Two, going on teenager...

Brigid seems to have passed her lovely little toddler germs on to me, which is awesome.

(Wait, no, it isn't. It isn't awesome at all. It kind of sucks, actually. If she fights me at bedtime, tonight, I just may make her sleep on the floor with me again, this time for my benefit...)

So, as I seem to get in trouble for not posting every. single. day. anymore, and as I've been told that my posts are not nearly as good when I don't include pictures of Brigid...

Here:





That's all I've got in me, today, but I think the kid is cute enough to make up for my shortcomings.

But if this sickness thing persists on into tomorrow?

You're getting pictures of my dog dressed like a squirrel.

Yay!

Bits and Pieces

Friday, we took Brigid to see the Christmas lights on Lake Lanier Island. Well, first, we took her out shopping all morning, then we took her out to lunch, then we did more shopping, then we went to the Christmas village at the end of the lighted route, where we rode the carousel and a pony.

Then (once it was finally dark enough to make the trip), we took her driving through the Christmas lights. At which point, she immediately fell asleep.

Only to wake up again as we exited the park.

Good timing, kid.

------------------------------

Brigid's vocabulary is growing by leaps and bounds these days, but her pronunciation leaves a little to be desired. Yesterday, she kept asking for something that sounded like dog. Or down. Or frog. But it wasn't any of those things.

I was at a complete loss. And I told her so.

She looked at me for a moment, clearly annoyed, before she smiled and triumphantly yelled 'Bambi'.

She was asking to watch Rudolph all along...

------------------------------

There are currently three Snoopy programs on my DVR: The Great Pumpkin, whatever the Thanksgiving special was called, and Snoopy Come Home, which is a two-hour extravaganza.
 
The problem is, when she wants to watch Snoopy, she doesn't ask for a specific version of him, she just asks for Snoopy. So I scroll through all three programs, while she yells NO! at me until I pick the right one, then she graces me with a very sweet 'that one'.
 
And you'd better believe that that one is usually the two hour version.
 
Because, of course it is.
 

------------------------------

When Brigid asks for something, and you tell her she doesn't need it, she now responds with a quick 'yeah, I do'. And it's maybe one of the funniest things I've ever heard.
 
Sometimes, I tell her she doesn't need something, just so I can hear her say it again. And then I give in, in the end.
 
I imagine this is going to come back and bite me in the arse someday, isn't it?

Sick Baby

So, Brigid was sick this weekend. Sometime Saturday evening, while sitting on the couch at Steve's parents' house, she just suddenly started vomiting. Which, you know...fun.

The kid hadn't ever thrown up before, so this whole thing didn't go over too well with her. And it got worse as it kept happening, every 30-60 minutes through the evening, to the point that she'd start screaming 'no pot!'  at the pot she was getting sick in, as if it were the pot that was bringing on the sickness.

Poor, poor child.

Her and I ended up spending the night sleeping on the floor, because it was the only place I could get her comfortable enough to fall asleep. When I tried moving her to her crib later that night, she worked herself up so much, I was afraid she'd make herself sick all over again. And I definitely did not want that.

Poor, poor mom.

She woke up, seemingly better the next morning, although still pretty reluctant to eat or drink anything. She went down for a nap with no complaint (after sleeping on the floor all night, I can't say that it didn't seem like a good idea, to me, too...), and when I got her up from that nap, she was burning up and covered in hives.

Woo!

We took her to the urgent care office down the street from our house, and they checked a few things on the kid, before telling us she seemed mostly fine, and sending us home with an order for a Benadryl dosing. The hives disappeared, then came back. We washed everything she touched, including Steve, who had worn aftershave for some reason that day, when he normally never, ever wears aftershave around us. EVER.

The fever went down, then came back up, then went down again. We kept her up until almost 11pm to make sure the hives weren't getting worse, then checked on her at midnight to make sure the fever didn't need a dose of ibuprofen. She seemed fine, though, so we let her sleep.

And then, this morning? Nothing. At all. She's back to her perfectly normal, if slightly whiny, self. Go figure.

And do you want to know what the worst part of all of this is? Yesterday, she wanted nothing to do with Steve. Nothing. She wanted me to hold her, read to her, bathe her, brush her hair, etc. All mommy, all of the time.

This morning, she woke up asking for daddy. And she hasn't stopped asking for him since. So that's awesome. Sick baby wants mommy, fun baby wants daddy.

Go figure...

What better way to celebrate Thanksgiving Eve...

...than by posting pictures of Brigid and Santa Claus?

So, yeah...sorry about the holiday jumping. But to get in with the good Santa around here, you have to have an appointment. And the appointments start filling up in October. And if you don't head in early, you're stuck with the 8am or 9pm time slot, on a Wednesday, and that just doesn't work for any of us, you know?

So, happy day-before-Thanksgiving, anyway.

And a merry almost-Christmas-month to all!

Family Pictures

We had family pictures taken a couple of weeks ago, and while we're still waiting for the rest of the results, I thought I'd go ahead and share this little gem with you...

Personally, I think it's pretty impressive that my photographer managed to capture the general rottenness of my child, that little bit that's lurking just below her pretty face.

