Wyoming

We are having a great time in Wyoming, as always. Monday and Tuesday we left Carina with her grandparents and did some hiking. We went to Lost Twin Lakes in the Bighorn mountains.

It was about a 5 or 5.5 mile hike in. This is the first time I've used my new backpack for actual hiking; I bought it before our trip to Patagonia, and we haven't been backpacking since. I was pretty tired by the time we got up there, but I can still walk a ways, it seems. We camped below the "lower" Twin lake. Before hiking out on Tuesday, we were discussing hiking up to the "upper" lake. Gavin turned to the side, though, and said "I'm interested in what's up there." So, we climbed a small mountain, instead.


We've been mainly playing with kiddos since. Carina is having fun with Cousin Caroline, although Caroline is a bit much for her sometimes. Carina has also definitely started talking. In addition to "daw" (dog) and "meel" (milk), which she's been saying for a while irregularly, we have heard new words "bir" (bird) and "Dacks" (Jackson).

Photos Galore

I haven't done albums in months, but today I went nuts and made albums for the second half of Carina's first year. They're on the Baby Countdown page here. It's probably a bit much for most people. But, she has grandparents and they read this site.

Why did I have all this time on my hands? Because I'm sick. Again. This is after the stomach thing last week that had everyone convinced that I was pregnant. My runny nose isn't a patch on Carina's, of course, but unlike some people I do care if I have snot running down my chin. (Ew!)

Really, You Have a Blog?

During my ascent sim last night, which was boring for me since they aborted every single run, I spent the time comparing baby notes with the guy sitting next to me. At one point I went to the blog to find a picture of Carina to show him. It has been a while since I posted any! We'll take care of that.

Having fun in the garden at Grammy and Grandad's.


Playing distrustfully with that messy birthday cake.


Finally eating some birthday cake.


A great one I got of her first trip to the neighborhood pool.


This is why the dogs have been banished to lie at least 5 feet from her chair during mealtimes.

Mid-June Already

We are told Carina took three steps at daycare yesterday. I've seen her take about 1/2 of a step myself. I can't believe we're almost to the walking phase. I expect she'll be getting around pretty well by the time her cousins get here next week.

Speeking of her cousins coming - where did the last month go? Last time I thought about this it was almost a month away and all of a sudden it is next week.

I'm stuck in a two-day meeting of which probably about 1 hour cumulative is going to be interesting to me. I hate that. At least I remembered to bring my laptop so I can work on my e-mail.

Florida Wrap

We're back. Our last three days in Florida were spent at the beach, and at Disney World. It has been years since we were at Disney, so we had a great time seeing all the updates. We made the most of our two days there; we visited Epcot, Hollywood Studios, and Magic Kingdom. We rode the new Toy Story ride (SO COOL!), saw Fantasmic, the SpectroMagic Parade, and the MK fireworks. We stayed out until midnight yesterday, even though we knew we had to get up before 7:00 to leave for the airport.

Florida was amazingly fun, but we were very ready to get back. We were both pointing out babies around Carina's age all the time in the parks. Carina was asleep when we got to Grammy and Grandad's, but she didn't make us wait too long. I heard her talking in her crib, so I cracked the door and stuck my head in. At first, she just stared at me. Then her eyes got huge - I mean HUGE - and she started running in place. Very satisfactory reaction. :)

So, now we're home, and tomorrow I go to work to see if the fact that we're flying means I'm less behind than I normally would be... I can hope. We actually got back home at around 4:00 this afternoon, so I have at least had time to do some stuff around the house.

Happy Birthday, Baby

One year ago today (in about 3 hours at 12:45 PM), Carina arrived. It is absolutely unbelievable that it has been that long. And yet, also unbelievable that we ever existed without her. It seems like her little arms around my neck and her little face snuggled into my shoulder are as necessary to my existance as breathing.

Her party yesterday was a huge success. She pulled in quite a haul, as expected. Everyone loves shopping for kids. In addition to enough clothing from Grammy and Grandma to keep her dressed to the 9s for the next year (or at least 6 months) of her life, she got some very cool toys. There were several aviation-themed gifts, including this Elmo ride-along airplane that has more buttons on it than Cari's Prius. This was both an adult and child favorite; Becca set about getting it out of the packaging right away as Aerik was fascinated.

