Baby pictures, page five: 

Laurel's favorite toy is a little lion I brought back from Las Vegas (I was helping to run the 1999 ED Information Systems Symposium there).  She loves to grab it by the whiskers. 

She's not crawling yet, but the cats are watching her do this and are worried.

Laurel continues to do well with development -- she's catching up in weight and in development landmarks.  It's fascinating watching her discover new things, like her hands.

Laurel is one of the happiest babies I've ever even heard of.  It's easy to get her to smile or laugh, as for these posed pictures from Christmas 1999:

But the winter of 99-2000 was hard for Laurel. With her being premature, her lungs weren't perhaps as strong as they should be.  She was in and out of the ED and the hospital, first with viral bronchiolitis, then mycoplasma pneumonia, then RSV viral pneumonia, and finally a bacterial pneumonia.  But even when her pulse ox was 86% and she was breathing at 70, and her lungs were tight as a drum, she was still a happy, pleasant and playful baby.  The only thing that made her crazy was prednisone -- it made her irritable, insomniac, hyper-alert, hyperphagic (eating a lot). Surprisingly, dexamethasone, another steroid, which works just as well for bronchiolitis in equivalent doses, didn't have this effect.  Here's Laurel with nasal prongs glued in place with a little Tegaderm, but happy as a clam: 

Wintertime does have is recompense, though -- Laurel enjoyed the snow when she was well enough to go out walking with us.  And then there's that great joy of babyhood -- Mommy and Daddy spread out some diapers in front of the fire and baby can rollick around WITH NO DIAPER!  What fun!

Well, all that is over now (April).  We hope.  RSV season is over, and somewhere between 12-18 months premature babies seem to get over their too-susceptible lungs.  Spring is here, and it's very nice to have Laurel home again.

Aahz is not the only cat who tries to take over the baby bed; here's Skeeve sacked out there. Sometimes they sleep with her, sometimes with us.  Night before last, both were in bed with her.  Betty and I enjoyed the footroom enough that we decided that, even after Laurel leaves for her own room, we'll keep the baby bed ("cosleeper") there for the cats! 

Laurel still continues to be on good terms with the cats in general.  Sometimes she grabs them too hard with her little hands (no control yet) but no bites or scratches yet.  She is sitting up, but still a little off balance.  Today, she was sitting on the bed and gently fell over, her head landing on the stomach of a sleeping cat (Aahz).  Considering the number of times he's jumped on my stomach in the middle of the night it seems only poetic justice!

One of Laurel's favorite types of entertainment is to sit in a chair or on the floor and watch Keith work out with his weights and do his Tai Kwon Do hyungs.  Not sure why it excites her so much, maybe it's just the enjoyment of seeing someone else sweat.