Caspian's forehead bruise is greening quite nicely. Yellow-green, actually.

Speaking of carrots, he gulped down five or six bites of carrot last night...as evidenced by the orange-red poo he had this morning. I seriously thought it was blood at first, then stewed tomatoes, then remembered the carrots. He also ate two more semi-soggy Cheerios last night (all he was offered), quite happily. Speaking of this morning's diaper, I also found the chunk of carpet fiber he swallowed last night. I saw him chewing and dug around in his mouth, but he tilted his head back and swallowed it.

I put some banana in his mesh teether thing this afternoon, and he went to town! I even had to refill it once. He ate some peach in there last week. It's great -- he can feed himself without supervision and really enjoys eating what I'm eating.

This is my new favorite waste-of-time website. Check out March of the Penguins, Jaws, Titanic, It's a Wonderful Life, and Star Wars. The "music" at the end of Titanic almost made me wet my pants!

kisses from Grandma Bonnie at the park


HAPPY BELATED 10 MONTHS TO CASPIAN!

I've been waiting and waiting for Caspian to say "mama." He finally said it ONCE on purpose, last Saturday. Couldn't get him to repeat it for anything. I wish I had it on tape.

We just realized that Caspian waves goodbye/hello (mostly "hello"). He holds out a fist with his thumb thrust between two fingers, arm straight out.

Anyone else's weirdo kids chewing on the velcro of their paci keepers? In the last couple weeks, Caspian has started ripping open the velcro with his teeth, letting the paci fall to the floor. I haven't decided whether he likes the velcro sound better or the feeling of it in his mouth.

Our scary Memorial Day moment came when Caspian fell forehead-first onto the corner of one of the leg spokes on my office chair. His silence-before-shrieking lasted for a full thirty seconds. I thought I was going to die! He had a dent in his forehead and a bruise (of course), and we wrapped his head in a cold pack. He was so docile and didn't even try to pull it off, which worried me. He was fine, though, and his bruise just looks like an extension of his strawberry mark.


He had his first cheerio last night. It was a little soggy from my cereal, and he actually bit it in half! It's the first time he's actually bitten and chewed and swallowed something! Normally, he pouches the bits in his mouth.

I just noticed that Charlie posted a video of Caspian chasing Bug. You can even see the burn marks on the carpet from the last tenant's ironing efforts.

Click to see my first digital scrapbook page (and Caspian's new forehead bruise)!

He successfully petted the cat this morning! I think both Fin and I were equally amazed that his petting didn't involve the usual grab-a-hunk-of-skin-and-fur or the hard smack/pat. Caspian actually pet him nicely! I was so proud.

We also played catch today! It was so exciting. We sat facing each other on the office floor, and I rolled a ball to him. He picked it up, held his hand out to me, and let the ball roll off his fingers! We were both wiggling like puppies. Every time he'd "throw" it to me, I'd clap and say "Yay!!" and he'd bounce up and down on his tush and wiggle and giggle. We went back and forth for about 5 minutes! Once, he got so excited, his bouncing lifted him off his seat and he pitched forward into a somersault. Let me tell you, he was a little shocked. The funniest/worst thing was when he got so SO excited that his bouncing threw him backwards and he crashed headfirst into a toy. It was awful, but oh my gosh, he looked just like Mary Katherine Gallagher when he did it. It was sooo hard to console him without cracking up at the same time.

After I nursed Caspian just now, I had him sitting upright on the Boppy in my lap, facing me. Well, he leaned forward and just spit up right down my cleavage! "Fortunately," my nursing bra is saggy in the middle and made a convenient pocket to contain most of it.

Caspian "walked" around the kitchen standing on my feet this afternoon. I couldn't see his face so I don't know what his reaction was, but he tolerated it for almost a minute so he mustn't have minded too much.