The slip-n-slide got lots of use. ("Not for adult use", whatever. I think we proved that thing is fun for ages 3 to at least 31.) They've gotten quite a bit more sophisticated since our Version 1.0 we had as kids. I remember it was always a challenge setting up the sprinkler to evenly wet the slide, but that has been taken care of by the addition of an integrated sprinkler tube on the side. And then there is the splash pool at the end - definitely satisfying. The water in the wading pool was also dirtied with grass clippings from all the comings and goings. I never turned on the sprinkler as it didn't seem to be missed.

Carina opened her presents, and then had to go take a nap. She woke up in time for cake, but she was still groggy and wouldn't eat any of it. She did play with the frosting a bit on her hands, thoroughly decorating the table in front of her. No cake on the face, unfortunately. Maybe we'll try again tonight with a smaller piece.

Don't Blink

Don't blink
Just like that you're six years old and you take a nap and you
Wake up and you're twenty-five and your high school sweetheart becomes your wife
Don't blink
Just might miss your babies growin' like mine did
Turning into moms and dads; next thing you know your better half of fifty years is there in bed
And you're praying God takes you instead
Trust me friend, a hundred years goes faster than you think
So don't Blink
- Kenney Chesney

I've been feeling like this is the soundtrack of my life right now. Carina turns 1 in a little more than two weeks, and I can't believe it! It seems like just last month I was driving to the hospital with enough adrenalin in my system to make a horse jumpy. And just the other week she started eating people food. And just yesterday that she started crawling. In about 2 seconds, she'll be walking.

The problem is that blinking is an essential human function. I would be happy to remember every second, but no matter how hard you try it just blurs together. I can practically see her growing every time I watch her for 5 minutes straight, and time will not SLOW DOWN for me. So I take a lot of pictures and try to stop blinking.

Blink.

Damn.

Left Foot, Right Foot

Carina is learning to walk, and boy does she love it! Sunday, we had her in stitches by sitting a few feet apart and encouraging her to walk back and forth between us, holding Gavin's hands and then mine. Then last night, I stood her up holding on to this pushalong/ridealong car she has, and she walked 5-6 steps with it. Tonight she crossed the floor a few times with it. We've both seen her stand unsupported for a few seconds.

As always, she's being careful Carina. I remember when Caroline was around this age and learning to walk with her pushalong elephant, she had to keep walking faster and faster to keep up with it. TOTALLY out of control! Carina is keeping her balance, though. The car has gotten ahead of her a couple times, but she's always stopped and rocked back to get it in a more stable position.

I thought about getting a video tonight, but my camera was out in the car. Soon - gotta capture those first steps.

Lemons

It's funny to find instances where Carina takes after one of her parents. This time, it's lemon slices. Dad likes to suck on them. Who knew she would too?

Hickory Dickory

As I am getting ready this morning in my hotel room, from the next room over I hear a small voice floating through the wall.

"Hickory, dickory, dock
The mouse ran up the clock"

I smile, then sniff. Suddenly, I miss Carina so much I have to sit down with my laptop and shuffle though the last set of pictures I have of her.

In some ways, I've been enjoying this trip away from the baby. We've been out at dinner every night until 10:30 or 11:00. When I get back to the hotel after work, I can just sit down and relax rather than feeding, bathing, and putting down an increasingly tired baby.

But I have also been finding myself daydreaming about chubby cheeks, gummy smiles, and babling voices. I have missed my evening cuddle. I wonder what she's doing new today.

*hugs* to Carina

Baby's First Ski Trip

In spite of hurting my knee, the ski trip was not a complete failure. Our one day of skiing together was quite nice. Here's Gavin at the top of a couple double blues we tried early in the day. I have another nice panoramic shot from the top I'll have to add at home after I stitch it together.

And here's pictures of the both of us with Carina watching the Rusted Root concert from our balcony. She liked the music just as much as either of us. She didn't seem to mind the cold air, either, or the snow. That girl just rolls with it.

Back Home

It's nice being home after being out west for a few weeks. Roxy is curled up at my feet, snoring softly. The trips out to JPL were both great, I got a lot out of it. And some cool pictures, which will be posted later this weekend. Utah was fun, even though Jen bummed her knee. And I got a kick out of showing some pictures of Carina around. Lots of 'awwwws'.

