Dispatches from the Crib...

From: Erin Murray
Subject: Happy Fourth of July!
Date: Thursday, July 4, 2002

Hello, everyone! I hope you are having a happy holiday! It is hot and steamy here in Connecticut, and Mommy and Daddy said we needed to wait until later on this afternoon before we go outside. We're planning on going shopping and then to a park for a dinner picnic. I can't wait!

June was a very busy month for us, and I'm sorry I haven't written sooner. It started out not so well. At the end of May I wasn't feeling very well. My nose was stuffy, my eyes were runny, and I kept coughing. I wasn't very hungry and couldn't sleep very well. Mommy and Daddy took me to the doctor and he said that I just had a cold. My temperature went up the next day, though, and Mommy thought I was pulling my ear, so we went back to see another doctor on Sunday afternoon. Mommy and Daddy said that I have very nice doctors because they are willing to see me on Sundays. The doctor on Sunday couldn't see into my ears because there was too much wax, so she flushed one of them out with water and dug around in the other one with a long metal probe. I really didn't like that at all, and I cried hard. Once the wax was out she said that I still just had a cold and there wasn't any medicine that would help. I didn't go to daycare the next day -- Mommy stayed with me in the morning, and Daddy stayed with me in the afternoon when he got home from school.

The next morning I woke up and felt really miserable. I just felt like whining and I didn't want to open my eyes. I didn't like lying down, and there was dried yellow stuff all around my nose. So Mommy called the doctor again, and we went back that morning. This time the doctor saw infection in both of my ears, so he gave us some medicine that was supposed to get rid of it. I felt really bad, and I was tired of sucking down all the nasty stuff that Mommy and Daddy kept giving me in medicine droppers. I cried hard and pushed it away to let them know I didn't like it. And I had to take it for ten days! I really missed my playmates at daycare, but after a few days of medicine I felt better and went back.

I can really move now, too. For the longest time I could move both my legs and my right arm, but whenever I picked up my left arm I fell on my nose. Well, I finally fixed that! I started by just dragging my self along the floor, but now I'm up on all fours and racing around the living room, dining room and kitchen. Hickory is still faster than I am, but I'm getting better.

Speaking of Hickory, he had an adventure last month, too! Mommy left the gate open one afternoon and he decided to inspect the yard. He was out by the possum's shed when Daddy found him, and he didn't want to come back inside. We got him back in though. I had to sit in my swing outside while Daddy chased him.

Daddy was gone for a few days to a place called "Atlanta", so Mommy and I got to spend some time together just by ourselves. We went shopping and got the most fun thing in the world. Lots of people have been telling me that I'd like one, so Mommy decided to see if we could get one. It's called a "Bumper Jumper", and it hangs in the doorway on a big spring. You sit in it, and you can push off the floor and jump really high and spin around. It's LOTS of fun. It has hand grips on the straps that I figured out how to use right away. It has a rubber bumper around it so when I bang into the door or the doorframe nothing gets scratched, especially me! There wasn't a good place for it upstairs because you have to have a moulding around the door to hook it on, and the only doorways upstairs with mouldings are the bedrooms and hall bathroom. Luckily, the doorway into the office downstairs has a nice wooden frame, so now I can sit there and bounce while Mommy and Daddy work on the computer.

One day in the middle of the month at daycare I got really mad at this boy with a big bald head. His name is Matthew, and he's two months older than I am. We were sitting on the floor playing beside each other, and all of a sudden he reached over and pulled my hair! It made me so mad I screamed, and my teacher had to put down another baby she was holding and come over and rescue me. That wasn't very nice of Matthew! Mommy and Daddy came to get me just after I stopped crying, and they could tell I was upset so the teacher told them what Matthew did. I hope I don't have to sit too close to him any more.

Last weekend I had a big weekend. I spent most of Saturday morning in my exersaucer on the front porch watching Mommy and Daddy weed and prune the front flower beds. She put pretty bright pink flowers (impatiens) around the trees in the front yard too. Then we had lunch, and since I wasn't sleepy Daddy decided to take me along to Home Depot. I had fun riding around in the store in my backpack, and people were stopping to talk to me left and right. When we got to the cash register, the clerk said, "Oh, that's the cute baby in the backpack I've been hearing about!"

Two Sundays ago I wore a white dress to church that Mommy said her Feather grandparents had given to her. She thought my great- grandmother Feather would have been pleased to see me wearing it. I was quiet, but the sermon was boring as usual and I wiggled a lot. The dress was slippery, so I think Mommy and Daddy were both tired of trying to hold on to me afterwards. I just really wanted to get down on the floor and roll, but they wouldn't let me.

And now for the REALLY big news... I wasn't very sleepy that night when Daddy put me in the crib, so I decided to work on my exercises some more. I've been wondering what would happen if I stretched my arms up really high to the top of the crib rail and pulled hard. Somehow that night my feet got in front of me, and all of a sudden I found myself standing up holding on to the crib rail! I was sort of surprised. I guess I was being quiet, so Mommy peeked around the corner to check on me. She was so surprised to see me standing there that she called out for Daddy to come look, and when she did that I was so startled that I let go and fell down on the mattress. Now I do it all of the time! That bald kid Matthew at daycare who pulled my hair two weeks ago is two months older than I am, and he isn't even rolling over yet! :-)

My favorite teacher at daycare told me that she was going to take my butterfly wind chime mobile down from my crib once I could stand up by myself, so I expect I won't be seeing much of that any more. It's too bad. I like it a lot. It's lots of fun standing up though! This week we also got a notice in my daycare mailbox that said I was going to be promoted to the crawler class at the middle of the month. So I'll get to see some of my old friends again, but I'll miss my first teachers.

That's all for now! There are two new albums of pictures on my website now (http://www.pandc.org/erin/) -- one of the baptism and another for the entire month of June.

Lots of love,
Erin