Now, if we could just see how the pictures of all of us turned out, I would be one happy camper...

{photo credit: Alicia Beasley}

Not yet, kid...

For all of the fretting I did about the fact that Brigid wasn't talking all that much when she turned two, it turns out that my pediatrician, who has only been dealing with children (including two of her own) for years, actually did know what she was talking about when she said we'd wake up one day, and Brigid would be talking up a storm.

Who'd have thunk it, right?

Anyway, Brigid is, in fact, talking up a storm these days. She will repeat anything that you say, which is funny when what you say is 'let's find a cheap buy', but not as humorous when what you say involves the words...oh, I don't know...let's go with 'damn it'.

(WATCH YOUR MOUTH, STEVE!!!)

(In Steve's defense, my language is not as clean as it should be. But as of right now, he's the only one who has caused my kid to swear at this point in her life...so I am nominating myself for parent-of-the-year in my household. Obviously.)

(Except for the fact that Brigid scraped up her chin by tripping and falling in the basement, and if you ask her who gave her that boo-boo on her chin, she will, in fact, say mom-mom. Just because I happened to be in the room when it happened. They may deduct POY points for that...)

Of course, half of the things that she says are only decipherable if you know the exact context in which she is using her words, which is why we had no idea up-ple meant apple, not up, and stee-vee meant Snoopy, not tv, until we'd been through 45 minutes of trying to hand her anything within our line of sight, and suffered through a toddler meltdown of epic proportions because 'OMG YOU GUYS! JUST GIVE ME MY DAMN APPLE ALREADY!'.

But it's ok. I'll deal with it, because living with a two-year old parrot is kind of the cutest thing ever.

Except, well...she keeps calling me mom. MOM. Not mom-mom (which she does most of the time) or mommy (which she just started doing last night), but mom. Just mom.

I...wait...what?

Sorry kid, I will not answer to that. You will not get away with being all cute, and loving, and daddy calling around your father, only to morph into teenager mode with attitude and a mom on my end. I am mommy, for at least another couple of years.

And if you can remember that, I promise to share all of my M&Ms with you, whenever you want them.

Mommy.

(See? Parent-of-the-year. I win.)

Where does one even find gypsies?

They say a child knows when they've pushed you to the edge. They say a child can sense when you are about to break. They say a child will reign in their bad behavior right about the time you want to sell them to the highest bidder. Or the lowest bidder. Or the person who didn't bid at all, but just turned their back long enough for you to drop the kid off and run, giggling like a supervillain, in the other direction.

Brigid should be feeling all sorts of things right now, then, is all I'm saying.

The bedtime wars reached comical levels last night, when Steve came in to tell me that Brigid claimed she would finally go to sleep, after fighting it for an hour and a half, as long as she could give me another hug goodnight first.

Suckers that we are, we fell for it.

And I went in to give her a hug, and she grabbed my hand, and she wrapped herself around my arm, and she refused to let me go when it came time to go to sleep, and Steve and I just laughed.

Because really, what other option is there when your kid is an evil genius?

Just so you know, I'm accepting bids for her in the form of Christmas cookies, now...

A girl and her dog...

Sorry, one more from yesterday...




And Steve claims that the two dogs currently living in our house will be the last two dogs that we ever own.

I'd like to see him convince this one of that...

I know it's early...

...but you try telling her that we can't start decorating for Christmas, yet!

The other shoe...

I've spent the past two years, trying not to brag about the fact that I've had the most perfect baby, ever, living under my roof, because I was afraid that simply mentioning what a good baby Brigid was would turn her into...well, a not so good baby.

But really, she was fantastic. She was sleeping for 6 hour stretches from very early on in this parenting thing, she took to a naptime schedule better than even I would have, if I was given the opportunity to nap twice a day, she could self-soothe without any cry-it-out coaxing from me or Steve.

The kid would wake up, and just hang out in her bed for awhile, before wanting someone to come in and get her up.

She fell asleep with a bottle. She fell asleep without a bottle. She'd interrupt storytime, or songtime, or just general cuddle time to request that I put her down in her crib. She'd send me off with a wave and a quick 'bye' when I told her goodnight.

She wanted to go to bed.

It was perfect.

And then she turned two. And it all went away...

For two weeks now, we've had a fighter on our hands. She doesn't want to get into her crib, and she doesn't want to be left alone. She wants one more book, or one more song. She wants me to sit on the floor next to her bed, or in the chair in the corner of her room, but then she wants to stand up in her crib and talk to me instead of sleeping. She'll lie still for a few minutes, before popping up with a smile and a cheerful 'hi, mom-mom!' instead.

And while this is, in general, ridiculously adorable, when bedtime is stretching into a two hour affair every evening, it's not as adorable as it might be.

And then, there's the screaming. The angry, high-pitched shrieks for mom or dad (depending on who put her down for the night), when she has herself so worked up, she's thisclose to making herself sick.

And I knew this was coming. I knew 'perfect' couldn't last forever, at least not on all fronts (because, really, she's still pretty much perfect in every other way possible, of course...). And I also know that this is a phase, which will pass eventually, and really, I should be enjoying the extra cuddling that I'm getting out of this situation while I can. And I am, to an extent.

