The Beginning of the End of Bottles (and Pumping!)

Clara's biggest news of the weekend is that she has dropped the 3pm-ish nurse, and thus, the 3pm-ish bottle at daycare, beginning tomorrow (an endeavor otherwise known as the Beginning of the End of Bottles--and Pumping! Hooray!). Hence the determined merriment upon her waking up from her afternoon nap. Yesterday, the first day sans 3pm nurse, Baby Bird had a big snack of bananas and Cheerios. Here, we pause to note that B. Bird LOVES her a banana (one might say she is bananas for bananas!). She is a relatively precise and neat, and a rather quiet eater. Very dainty. Julie felt pretty confident that Bird was ready for this no 3pm nurse step, but to be on the safe side, she had the hours between the end of afternoon nap and bed all planned out. Post-banana and Cheerio snack, the Birds went to Paint Your Plate, one of these paint your own pottery places. This particular chain could probably be nosed out of the market in a heartbeat given its completely lackadaisical approach to service, but for now, it's the only game in town. Julie was glad she'd gone once before, with Joe, when he was about nine months old, as she'd learned the lay of the land enough to fly solo on this critical Merriment Mission. Julie put Clara in the Moby and they painted a plate, a platter, and pedestal bowl (with Clara's handprints made to look like birds) for a little over an hour. As you might expect, Julie did most of the painting. Clara was much more the muse, and spent most of the time considering objects from Julie's bag that were handed to her, but the Birds had fun, and Clara didn't seem to notice that she hadn't nursed, so Mission: Merriment was a resounding success.