Carmen approached me today and asked if I would like to designate my house as the place to always meet for visits. I told her that I wasn’t in the position to make suggestions about what was right for a permanent visitation schedule. She insisted on gathering all the family together to discuss it.

There were tense moments, like all the excuses Carmen made about what was wrong with Carrie and how there were special needs to attend to. She claimed that a special high chair and a special car seat were needed because of Carrie's lack of muscle tone. I told her that we would buy whatever we needed. The she said that Stewart couldn't afford it. We all told her that expense wasn't her concern. As a family we were all willing to buy what was needed. Dad went to look at her car seat and how it was installed in Carmen's car. He showed me privately that there was a strap on the back that hooked to something under the seat in front. It was only hooked to the cable that's part of the mechanism that moves the front seat back and forward. Not special AT ALL. He managed to convince Carmen that we could do the same thing in our cars.

We eventually drafted a preliminary agreement in which Carmen agreed to allow Carrie to come for weekend visits if Stewart would promise to always be accompanied by Mom, Dad or me when he picked Carrie up for weekend visits. but we got through it and signed the prelim agreement. I don't know if this is legally binding or even a good idea.

I put Carrie to bed tonight at 7:30 or 8:00. Carmen sat in our den with us and watched TV until she went to bed around 10:00. I had the baby monitor with me and heard Carmen go into the bedroom and close the door. I heard some rustling around. Not wanting to eavesdrop on her all night I turned it off. Within in minutes Carmen opened the bedroom door and called our for Kent and me to come to the room. She was hysterical because Carrie was crying and gasping for breath. She asked me to check the crib for anything that Carrie could have put in her mouth and choked on. I didn’t see anything. All this time Carrie just lay on the big bed crying, a frightened look on her face. Finally I snapped at Carmen to pick her up and comfort her. Oddly, Carmen put her hands under Carrie’s back and held her like a tray of food rather than a baby. She said something like, “Look how stiff she is. She’s having one of those breath-holding spells.”

Evidently breath holding has replaced seizures. Then Carmen burst into tears and said she was so worried about Stewart. She said that she just knew if he witnessed something like this he’d freak out. She kept asking us what we thought it could be. I really don’t know what it could be.

After Kent and I went to bed we talked about it quietly. The only way I can describe the look of fear and surprise on Carrie’s face is to compare her to someone I recently saw on FEAR FACTOR. The contestants were instructed to lie down in a sealed glass box and hold their breath while the box filled with water. One guy panicked immediately and signaled to be released. He kept gasping for air and started to cry. It looked to me like Carrie had been deprived of air, almost like someone smothered her. Did Carmen smother her in order to induce whatever spell that was?