Carolyn

The new box of Pampers Cruisers we just opened are different than the ones we’ve been using for the last however many months. They have this new meshy lining, and are nowhere near as soft as before. I suppose they thought they were improving them – or maybe they were just cutting costs. But after 24 hours in these diapers, Carrie has her first real diaper rash. She’s currently sleeping in one of the new diapers, and I’m really worried about what her poor little bottom is going to look like in the morning.

I tend to be very loyal to brands, but I’m going to have to go out tomorrow and buy her some different diapers. I briefly thought that maybe we could switch to cloth. But while I love the idea of cloth diapering, the execution…well, I just don’t think I’d really want to wash diapers, especially the stinky ones. So it’s off to shop diaper brands again, which is too bad because we’ve been happy and generally leak-free with Pampers up until now. I’ll probably call and complain to Pampers too, but what are they going to do, send me coupons for more of their rash-inducing diapers?

Add this to the list of things I never realized I’d spend so much time worrying about, until I became a mom…

Carrie has been sleeping poorly, and I even brought her to the doctor this afternoon to have her ears checked – they’re fine, but her four front top teeth are all “ready to pop through” as he put it. I just hope they pop through soon, because the sleep deprivation is killing me! I swear it’s worse now than last year at this time, because I know she can sleep through the night, she just won’t. Not that I don’t have a lot of sympathy for her – I can’t imagine what it must be like to have your mouth hurt to the point where you can’t sleep, and not know why.

We really don’t like giving her Motrin on a regular basis, but it does seem to help, and I suppose if I was in enough pain that I couldn’t sleep I’d take something. But those teeth had better come through soon…

Carrie picked up two new signs and a spoken word yesterday. She can now sign and say “apple”, and she figured out the sign for “bath”. Oh, and she recently learned the sign for “peaches”, too, although that’s a dangerous sign. Instead of signing it on her cheek, she signs it on the side of her head…which is really bad if she’s already had some peaches and her fingers are sticky! It’s funny, we couldn’t get her to repeat “apple”, but she said it clearly as she signed it, and then grabbed an apple out of the fruit basket on my parents’ counter. My mom thinks Carrie knows how to verbalize a lot of words, but waits to say things to us until she can say them perfectly. I don’t know when she’d be practicing, though, because we can hear her over the baby monitor whenever she’s in her crib.

In other news, Carrie now gets a plate at dinner instead of having her food put directly on her tray. I was expecting plates to go flying across the kitchen, but you know what? She does really well with it unless she doesn’t want anything on the plate or she’s done eating. She’s also learning how to manage a spoon, and a fork in very closely supervised circumstances. I know all of this is good and important, but she looks so grown up it makes me a little sad.

It was pretty chilly this morning when we left for our tour of the ice cream shop at the mall. (Yep, that’s a benefit of being in the MOMS club – ice cream right after breakfast!) Thankfully, Carrie’s new bunting arrived just a couple of days ago. It’s a Land’s End fleece bunting, and although it was a PITA getting her in and out of it (well, mostly in) wherever we went, it definitely kept her toasty. I’m hoping it will get easier with practice. I’m also hoping that her fall coat will be enough for above-freezing sorts of days, especially those with lots of errands! I think I’ll use my coat choice as a basis for hers: if I can wear my light corduroy jacket and not be freezing, her fall coat will be fine; if I need my quilted down parka, she needs her bunting.

I have to say, I’m pretty impressed with how quickly I got my LE order: I placed it Saturday night and it was in my hands after lunch on Wednesday. (Good timing, too – when the UPS truck pulled up, I opened the door to swirls of snowflakes!)

I realized after my post yesterday that I hadn’t ever gotten a picture of Carrie with her Snoopy doll, so I snapped a couple today. It wasn’t too hard, since she made a beeline for him as soon as I put her down in the living room after breakfast! Oh, and she’s wearing a super-cute Zutano outfit my brother got her last year. The weather and the sizing have finally cooperated so she could wear it! (I love the ears on the hat!)

I was thinking this morning about what a perfect fall it’s been. The leaves have stayed on the trees in all their glory for longer than I can ever remember, and it’s been unseasonably warm. (Of course, this is all changing as I type this, as I’m sure the howling wind is stripping the trees bare and bringing us the cold weather we’re supposed to be having.)

We took full advantage of the wonderful weather these past few days and went outside every morning to play. Mainly, this involved either tasting leaves and rocks, or swinging. Carrie absolutely adores her swing. She would carefully make her way down the little hill, tromping through the yellow leaves, and reach her arms up to the swing to say “OK, Mom, I’m ready now.” In fact, there were a few times I thought she wanted to get out, so I’d take her out, carry her to the middle of the lawn and put her down…but she’d turn around, carefully make her way back, and reach up to the swing again.

I’m a little sad, because we’re going to have to put the swing away for the season soon, and she’ll probably have forgotten it by the time spring rolls around. But then again, she’ll get to rediscover the joys of swinging in the lovely warm spring air!

It really has been a perfect fall. The best I can ever remember.