I Should Have Known I Was in Trouble

When I got home, Evelin told me that Celeste was being a joy today, lots of smiles and happiness, two naps, a pleasure to be with. That should have been a warning to me.

Things started off well, we had some giggles on the zebra rug, some good bouncing time in the doorway bouncer thing (K--- had outgrown hers, so we got to bring that back from New Jersey on Saturday; Sunday Celeste wasn't too sure, by today she seems to be loving it), a little bit of time on the playmat, but then she started to get a little cranky.

Evelin was feeding her when I got home, so I figured she wasn't hungry; it'd only been an hour an a half or so, so I went with she must be tired. (If she'd already had two naps today, I figured, she was finally starting to catch up on the sleep she missed over the weekend and yesterday during her trip to Mount Vernon^*.)

Big miscalculation. There was some fussing, I figured that was to be expected, but I tried to soothe her ... and it only got worse and worse and worse: Lots of tears, lots of screaming, a giant booger, and a phone call to Evelin.

After a while (probably eight to ten minutes), decided to see if hunger was the issue; she wasn't paying attention to signs, so I showed her the bottle and she grabbed at it, so I figured we'd try food. This bottle was still on the very cold side, so while it was warming in some hot water, I figured I'd give her some solids.

Mistake number two. In my rush to soothe/feed her, I didn't pay enough attention to the baby spoon, which'd turned white indicating that the applesauce was too hot. She had been sitting there calmly waiting for her second lunch, but as soon as the hot food got to her mouth she spat it out and started wailing. I tasted it; it was on the warmer than usual side, but I don't think it would have burned her.

I quickly offered her cold sweet potatoes, which she wolfed down between sobs, followed by the now cooled apples. I was afraid she would shun them, but she ate them up without too much hesitation.

By then the bottle was warm, so I gave her that (and she only drank about half of it, sigh), and then we settled down for the fun game of play or nap. She was making some tired motions, but any moves toward her room would illicit crying and screaming, so we used the jumper and played with some blocks and a few rounds of antelope and lion^†, intermixed with a few more attempts to get her to go down, which only yielded more screams. Finally, she fell asleep on me and I was able to put her down ... now let's just see how the rest of the day goes.

Adding to things, my cousin R--- is coming to town for some meetings and is going to be crashing here tonight and tomorrow; it was a bit of a last-minute thing and I don't think we warned him adequately about what it might be like in a house with a baby who still wakes a few times each night ...

^* She and Evelin spent the whole day yesterday with S---, E---, and their baby boy G---. For the most part things went well, but, apparently Celeste had very little asleep time and one big meltdown.

^† Which seems a much better name for the game than cannibal and missionary. She also really likes it, which makes me worry that if she were ever mauled by a dog, bear, or lion she'd start laughing.