But, still, gearing up for a battle every night now is starting to get exhausting.

Maybe I should just push her bedtime back to 11pm, and be done with it, huh?

Does this mean I'm doing something wrong?

Brigid's take on the Nativity:




I think we may have a few things to discuss this holiday season...

Nobody listens to me, anyway...

Could somebody please explain to my child that if she hadn't spent the week fighting bedtime, to the point that it was after 9-9:30 every night before she fell asleep, she wouldn't need to take an impromptu nap while out shopping with her father?

And could someone else please explain to my husband that the floor of a shoe store is the last place my child needs to be taking a nap?


Thanks for the help!

Quick Hits

I have been trying to pass on my love of Christmas music to Brigid by playing it for her in the evenings during the bedtime process. She's not buying into it, though. It's all Gaga, all the time for that kid.

I'm still not sure how I feel about this.

------------------------------

I took all of the Halloween decorations down to the basement last night, and the pile of boxes that need to be put away? Well, it's a big one.

But then I looked at the pile of Christmas decorations that I wanted to bring up so I could start the next holiday decorating process. And it's even bigger. And I didn't even know where to start. So I just went to bed.

(There's a reason I start my holiday decorating so early...it's going to take me at least a month to get everything up, I think.)

------------------------------We're taking family pictures this weekend! Outside! In the pretty leaves!

Right after today's forecasted rain comes through and knocks all of those pretty leaves off of the trees...

------------------------------

Do you know how hard it is to coordinate outfits for a family picture? Without resorting to white shirts and khaki pants?

I still have NO IDEA what I'm going to wear for the big event. If you see pictures of just Steve and Brigid floating around, you'll know it's because I gave up trying to dress myself and just sent them off to the photographer alone.

------------------------------

Steve taught Brigid how to call me a butthead the other night. So, that was awesome.

She can call me names, of course, but the only response I get when I say 'love you, Bug!' is a dismissive 'yeah'.

Like, 'Of course you do, woman. Now go get me some candy!'

Man, toddlers are fun.

------------------------------

Trick-or-Treat

So...Halloween.

I feel like I talked about this whole holiday a lot leading up to the main event, including posting pictures of our decorations and Brigid's costume, so anything I have to say now may be a bit anti-climactic.

But, when has that ever stopped me from talking before, right?

The kid, I think, had mixed emotions about the whole process of trick-or-treating. On one hand, there were strangers. That she had to walk toward. And maybe even interact with a little bit. On the other hand, there was candy. And Brigid does like her candy.

So, she compromised...

She wouldn't walk up to anyone's house without holding my hand (a practice I fully supported, by the way), and she wasn't too keen on letting go of my hand, even to take a piece of candy when offered, but she still managed to figure out a way to grab the candy with the same hand her bucket was hanging from and flip it back toward the bucket, all without losing a single piece. It was a masterful performance. I will never again have to worry about my toddler's dexterity, I think.

I couldn't get her to say trick-or-treat, or thank-you, or Happy Halloween, or even hello and good-bye to anyone along the way. In fact, I don't think she opened her mouth once in all of the 10-15 houses that we visited, although I was at least able to get her to wave bye-bye to people by the end. And I'm pretty sure that's just because she thought she should probably do something nice for all of the people who were giving her free candy.

When we headed back to our own house after awhile, Brigid loved seeing our decorations all lit up in the dark, but she hated the animatronic jumping spider that Steve set on several unsuspecting children over the course of the evening. In fact, she hated it to the point that at the end of the night, when he'd set it off, our kid was the only one who screamed.

We figured she was probably about over the whole Halloween spectacle by that point, anyway, so Steve took her in to watch It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown to make it up to her, while I finished up with the trick-or-treaters.

(My neighborhood is apparently THE PLACE to trick-or-treat in the area, because we must have had at least 300 kids come by over the course of 2 1/2 hours. I mean, we have a lot of kids in our neighborhood and all, but we don't have THAT many...)

Then Brigid went to bed, and we took down all of the Halloween decorations so I could start decorating for the real holidays.*

THE END.

*I kid, I kid! I love Halloween, and I do consider it a real holiday, I promise. I just really, really, really love Christmas decorations.

See? I can say no when I need to...

Actually, I'm still not really sure if I can say no to my kid or not, because technically, Brigid never asked for this horse. She was just more than happy to roll around on the floor of the local Toys 'R Us on it, while Steve and I stood there, taking pictures of her like idiots.

But we were able to get in and out of the store, with only diapers and a present for the next door neighbor, without a complete meltdown, so I count that as a parenting win for the week.

(And I'm definitely not mentioning the fact that we bribed her to behave with a couple of Skittles along the way, because it was Halloween weekend, and the salesperson gave them to her as we walked in, and it wasn't my idea, so it totally doesn't count. We still win.)









Also, the Style Lush 2011 Holiday Gift Guide is up today, so if you need great gift ideas for anyone in your family at under $25 each, you should definitely stop by and check it out. It's all kinds of awesome...