out of the blue

It's been a long, long, long time since I posted. See, it's hard being mommy and dissertating (a made-up verb my fellow PhDers and I use to describe the process of writing our dissertations) at the same time, and I've been taking much longer than I had hoped or anticipated. I've currently got about 60 pages and need to cut those down to 40 and then write another 120... and school starts in two weeks, and I'm teaching three classes and working in the writing center, and starting a new fitness boot camp on Saturday and training for a 10K that I'll run on September 18, and... well, you get the idea.

Bridget is so... big now. Grown up. Big girl. She's over three feet tall, somewhere between 35 and 38 pounds, and 29 months old. She talks all the time, is pretty stubborn and defiant at times (gee, wonder where she gets that from?), but most of the time she's a fun-loving, active, joyful little kid. Not a baby any more by any means, and I wouldn't even call her a toddler—she just seems too old for that. Her current favorite movie is a Yogi Bear movie that I picked up for $2.75, and there are some scenes where she just cracks up—she has the best laugh when she's full out laughing. She has a roll/close your eyes at the same time and raise your eyebrows and stick your chin down face that's quite amusing. Her favorite toys are little figures—the small LalaLoopsy are some favorites, but Happy and Grumpy (from Snow White) topped those, and she still asks for them even though she lost them over a month ago. She loves her mommy (makes me happy :) and her daddy (even though she says she doesn't sometimes :). And although this is short and sweet, I've got to go—back to dissertating. 

all good things...

I've made up my mind: I'm taking the Christmas trees down today. I'm the type that usually gets them down around New Year's, but I've been putting it off this year for several reasons. One of them, the most precious one, is Bridget's morning routine since they've been up.

Since Bridget's been in her toddler bed (we switched the crib over on Thanksgiving day), she doesn't call my name when she wakes up anymore and I don't go in to get her. Instead, if I hear the sounds of her waking (or if it's just time to get her up), I open her bedroom door and let her get up on her own. She grabs Violet (her Leap Frog—I think—doggie that sings and talks to her), climbs down from the opening in her toddler rail, and comes into the hallway to find me. She reaches her arm out to me and makes a "come here" motion with her free hand, saying, "Come on, Mommy!" and waits for me to follow her back into her room. At that point, she says, "Tree!" and looks at me expectantly. (She has a little Christmas tree in her room, an idea I picked up from my friend Jen.) I walk over to the tree and bend down, and she says, "Wake up, tree! Wake up!" and I plug it in and on come the lights. Bridget smiles, turns around, and tells me, "Come on," again, ushering me out of the room and pulling the door shut behind her. We go into the family room, in which another small tree sits dark. "Wake up, tree! Wake up!" Bridget says until I get it plugged in and turned on. With the two small trees awake, she leads me into the kitchen and tells me that she wants her milk, which usually sits waiting for her, already warmed up (yep—she still likes to drink it warm).

Bridget takes a break from her job of waking up the trees to drink her milk while she's sitting in my lap and watching "Bailey" (Ben Bailey and the rest of the Fox 2 News crew), waving goodbye to the news anchors any time they're getting ready to go on a commercial break and saying, "Hi, Bailey!" when Ben comes on the screen (she's picked this up from me saying, "Let's watch Ben Bailey" in the mornings—the weather's what I really want, and ever since she was a few months old, she's always looked up at the television when he started talking). But as soon as she's done with her milk, Bailey doesn't matter anymore. She shoots her arm holding the sippy cup straight up in the air, indicating that she wants me to take it and put it on the counter behind me (our family room/kitchen/dining room are open to each other, and our couch backs up to the counter with some cabinets and our stove in it). Then she climbs down off of my lap and the couch and once again instructs me, "Come on, mommy!" We head into the living room where the big Christmas tree sits, and she tells it (or her monkey ornament, which hangs on it, if it catches her eye), "Wake up, tree! Wake up, monkey!" until I flip the switch to turn it on. Her job done, she turns to her toys and starts to play.

But like I said, the trees are coming down today. I'll miss the morning routine, and I'm sure Bridget will too, for a while (as well as the trees themselves). But my little girl is amazingly adaptable, and I'm sure she'll come up with a routine just as heartwarming to replace it. I'll just have to wait and see what tomorrow morning brings.

the story of the i love yous

First, let me say I can't believe it's been over a month since I posted already. So much for twice a week! But now, to begin....

Bridget can say so many words, so many sentences, ask so many questions that it's astounding. I've given up trying to keep track of everything, because she is truly a little talker now. But until last week (and still quite frequently), she absolutely, positively refused to say "I love you." I knew that if she wanted to say it, she could; she just wouldn't.

