Pressing Matters of a Sound Mind

Miss Claire's 3 Month b-day, and Thanksgiving, part 2.

Wow, it's taken almost a month to get around to part two for this post.


Claire turned 3 months old on Thursday! She's getting so big! I can't believe she's already that old. She's also getting very fussy. This week was not a happy one, she was very grumpy.  Miss Claire has been very sleepy and her naps consist of 20-minute power naps and she doesn't go down for the night easily. She's been VERY drooly and spit up more often that usual. Nothing really seemed to  much avail like it usually does, holding in the "football carry" like she likes, running water, music (though playing Christmas songs on the piano seems to have some success), don't even mention the car seat fiasco that usually results in her crying so hard she chokes or spits up, bath time... the works. Saturday, Melissa and Claire stayed home from the house showings we scheduled to look at with our realtor, Claire would have had a rough time. We were starting to worry that perhaps something was wrong with her, so we took her to the urgent care late on Saturday night, after a weekend of almost non-stop crying. The doctor couldn't find anything in particular (ears, tummy, rash, etc) and mentioned "the unspeakable curse", yes the "c" word, the bane of every parents life... colic. Melissa's a saint for enduring such hard crying all week. I always feel so bad for Melissa, those days can be rough. When I come home from work I relieve her of duty, so she can have some time to herself, but I think she has the short end of the deal. It's sad to see our baby, whose normally so happy and content cry all the time, which is definitely out of character for her. Let's hope this colic spell doesn't last too long and we have our happy girl back!

We've begun giving Claire little sips of water from a little bottle. She seems to like it, though not as much as milk. She can tell that something is not quite the same. We set up and decorated for Christmas at our house as well.


A thin, emaciated, stray kitty showed up on our patio last week begging food. It was climbing the screen trying to get in. Melissa took pity on the poor thing and gave it some canned chicken to eat and some water. Last week was very rainy and cold, so Melissa convinced me to let it sleep in the garage for the night, which turned in to a week-long visit. I am not a cat-person, and don't really care for them, but as far as cats go, it was exceptional well-behaved and very friendly. Of course, one thing let to another, and "she adopted us". We decided to name her Gingerbread, or "Ginger" for short. I reiterate, I am not a cat person, but she is a very good kitten, and has won us over. We took her to the vet to make sure that she was up-to-date on her vaccinations and wouldn't pose a health hazard to Claire. We have set some house rules if she wants to stay, bedroom off limits, no bothering the hammies or Claire ( she hasn't show the slightest interest in Claire), to which she has been very obedient. There was a microchip in her, per the vet so no one has registered her, and we were unable to find the owner. The vet said he thinks this was an SPCA animal. Owing that the next day, two other kitties showed up on our patio, one with similar markings, we are tempted to think someone dumped them or moved and left them here. All three of these cats are very friendly and domesticated. They've been around people before and are house cats. There's no way we can take more than one cat, we are NOT turning in to cat hoarders over her, so we had to turn them away. She is a very good cat, who loves to snuggle and get attention, both of which we don't really have time to provide much of. Sorry, Ginger! I think she won't feel quite so encaged once we get our house in Feburary. We call her our Christmas kitten

Anyway, back to the original Thanksgiving post.

 Ok, Blake didn't really make her cry... that much.




Claire was vey happy. She even laughed for the first time!
We love games and puzzles, so we spent a lot of time doing playing games. Melissa the avid "puzzle hater" even caught the spirit of it. Mom and Britta (though Dad has been known to pick away at it), love puzzles. They "puzzle until their puzzler is sore", as we like to say!

 Mom and Ryan were doing the lights for Christmas. Blake was out babysitting and Britta puzzling, so Mom and Ryan were primarily responsible for the trimming of the tree, after Dad set it up of course. My mom has her "pretty tree" that she coordinates a different color per year (like her mom does), and this year was blue and white. Downstairs, we keep a smaller, "family tree", the tree with all the handmade school decorations the kids have made, as well as any that we've collected over the years.




 Claire and Grandpa.Claire loves seeing different faces and hearing different voices. My dad has a low, bass voice, and I think Claire liked hearing it.

Ryan was at first unsure about if he liked or didn't like this little baby. He definitely didn't like when she cried and he put his hands over his ears. Finally, on the last day, he warmed up to her and decided she wasn't so bad... he even wanted to wake up early on the morning of our departure to hold her again.

 Dad always helps with homework, especially math!



The amazing exploding diaper! EEK! It's Melissa's turn!

The plane trip back home wasn't bad either. Claire was more alert and awake this time, but still good. Us, on the other hand were a little strung out, DIA is a pretty big airport, and the lines at the ticket kiosk and security were horridly long, luckily Claire didn't protest too much, even in her car seat as we waited in line.

posted by Austin @ 10:41 AM