olive's first restaurant.

Before delving into the adventure of Olive's first dinner out last night I need to publicly thank my husband, Tyler. I pumped a decent sized bottle for him to use with Olive Friday night so I wouldn't have to feed her. He committed to feeding and changing her all night and I must say, I have not slept so well since the evening of Feb 18th. T H A N K Y O U ! ! ! ! ! !

However, the prospect of a full night's sleep unfortunately kept me from attending the Fraser Autism Walk at the Mall of America. I have attended the previous 2 or 3 walks as I've been employed by Fraser for the past 3 years. I thought that the walk would be a wonderful opportunity to introduce Olive to my coworkers. BUT... sleep won... I think that's a very grown up decision on my part. Do you agree?

On to dinner...

Last night we ventured to the 50's Grill in Brooklyn Center with our friends, Brooke & Scott. Unfortunately Olive was a bit fussy before, during, and immediately after the trip because, after all, dinner is inconveniently smack in the middle of fuss time (5-10pm). Typically Olive calms when getting bounced around in her carrier, going for a car ride, listing to radio static, being carried in a sling, etc. Unfortunately these things seemed to calm her for moments and the fuss would begin again.



Tyler attempted to feed her in the car when we got to the 50s Grill but she continued to fuss. I relieved him of his duties and went on a parking lot walk with her in the sling. Typically it takes only a few seconds to, max, a few minutes to calm her in the ring sling. Last night we wandered around the 50s Grill parking lot then headed for McDonalds, down the sidewalk past the eerily empty Brookdale Mall and we found ourselves in the parking lot of a Goodyear where I had been on two previous occasions when getting tires replaced not when attempting to calm a baby. We circled that parking lot and went to check out the Pearle Vision next door when Olive finally seemed at ease. We slowly made our way back to the 50s Grill about 15 minutes later, stopping a few times to be sure she was actually asleep, and went inside to enjoy my chocolate banana malt and turkey sandwich. She woke up and got fussy once during dinner and calmed down and fell asleep as I was walking to go change her... so I didn't change her. The drive home proved fussy yet again so we enjoyed some static tunes on the radio in the 93.something range. Again, this worked only momentarily.

At home Olive calmed pretty quickly while having her diaper changed and was mostly void of fuss for the remainder of the night. hmm.

Coming soon: A post about why we think Olive is colicky and the methods we've found to help soothe her.

Do you ever sacrifice things that you want for something so uneventful as sleep?