One morning when I dropped Bridget off at daycare, I was talking to Auntie (the one who takes care of her) about her refusal to say the phrase. Looking back, I'm glad I didn't hear, "Oh, she says it all the time here!" Nope. Instead, it was the same story: Bridget refused to say I love you. She'd repeat other words and phrases if she felt like it, but when it came to those three words, never. But the next day when I picked her up, I found out that they had at least gotten her to sing the (dreaded, since I always hated it) "I Love You" song by Barney. "It was so cute," Auntie told me, and proceeded to try to get Bridget to sing it for me. She wouldn't.

The next day was Saturday, and when I put her "down" for her nap (she has her toddler rail up now, so it's more like I close the door, she gets out of bed and puts everything she can carry—butt wipes, butt paste, toys, etc.—into her bed, and then proceeds to play for half an hour before falling asleep), I heard her in her room playing and talking to her toys. Suddenly, she began saying, loudly and clearly, "I love you. I love you, Barney."

My heart both melted and groaned at once. Hearing my daughter's little voice saying I love you so clearly was so precious—and here she was saying it to the purple dinosaur that I've despised for so many years (and that, by the way, she doesn't have a picture, toy, or any other type of image of in her room—this was all her imagination, apparently). Still, it was cute; she loves Barney and I've learned to live with it (although watching episode after episode gets very tiresome). But after her nap, she still refused to say it to me. Of course.

Later that night, Al came home and we ate and played like usual. Before bedtime, I took her in her room to change her diaper and put her jammies on (mommy—yes, that's me—always does a "jammie time" dance in a very poor imitation of Hammer Time), I asked Bridget again if she loved me. She said no. (I've gotten used to this by now.) I started singing the dreaded song. She said no, wanting me to stop. I asked again, "Do you love me?" To my surprise, this time she said yes! I clapped and cheered (she always loves that type of encouragement) and said, "Say 'I love you, Daddy,'" nodding to Al, who was standing in the door. "I love you, Daddy," came the reply in that twangy little accent of hers (no idea where she picked that up, but it sure sounds like she's got one). We both clapped and cheered, and it didn't matter that she didn't (and still hasn't) said the sentence to me. She's finally beginning to utter those three little words that matter most to us. And we love it.

my little trend-setter

Bridget's quickly becoming a trend-setter. I can just see it now: the latest buzz-word that's storming the nation, popping out of mouths everywhere, all started by an almost (in two days) twenty-month-old girl: Not.

Huh? Yes, Bridget's latest favorite word is not. She says a million things by now—I can't keep up and she surprises me every day—but what I hear most often lately, whether she's playing and in a good mood or just plain cranky and uncooperative, is not. And the context she uses it in is just so funny that even if she's made herself go limp and is on the floor trying to throw a mini-fit, I can't help but at least giggle and smile inwardly. Bridget's past her first no phase—she never really used it correctly, anyway, because she didn't know the word yes yet and would answer no to every question—and has decided that not is the appropriate word to use in situations that would normally require no. So: "Bridget, let's go change your diaper."

"Not!" as she walks the other way and continues to play.

Or in the car: "Bridget, how old are you?"

"Not!" as my tired, cranky girl struggles against the five-point harness in her car seat.

"Come on, Bridget, how old are you? What's your name?"

"Not, mommy!" in her most insistent tone. (This is when I stop teasing her just for the sake of hearing her say not.)

Like I said, trend-setter. Buzz-word. Not.

what a weekend

Our whirlwind weekend has come to an end. And what a weekend it was.

I've already mentioned that we were out of town at my Large MidWestern State University for my preliminary oral exam for my PhD (the step before writing the dissertation, the only thing I have left to do—well, besides defend the thing and file bunches of paperwork and pay bunches of money—before graduating for the last time in my life). It's a 600 mile trip, and as I mentioned on facebook, it's a lot longer trip with a 19-month old (20 months the end of this week!) in the car. But all in all, Bridget did wonderfully for spending approximately 26 hours on the road between Thursday morning and Saturday night. But, to my chagrin, we are no longer a Barney-free household.

Thursday's trip went fairly well. It took us approximately 11.5 hours to reach our destination, and that included two hour-long stops. But by the time we headed two hours north to visit some friends after my exam, Bridget had had it. The last hour was painful for all of us: Bridget spent the time screaming and pushing against her restraints, Al spent the time driving (and toward the end, telling Bridget impatiently to be quiet), and I spent the time trying (and failing) to get some rest. Our time with our friends Stephanie and Lee more than made up for it, though. Bridget loved Lee and spent most of the time taking turns banging on his RockStar drum set with him. My only regret about that part of the trip is that we couldn't spend another day and night—we would have all loved the time out of the car and visiting/playing with friends! (Another time.) But since we did have to get back so that Al could work on Sunday, Al and I made what I deem a very wise decision: we stopped at Target before we left town, bought a portable DVD player (I already have one, but haven't been able to find the charger/power cord for several months), and—gasp—some Barney DVDs.

