Watching the Ball Drop and Taking a Leap Year of Faith

Well, it's a new year, a leap year and an election year. Did you know every election year is a leap year? Gives us all one more day to put up with mind-numbing political ads. Here's hope for peace, getting our troops home, an informed electorate and getting that numb-nut out of the White House.

We had a wonderful evening with Fr. John Yonkovig, our pastor, good friend and Brigid's Godfather. He came for dinner the Friday before New Year's and shared some good food, some good wine and some good conversation. Tonight the girls, Margaret and Patricia, put together the gingerbread house he brought them. It turned out quite nice.

Our new year's was pretty low-keyed. Jack continues to work on the downstairs bathroom and he hopes to get some of the plumbing in tomorrow. I go back to work tomorrow, but the girls have tomorrow off, the last of their holiday break. This year was the first we let them stay up to watch the ball drop in Times Square. When you think of it, it's pretty anti-climatic -- the ball drops and then they say happy new year, see you next year. But they wanted to watch, so we had some snacks -- Jack had to work, so after I got Baby Brigid to bed a good three hours before the turn of the year, we watched the third Pirates of the Caribbean movie they got for Christmas. Jack got home in plenty of time to toast the new year, and then we sent the girls up to bed and followed them not long after.

Brigid has been waking up several times during the night lately. I don't know what's going on, but she's definitely been going through some kind of change. Tonight, at bedtime, she had a major meltdown that lasted a good 45 minutes. She sobbed and screamed and coughed and choked ... it took all my patience to sit and let her work through it. Then it was like night and day: she was bright and happy and ready to go to bed -- her own bed -- and I haven't heard anything since. That may be short-lived given her night wakings recently.

We've seen so much of her imagination lately, from pretending to feed herself and others from pictures in her book to pretending to talk on an imaginary phone. She'll say, "Hello? No, Bi-gid no" as if to say "Brigid is not here." She'll also play a game we do where I'll say, "Is this Patricia?" and point to Jack then say, "No, that's not Patricia," and do the same with everyone else. She's been doing it, even when no one else is around, just saying, "Is Ba-det? (how she says Patricia), No, No Ba-det." She'll do it over and over. It's adorable. She'll point to me, "Is Ba-det? No, no Ba-det." I'll say, "Who's this?" and point to her. "Bi-gid," she says, tapping her chest with both hands.

Jack took Margaret and Patricia out cross-country skiing today for a while and all really enjoyed it. We've been getting some good snow for skiing. They'll not have a chance to ski tomorrow since Jack will be working on the bathroom and I'll be at work. The girls will have to do some babysitting for us I'm afraid, but it will give them the chance to earn back some money they went through buying Christmas presents. Then it's everyone back to a regular schedule. That will be hard. Brigid has gotten used to having me, or rather, boob, around more than she has in months. She's been asking for it more, too, but that's because I've been around. We'll see how she does when we're all back to a regular schedule. I'd rather not have to think about it and be off for the rest of the week. Ah, well, only 359 more days until next Christmas.