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...