Just as Predicted, Brigid is Unpredictable

Well, the bacitracin and A&D ointment seems to have done the trick. Brigid's bottom is on the mend and so is her disposition. She's had a few elimination issues over the last couple of days, but nothing to equal what she had gone through. She also had a very difficult poop yesterday, but I think that's because we went a complete 180 degrees on her because of the awful time she had over the weekend. But all's well and her end's well.

She did have another bloody nose incident Sunday before dinner. This time she bonked her nose on one of the love seats in the living room and that same nostril just opened up and let loose. She must have some kind of thinning of blood vessels up there because she couldn't have hit her face that hard, but it sure did bleed. And I had as difficult a time trying to get her to calm down and let me clean her up as I had before, which means it was a bloody mess.

Yesterday we had neither blood nor stool to contend with, so I'm hoping bodily fluids and solids have all retreated to their neutral corners for a while.

In the meantime, I forgot to wish Brigid a happy 19th-month birthday on Friday, the 12th. Our year-and-a-half-year-old has emerged on the other side on her way to being two. And she's got the temperment to go with it. She vascillates between being a joy to being a tyrant. She will hit with no warning or she'll come up and hug your legs just because. She'll be pointing out your various facial features, then haul off and smack you between the eyes. I've actually had to put her in an abbreviated time out a few times this past week for hitting her sisters. Then she'll be remorseful and hug them, only to strike out at them a few minutes later. Typical 18-month-old behavior.

Her vocabulary is getting wider, and she's getting easier to understand in her words and her demands. "Tee" is TV, and it's very easy to understand when she wants to see "Shrek." A-dah a-dah a-dah repeated over and over means I want I want I want. That's essentially all she needs to get along in life, the ability to request television viewing and to point out what she wants. She'll excell in all she attempts.

She says her sisters' names with glee when she sees them and runs to them with arms outstretched. She just loves being with her sisters. Margaret may be veering away from her enthusiasm at being the oldest big sister. I've detected a little reluctance in her demeanor when she's been asked to watch her baby sister lately, and that is probably to be expected at this age. Brigid is very fun to be around except when she's not, and it's hard to figure out how to nudge her back into being fun when she's turned the corner.

We are in the process of applying to the Clinton Community College Child Care Center for a part-time slot for Brigid. They can take her on Tuesdays and Fridays for a few hours a day, and although we probably don't need Friday -- being Jack's day off -- we want to get our foot in the door for future openings. I don't know how she'll react to being at a center for any length of time. Jack brings her to the babysitting at the YMCA when he goes to work out, but that's an hour at a time, and when he picks her up she is more than ready to leave. Brigid is such a creature of habit, she insists -- loudly by saying, "Buuck" -- that she wants to go to the library after babysitting at the Y. The library is conveniently located across the street from the Y, and Jack may have made the mistake of showing his determined daughter how accessible it is one too many times. She pitches a fit if it's not part of the day's plan. And she has her own routine once she gets to the library, too. As soon as she's at the bottom of the stairs leading into the children's room, she'll take off and propel herself into the little corral of cushions that make up a reading area, whether there are people sitting there or not. Then she'll run over to the other corner and has on occasion knocked down the block projects of other little kids. She can be a menace.

She is, as I said, a creature of habit. When dinner is over and the dishes are being done, she'll stand and say, "baach" over and over and run to the hallway door, indicating it's time for her bath. If you don't respond quickly enough, or if it's not a night for a baach, she gets very upset. Last night, I went over to the Press to do my calendar and Jack stayed at home long enough to give her a baach. When I got home (after he returned to work) she was all bathed and in her pajamas, but when I said, "Mmm, you smell like you had a bath!" she wriggled from my arms, ran to the doorway of the hall and started crying out for baach baach baach. When I told her she had already had a bath, she got very upset and cried very hard until we could distract her with something else.

She is also proficient at getting her chubby little hands on things she shouldn't -- and she knows she shouldn't, as evidenced by her abrupt stopping of whatever she isn't supposed to be doing. I walked out to find her trying to manuever the computer mouse and/or keyboard several times yesterday. She dropped the plan and took off each time, running in the opposite direction. She's started climbing on the arm of the stuffed chair in her room in order to reach books on the built-in bookshelf. I removed the books from the lower two shelves, but she's climbing up to reach the next shelf. I'm afraid she'll just forego the arm of the chair and start using the shelves as ladder rungs on her way to the top. The monkey just won't quit. She certainly is giving us a run for our money, but then again, it's a price worth paying.