Now that's a smile.

Two things make Elle smile more than anything in the world. 1. when Nikki comes to get her out of bed (only if she's already awake... if Nik has to wake her up, she is not happy) and 2. when we hold her up to our face and sing to her. huge smiles almost everytime. I'm talking like huge smiles, like I wonder if it hurts her mouth to stretch that much. So we've been trying to get one of these smiles in a picture, and finally we got close this morning. This is when we went in to get her up this morning, and she was a happy girl.

Eleanor is doing really really great. She's been sleeping through the night almost completely for the last few nights, and when she does wake up, she goes back down pretty quickly. She's also mimicking us a lot more. She makes this funny gurgle noise sometimes, so we started doing it too. Now, when she hears us make the gurgle noise, she does it back. brilliant.

Nikki and I are both keeping really busy. Nikki has been back at work for 3 or 4 weeks now, and we're starting to get the hang of it. We juggle the baby back and forth; so I have the baby when she's at work, and she has the baby when I'm in class. Nikki is taking one class this semester, and it's an online class, so she doesn't have to drive out to Belton this semester. However, she is having to study for her comprehensive exams on top of her classwork, working 30 hours a week, and feeding a baby every three hours. She's a machine. Here's the normal schedule, from my point of view:

6:00 - We wake up and hope that Elle stays asleep till 7:00.
7:00 - Nikki feeds the baby while I do some house chores
8:00 - Nikki leaves me to fend for myself
8:05 - Put Eleanor down on her play mat, sit down at the desk to start writing.
8:06 - Pick Eleanor up. She will have none of this "playmat" nonsense.
8:07 - Get frustrated cause I feel like I'll never get any work done.
8:08 - Remember that Elle is a precious gift from God, and feel kind of like an ass for getting frustrated
8:09 - Play, sing, and dance with Eleanor
8:20ish - Start trying to put Eleanor down for her nap
8:22ish - Pick Eleanor up. She will have none of this "nap" nonsense.
8:45 - Eleanor usually goes down for her nap around this time.
9:45 - pack up the girl and drive up to Nikki's work, where she feeds Eleanor
10:45 - arrive back home; go back and forth between playing with/consoling Eleanor and reading or writing at my desk
11:15 - Put Eleanor down for nap
11:17 - Pick Eleanor up. She will have none of this "nap" nonsense.
1:00 - Nikki comes home, eats lunch, hangs out, and feeds Elle, then goes back to work
1:30 - play with Elle
2:30 - Eleanor naps, and I work as much as I can
4:00 - Nikki comes home and feeds Eleanor.
5:00 - We go for a walk around the neighborhood
6:00 - Elle eats again, while we eat dinner at the same time
7:00 - bathtime for Eleanor
8:00 - Eleanor eats again, and goes down for the night. I go into the office and work for 3-5 hours. Nikki also works between feedings
10:00 - another feed for Eleanor, this one's called a "dreamfeed" where you don't actually wake her up; she just eats while she sleeps.

This is all subject to change on days when I have class, or days when Elle is hungrier than usual. It's crazy busy, but also fun. We're in love with her.


Elle's favorite pasttime is watching me study. I'm pretty awesome at studying. You should come over and watch me do it. (I know you're not supposed to put those Bumbo seats up on the table, but it's okay if I'm sitting right next to her. Back off.)

A very fly Baby Bjorn that our friends let us borrow. Stylish.