(Lack of) Sleep

Carina had a rotten night last night. She got home from daycare completely exhausted, but she just sat and played in her crib for 40 minutes instead of sleeping. So, at 6:30 I got her up, fed her dinner, gave her a bath, and by 8:00 I was putting her back down. She slept until about 9:30. Then she got up again and cried. I took her a bottle. She sucked it down and cried when I put her back in her crib. I changed her. She smiled during the diaper change and cried when I put her back in her crib. I let her cry. She cried. I gave her another half bottle. She drank most of it, and then wanted to play. I put her down again and she cried.

Finally at about 11:15 I gave in and let her get up and play for about a half hour in her room. I was majorly irritated by that time, and had determined to let her play but not interact with her. That lasted about 10 minutes until she, in an effort to engage me, crawled up and stuck her smiling face right in mine for a kiss. I laughed in spite of myself. I love that kid, even when she’s keeping me up.

She finally (after some more crying) went down at 12:30, slept about an hour, woke up and fussed for another hour. Then at 2:30 AM, finally went to sleep for real.

The thing is, every time I went in there, she would want to get up and play. Not at 1:30 AM, girl! I am sooooo glad she’s normally a good sleeper.

Design Block

The other night I was amusing myself and exploring PaintShop by working on a custom design invitation for Carina's 1st birthday party. I like what I've done so far, but I'm at a loss as to what to do with the background. Maybe a couple catapillers? Flowers? What goes with alphabet blocks? And an apple?

(Completely random aside - I just saw a trailer for a new movie with Jackie Chan AND Jet Li in it. Gavin's head is going to explode!)

Anyway, back on the invitation... I welcome all ideas. I thought about just sending it to Sarah and seeing what she came up with, but I'm having fun doing it. I just need help getting past a little creative block here.

Yummy Leaves

I've been disbelieving the parenting literature that says to start trying to teach babies Carina’s age about limits. Surely she’s still too young to understand "no". The word is often met with an innocent smile and a repeat offence. However, I saw something this weekend that makes me think maybe it is possible.

We went on a walk Sunday afternoon, and after getting back to the house I put Carina down on the lawn to play for a bit. She had a grand old time feeling the grass and the dead leaves that have reappeared all over the lawn after my grand raking day last month. Anyway, since she’s still in the stage where her tongue is used to explore as much as her hands, I was keeping a sharp eye out for the grass and leaves going into her mouth. Every time she started to put a leaf in there, I’d place my hand between the leaf and her mouth, say "no", and move her hand down. When I did it, she’d get a concerned look on her face and then offer me the leaf as if to say "Oh, do you want it, Mommy? Here you go." Then I’d smile, take the leaf, say thank you, and tell her what a good girl she is.

Do you see it coming? Twice, right before we went inside, she started to put a leaf in her mouth, but before I could get my hand into position and say "no" she stopped, held it out to me, and smiled! Once might have been coincidence, but twice?

Easter Photos

Carina's grandad took lots of great pictures on Easter weekend.

I love my Grammy, and Grammy loves me!

We got her "Easter toys" instead of Easter candy.

You guys, this dress totally messes up my crawling!

Grandad labled most of these "Carina Happy". I guess that pretty much summs it up.

She's starting to climb, people!

Shona is way more willing to get up close and personal with Carina than our dogs. Carina loves it usually, but that nose is cold!

Dustbuster

Carina is enjoying her newfound mobility. She’s starting to get annoyed when you want her to lie still, say for a diaper change. She’s also very good at finding dirt in the corners of rooms. She will crawl over, pick up some dog hair or a piece of grass and hold it up to me as if to say “Mommy! Look what I found! And guess what? THERE’S MORE!”

Tomorrow is my last shift. It will be Undocking day. I’m glad the mission is winding down – I’m ready to get back to normal working and family hours. Working in the office again after a mission is always a bit of a letdown, though. We have skiing plans for the first weekend in April, though, so it will be all good.

If you’re in the Houston area, set your watch for 8:28 PM Tuesday night. Go outside and look to the Southwest. Three space vehicles will be passing over: ATV, then ISS, then Shuttle. It should be a really cool sighting.

Inspecting

I have three more shifts left during this mission after today. It has been a long, long mission. March has almost completely passed me by while we've been in space.

Today is the "late inspection" day. We're taking pictures of the Shuttle's wings and nose to look for any damage from orbital debris hits. After today, my console is on the downslope of the mission. It will mainly be about getting ready to undock and land. In non-trajectory world, though, there is still one EVA to accomplish tomorrow.

