Short update on the short one.

Well, Eleanor is now 11 months old, still has no teeth and is walking. She's not too steady, but she's practicing like she's got a marathon in two weeks. She loves it so much. I do too. I really need to clean the floor better. Well she is in bed and I want to be too. So that is all.

Fireworks? Really?

The craziest thing just happened. My baby just went to bed at 8:15. Most of you are aware that her traditional bedtime is 11:00 and that we've recently been able to maneuver it to 10. I dreamed that one day she'd have a bedtime at 9:30. But She passed out in my lap tonight at 8:00. Nathan said lets put her to bed. I said I'm afraid. But we agreed that it was way too late for a nap and if she was that tired, who are we to argue. So she went down with no extraordinary amount of fussing. We were in shock. Then, apparently there was an event at the riverfront that just had to have a fireworks display. Now, normally this is a really nice perk to our otherwise humble apartment - at Christmas festival, 4th of July, New Years, and apparently random events at the riverfront we can enjoy the fireworks through the window from our couch in the living room. It sounded like a war had broken out just 3 streets away. a full hour before her new and improved bedtime, she slept right through it! I couldn't believe it! I still can't believe it! Now I'm betting that the downside is that she will be ready to start her exciting day at 4 am or so, but we're not there yet, and I can still dream!

Thank you, Dr. Ferber.

Well, we did it. It's no fun listening to your baby cry, especially the first night. However, since apparently this method was tailor made for our baby, it went much better than expected and the usual 4 minutes of crying every night is TOTALLY worth the fun (not cranky) bath times, the pleasant (not angry) diaper changes and the generally improved mood overall. I love it. She started instantly sleeping all night, and she now goes to bed around 10:00 instead of 11:00. I bet we could make it even earlier. So yeah, should have done this months ago.

We also had a great weekend for the 4th, and she was even cheerier for that, even with all the traveling, different people, and screwy schedules. Eleanor even helped Mom with the dishes. Here she is sorting the utensils with wood from the rest. ...and maybe some forks.