Baby pictures, page four.

Having Laurel is a joy, but sometimes

it means being up at 3 AM with an unhappy baby -- though the cats help by snuggling.

But on the other hand, there are moments like watching Laurel trying to roll over, and trying to learn from watching our cat Skeeve:

to which Skeeve says: 

"What?  You didn't really take a picture, did you?  You're not going to put it on your web page, are you?  What will the other cats think?  AARGH!"

As Laurel is getting, bigger, she's getting out just a bit.  We've taken her out to dinner with us about five times and she's always been on her best behavior. The car seat/stroller Bernie Roche gave us is just perfect for setting on the table at a restaurant.

We also have been taking Laurel out for walks in one of her slings:

And took her to the Mellon Park arts festival

Relations between Laurel and the two cats was touch-and-go for a while.  Whenever she started to cry, they both hid under the bed.  Now, though, Skeeve (the grey one) runs up to check her many times when she cries.  Of course, he doesn't know what to do, but at least it's something.  Indeed, today (October 6, and she's exactly three months old) she gave Betty and me real smiles for the first time.  Of course, it doesn't hurt us at all that she smiled at Skeeve first.

Her big foster brother, the BIG orange cat Aahz, has been a bit more standoffish.  He may be the alpha-cat in the family, but he sure runs and hides whenever she starts screaming. The past couple of days, though, he's been snuggling with her a bit.  Indeed, when I had her in my lap today feeding her a bottle of formula, he came up and flopped in my lap -- sort of on top of her legs and belly.  She didn't care at all, just kept sucking down her bottle.  I know that cats are supposed to "suck the breath" out of babies, but she didn't have any problem breathing as far as I could tell.  But me, with a 12-lb. baby and a 16-lb. cat on my chest -- that's a different story.

We have a "co-sleeper" which is sort of a baby crib that sits right next to our bed.  We've tried to keep the cats out, not sure why, really, since they sleep together on the couch -- guess it keeps at least one place free of cat fur.  A few days ago, I guess Aahz decided that we were paying too much attention to the baby because when I went up to the bedroom, this is what I found:

I told him to get back on the regular bed in his normal place or I was going to put a diaper on him.

Laurel's Aunt Carla and her new husband Stewart just visited and Stew and Carla were nice enough to send some prints of the pictures they took.  That's Carla holding Laurel in the center.