I'm feeling a bit blue about working this weekend. Meg and Mike are down to celebrate Easter with their grandchild (Gavin and I barely enter into the equation anymore!) :) I'm kind of bummed that I didn't get to see their reactions to seeing Carina crawl for the first time, as I was already at work when they arrived. Oh well, it looks like my parents will be here in a couple weeks, so I'll get to see that.

Saturday

Today was nice. Stayed up until 2am playing online. I lost my spaceship to a catastrophic hail of lasers and missiles, and lots of my friends lost theirs, but we had fun. Slept until 0815, did some dishes and then went upstairs to check on Carina. She was awake, just laying quietly in her crib and playing with her feet. Big smile for daddy. Back downstairs I surprised her with a bowl of rice instead of the bowl of oatmeal she's used to. Several more big smiles. More big smiles for mom, for dogs, for sunlight, for dinner time and feeding herself chicken and brocilli mush from her bowl, and then after bath time there were smiles and stares of wonder for moonlight and the sounds of dusk.

In a nice contrast to most of this week, nearly every time today Carina went to sleep without a fuss. Even though she's only spent a few hours a day at day care in the afternoon, it's been hard getting her to unwind at the end of the day. Some evenings were spent with her crying loudly except for A) bites of food, B) some gulps of milk, and C) bath time. Given all that took a few hours, it was a lot of crying. But today she was great.

Today was nice.

Sploosh

9:47 PM and it actually feels like the middle of the afternoon to me. Missions do strange things to my internal clock.

I'm very much looking forward to the weekend. I'm excited that I'll get to see Gavin for more than 2 minutes. I'm also excited that he'll be there to get up with Carina so that I can get my first 8 hour stretch of sleep since last Friday. I got through this week by telling myself that I went through a worse spell of interrupted nights last June, but you do forget how tired you were with that newborn.

Becca and I went out to lunch today (had the best bread ever at Tuscany Bistro, by the way). By the time I got back home, Carina was getting a little tired, but I needed to take her to the daycare anyway in about 20 minutes. So in order to keep her up and happy while I got her bag ready, I sat her in the kitchen over by the fridge and gave her my car keys to play with. She sat there jingling them for a few minutes while I started making here a couple bottles to take, and then I realized that I didn't hear them anymore. I looked to where she had been, and she was no longer there. I looked the other way, and there she was - crawling very deliberately across the kitchen floor. I proceeded to watch, bottles half made and formula powder everywere, as she crawled straight up to the dog dishes and SPLOOSH! plunged both hands into the water bowl giggling madly at the huge fountain of slobbery water that fountained over her head and onto the floor.

No doubt the idea of my baby daughter playing in the dog water and later sucking on her fingers is just something I'm going to have to get used to. For today, I was unable to restrain my yuk response entirely, and those little hands got dried as soon as the bottles were capped. I think we are officiall into the "getting into everything" phase, though.

Approaching the Ides of March

It's been a busy couple of weeks. Jen's working the mission and it's coming along pretty well. They've had a few pieces of space junk to avoid, and that's about it. She gets home a little after midnight so I get to see her for about 5 minutes before we both fall asleep.

Carina is feeling better, after her 104+ deg fever over the weekend. She still has a runny nose, but, it's not very bad. Attention, oh unsuspecting world: she is now crawling! Last night she crawled 5 feet towards me in the kitchen while she was very unhappy and hungry. Tonight she was crawling around in the room upstairs, chasing the dogs and me. We've been trying to get the dogs ready for this over the last few weeks, and I think they're doing pretty well. Roxy let Carina climb a little on her without getting grumpy, and then Carina left her alone and went on to something else. Zoya's pretty gentle with her now too. We're also working with Carina to get her to softly pet the dogs, instead of fiercely grabbing their fur and skin.

No one likes the fierce grab. She's pretty strong!

My work is coming along. I'm splitting my time between the Mars Science Laboratory mission I've been working on since I graduated and the Orion capsule that we'll fly after we retire the Shuttle. For the Mars mission we've been spending time figuring out what crazy scenarios can break the entry guidance while it tries to get us within 10 km of the target, and how we can counter that without hamstringing the guidance. The desire is to have a robust guidance that still delivers the spacecraft to the target on both good days and bad days. Some of this is done in the flight software. Some of this is done in how we operate the spacecraft. Many of these ideas we've been carrying of for a few years but haven't had time to really start looking at them until now. Meanwhile, the project pushes forward with successful parachute tests in wind tunnels, with flight software being tested in thousands of simulations, and with flight hardware being delivered and assembled. Launching in Summer 2009 doesn't really feel that far away now. :)

