We took Caroline to the Dixie Classic Fair with Emma and her parents. While we all sat around eating some fine Fair cuisine, the girls were playing in their strollers. At one point, Emma started shrieking when Caroline was trying to climb in the stroller with her. Upon closer inspection, it appeared our little cannibal had bitten Emma (it was very prominent bite on the inside of the elbow - unfortunately, the picture doesn't capture it particularly well). Cheryl and I were very upset; Emma's parents had a good laugh and then hit us with a lawsuit.


For her punishment, I'm only going to post pictures of the back of her head for the rest of the day. Take that, Caroline. Incidentally, I'd like to put out a plug for Emma's forthcoming debut rap album - in stores soon!

Two out of three aren't completely turned off by the camera. Due to a rainout of the playgroup, Caroline, Matthew and Emma hit the Children's Museum. Caroline and Emma managed not to fall down any stairs.

Today marked our 3rd wedding anniversary. Jay bought me two dozen roses in honor of the two good years of marriage we've enjoyed so far*. Caroline wasn't too enthusiastic about celebrating as you can tell here. Today she was far more interested in eating caramel Quakes and trying to give herself a concussion. Luckily, we thwarted her attempts and she is now sleeping peacefully in her crib.

*Ok. That's not true. He bought two dozen because that's how they sell them at Costco.

Caroline is doing her part to fight tooth decay. Tooth brushing is her new favorite activity. If you suggest it, she runs pell mell, helter skelter to the bathroom and reaches for her toothbrush. She even lets us brush her choppers for reals once she's sucked off all of the tasty baby toothpaste.

Caroline ate quite a bit of Cheryl's birthday cake right before bedtime. To counteract the effects of sugar, we've laced the icing with sedatives. Sweet dreams, second bestest gal!

Caroline refuses to accept that her mom is getting older. Cheryl turned 29 for the third time today. Happy birthday, best gal!

As the day wound down and Caroline rejected most of her dinner and became cranky, we let her watch a few songs from her TMBG video. It's like a drug.

Caroline's bud Emma finally got to wear her harness and tether at today's tailgate. Welcome to the club!

One of the few other alumni to show up to the fraternity homecoming, Matt, holds up his new baby. This has to be one of the worst pictures of me, ever. And I wasn't drinking, despite my appearance. Please note Cheryl in the background, hitting the keg, at the MBA tailgate

Caroline and Aaron shared some grapes and later some hugs at the tailgate this afternoon.

It was homecoming at the school this weekend. Here's the annual Jason Conley/Caroline pic.

Tonight, the family went over to the school for the annual International Food Festival. We all enjoyed the delicious and widely varied cuisine. There were scads of kids and plenty of eyes, and Caroline ran about with abandon and enjoyed herself heartily. When we arrived home, the girl was toast. I left the living room for about 30 seconds, and upon my return she was laying on the floor in her sleepy-time position. She went right into her crib with no protest at all after a quick shower. It was then that I realized that my other baby, theTiVo remote, had gone missing.

Two hours later I found the remote. It was in the kitchen garbage can. Caroline's been into throwing all sorts of items in there for the past week. I wonder what other household necessities we've sent to the dump of late...

After refusing to take an afternoon nap and eating very little for dinner, Caroline went to bed about 45 minutes before the normal time. Consequently, she woke up early and hungry, and demanded 2 spoons to maximize her cheerio-eating speed.

Caroline and I hit the playgroup at the Potts twins' house this afternoon. The shorts she wore today still remain a bit large around the waist, and the included belt is utterly useless. I just had to vent about that -

Caroline's favorite food by far is the drinkable yogurt. She also was in the posing mood this afternoon after a fantastically long morning nap.

Caroline was almost back at full strength today. We hit the Costco this afternoon with a mildly sick Emma (hopefully the same cold) and the grocery store with Cheryl this evening. A few weeks ago we bought Caroline her first video, They Might Be Giants - Here Come the ABCs. It's the only children's programming she watches - usually we have the tv on one of the music only channels when she's awake. Anyway, she absolutely loves the video, and is completely mesmerized by it whenever we turn it on. Hovwever, she gets extremely angry if we turn it off before the last song, and throws a little tantrum. So on one hand, the video gives us some time to get stuff done away from her, but on the other, it's probably not all that helpful for her development, especially after the 15th viewing. We are, however, very glad that she's a TMBG fan like her parents.

Caroline showed the beginnings of a cold on Sunday, but we were hoping it was just from teething. By yesterday, she had developed some serious congestion, and took some good long naps. Today she was clearly on the mend, but we still took it easy; consequently, there were no good photo opportunities. Cheryl and I are now both sick.

Caroline and Emma needed some hugging after watching the sad Greek children dance. Or perhaps Emma is working to free Caroline from the Dignity Harness.

Following our second big feeding, we watched rather unhappy Greek children dance.

An hour or so after all the ice cream, we went over to the Greek Festival and ate a chicken pita and some Loukoumades.

Caroline and Ben Fernando at the Ice Cream Festival. It was $5 for adults to get in, and then it was all you can eat ice cream. Caroline and I shared six bowls of ice cream; two big spoonfuls for me for every quarter spoonful for her. We stopped when I could no longer move.

It's a weekend of festivals. We went to the Winston-Salem Rock the Block last night, an annual event since 2002 celebrating the revitilatization of downtown (if it's been revitalized, I can't tell). Today we hit the Apple Festival at Bethabara Park with Emma and her parents. Caroline and Emma really loved the very messy cheesey popcorn pictured here, as well as the less messy Cider Slushees. Tomorrow we plan on going to the Ice Cream Festival and a Greek Festival with Emma and parents and the Fernando boys.

