Frances has been working on getting her hands into her mouth for the last two weeks or so, with steady improvement and accuracy. Tonight, she was grabbing at my fingers, so I brought a pig toy within reach - and she grabbed it, held it in two hands, and brought the ear to her mouth. We enjoy our bacon, she munches on a pig-shaped rattle. It's all about teaching her early.

Dining out for Life with Grandma Paula

Thursdays this year were good already - I only work the afternoon, after all - but now that they are also a large chunk of time-with-Frances-and-Sarah, Thursdays rock! Today I made pancakes and bacon for breakfast, then Frannie and I went to Costco and Starbucks while Sarah had her work evaluation. She came back glowing (she's brilliant and perfect, no surprise), and then we had lunch and they took me to work.

We like to do our holidays as many times as possible (practice makes perfect, don't you know?), so we had Easter yesterday and today. Yesterday, we took Frances, some deviled eggs, and two pounds of bacon to a neighborhood egg hunt and brunch. I nearly typed "egg hint" there, which really would be a better description of the egg hunt for the 1- and 2-year-olds there. While the bigger kids ran down the block, grabbing eggs off of trees and from under tulips, the little ones toddled down the hill, mostly catching onto the idea of an egg hunt, if not yet perfecting its execution. Frannie, of course, did not partake of the searching; she slept through the entire hunt.

Easter with Mommy's family is exhausting!

Today, we started our morning with an egg hunt in our house (12 dyed eggs, hidden more at an adult level of difficulty than that of a 3-month-old), and enjoyed the Baby Beluga songbook Frannie got in her basket. Then, we went to Grandma and Grandpa's house, enjoyed a giant breakfast, and opened more Easter basket goodness. Frances got a Bunnies by the Bay ting-ting holder, two more books, and some new clothes. No candy, of course - the Easter Bunny is trying to cut back.

Then, it was off to the big Easter celebration with Sarah's family. Those of us who eat solid foods ate way too much, as we generally do. Frannie showed more restraint, but was wiped out by the evening. She slept most of the way home, and went down for the night after one more snack.

Frannie is becoming a tummy-time champ, looking around the floor, watching Olive, and smiling at the pretty baby in the mirror :) Unfortunately, she still meets her limit for concentration quickly, so she goes from grinning wildly to pounding her fists in frustration in about as long as it takes to grab the camera. In other words, no cute pictures of tummy-time yet.

Since were on spring break, we went to Costco this morning. Frances slept for the first 40 minutes or so, but then began to have trouble keeping her "ting-ting" in her mouth as she slept. Consequently, the rest of the shopping trip consisted of trying to hold her hood over her head (so she was in the dark), at the same time holding the ting-ting in her mouth and bouncing her back to sleep. It was less than successful, so she was near hysterics when we got into the car. I decided to try making really silly, smiley faces at her, and she was pretty easily distracted from her tears.

I worry sometimes that she won't actually learn to soothe herself if I don't allow her to cam down on her own, but I also worry that I will go batshit crazy if I have to listen to her scream and cry on the drive home. Hopefully there's time to learn self-soothing.

We had brunch with some friends of our who have 2.75-year-old twins, and a daughter who just turned one year.  I got to spend a good chunk of time playing with the little girl, and was thrilled to realize some of the things that Frannie will be able to in a mere 9 months: crawl, put things in her own mouth, eat food that we eat, and make her wishes (demands) known. As tired as my legs got playing bouncing games with that girl, the fact that she could request it again and again meant I was more than willing to bounce her for many, many repeats of "Pop! Goes the Weasel"

And I spoke too soon.
Last night, she was up three separate times to eat. I don't know if it's related to my going to work, or just a fluke, but it was hard to be back in the newborn style of sleeping! I was drifting off while trying to get her out of the cosleeper - I haven't done that since the first week she was home.

Frances has been sleeping ~8 hours all this week. I know better than to think it will continue, especially since sleep often falls apart around 3 months, but we're enjoying it for now.

I started back at work yesterday, and so far, Frances seems to be taking the change well. Grandma Ellen was super kind, and sent pictures of her day:

Happy Frances smiling at Grandma

Sleeping Beauty

The biggest challenge for me is that, instead of feeding her when she's hungry, I'm trying to fit pumping into my already busy school day. Luckily, what I've been able to pump the last two days has been more than she's eaten on each day. As long as that keeps up, I'll be happy. Ish.

Frances slept 8.5 hours last night. 10:00-6:30. I awoke in shock. Not holding my breath she'll repeat that tonight, but...wow.

I go back to work in two days, and I'm planning (hoping?) to pump during the day. I got some nursing/pumping shirts a couple of months ago, and while I like the expensive special shirts, it seems to me that I could get the same result from some nursing tank tops (which I wear anyway, for coverage) and v-neck t-shirts. So we went to the mall this weekend to get a t-shirt for me to try, and perhaps I'll get some more if they do turn out to work as well as I hope.