The Orion work I'm involved with is interesting, mostly because its new for me. I'm not doing much guidance work with it because I don't have the time available to really sink my teeth into it. But a few weeks ago there were some URGENT! items that had to be addressed pretty quickly as the design settles down for this year's Preliminary Design Review. I've been working with some people to figure out some of the ops concept for the capsule entry and recovery, how often we would try to splashdown where, where should we go if we can't wait in orbit for some reason. It's working with maps and orbit dynamics and constraints such as ensuring the safe disposal of rocket debris, acceptable weather for the capsule to splashdown, where our recovery forces may be, and getting enough sunlight prior to spacecraft return so the batteries have enough juice to last through entry and the time spent bobbing in the water afterwards. The last few days we've been chasing after an issue where one system team's assumptions turned out to be too constraining for us to fly missions, so we had to work out a reasonable constraint that balances our ability to fly the spacecraft and also doesn't drive their system to an extreme.

It is fun designing a spacecraft. It is also a lot of fun figuring out how best to fly one whether it's at Mars or at Earth. That is why I'm pretty glad to be where I am in Mission Operations, getting to help out with both.

Besides work and playing Carina, I haven't done very much lately. We went out on Sunday for steak with Becca and friends in celebration of Becca's birthday; Carina tried to eat the crayons. Jen and I also watched Innerspace on cable. Jen had never seen it. That took me back to some memories when I was a kid. I totally forgot Meg Ryan was in it... must have been one of her first movies since she didn't headline it.

Patacake

I know I just posted videos, but I'm so proud. Look what my girl learned to do!

Laughter is the Best Medicine

Amazingly, I had a few minutes today to put together some recent baby pics and movies.

She can stand up now herself by holding on to us or the furniture.


Gavin really liked this one. He seems to have a thing with me wearing stupid stuff on my head.


And then for movies...

This first one is several weeks old - just to capture her laugh.


This one is more recent - just having fun.

Best Friends

Oh boy, have I been working hard. Not as hard as some people I could mention, but pretty darn hard. I've done document or presentaion editing at home every day this week except one. I hardly dare mention it, in case I invite a catastrophe tomorrow, but at this point I still think I'll get the weekend off.

When I dropped Carina off at day care this morning, I spent a few minutes talking with the teachers about starting to feed her the school's food. While we were talking, one of the other babies crawled over to the spot where Carina was sitting. Now, I've been told that Carina and Mackenzie are good friends, but I haven't had a chance to watch them together much before. They weren't doing much, just looking at each other and reaching out to touch each other a couple times. But, it was unmistakably social interaction.

I found myself a bit jealous of Mackenzie. Unreasonable, but I'm sort of used to being Carina's only "friend" (well, besides Daddy). It made me start thinking that one day she'll be a teenager, and will probably not consider me a friend at all. She'll rather spend her time with her Mackenzies than me. Another reminder that I need to appreciate every day.

The Stumbling Edge

We went ice skating today for Cari's birthday. It was really fun, but I'm not nearly as good at it as I remember being. Not that I was ever good at it, but I used to be able to not look too awkward.

After skating, we went to eat an early dinner. By this point Carina had been up for four straight hours. We were hoping she'd nap in the restaraunt, but no dice. Dinner took quite a while, and by then end it was 7:00 PM and she hadn't slept since 1:00! For all that, she was still her happy self while we were there.

The problem, of course, comes after we get home. She's overtired and fussing instead of going to sleep like she needs to. I think she just now finally settled down - no crying for the last 10 minutes or so.

I'm going to try getting in my first solo cross-country tomorrow; the weather didn't cooperate today.

Making Friends

We've had a pretty social month. First, Kennda was in town for a few days. We got together with her, Becca, Cari, and the Pettys. Carina and Aerik got to know each other a bit.


Then last weekend, Carina had a play date with Lily. Here they are playing in their nearly identical exersaucers.


Carina had fun helping do the laundry this morning.

Bad Cooking?

My cooking made Carina throw up last night.

All right, it probably wasn’t the cooking. She still has issues with texture, and it was new and probably a bit too lumpy for her. Still, she took a few spoon fulls, made a face, gagged, and threw up.

