I had my bad idea jeans on yesterday) and OJ. Seeing the fridge door open she pounced and raced over to the open door, climbed up onto what she has made into a step, and began searching the shelves for something interesting. I was right behind her putting away cream cheese and Cracker Barrel cracker cuts (have we discussed how much we love these?) and all I could foresee happening was her losing her grip or slipping, falling backwards and slamming her poor head onto the kitchen floor. It amazes me how I multitask these days. With one hand on her back and the other in a bag I removed all the fridge items and put them into their proper place, while never for one second removing my hand from her back. She found one of her yogurts, sat on the floor with it, shaking it up and down, beaming ear to ear. She proceeded to crawl over to her high chair, yogurt in hand, pull herself up, place the yogurt on the seat, and began pointing and vocalizing like a mad women that it was lunchtime; "I see you are busy putting things away, so I have located my own yogurt and I even brought it over here. So if you would be so kind as to give me a boost and perhaps open this, I would like to get the show on the road Mommy, I am hungry NOW." It was the funniest thing.
In other news, she tried a bite of our corned beef dinner, but was not really a fan.
Posted by
McCashew
Filed under: weekend, rash