Brigid says...

Brigid, when discussing her return to school next week: Remember when I was in school last year, and I kept telling Ms Peggy and Ms Daisy to look at baby Caitlin when she was awake? That was so silly.

Brigid, when discussing her nightgown of choice last week: Remember when I wore this nightgown, and I threw up all over it? I'm not going to do that anymore.

Brigid, when discussing our trip to Indiana in a few weeks: I want to go back to Papa's house, the one we took the helicopter to. (We've never taken a helicopter anywhere, kiddo.) YOU KNOW. When we were up in the SKY. (You mean an airplane?) Yeah. I want to go back to that house.

Brigid, as we walked through the toy department at Target: I don't want to ride in the cart,  mommy. I want to walk, so I can look at everything. Look at this, mommy! I'm going to add this to my Christmas list. It's a LONG list.

Brigid, the night before she left for the beach (pretty much out of nowhere...): I'll make sure I run through the sand when I get there, mommy. But I'm going to take my shoes off, first.

Almost...

When I rock Caitlin to sleep at night or before her nap, she always maintains a solid grip on my shirt until she's fast asleep and completely incapable of doing it any longer.

It's kind of the cutest thing in the whole entire world, EVER, which is almost cute enough for me to forgive her for keeping me up for three hours last night, for absolutely no discernible reason, outside of 'I just really want to be held right now, mom, so you're kind of screwed on the sleep thing tonight, mkay?'...

Almost. Cute. Enough.

(Ok, ok...totally cute enough. You're forgiven, you unsleeping little turd, you.)

The Fighter

Last night, near the end of the bedtime ordeal we have to go through every night to get her to sleep, Brigid elbowed me in the head. She'd tried to do it earlier in the process, aiming a nice little shot directly at my nose, but I'm quicker than she is, and I was able to block it. We had the conversation around how we don't hit people like that, and she needed to apologize for trying to hurt me.

She apologized. We moved on.

Fifteen minutes later, I was flipping through the book we were getting ready to read, and she caught me by surprise, landing a quick hit right to my ear. She's little, that one, but she's strong. Especially when it comes to elbows delivered directly to the head.

When she saw the look on my face after it happened, she told that she hadn't hit me, it was her toy panda bear she was holding. HE had hit me, and I needed to yell at HIM.

That, uh, didn't fly with me.

I ended the book immediately, told her we were done, and she just needed to go to sleep. WE DO NOT HIT PEOPLE. You need to go to bed RIGHT NOW.

She, of course, melted down. I yelled. She yelled. And the whole two to three hours I got to spend with my child yesterday ended with both of us upset. I rubbed her back to calm her down, when all I really wanted to do was finish reading her the book, since that's what seemed to be driving the sobbing. But. She had it taken away because she did something wrong, and I couldn't back down on that.

She might be stubborn, but I think I have her beat on that.

She was fine a few minutes later, sending me out of the room with a smile and an 'I love you, mommy'. Because, of course she can get over things just like that. I, on the other hand, remained upset that I'd had to get mad at her for hitting me. This is how they get you, I swear...

I took an elbow to the head, and I ended up feeling guilty that I wasn't happy about it.

Some days, I wonder how I'm supposed to keep doing this for the rest of my life, you know?

Big Kid

Watching Brigid's development from a little lump of a baby to the crazy and creative kid that she is today has been one of the greatest benefits I've received from being her mom. I'm still aware of so many 'viewing the world in a straightforward way' aspects of her personality at this age, seeing as how she just got a toy bunny that she named Bunny, to go along with her giraffe that she named Giraffe and her pony that she named Pony, but then there are those days when you can see the wheels turning in that little head of hers. And you just know she's about to blow you away with something great, something made even more amazing because you can tell that she thought her way through the process all by herself.

Everybody, meet Meatball, the IKEA puppy.

And yes, I  know that maybe I'm getting all weepy and OH LOOK AT MY BABY ALL GROWED UP about something slightly less than extraordinary, but COME ON. We went to IKEA last week, met up with some friends for a lunch of Swedish meatballs, and bought a stuffed dog that Brigid promptly named Meatball. IT'S CUTE, OK?

