Science Without a Nap

This afternoon, Celeste and Quinn both took turns participating in an infant study at the University of Maryland, but it probably would have gone better had they had naps.

Backing things up a little bit, around 2:45 a.m. this morning, I half-awoke to a crying Quinn. Next to me was an exhausted Evelin. I'd thought Evelin was just going to finish up some work and then come to bed, but it turns out she'd been up to about 2:00 a.m. with Quinn. (When I fell asleep, the Sox were still up 2–1, and I was enjoying my new little Sony Walkman SRF-M37V, which manages to pull in WTIC(AM) and thus the Sawx-side commentary for games ... why didn't I have this for the first part of the season?)

I got up and took Quinn downstairs, where she slept fitfully on me until around 4:30 a.m., at which point I transitioned her back into her bed, and decided that I'd try to work from home as much as possible today so that we could try to get her to the doctor.

She's had a little cough for two weeks or so now, and her nose has been really runny. When I checked on Tuesday, she wasn't running a fever, but it has made sleeping pretty uncomfortable for her. Before Maine, she spend a night or two sleeping in her carseat, to have in a more upright position, and she's napped in that most of today (as scattered and short as her naps have been). Evelin took her in to the doctor's and he said her ears and throat look clear and that it's probably teething; we can give her a little Benadryl to try and dry her out to help her sleep, and we'll probably try that tonight.

So, since I was taking the day off, I started in on my e-mail and other work after I came back downstairs. I had about an hour before Celeste woke up, and then Quinn was up not too later than that. I managed to get some breakfast and playtime in before Evelin woke up and came down.

Since Evelin was taking Quinn to the doctor, I took Celeste to playgroup around 9:30 a.m. It's a lot busier this session compared to back in April, which was the last time I'd gone. There must have been ten or more kids there, some that I knew, a few I'd seen around, and a couple who were strangers. Celeste did have fun, however, both in playgroup and then later on the playground.

Once we got home, it was lunchtime followed by an attempt at napping ... which went really poorly and ended up with both girls awake and downstairs by 2:00 p.m. At this point, Evelin was hiding in the bedroom trying to get some work done and I was trying to get things together for the 3:30 p.m. appointment at the Language Development Laboratory. With neither girl having napped, I guess it's no surprise that they both nodded off in the car on the way to College Park.

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Now She Is Three

Today is Celeste's third birthday, marking the beginning of some seriously undelayed lifechanges that continue to build day after day after day. It was a bit of a double-whammy for her today: She turned three and she had her first day of nursery school.

Both went pretty well. Evelin made her some cupcakes (the requested orange sponge cake recipe with royal icing) and this evening she received several dog-themed presents.

When Evelin dropped her off at school this morning, Celeste pretty much headed straight for the Play-Doh and never looked back. (That she arrived at the same time as T---, one of her friends, probably helped even if she didn't directly play with him.) When I picked her up in the afternoon, she was excited and talking a lot about what she'd done that day. The downside was that she had two accidents, so we have to bring more than the standard number of changes of clothes for her tomorrow.

[ASIDE: There's a ton of stuff I haven't blogged over the past year or so that makes writing this a bit disjointed, but in the interest of getting this tale on paper pixels here's one from a month or three ago: Celeste and I were talking about the upcoming school year, and Celeste said she was going to take two classes. I asked her what she was planning to study, and she said, "Maybe I'll draw a dog."]

On the way to pick her up, I asked Quinn if she'd missed not having Celeste around this morning. There was a HUGE grin and a fairly loud "No! No!"


(From a few days ago when Celeste was a flower girl (or as she insisted flower puppy) at the as-of-yet-unblogged (at least by me) wedding of my brother-in-law.)