Now, don't get me wrong. Now that I'm older and not in my late teens (which I was when Barney came out), I don't find Barney nearly as annoying as I did previously. And my daughter loves him. But she loves, loves, loves the Wiggles, and I would have much rather preferred their DVDs to Barney. But those DVDs are not in abundance at Target like Barney's are. Maybe it's the Australian thing—I don't know. But somehow, over the past five days, we have now accumulated five Barney DVDs and one CD—and only one Wiggles DVD, which I bought yesterday to provide some more balance to my life. And somehow over the past two weeks, my daughter has become a television addict like her daddy, always asking for Wiggles or Barney. And I really, really don't like Barney's closing song to every single episode: "I love you, you love me, we're a happy family..." Sigh...at least it's not The Elephant Show. I would put my foot down for that one.

Oh, yeah—back to the weekend—we basically spent about 10 of the 12 hour drive home watching Barney DVDs and arrived home—with an extra dog (my sister's) in tow—around 11pm EDT. Thank God for that extra hour Saturday night (and the safe trip home). We needed it!

easy-peasy

We took a family road trip yesterday and wound up in the middle of nowhere. On purpose, of course, because that's where the school that I'm getting my PhD is located. Actually, there's a lot more in here-nowhere than a lot of other nowheres, but I digress. The point is, we're out of town.

Our hotel room is great, and one I'll definitely come back to when I defend (the step after actually writing my dissertation, which is next) and graduate (May, I hope). It's a decently-priced residential suite hotel, which means each room has its own kitchenette (a place to keep Bridget's milk), a couch, and bedroom(s) (our room is actually a studio, so we're sans the bedroom, but still nice and roomy). Plenty of room to set up Bridget's pack-n-play. Only last night, after lights out, Bridget decided she'd rather play or sleep with mommy and daddy (whichever we'd let her get away with) than stay in it. Within thirty seconds of climbing into bed, I heard a quiet thump. Is that? I thought, and listened for little footsteps. The carpeting's too thick for hearing baby footsteps, apparently, but Bridget's not that good at finding her way around in the dark in an unfamiliar room yet. Next thing I know, we hear her bump into something (gently) and kind-of whisper (like she was trying to sneak around but got a surprise). With a sense of amazement in his voice, Al said, "She climbed out!" We turned on the light and there she was, smiling and very proud of herself as she tried to run and play. Guess who slept in our bed last night? (I'm just hoping she doesn't figure out she can do the same thing in her crib...and if she does, it won't be our bed she ends up in. That's a rule I'm firm about: no kids in bed with me at home. It does mean that I end up spending a few nights on the couch with her, though....)

my name is...

Yesterday, I taught Bridget to answer the question, "What's your name?" She's known her name for a while—she always responds to it and has even said it when she felt like it—but she hadn't told anyone her name in response to the question up til then. Even now, she answers "Gibbert" (pronounced Jibbert) half the time, since that's what the daycare kids call her sometimes. Now we'll have to try to get her to say "Trick or Treat" for tonight. Last time I tried—when we went to Zoo Boo at the Detroit Zoo—she'd only say "treat." What can I say? I have a smart kid.

It's been a busy October, full of trips to the zoo and the petting farm, and I can't believe it's only a few hours away from being over. Bridget's come down with a coughing, snotty-nosed cold, so we're only going to take her out for about half an hour tonight and then hand out candy. Of course, this plan came about only this morning (two weeks after I had asked Al if I should buy candy and he said no), so instead of contaminating the nursery with Bridget's cold, we headed off to Target while Al went to church. You'd expect the leftover candy to be on clearance at this point (especially since they've had Christmas decorations up for two or three weeks), but no. Full price. Guess those discounts don't go up until tomorrow.

I'm getting in on a lot of firsts with Bridget. Last year marked the first year we (yest, my first too) ever handed out candy for Halloween, and this year was our first carving pumpkins (we did three Thursday, and Mya ate one of them yesterday). Bridget wanted to play under the sheet we put on the floor,  wouldn't touch the pumpkin guts with her hands, and got upset when her spoon wouldn't carve holes in her pumpkin the way our knives did in ours. It's also my and Bridget's first year trick or treating (I was deprived as a child ;)). I have to admit that I'm a little nervous about it—I'm not sure what I'm doing! :) Luckily, though, I've got a cute little scarecrow (once again, I made her costume) that should capture all of the attention and calm my nerves. Here's to hoping she has fun!