Twenty-four short of twelve

Twenty-four hours short of twelve weeks, that is. These photos were taken a day before Frances' three month birthday.


I've got her propped up on her boppy (fancy pillow for nursing) for some Tummy Time. Do you know about tummy time? Tummy time is when moms put babies on their stomachs to encourage them to do push-ups in preparation for crawling. Only, all the babies I know hate it, so the moms aren't very good about getting around to it. It's basically an exercise program you can feel guilty about ignoring from birth! Great invention.

Frances' hands are her new best friends. She sucks on them whenever possible.

Three months down! Cheers to Frances!

Mark is back at school now, so there are going to be a lot less travel photos and a lot more close-ups of Frances. Not such a bad thing, yes?

Frances meets Francis

Mark had an afternoon free a couple days ago, so we went for a little drive out to Groton School, where Frances' great-great-grandfather went to boarding school. The school puts the names of its graduates on the school room wall. Can you see the name second from the bottom on the left? It says F. C. Grant. That stands for Francis Clark Grant, who happens to be Frances' mother's father's mother's father and also an inspiration for her name.


Frances rewarded her parents' effort to show her a bit of her history by falling thoroughly asleep.

"No, no...don't wake me, please."

"I really can't be bothered."

Frances loves Philly

Here we have another Surprise Baby Shower onesie, but I can't remember who made this one. Sorry about that. My guess is Beka, Fred or Ali since they stuck with Philly the longest.


The layout of these pictures turned out a bit strange, but her cuteness is still clear.

Whatever works

Frances has a major case of Put-Me-Down-And-I-Wake-Up-itis. Mark was wearing Frances around the apartment in her Snugli, trying to get Frances to take a nap. But then our new stroller arrived in the mail and needed to be put together, immediately, so Frances got deposited on the bed. Then I took this picture. Then ten seconds elapsed and she woke up. So much for the nap, but it might have worked!

Sunday afternoon in the park

Another warm day in Massachusetts. We went walking in a dog park near Winchester, MA. Lots of pedigree dogs to admire and an observation tower.

And, then it got dark and rainy and we retired back to the couch.

The last winter beach

For our last hurrah before Mark goes back to school, we went to Crane's Beach in Ipswich, MA. It was a beautiful 47 degrees; we even passed signs for a sled dog race that had to be canceled because of the warm weather. I thought we would have the beach to ourselves but it was quite busy, including three women on horseback. Mark picked out these photos.

Mark loves, loves, loves these videos. He's watched each one about eight 28 times. He's particularly fond of the snorting sound Frances makes at the end of the second video.

Is this kid cute or what?

New Toy! New Toy! We want to say thank you to BJ, Wendy, Josh, Carrie, Collin and Carter for our new camera. Don't mind the mess in the background (Morgan wants you to know it is a "clean" mess). Just wanted to show Frances off to our Family and Friends.

The "odd" noise in this first one is, uh...not what it sounds like.

Yes, that is Arabic. We were watching a foreign film for our Saturday morning leisure activity.

Frances' first visit to Maine (cont.)

After we'd seen the house, we went looking for lunch. Not such an easy feat on a Sunday in winter. We ended up eating Chinese in Bar Harbor. The only other restaurant patrons were an obese man and his elderly and frail mother. It felt like a scene from an Annie Proulx novel, but now we can say we've had Chinese food in Bar Harbor in January.

After lunch, we headed out to see the rest of the island.

The Park Loop.



A grounded dock at Northeast Harbor.

Northeast Harbor.


Yes, that's a loon in Northeast. We were very pleased to be graced with a loon sighting on such a short visit.



The yacht club side of Northeast Harbor.



Sargent's Drive along Somes Sound.



On Monday morning, we got ourselves to the Bass Harbor Head Light.

Mark picked this photo out...

And this photo...

Looking up the coast from the Bass Harbor Head Light.

And then we headed for home. We didn't see a moose, which was a bit of a disappointment, but it was a great trip. Mark said today that he'd recommend it to anyone, especially anyone with snow shoes. ***I have to add a note here: Mark is the same guy who yesterday said we should have a second baby before he finishes school in three semesters because the health insurance is so great. That would mean we'd have two kids under the age of two. Keep that in mind when considering any advice from him on any subject whatsoever.

The Camp: Sous la neige

(Mark was feeling a little fancy when he came up with the title for this post.)

After driving around Bar Harbor, we headed out to the camp. The roads were really good, but we didn't dare drive the Honda Civic all the way into the house. So we parked at the head of the driveway and walked down. Frances was a real trooper.

And this is what we saw:

The foundation next to the tennis court.

The tennis court.

The house itself.

The most photographed tree.

The dock, without the dock.

Baby Frances and the reef.

The house from the dock.

Looking south into the cove. It was a beautiful day really, not at all as cold as 21 degrees sounds.

Hardwood Island in the distance.

The woodshop.

The driveway on our way out.

Maybe because it was such a beautiful day, it didn't seem so different than in the summer.

Frances' first visit to Maine

After we conquered the cape, Mark and I decided to drive up to Maine and see Mt. Desert Island in the snow. I'd only ever been there in the summer when it's crawling with tourists and I've always wanted to see it when the natives weren't hiding from us interlopers. So, Frances got to experience Maine for the first time, at least the first time not in utero. (These pictures might not be very interesting if you've never been to Mt. Desert Island. Sorry about that.)

We drove up on Saturday night and settled into our hotel room.


Mark says he picked this photo because it included his two favorite things, Frances and a cookie.

But, I noticed it also included a king-sized bed. The wonderful thing about king-sized beds is that all of Mark fits on to them. His shins aren't left hanging off the end of the bed. Poor big man.

This was the view from our hotel soon after sunrise. That's the thing about having a two month old, you get to see the sunrise on a regular basis.

Here's what I learned about the natives of Mt. Desert Island: when they aren't hiding from the tourists, they're hiding from the cold. Bar Harbor on a Sunday morning was positively deserted. Granted, it was about 10 degrees out when this photo was taken. The high for the day was 21 and the low was 4.

This was taken from the erstwhile Port in a Storm Bookstore's parking lot, looking left up at Somesville.

Same parking lot, looking right up at the Somesville library. Notice the dock that's missing.

From the north end of Long Pond. I think those guys out in the middle of the pond were ice fishing.

More photos to come!