4. PLAYTIME COMMENCES. This largely involves Frances throwing her toys around some more and trying valiantly to scale many items of furniture that are far too dangerous. So one of us follows her around, pulling her off the slippery ottoman and away from teh wobbly dvd stand (now more wobbly because all the dvds have been packed). We try to keep a clear path from the front door to the kitchen on the floor through all the bits of plastic strewn everywhere, but for the most part, Frances just does what she wants. About half on her own (the throwing and dropping of toys) and half with us (rolling a ball back and forth, putting megablocks together and taking them apart, letting her shove toys in my mouth and laugh, talking about things--sort of--as in "Frances, where's the ball?").

5. Around 5:00 pm, and before our dinner usually, Frances eats: 1/3 to 1/2 jar of veggies, 1/2 jar or more of fruits, a few pieces of cheese, some crackers or cookies, and half a bottle of water or half a cup of watered juice later, and she is finally full. Erik and I exclaim over how much such a tiny kid eats. Where does it go? Then we eat, while Frances looks on from her highchair.

6. More playtime. More of her on her own because Erik and I are exhausted by now and beginning to look forward to when she goes to sleep so we can crash. We exclaim over how much energy she has, and where does it come from? And don't you wish you had that? And is it possible she's getting sleepy? (The answer is always yes, but she never looks tired.)

7. Between 6:30 and 7:00, beginning to get ready for bed time. We get her in her jammies, brush her teeth while she looks on with wild and unhappy eyes (she has another molar now, did I mention that? Ten teeth), and then she sits on Daddy's lap in the glider chair to play the Happy Bee game. (BTW, she can now say "bee.") YOu see, she has a little lamp with a bumblebee on it, grinning hugely, and every night she demands to play the game where Daddy turns the light on and off so she can see the grin light up. Such fun! The pointing and laughing and grinning and bellowing! Look at that happy bee!

8. Daddy reads her a story. Pajama Time, Going to Bed Book, Goodnight Moon, something like that. Frances turns the pages and points at the little pictures.

9. I go in and nurse her again, and sometime on the second boob she starts to drift off. Between 7 and 7:30, I put her down in her crib, tuck her in with her little purple stuffed bunny, give her a kiss and wish her sweet dreams.

Of course it doesn't always go like this. Sometimes she is sick, or teething, or just wired and cranky for some reason. Some days we have to stay home. Some days she doesn't nap well at daycare and is in bed at 6:30. Some days she doesn't want to eat anything and ERik and I pull our hair out wondering why she's so cranky about her food and doesn't want anything, and she ends up tossing all of it on the floor (even teh buttered bread, which is usually a surefire hit).

And then somedays it's even better, she's super happy and I feel like I have energy for a change, and we spend the whole evening together playing our silly made up games. The kissytickles (where I kiss her a lot on the side and under her arm and she laughs loudly), the toe nibbles (where I pretend to eat her toes and she pulls her feet away and laughs loudly), the yawn game (where I open my mouth widely and pretend to yawn and she tries to stare down my throat and laughs loudly), the stick-out-the-tongue game (in which I stick out my tongue and wiggle it around and she does the same with a very serious look on her face and I laugh loudly), the belly game (in which I lie down on my back so she can hike up my shirt and play with my belly button and laugh loudly--or step on my hair, either is good), and so on.

But still. If I haven't posted much about our lives lately, it is safe to assume that the above is what's going on. A nice, safe, boring daily routine that does not make for great posts but which is usually a (tiring) joy to live.