Playgroup - it was hot, 90+. Costco - samples were plentiful, Emma and Caroline ate like champs. Dinner - Caroline managed to dip her finger in a beer, tasted it, and wanted more. Badly. Uh-oh.

Caroline's hair is just long enough now to allow some good styling, even when dry. We'll be adding some bows shortly.

Caroline in the bath this evening. After all the fruit salad, she was pretty wired. Bec's rocking her to sleep now; another delayed bedtime.

Caroline's gotten really good with the baby spoons, barely spilling more than half her food on her clothing (that's why her dress is off for the fruit salad - she coated it with her main course). Although she insisted on using the tablespoon here, despite numerous attempts, she never managed to get any fruit in her mouth with it.

Caroline and Grandpa L shared some fruit salad this evening.

Bec, Grandpa L, and I took Caroline to the Children's Museum this afternoon. We were joined with Aaron and Emma. Caroline's interest in computers makes me very happy.

Caroline took to Aunt Bec right away, exhibiting none of her usual stranger anxiety, even though they haven't seen each other in over a year.

Grandpa L and Aunt Beck came to visit this week. While I went to pick up Beck from the airport this evening, Grandpa L stayed behind to watch Caroline. I told him that she could eat anything. When we returned, he was happy to report that she really enjoys Diet Cherry Coke. Apparently I was unwise not to explicitly exclude caffeinated beverages from foods to feed Caroline. This picture was taken shortly after 10; she's still wired, and it's hours after her normal bedtime.

This picture was taken by Emma's mom at the tailgate a few weeks ago, but I just got it recently. The girls both seemed to enjoy Caroline's "Dignity Tether". (Emma has one too - purchased at the same time as Caroline's, but her parents so far are too skittish to break it out in public. Before Caroline came along, I thought they looked ridiculous. Since she began running everywhere, I think they're awesome.)

Although she doesn't talk yet, Caroline does a few cool things. My favorite is when I ask her to read a book - she'll go pick one, bring it over, hand it to me, climb upon my lap, and begin her special way of reading. Then she'll usually get bored and try to destroy the binding.

We went to a barbeque this afternoon to celebrate the engagement of the parents of one of Caroline's playgroup friends. I'm happy to report Caroline kept the bullying behavior to a minimum. There were tons of cute picture opportunities, and I had my camera, but none of my snaps were any good.

We hit the happy hour at the school this evening. Caroline mostly spent time with Aaron, pictured here with his mother. There were also a few dogs in attendance; she continued her odd behavior of following them around while woofing at them, but if they pay her any mind, she freaks out.

Caroline was behaving like a bit of a bully today at her playgroup, demanding toys that she liked if someone else was playing with them. Luckily, I think I kept her in line fairly well, so hopefully she won't be voted out. In other news, she's over the shrieking in her crib when we leave her at bedtime, but tonight she was awake for at least an hour after we put her down, and looked really sad too. I have to say it was a very effective ploy by the wily wee one for us to come in and rock her for a bit each time we checked on her.

Caroline digs the hummus on her pretzel sticks. Last night she woke up a few times, but quickly fell back asleep without all the usual rocking and repeat trips to hold her. Note to Cheryl - there was plenty of double-dipping going on in this container; you might want to open another one.

After a busy day of running through the streets, climbing all over the furniture, hitting the costco with Emma and Nicole, and going to the Little Gym, Caroline was pretty irritable as bedtime approached. Figuring she was pretty tired, we decided tonight would be a fine time to ween her of her bad bedtime habits we've indulged since the trip to NJ - we rock her for a few minutes, falls asleep, we put her in her crib, and she wakes up about 10 minutes later and we have to repeat the routine. This usually goes on for an hour or so. Tonight, we pretty much let her cry it out for an eternity, but she finally gave up or passed out (I checked her, and she's ok). We're also going to try to follow her doctor's orders and not go in and hold her the two or three times she wakes up in the middle of the night.

Caroline and I went to a partners' lunch this afternoon (partners of the mba students). After the kids ate some pizza, they went a bit wild. Caroline was giving hugs to everyone, especially her buddy Aaron. About 15 minutes after this shot, he tackled her good and the lovefest ended.

Caroline cleaning her plate -- Jay-style.

Cheryl shared a part of a hot dog with Caroline. Then Caroline took the plate and began licking the ketchup from it. I honestly don't know where she learns these behaviors.

Caroline has been feeding herself (or trying) for the the last few weeks, so we moved her from the high chair to the booster seat yesterday. She can now join us at the table and easily complain about the food that we're not sharing with her. Despite her rather somber expression here, she loves the booster seat. She climbs into it when she's been removed after hearty meals and buckles herself in. We daresay it has become her favorite toy.

We took Caroline to her playgroup today - she's pictured here with the Potts twins and Riley. She'd been pretty generous, picking up toys and bringing them to others. Today, however, she only wanted to play with toys that were being used by others; at one point she began weeping when she couldn't have a plastic bicycle that Conner was using. Hopefully this phase will pass soon; otherwise, the shock collar comes out -

Caroline and I trekked over to the Children's Museum for a little while this afternoon. It was fairly deserted, so she had no roadblocks to going from area to area licking the plastic foods and creating piles of toys for me to clean up. This evening we took her to the first football tailgate of the season, where she got very affectionate with her pal Emma. I didn't have my camera, but hopefully Emma's mom will send some pictures.