word explosion

Frances is talking now--seriously talking. She's been saying words for ages but suddenly she says all the words, repeats everything everyone says, walks around practicing. It's like a word explosion. It's really cool. The words she's saying are more and more complicated, and she loves 3 syllables. Tonight at dinner she said "ap-pul-sas" over and over. On the way to the Target this afternoon from the back seat Frances would let out a little shriek and then say "outside" because it's an outside voice, as we say around here. And then she'd do it again. Shriek. "Outside." Mitch and I covered our mouths to keep her from hearing us laugh.

Sometimes I wonder if I should have had kids so close together. I do adore the boy, and that's a good thing, because if he were a difficult baby I would wonder this more often. But Frances is having a hard time adjusting... She asks for her sitter in NC every day and every day I have to say, "no, honey. She's far away. She's in North Carolina and we can't see her." And then she asks again. Today she woke up from her nap all a mess, crying in her bed asking for milk and juice. She wouldn't eat lunch which she hadn't had before the nap because she's been going down early these days, and she just couldn't get it together. Wanted to go outside, then wanted the TV, then wanted Dad, then her paci fell out of her mouth because she was crying so much, and she cried about that. I want to help her. I want to help her adjust, but I've got the baby on my boob and sometimes I just can't do anything. M says it helps her learn about what the world's really like, but it just breaks my heart. I get so dejected that I just sit and hold the baby and do nothing--let her carry on and get more and more wound up. Finally today M had to stop working upstairs and come down to jolly her out of her mood, which he did quite well.

She's all off her schedule. She wakes early and wants to take her nap early, but then she's a wreck in the middle of the afternoon. I've been trying to keep her up to push her nap back to its normal time. Yesterday she fell asleep on the living room floor at 10am and slept for an hour. Tomorrow the new sitter is coming and I don't know about her... I'll have to write about that next time. Finding a sitter/nanny for her is harder on me than I thought it would be. Will see how this goes.