10/19/03 A lot has been happening around here. The big news, of course, is that Franciska Marie Tiede joined the family at 1:38 pm on Thursday, Oct. 9! I have some photos of her up on my website. Although they aren't the best, you can still see what a sweetie face she is. I have some (I hope) good photos being developed of Annika holding Frankie, and I'll get them up soon. Annika is pretty thrilled with her new baby sister. She loves giving her kisses and hugs, and petting her soft head. She is very gentle with her, and we have been really impressed with how she's dealing with the upheaval of a new baby in the house. Of course, she has grandma here (and grandpa, for the first week), which makes all the difference, as she's getting lots of grandparent love while mommy feeds the baby nonstop. Annika's progress in potty training has really moved forward since grandma showed up. She must have the magic touch when it comes to convincing kids the toilet is a good thing. Annika always gets a small prize out of the prize bag when she manages to produce something in the toilet. Last night she got a sheet of halloween stickers. She decided that she wanted to share them with baby sister, so she spent the next few minutes carefully affixing them to the back of Frankie's sleeper while she was nursing on my lap. Annika looked at me and said, "I *love* stickers!" She waited a few moments as if thinking it over and then said, "I *love* my baby sister!" Love has been mostly the attitude coming from her, although she did suggest recently that maybe we should put baby sister in the trash can. To gain the proper perspective, though, you should know that Annika thinks that putting things in the trash can is really great fun, and I think she was just interested in seeing how Frankie would look in there. She wasn't angry at all with Frankie; just thought that maybe putting her in the trash can would liven things up around here. Needless to say, we aren't leaving Frankie alone with Annika at all. Overall, though, I think Annika's reaction to Frankie has been better than we could have ever hoped. Frankie is also quite an easygoing child. She's easily comforted, and mostly content for a week old baby. She doesn't seem to mind Annika's noisy phases (when she decides that all words sound better if they are yelled), and really deals well with the chaos that is life with an energetic 3-year-old. That's all from here, as I'm too sleep-deprived to go on...