How can you stand to leave something this cute to go to work?

 Frannie continues to love tummy time, which makes her relatively unusual, but I suspect it helps that I have her on the Boppy most of the time, and place her on the sofa, so she can look around at me and the rest of the room. This week, "the rest of the room" was only interesting if Olive was around. That pug comes over, and Frances is transfixed.

Frannie has discovered Olive. She makes Frannie smile.

Operation Early Bedtime update:
Last night Frannie didn't want to go down early, and I stayed up late working on Take One!, so I wasn't terribly inspired to rise early. So she napped a little after eating at 8:00, and really got up for the day around 9. We'll see how the weekend goes.

Blowout Preventer needed

I took my car to get an emissions check this morning, at the emissions center by Costco. This is just a few blocks from the Franz Bakery, so the area often smells like what ever is being baked - cinnamon bread, dinner rolls, etc. As we pulled out of the emissions center, I noticed the bakery smell, and thought to myself, "How funny, bread baking smells rather like baby poop." Now you see where this is going. I wish I had.

Since Frances was still napping, and we were near to Starbucks,  I thought we would stop in to read the paper and have a cup of coffee. Of course, Frannie woke up on the way into the parking lot, but she usually goes down again easily. When I  pulled the blanket off of her, I noticed that the bread/baby poop smell was a lot stronger. Not really a surprise, since she hadn't pooped in the last four days, and we have been waiting for a big diaper change. "It's too bad this Starbucks doesn't have a changing table," I thought, and pulled the diaper bag and Frances to the front seat for a quick change. It was then that I noticed the yellow stain on her right leg. And down to her ankle. And around her back. Uh-oh.

With the changing pad set up on the driver's seat, I started stripping Frances down. The gussets in her diaper had been totally overwhelmed, and her entire upper leg was covered in poop, leaving me to wonder, "if the leg of the playsuit is full of poop, is there anyway to get the foot out without getting the foot covered in poop?" I can now answer, "No." More's the pity.

Cleaning Frannie up would have been enough of a challenge had there been plenty of wipes, but of course we only had two left in the diaper bag. So, the extra onesie was pressed into service as a clean-up rag. Also the extra cloth diaper, while I put her into a disposable. I was putting the dirty clothes into the wet bag, and the wipes into a plastic bag, when Frances gave me a big grin and started peeing. She peed all over herself, the changing pad, and my seat (poor choice for a changing location). Luckily, I had placed the clean outfit on the back of the seat, so it stayed clean and dry. I put her into the clean outfit and dragged both of us into Starbucks, where I washed my hands, bought a coffee, and then headed home for a bath.

Thankfully, Frances respected my request to not spit up all over her clean outfit (or mine), so we avoided the full trifecta, at least for now.

Frances fell asleep around 7 at craft night last night, so the first night of Operation Early Bedtime appears to be working. One data point does not a trend make, however, so we will be continuing to follow any changes in the sleep department.

Up earlier - check!
Longer naps - check!
Jury is still out on the earlier bedtime.

Frannie was a trooper this morning as I kept her up after the alarm went off, but by the time 9 am rolled around,* she was super tired. So tired, all I had to do was put the pacifier in her mouth while I got dressed, and she was sound asleep in her bouncy seat. Unheard of.

*She usually sleeps until 10, so being up 'til 9 was quite the challenge - go Frannie!

According to Ann at baby class, the best way to get Frannie going to sleep earlier is to wake her up earlier. So we're looking at the end of "me time" in the morning, in exchange for "me time" at night. Unfortunately, tonight it looks like we're not going to get either, as she adjusts to this new plan. Perhaps this explains my raging headache.

Despite my best efforts, Frances has so far resisted any kind of napping routine. She usually wakes up when the alarm goes off, around 6:45, and then goes back down after Sarah leaves and sleeps until 10 or so. After that, her schedule is totally dictated by her, and different every day. Naps may last 20 minutes, or 3 hours. She may eat every hour, or take a 4-hour break between feedings. Result? I have no idea what to plan during the day, as I may have huge chunks of time in which to get work done, or I may not have to hit the bathroom until Sarah comes home.

She napped really well in the stroller yesterday, and the dog would love it if I would take them both on a long walk every afternoon, but such practices are not exactly conducive to getting work done.

We took Frannie to the Seattle Men's Chorus concert last night.  She slept right through the Women's Chorus concert when she was three weeks old, so we had high hopes for a similar performance from her with the men, but no such luck.  About two minutes into the first song, she started fussing, and Sarah spent the entire first half of the concert out in the lobby with her. I took over for the second half, and we agreed afterwards: no more big choir concerts until she's about 4. She can learn her concert behavior at school concerts, instead.