Sweet Little Sleepy Girl

Genevieve is continuing to struggle with sleeping at night. This past week she's been up 5-6 times each night for anywhere from a quick snack to ninety minutes or more of abject misery.

By day she's been all over the emotional map. Today she was cranky and fussy all morning except for a few breaks. But just a few minutes ago she took some milk from Dana and fell soundly asleep. Since she seems to hate her crib I decided to just sit with her in the rocking chair. I can use some down time myself.

We still don't know what's bugging her, but we suspect teething, or possibly the remnants of our nasty cold/flu. Advil or Tylenol helps a little, but not like you'd expect. I don't like to rely on it anyway.

Genevieve's 6 month checkup

Today she is 17 lbs 6 oz
28.5 inches.

Rare time

Today I had a rare opportunity to tackle some house projects while school was in session and work was not.

I hung a fruit basket in the kitchen.



And I started patching a huge series of cracks in the plaster in the entryway.



As house projects go these are pretty meager compared to my former glory. But multi-day projects are pretty much off the table now, and these were still satisfying.

Our Little Herbivore

To date, Genevieve has tried rice cereal, carrots, carrot juice, bananas, and avocado. She likes all of them, although she wasn't 100% sure about the banana. Next up is probably yams.

We are tring to limit her to one new food per day. No problems there since we're so busy lately.

Genevieve at the Eye Doctor

Genevieve saw the eye doctor today. Her cataracts are not growing, so far. The doctor still believes there is not a case for surgery. He told us the same cataracts in an adult would result in 20/30 or 20/40 vision. As somebody with far worse vision than that, I think it sounds pretty good. She may lose the very fine detail of 20/20 vision if left untreated, but we could elect to treat them anytime in the next 5-8 years and still probably improve her to 20/20.

So the verdict is "Wait and see." We don't expect the cataracts will get any worse, but it's a good idea to keep checking them every few months until she's at least old enough to tell us what she can see.

She'll "see" Dr. Arnold again in April. (And next time, no dilating!)

Meanwhile we are starting up the Spring 2010 semester. This will be Dana's last of law school! She is taking two classes, and an internship (for credit) with a District Court judge in Denver. Graduation is at the end of May. Then it's bar exam time in July. Babysitter volunteers are now being recruited!

Our dryer conked out last week. I took the control panel apart and concluded that it was the $100 electronic timer that had broken. So being the resourceful person I am, I ordered a replacement online overnight. Turns out that wasn't the problem. In fact it was a $10 thermal fuse that blew because the dryer vent was clogged due to an "embolism" - essentially the double-wall of the dryer vent failed and "imploded," blocking the vent. Fortunately the dryer did exactly what it is supposed to do, and failed gracefully instead of killing us all with exhaust gas or catching on fire from overheating. Nice work, Maytag! Now we can continue warming up Alex's jammies in the dryer after his bath. (The little prince prefers his clothes to be pre-heated)

Genevieve Likes It

Today Genevieve had her first taste of rice cereal, and... She likes it!









Could her milk-chugging days be numbered? Stay tuned.

Hot dog and a milkshake in Wyoming

On our drive home last weekend, Alex and I stopped for lunch just outside Rawlins. After his nap I asked Alex what he wanted for lunch, and without hesitation he told me he wanted a hot dog and a milkshake. So that's just what we got.




Alex is an excellent traveling companion. We had a lot of fun on our trip, "just us guys".

Thumper

We have returned safely from our year-end travels. We thoroughly enjoyed our time in Salt Lake City and in Benicia. We even had fun in the car. It turns out Alex is a really good traveler. He was calm and in good spirits for almost all of our journeys. Even on the way home from SLC when it was just the two of us (since Dana and Genevieve flew home) he was a lot of fun. We watched Cars twice through, stopped for hot dogs and milkshakes in Rawlins, and Alex was great at chatting my ear off and keeping me awake and alert.

A highlightof the trip, among so many, was watching Alex race around at my Aunt Jean and Uncle Grove's house one evening - just exactly the way Alison and I used to when we were his age!

In the last two weeks Genevieve has continued to get closer to crawling. She now readily flops from her front to her back, and has also turned back to front several times. She also wiggled a lot and can rotate around on her back on the floor through a full 360 degrees. But one thing she does now completely mystifies me: She loves to lie on her back, raise both of her legs at the same time high above her chest, and THUMP them down together on the floor as hard as she can. I sat next to her tonight in the playroom and watched her for 10 minutes straight doing this little exercise over and over, delighted with herself each time. I can't fathom why this makes her so happy, or why her poor little heels aren't in pain.

She also enjoys, to a lesser extent, raising her fists above her and thumping her chest.