Back at Work

This week was my first week back at work. Thankfully I have a very nice boss who let me come in part time this week. So, with the Memorial Day holiday I started back on Tuesday and worked through Thursday. I'll do the same schedule next week too. It is nice to sort of ease into things.

With me going back to work that means that Caroline started in daycare this week. She is in a daycare center on the first floor of my building. The room she is in is called Precious Moments (thus the sign here that they put up on Caroline's first day).  Dropping her off is hard, but made much much easier by the fact that she is literally right downstairs.

Caroline seems to be doing well in the daycare. I went down once in the morning, once in the afternoon and spent lunch with her. She is usually playing up a storm when I go down there. Everyone has to take their shoes off before going into the room and wear little booties so that nothing gets tracked onto the floor. This means Caroline can lay right on the floor (her favorite place to hang out) and roll around to her little heart's content.  Of course, now that she's figured out how to roll over she's mad that she can't move more!

She's now really swaddle free (our first attempt didn't go as well as hoped).  She now has a lightweight sleep sack which helps. I don't think she gets as cold. Also, now that she can roll, even though I lay her on her back when I put her down, this is how I find her when I go check on her. 
She prefers to hold onto the side of the crib or the mattress when she sleeps. (Or if she is on her back, to have a foot touching the side). Now when I put her down, no matter how tired she is, I'll hear her crying for a few minutes.  Then I hear a light "thump". Then she stops crying. The thump is her rolling onto her belly and entering dream world all at the same time. Funny little girl!

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Memorial Day Weekend

Hooray for three day weekends. Jack and I got tons done yesterday so that by yesterday evening the big projects were mostly done. After Caroline went to bed last night Pete and Clare came over and we sat in the backyard just hanging out. It was a beautiful night and Jack cooked us some yummy steaks. Mmmm. 

Today, after church, we spent most of the day napping or hanging out with Caroline. She had a rather, um, cranky week. She seems to have returned to her normal self and was much more pleasant today.

However, to date, Caroline has not been a big fan of bath time. It may be that she still isn't big enough to be totally in the water (she's still suspended by a little sling above most of the water). It may be that she's just now figuring out splashing. I'm not sure. But, we are starting to make improvements. Some fun baby wash from a friend, good handmade washcloths and cozy robes go a long way.

Caroline is now starting to realize that if she moves her legs around the water moves too. Pretty exciting when you're three months old. So, tonight we made it all the way through the bath without any tears. Here's what Caroline looked like after her bath just before we fed her and put her to bed.

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Baby on the Move

Today I went to make a bottle for Caroline.  So that I could have both hands free I laid her on her play mat to look at all of the fun stuff while she waited. She was pretty hungry so the complaints I got didn't sound too strange to me from the kitchen.  But, when I came back in the room I realized that there was a very different reason for the unhappiness...

She couldn't figure out how to get back to the way I left her - on her back. She rolled from her front her back about a week ago. Apparently she has now figured out how to get from her back to her front. Moments after I took this picture she got her hand out from under and did a bit of a face plant (luckily not from far and on a cushy service) onto her play mat. So, not that we did before, but we definitely can't leave her anywhere above floor level without constant supervision. 

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Swaddle Free

Well, it is finally that time. After many escape attempts (many of which were successful as you might remember from our post), we decided it was time for Caroline to try to sleep sans swaddle.  We laid her down first for an afternoon nap to see how long it would take her to fall asleep without the normal comfy confines of the swaddle. She went right to sleep. So, we decided that cold turkey no swaddle might work. It still takes her a while to fall asleep at night (we would have to apologize to the neighbors if they didn't have little ones of their own). But, as you can see, it seems to be going pretty well.

We have been reminded that Caroline is an ACTIVE sleeper (I believe she gets this from her Aunt Laurie).  I go in to check on her and routinely find her on her side or 180 degrees turned from where I laid her down or with both hands (and feet) in the air. And, oh yes, she is asleep through all of this. Hysterical. If I can catch her I'll put up a video of it.

