Come on spring!

We are fortunate to live in a community with a huge park at the top of our street, tons of playgrounds throughout the area, and walking trails everywhere. When the weather is nice, we pop Caroline in her stroller and head out for hours on end. She enjoys swinging in the baby swings and watching the other kids play. She must have been swinging pretty fast to account for this "windblown effect."



Awww. She's such a daddy's girl...



All that fresh air made for a great daddy nap:

SCORE one for EASTER!

Wohoo! The Easter Bunny helped Caroline celebrate her first Easter by leaving a basket filled with chocolate bunnies, peeps and some neat stuffed animals! She REALLY likes the wind-up chicky - she laughs hysterically when it hops across the floor.

Here is Caroline defending her loot; she quickly blocked Bobby when he attempted to check out her basket:



OK - ONE last picture. Can I play with my stuff now???

You should see the OTHER baby...

With this much blood on her nose, you would think that Caroline had been in a baby brawl at daycare. Perhaps she was angry that another baby was blocking the view to the fishtank? Or playing with her favorite toy? No - the fight was with her own nose!

Caroline had a very runny nose on Monday. She has become a master at wiping her nose on her sleeve, so she repeated this new skill over and over and over ALL day Monday. Come Tuesday morning, her nose and the skin around her upper lip had been rubbed raw and was completely chapped. I cleaned it as best I could (she screamed her head off) and brought her to daycare with a big tub of vaseline to keep it moist. At noon I received a call from the school to let me know that her nose had been bleeding non-stop since I left. She had bled all over the teachers, her shirt, her crib sheets, her bibs. You name it, she bled on it. The teachers told me that she looked like a trauma victim! However, despite all of the blood, she was acting just fine. So they told me just to pick her up at the normal time...

When I arrived that evening, I found her off in baby quarantine since her teachers were trying to keep her bleeding all over the other babies. But she was as happy as she could be, smiling and playing just like normal. So I had to document her first "trauma" and at least TRY to make up a good story! As you can see, she wasn't bothered in the least! Scott is proud that she took it like a Brown...

8 month pictures from David Anderson

Our two favorites:

Cheerios

I think it's fair to say: All babies LOVE to eat Cheerios:

And while Caroline is certainly no exception to that rule, I think she enjoys tossing them off of her tray EVEN MORE than actually eating them. It's fun to toss them to the right:

And then to the left:

And sometimes she'll even try to feed me:

Meal-time is certainly a fun time in our house!

Reaching new highs... but not in a good way.

Caroline reached a new high (temperature) on Friday when she ran a crazy fever that peaked at 105 degrees.

This all started on Wednesday. I received a call from her daycare center at 4pm saying that she was running a slight fever - 100.8. Now normally, you have to take your baby home within an hour of receiving that call. But fortunately for us it was the end of the day, so Scott picked her up at the normal time of 4:30. She was warm, but seemed ok. About an hour later, I noticed that she was breathing quickly - almost panting. We gave her some Tylenol after taking her temp and finding that it was 102. So we paged her pediatrician who told us that we should continue to give her Tylenol and keep her cool and comfortable. The panting is just the body's reaction to fever - her heart and respiration will go up as her core temperature rises. She eventually fell asleep at 8pm and stayed down until about 1am. But then things went from bad to worse and whatever virus she was initially fighting hit her square on.

Over the next 24/36 hrs, she had her little baby butt KICKED by this thing. We saw our pedi, but of course, the period of leaving our house and getting to the office worked temporary wonders for her fever and she was smiling and laughing for her. We left the office, and her temp shot right back up. Unfortunately, for something like this, there isn't much you can do. You just have to ride it out. So we kept her home from daycare on Thursday and just tried to keep her comfortable. The fever came and went - she'd have a good couple of hours, and then the heat returned and she'd go right back to being miserable. She was totally not herself and we could tell that she was just feeling horrible.

