Faltering Steps & Sleep, Precious Sleep

Celeste's holding onto a hand and staggering took a leap forward into the hands-free realm. She wouldn't do it for me this afternoon, but this morning she twice let go of Evelin's hand, stood for about five seconds and pitched forward two or three steps into Evelin's arms. It's not quite walking, but it's two to three steps closer than she's been before. That's cool. And scary. At least she isn't pulling herself up yet ...

That's the "faltering steps," the sleep side of things ... who can tell. Last night, she had a crazy awake period around 10:30/11:00 p.m. Tonight, she was tired at 5:00 p.m., had a good dinner, a nice bath, and then decided to hell with sleep, I'm staying up ... for three more hours. And she was bonkers during that time, part of which Evelin spent playing/trying to coax her to sleep while I finished making a Suzette Pie — it turned out pretty good; I think I'd precook the squashes some next time and change the herbs to espazote or something, but it was tasty). I then got to try to soothe her while Evelin waited for the pie to finish cooking and to have a slice or two ... In the end, Evelin nursed her to sleep, which is probably suboptimal, but at least <knockwood>she's stayed down thus far</knockwood>.

Other adventures

Celeste and I found out today that while the Baby Jogger stroller is very cool, you cannot fit a watermelon and a baby in it. Since it was the first nice day in a while, we walked to the farmers market and the only thing we came home with was a nice watermelon, but, soon after handing over my cash, I discovered that the under-baby stowage area is way too small for a watermelon; the net in front of the driver can accommodate a watermelon, but it pushes the baby forward at an uncomfortable angle; and the footrest is a bad place to try to balance anything that makes a tempting target for kicking.

I asked Celeste to hold the melon on the ride home and she just looked at me like I was out of my gourd (pun totally intended). So I tried putting it atop the sunshade. That worked for a while, but the velcro started to loosen or something and the melon gradually pushed the shade down until it touched Celeste's head, upsetting her greatly.

In the end for the last mile or so, I just carried the melon. We haven't cut it yet; it better be sweet.