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A "New" Toy

Caroline has a "new" toy that she has been having fun with.  The very small silver object in her hand is my rattle from when I was a baby.  She's been hanging out on the blanket my Mom (Nana) made for her, shaking the rattle. I've been singing the hokey pokey to her. She's got the "shake it all about" part down when she's got the rattle in hand. So far this is the first thing that hasn't been too heavy for her to pick up. So, I think she's pretty excited about the ability to wave one of her toys around.

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Out with Friends

Today Caroline and I went back to the National Arboretum. This time we took a picnic and went with our friends Amanda (mom) and Ruthie (baby).  Caroline and Ruthie had a great time laying on a blanket, waving their arms and kicking their legs.  Here's a cute picture of them. (And yes, Ruthie is a very cute little girl. Her blue overalls were too cute for her mom to pass up).  For a very brief and fleeting moment they were holding hands as they waved about. 

Amanda and I walked all over the Japanese gardens. Caroline and Ruthie in there respective baby carriers fell asleep and proceeded to drool on their moms. But, otherwise, Caroline seemed pretty happy in her baby bjorn. It was a pretty nice outing on a perfectly beautiful day.

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Happy Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day to everyone!  We had a great first Mother's Day here at the Koller house. Caroline got her first non-family friend babysitter on Saturday night and Jack and I went out to dinner. We went to a great restaurant in the Cleveland Park area called Ardeo.  Caroline was great for the babysitter - we put her down when we left and she didn't get up until 5:30 the next morning. We had a fantastic time at the restaurant. It was nice to have a great meal and good conversation out of the house!

But Jack also planned a great Mother's Day itself. I woe up to breakfast and a New York Times in bed. Yummy and fun! Then we went over to church with, if I may say so, Caroline looking particularly cute yesterday.

These pictures are from church. In most of them (including this one to the right) Caroline is looking at some of the people from church she knows well. They were more exciting than the camera!

After a great lunch (outside because it WASN'T RAINING!!) we all went up to the National Arboretum. I am not sure how I had never made it up there, especially given how much I like flowers. But Jack made the excellent suggestion that we head up there, since the azaleas are all in bloom. 

Caroline seemed to enjoy herself just looking around at all of the flowers from her stroller. We walked all over through the area where there are azaleas. Our stroller did great with the "off road" conditions.  She seemed perfectly content to look at all of the brilliant colors around her.

We also went by one of the stranger things in the Arboretum - the big columns set out in the middle of a meadow.  The columns, as you can read here, used to be on the U.S. Capitol. For reasons that still aren't totally clear to us, they are now out in the middle of a meadow at the National Arboretum.

But, as you can see in the picture to the right, it was a beautiful day all around. It was cool (but not cold), sunny and just breezy enough for a kite.  Perfect weather for Mother's Day.

Here are a few more pictures of the azaleas that I took as we walked along!

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Reading Time

Caroline went to her first book reading, by the author herself no less, yesterday. Our dear friend Ann Thomas (A.T. for short) wrote a lovely children's book about eating healthy, exercising and generally having fun. It is a charming book. She read it at a local bookstore yesterday. So, Caroline and I headed over there with our friends Amanda (mom) and Ruthie (baby 4 days older than Caroline).

As you can see, Caroline remained awake and generally alert during the reading. I'm not sure she understood, but we'll read her the book again. 

Of course, being in a bookstore, I had to stock up for Caroline. I have started reading her Little House in the Big Woods while she eats.  At this point, let's be honest, it is probably more for my entertainment than hers. But, her eyes get big when I make the appropriate bear or wolf noises. So, I think she enjoys it as well.

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Rain Rain Go Away

Despite the fact that we may soon have to build an ark to get around with all of the rain we've gotten lately, Miss Caroline continues to be in a lovely mood. She's too little to run around outside, so she's just as content on her playmat as on a walk.  We had a quiet weekend here getting over a little bit of being under the weather (on the part of Daddy, not Caroline).  And now we're starting out a rather wet but nice week.  I thought I would put up this picture of Caroline just after she woke up this morning. She's laying on my bed just hanging out.

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