Anyway, Carina is officially 8 months old now. 8 months! That’s 2/3 of a year! It definitely doesn’t feel like it has been that long since she was born. Although I am starting to get nostalgic about when she would happily cuddle in my arms. I get about 5 minutes when she first starts sucking down a bottle, but that’s about it. Even though she isn’t crawling yet, she doesn’t really want to sit still. The favorite passtime is now bouncing.

I got some cute pictures of her and Lily at their playdate this weekend. I don’t have them downloaded yet, though. I’ll try to do that tonight.

Yes, She Was Indeed Born

I finally got Carina a birth certificate, nearly 8 months after she was born. You'd think that pretty much everyone would need/want a birth certificate for their baby, and that the certificates would therefore be easy to order. Not so.

I realized a few months ago that, hey, we never got one of those! Remembering that we filled out some paperwork for a birth certificate at the hospital, I called them. "Oh, you need to call the county and order it; here's the number."

So, I called the county. The lady asked if I needed a real one. Uh, yes?! "Oh well we don't issue real ones here, but we do have a computer printout that's good for most things." Like passports? "Oh, no. You'll have to order one from the state; here's the number."

So, I called the state. 5 phone menus later, I'm told that I need to either come in person to the office downtown, or I can go to the web site and mail the form in. I mail the form in, after following all the instructions. It gets returned because I didn't include a photocopy of my (the mother's) ID. That wasn't in the instructions. (Aside: Why only the mother's ID? It's like fathers don't exist in our baby culture.) I return the application with a copy of my drivers liscense, and finally we get a birth certificate out of it.

I'm glad that I thought to do that before I really needed to. All-in-all it took a couple months. Now, I need to start the passport rigamorole. I think I'm going to start working on Gavin to agree to a trip to Europe this summer.

Losing Sleep

One of the frustrating things about having a baby is that every once in a while there will be a day that's completely different for no apparent reason. Case in point: Monday night. Carina woke up 6 times - crying, wanting to be held, unwilling to be put back in her crib. The last time at 3:30 AM, we decided to just let her cry for a bit. She probably cried 10-15 minutes before going back to sleep.

The next day, she went back to her normal 12 hours straight sleep.

What the hell?

I'm glad that she's normally so happy, but it always makes me feel like she really, really needs something when she cries. It really sucks when you can't understand what she needs.

Twist and Shout

Unfortunately, this came out a bit dark, but it is hi-larious! Turn on the sound or it will only be mildly funny. :)

A Real Trooper

Carina is the best baby. I mean, she is sooooo good. She went to sleep about 10 PM in the airport, and she slept all the way to Oakland. She woke up in the airport in Oakland until we got the car, but then she went back to sleep for the night. Not once did she cry while we dragged her around the country in the middle of the night. She woke up this morning her smiling self and is only a bit more tired than usual.

I'm thinking this means that Carina travels well. So, now I'm asking myself, where should we go this year?

Snoozing

I think Carina inherited her sleeping habits from me. When we don't have the daily necessity of getting up in time to get to day care, we tend to sleep later every morning and stay up later every night. Gavin says that we're just getting her on Pacific time early, but by the time we head back to home she's going to be on Hawaii time at this rate.

I bought my brother-in-law a game called "Masons" for Christmas. We played it a couple nights ago, and it was pretty fun. It's sort of in the "Settlers" category of games. It doesn't have the trading aspect of Settlers, which is one of my favorite things about the game. Masons can be played by two people, though, which could be very useful.

Howdy from WY

Well, we made it to Wyoming, finally. Carina did very well on the airplane. We took her in to the doctor today, and her ears still have fluid in them. They may or may not still be infected, so we started her on a new antibiotic. She's still feeling well, though, so it's all good.

We've had like 18" of snow since we got here. There was about 15" at my parents on Christmas Day. Then we got a few more today. Carina doesn't seem to like the cold too much. Especially if it's windy.

There are tons of kiddos around this year. But we can't seem to get them all awake and happy at the same time for a picture. We definitely need to do that soon.

It Never Rains...

Apparently, it's not enough that Carina's fighting off an ear infection AND a terrible cold. You see, about a week ago (right before she got sick), she learned to roll over from her back onto her tummy. She hasn't figured out how to roll back yet, though. What this means is that when she's asleep, she'll roll onto her tummy, wake up, and start to cry. It also means that swaddling, which we've been doing since day 1 as a means of comfort and also a means of keeping her pacifier in her mouth, no longer works. About all it's doing is trapping her arms so she has no chance of rolling herself back over.

