Looking for Sleep

Carina and I had a nice visit with my mom while Dave was in Germany & England. We ended up coming back a little earlier than expected for a couple of reasons: 1) Carina has been sleeping in her own room now for over a month and has been doing so great. I have also been enjoying a little extra sleep myself. At my mom's she was in her pack-n-play in the same room as me and all of the sudden she was back to getting up 2-3 times a night. Ugh! I wanted to get home just so we could both get some sleep! 2) Our good friends Joe and Amy welcomed their baby girl to the world early Sunday morning and we wanted to be sure to stop by and introduce ourselves. We were able to meet her Tuesday and she is just too cute. It's hard to believe Carina was that small not so long ago!

Since we were back early, we were also able to finalize our day care. We decided to go with a woman who runs a licensed day care out of her home in Sunnyvale. There were so many factors to consider as we made our decision, but I think we've made a good choice. Carina's grandparents will be here to watch her the first two weeks of the school year and then she will begin day care after that.

Carina has continued to have some rice cereal every day and is now also having a little bit of oatmeal cereal every day too. She loves it just as much...


Our new obstacle is napping! Carina has not been the best napper in the world - unless you're cuddling with her :-) Don't get me wrong, I love to cuddle and nap with her, but that isn't really the best idea for the long term. So, I've been reading up, trying some different things, and doing my best to get her to take better naps. So far it seems to be working - most of the time. We've started her going to bed a little earlier too. I thought for sure that meant she'd be up earlier, but so far that hasn't happened. We sure are lucky to have such a good little girl!

New Sights, Sounds, & Tastes

This past weekend we had a little family getaway to Monterey. We go there to dive quite often (especially Dave), but this time we decided to go just for fun. One thing is for sure - Miss Carina does not travel light! The car was packed with all kinds of baby paraphernalia.
We got a nice hotel down by Cannery Row and Carina and I tested it out by having some play time! We visited the Monterey Bay Aquarium, our favorite restaurants, San Carlos Beach, and the marina. Carina took it all in. She was watching all of the new sights very carefully. One new sound that we thought would scare her was a barking dog we saw down at the marina. The dog, a big, beautiful golden retriever, was very excited and got in pretty close to Carina. She didn't seem to mind though. Then the dog started barking right near her. I was waiting for her to start crying, but instead she let out this big laugh! The dog barked again...more laughter!! It was pretty cute.
Here's Carina on our way out to dinner Friday night...

The weekend was very relaxing and it was hard to leave on Sunday. Monday night though Carina got to try her first new taste. She's been eating only breast milk since birth. She has been gaining weight well (she's actually in the normal range for a baby her age now!). At her doctor's appointment last week she was 13 1/2 pounds, 23 3/4 inches long!

Lately she has become very interested in food and grabs at my food all of the time. She grabs at my fork and she thinks me drinking is just the best thing ever. I tried giving her some baby spoonfuls of water and she seemed to like it. So, we decided to have her try some rice cereal. We made it pretty watered down, but she loved it! She kept sticking her tongue out and opening her mouth as the spoon got closer. This picture is from the end of the feeding (don't be fooled by the clean mouth though - she'd been wiped off).

Dave and I are now in the process of finding day care for Carina for next year. We've met with some great people, but it's a hard decision. To make things more difficult, Dave left today for a week in Germany for work. I'll be going down to my mom's with Carina for part of that time so hopefully it won't be so bad without him here :-(

Napping with One Eye Open

For the past four and a half months I've been learning to tolerate the small human that is now living in my house. For the most part, it's kept its distance from me, most likely because it knows who's in charge here. However, I have been somewhat concerned about its rapid increase in size. I keep waiting for the humans to put it on some kind of weight management food like they tried with me (they caved, by the way), but I haven't seen anything yet. Anyway, as I was saying, I've learned to tolerate the small human because it mostly just lays there and stares at things and it has been fairly easy to avoid (see Exhibit A). Occasionally it has to scream out a bit but I'm pretty sure this is because my normal humans do not speak the same language and it must get their attention. Honestly, I don't see why they don't get it. Clearly, I have a better nose than they do, but it doesn't take too much to figure out what the problem is.

Recently, however, I've become more concerned. A couple of weeks ago when I walked by it laughed at me. At first I thought I'd just walked between it and this weird looking plastic monkey that it keeps around, but upon further inspection, I realized it was, in fact, laughing AT ME. Of course, it started laughing at Maya as well (really, that's to be expected with the stupid stuff Maya does). At some point, the humans realized that the small human was watching us a lot (of course, it took them much longer than me to notice) and they seemed to be amused by it. Then it happened. I stood in horror when one of the big humans put it next to Maya and it reached out its little hand and grabbed a handful of Maya's fur. Now, Maya doesn't have the nicest fur in the world, but still - no cat deserves that. Then a few days ago this happened...The small human was wiggling around on the floor and then it just started rolling over - and it kept going. Apparently, it is mobile. I fear my life of leisure is coming to an end. Now I nap with one eye open to make sure it doesn't just decide to roll itself right over to me. At least the weight management food didn't last (those suckers even bought me some canned food)!