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.