Maybe it's not much. Maybe it's not the big deal that I am making it out to be. But big deal or not, it's just one sign in a long line of them that points to the fact that my baby is growing up, and I am entitled to kind of overreact about that if I want to overreact about that. And I've never met anything I didn't want to overreact about, so...yeah.

She's just the best, I swear.

They're Real

I feel like I spend so much of my time trying to get actual, photographic evidence of Caitlin's dimples, that the whole process could pass for my own personal search for Bigfoot. I mean, I could tell you until I was blue in the face that she has them, but if you've never seen them, do they actually exist?

But she does have them! I swear! Look! You can kind of see a hint of them if you squint just right...

WAIT! I promise! They're coming! We're getting closer...

 GOTCHA! Dimples. My baby has dimples when she smiles, and it's adorable.

(Sort of not pictured: Me, making the worst of all silly faces into the camera, in order to get her to smile. I did the best I could to crop it out, because nobody needed to see that. I apologize for what was left behind.)

Dimples. Finally.

Weekend Shenanigans

Last weekend was our town's birthday celebration, and the Saturday night events included cake in the town circle, along with a free concert, various vendor booths, and fireworks. Or, as it was according to Brigid...FIREWORKS!!!!!!#$%#&*#?!!!!! Because, yeah...the kid loves her fireworks.

We headed over Saturday evening with a picnic dinner, and I was a little concerned, given how long we were going to be there, waiting for it to get dark enough for the fireworks, that Caitlin was going to be an absolute mess by the end of the night. She...was not.

Did you know babies (well, some babies, anyway) could be flexible in their scheduling? Did you know that if they get tired, those flexible babies will just...fall asleep? Wherever they are? I DID NOT KNOW THIS! I swear, I was the schedule enforcer with Brigid, and we never took her anywhere that would have her up past her bedtime, because I was sure that anything in the evening would ruin her sleep schedule for the month and a half following whatever that event was. And maybe it would have. But also, MAYBE NOT! Because Caitlin fell asleep on her bottle, and then let me put her down, still sleeping, in the wagon for awhile. Even with the music and the people and the general tomfoolery, she slept. And when she got tired of sleeping in the wagon? She fell back asleep in my arms, AND SLEPT THROUGH THE ENTIRE FIREWORK SHOW!!! She woke up on the trip home, but she went back to sleep again when we got her settled in for the night. I'm STILL in shock over how well that whole thing worked, even though she did basically the same thing during an evening baseball game a couple of weeks ago. I just don't EVER expect it to work.

Side note: Second kids, man. It is so much easier to be more laid-back with your second kid. Brigid is going to hate this, come the teenaged years.

And speaking of Brigid, she got her hair done while we were there. And she was thrilled...

It was so funny to watch her in action while we were waiting for the fireworks. There was a group of kids sitting next to us, watching something on someone's phone, and she just tried to make herself right at home with the group, squatting down in front of them to watch whatever they were watching over the top of the screen. It was adorable, and heartbreaking, all at once, because all I could focus on was the thought that maybe they don't want her bothering them? They were all older than her, what if one of them said something that made her sad? I am not READY for her to start branching out and trying to make new friends. She is my baby, and she should be happy hanging out with just her mommy. Forever. I DO NOT APPROVE OF THIS INDEPENDENCE THING.

Then two little girls in the bathroom line told her that her hair was beautiful, and she smiled the biggest smile I'd ever seen, and my heart broke into a million pieces because holy hell do I love that little girl more than anything else in the entire world (except for maybe the baby who was milk drunk and passed out in the wagon while all of this was going on...), and I will do everything in my power to keep that smile on her face as much as possible. 

I'm so incredibly lucky that these are my girls. I swear, I must have been someone completely amazing in my previous life to deserve having these two in this one.

Counting Your Blessings

Sometimes they make it worth the early-morning wake-up call.

Because I Can

I think it's in the paperwork they make you sign before you leave the hospital that when your baby is covered in hearts AND sporting some kind of Alfalfa-esque mohawk thing on her head, you are contractually obligated to take a million pictures and force all of your family and friends to look at them.

You're welcome.