He did not care for my vacuuming the living room floor while he was there. He shrieked/cried when I flicked the vacuum on briefly in my attempt to acclimate him. As soon as I'd turn it off, he'd stop. I picked him up and held him as I vacuumed, but he was only okay with that when I said soothing things.

God bless cloth diapers! Caspian was crawling on the bathroom floor this morning when he pushed a tremendous sound into his pants. When I opened his diaper, it looked like he had a belt of poo around his waist ...but none of it even got on his diaper cover! Why would anyone use disposables? With cloth there's no blowouts; they're cheaper, better for the environment, gentler on baby's skin, cuter to look at, better for baby's health...the list goes on and on!

He had some warm whipped potatoes from my Lean Cuisine at lunchtime (well, it was 3:20 in the afternoon, but I was eating lunch). His first warm food! He liked the first little bit and opened his mouth for subsequent bites, but he still responded to each of those with a shudder. Want to see what it looked like? It was very similar to his reaction to eating his first rice cereal.

We did a test, and the applesauce definitely = green diarrhea. We also tried sweet potatoes again, and they were ho-hum for Caspian. We'll try them cold next time. He's also never had hot food, so that's another option.

Anyone else have a mega-hyper bedtime baby? Last night when we came home, Caspian was sound asleep in the car and mostly asleep as we carried him in. We kept the lights off and took him into the bedroom, but 2 minutes later he was sitting up, pulling up to stand, and talking! Whenever we'd lay him down, he'd start crying in frustration and trying to sit up and crawl away. It took an hour of coaxing, rocking, etc. to get him to fall back asleep. I didn't even have caffeine! He's pulled this a few times recently, and it's really draining.

He's branching out as a pre-walker. He pulls up on whatever's nearby as soon as you put him down, but now he'll try to grab onto something else nearby without sitting down first. He s-t-r-e-t-c-h-e-s and tries switching hands and leans way far over, and has fallen literally on his face quite a few times (mostly when he lets go with both hands in his zeal to reach something). Whenever he is standing, he looks way too small to be upright like that.


Last night we visited Charlie's men's barbershop chorus rehearsal for the first time (it was his first time back in a year). Caspian was so well-behaved, and he even tried singing along -- especially when it was quartet time.

Success! Caspian ate five or six spoonfuls of cold applesauce Wednesday night -- actually ate it! As in, swallowed...and leaned forward for more! That applesauce must've taken its toll, though, because he had green stool yesterday and diarrhea today. No fever, so it must be the food.

I had lunch yesterday with my high school best friend and her three boys (4, 2, 4mo). The older two thought Caspian was a hoot, between his weird noises and eating the cardboard table display. Then Caspian found a kindred shrieker in the 2 year-old, and they fed off each other until my friend asked her boy to stop (Caspian laughed off my request ). It was definitely a taste of playdates to come. Poor Caspian, though -- he'd finally fallen asleep for his first nap just 30 minutes before we had to leave, and he always wakes up when we buckle him into his convertible seat. He started out the lunch leaning against me since he was so exhausted, but then he got so stimulated he even stayed awake the whole ride home. By this time, it was like he was in a waking coma (he even half-slept through his diaper change). When I latched him on, though, he woke right up! I'm afraid it was the caffeine from lunch. I thought he'd be dropping by early evening, but he was a bundle of energy right up until 5:15...when we had to leave to take my parents out for Mother's Day. PRAISE GOD, he stayed asleep when we put him in the car this time and he continued sleeping until we got there. So all day, he'd only had a thirty minute nap, an hour nap, and a twenty minute catnap on the way home. And he STILL didn't go to sleep until after 11:30!? When we all laid down for the night, Caspian crawled all over the bed, rolling and climbing on top of both of us. Charlie and I were so tired, cooing and coaxing him to sleep.

Caspian experienced his first shower Monday night. He *hated* it. I had him in with me to rinse off after being outside all evening, and he was so scared he just clung to me without a sound, eyes wide. Whenever he was even partially under the spray for any length of time, he started whimper-whining.