The worst part of it came Thursday night into Friday morning. She was up every hour moaning and wailing, and her little body just RADIATED heat. We stripped her down to keep her cool, and she and I slept in the guest room under the breeze from the ceiling fan (for the second night in a row.) The pedi had suggested switching from Tylenol to Motrin which is a little stronger. But unfortunately, the Motrin seemed to upset her stomach, which led to a lovely period of vomiting in the wee hours of Friday morning. She didn't want to nurse, and even when she tried to, her rapid breathing made it hard for her to really consume a decent amount of liquid. And she would vomit everything back up anyway. Once she started vomiting, she began to get dehydrated and then didn't have a wet diaper for several hours.

I did not take her temp overnight (I KNEW she had a fever, and the process of taking her temp is not something she really enjoys.) But I had to have some kind of reading for when we called the pedi again at 8. The thermometer read 105 in about 5 seconds flat, and I just started to cry when I saw that number. Thoughts of febrile seizures and brain damage flashed through my mind. Irrational, I know, but I can remember feeling the same way when she had her first fever at 2 months old. Hey, I'm a new mom. I'm irrational. What can I say???

We called the Dr's office and left a message for her to call us back. While we were waiting, I put Caroline down on the bed since my holding her close was only making her warmer. I laid down next to her to try to comfort her and I couldn't stop crying. It is the worst feeling in the world to see your baby suffer. I was helpless to do anything and seeing her like that just broke my heart. And right there and then she did the sweetest thing: she reached out with her little hand and was chasing my tears down my cheek with her fingers. It was almost like SHE was trying to reassure ME that she would be ok. She made me laugh, and then she smiled. I don't think I could have possibly loved her more than I did at that very moment...

The Dr called back and said we should just take her to the ER. Fever, coupled with vomiting and dehydration can turn serious very quickly. So off we went. Upon checking in, the Dr. noticed that she wasn't crying any tears, so we were going to get IV fluids. We sat around a waited for a very long time. The three of us were utterly exhausted, and Caroline just wanted to sleep. But the commotion of the ER kept interrupting her attempted naps. But, while we were waiting, her fever FINALLY started to come down. She managed to nurse and began to replenish some of her lost fluids. And then we waited and waited and waited some more. 3 hrs later, her fever was down to 101 and I really didn't want her to have to get the IV. (She had one when she was three days old, I didn't want to have to repeat that!) She was able to nurse some more, and things were starting to look up. They let us go home, and Caroline ate and then she and I took a 4 hour nap! Lo and behold, she was smiling when she woke up!

She has continued to feel better, and so far, the fever is staying away. After holding her in our arms for almost three days straight, she feels well enough to be put down on the floor to play with her toys. Unfortunately, she missed her boyfriend C's first birthday party today, but we'll make it up to him very soon!

I have no idea where she got this bug, but being a daycare baby, I'm sure it was only a matter of time before something like this hit us. Hopefully she'll be super resilient to whatever comes next... I hope I hope I hope!!

A weekend getaway..

Caroline and I flew up north to visit my hometown of Uxbridge, MA and spend the weekend with Grammy and Grampy. We decided to leave dad home to take advantage of the decent weather, and he enjoyed a relaxing (but cold) day on the golf course!

Caroline took her very first flight, and with the exception of a little crying during takeoff and landing, she did really well! I plied her with wagon wheels, biter biscuits, Cheerios, books, pacifiers, and even my watch and my sunglasses for a little bit to keep her occupied and happy! We had a wonderful time catching up with family and friends. Unfortunately, we didn't take a whole lot of photos, but here are a few:

This picture was taken with my camera phone. Not the greatest quality, but we certainly HAD to document the moment!



Here is Caroline with my half brother Mike, and his gorgeous and fabulous sons Alex and Ben:



We also got a chance to visit my step sister Pam, and Caroline played with her youngest baby Madison. Caroline looks like a peanut compared to Maddie, who is actually 2.5 months younger!



And finally, since Caroline dumped YoBaby over her head, we had to clean her off before heading to the airport. There's nothing like a quick dunk in the kitchen sink!