Now the dilemma is that she has to learn to either sleep on her tummy, roll herself back over, or not roll over in the first place. But, I'm also kind of reluctant to let her fuss too long because she needs her sleep to get over the sickness. So Gavin and I have been going in to flip her back over and put the paci back in periodically. Did I mention that this has currently been going on for about half an hour? With no signs of slacking? And that we've been doing it for a week?

Oh yeah, and I think she gave me her cold. :P

Better

Carina feels a lot better today. Her fever is down to between 100 and 101. She stayed up for more than 20 minutes at a time and wanted to play. She smiled. :) We still have lots of boogers, but she'll get over that.

We are going to have to delay leaving town until Monday. Plane tickets between now and then cost about $1100-1200 per ticket. I'm kind of bummed - this was going to be the longest we'd been in Casper for years. We'll still be there for a week, though. And we'll have a happy and healtier baby.

Meanwhile, I "get" to go do the things at work that I was going to miss by leaving Wednesday. Including a sim at 8:00 AM tomorrow. So, it's bedtime.

Ear Infection

After another really tough night last night, it was obvious that we couldn't get on an airplane with Carina today. She was obviously completly miserable, and her temperature had spiked to 103 deg. So, we cancelled our tickets and took her to the doctor instead. Turns out she has an ear infection. So, now she is on antibiotics, still feeling pretty miserable, and we don't know when or how we're going to be leaving for Christmas.

Our original plan was to fly from Houston to Casper today. Then we were going to fly from Casper to Oakland on the 31st and spend a few days with Gavin's grandmother. We were returning directly from Oakland to Houston on Jan 4.

Recreating that itinerary is now going to cost us no less than $760 each. Not including the $200 we forfeited for cancelling the flight today. With 5 fewer days in Wyoming.

:(

Tears

Carina is sick, I mean really sick, for the first time. Runny nose, cough, presumed sore throat, temperature of 101.6. So tired she can't keep her eyes open, but keeps coughing and waking up. And crying, crying, crying.

I know that as the parent of a non-crier, it's kind of bad form to complain about the few little spats we do have. But, when your baby almost never cries, you know that the tears are actually about something. She's tired. She's hungry. You pinched her finger in the seat buckle.

I'm just not hardened to seeing my little angel's face all red with big, fat tears running down. It breaks my heart, and I would do anything to fix it.

For Tracy...

Apparently, I've been terribly remiss in posting photos of the Chunk-A-Monk. Let's remedy that a little.

This one I like to call: I'll smile when I'm on my belly, but only if that other baby smiles back!


She won't consider washing dishes entertainment for long.


I love the doggie, and the doggie's scared of me!


Isn't that cute? With the slobber all running down her chin?

18 lb 6 oz

I was pretty close. We went to the doctor today, and I thought Carina would be about 18 pounds or so. Babies are supposed to double their birthweight in the first 6 months. Carina did a bit more than that. :) She's supposed to start growing a bit slower now, and have a smaller appetite. I would never have known that from how she ate tonight. I couldn't spoon the peas and carrots out of the bowl fast enough to satisfy her.

I'm Thankful For

We had a great time in Conroe for Thankgiving. We didn't do much; ate some yummy turkey; watched some football; played with the baby. It was perfect.

Just last Wednesday I was having trouble believing that it was actually Thanksgiving. Today, I'm having the typical post-holiday reaction: "I can't believe I have to work tomorrow." And have to work, I do. I have so much to do in the next three weeks or so before we take off for Christmas, it isn't even funny. I'm also a bit worried about being lead for the first mission after the holidays and taking 2 1/2 weeks off, but I'm trying to sooth the guilt with the idea that nobody else will be at work then either. I do expect that it will make January that much more hectic, though.

Auntie M and Auntie L

I can't belive that Thanksgiving is over already. This fall has gone by so quickly. Carina had fun having her Thanksgiving dinner (squash and peas) at the table with us while we had dessert.



Lauren and Melissa have been having fun getting reacquainted with Carina. She's so much bigger than the last time they saw her.

My flying plans for tomorrow are pretty likely to be scuttled by weather. It's hard to be terribly upset about not having to drive 1 hr each way to get there, though. Here's hoping for next weekend.

Camping Recap

Camping with Carina is definitely different. We picked out a camp site and set her down in the shade to watch the trees for a bit. Gavin and I started pulling stuff out of the car, but before we could start setting up the tent Carina decided it was time for food! Meanwhi