The Audacity of a Hopeful Nation

I wept today, not out of sadness or pain but sheer joy, elation and pride – joy in the coming of a new day for our country, elation at the swearing-in of America’s first African-American president and the hope and affirmation his presence brings to the Oval Office, the country and the world, and pride in my country for giving me the chance to be here during such a monumental time in America’s history. I wept from sheer emotion of the moment, of what this means for my children. While Brigid was obliviously spending her day at Sibley in the child care center, an intelligent, eloquent and awe-inspiring man was making history as he took the oath of office to become the 44th president of the United States. It won’t mean anything to her in any tangible way in the way she sees things, but it already guarantees her a different future than one she had days, no, minutes before. Margaret and Patricia, witnessing history in the making in the auditorium at school, will experience the future differently, with more understanding of events as they unfold. Their lives will be impacted more immediately as they look toward college and beyond. They will understand the enormity of this election, this inauguration later, when it isn’t an aberration for a black man to not only run but be elected. Hopefully, it will also lead to the same realization for women – of any race.

I’ll pick Brigid, Margaret and Patricia up this afternoon like it was any other afternoon, but something will be different. There will be hope in our hearts and in our futures.

Yeah, But It's The Thought That Counts

Brigid's nocturnal proclivities have lessened a bit in the last few days. She's actually gone into her own bed -- the crib with one side off of it to ease the transition into big-girl bed -- most nights for the last week. She still ends up with us; you can't have everything all at once. But She's not bouncing back up like she used to when it was "the crib." She seems to understand the difference now that the side is off.

We are anxiously awaiting the arrival of a special surprise -- the toddler bed I ordered from Target. It's a pink princess bed, and I think it is going to make a big difference in her attitude about going to bed on her own. I had a wave of sadness roll over me the other night after I got her into her crib-as-toddler bed when it dawned on me that soon we'd be taking it down for good. I mean for good. We'll never again have a crib set up for one of our babies, and that's a sad realization. When we put it away after Patricia was done with it, there was the feeling that it was probably the last time, but the possibility existed. This time, it's done, and that is sad to me. However, that being said, there's no way I'll part with it. I'll unload the clothes, the toys, maybe even some of the books. But the crib stays. I know, I know -- people will say I'll be able to placate myself some day with grandchildren. I'm not looking forward to that time because it means the children will no longer be children. And I'm certainly not ready to be a grandmother, especially when I look at Brigid who's still a baby herself.

The other night, when I told Brigid, "I love you," while we were sitting in the big chair in her room before bed, she told me, "I love you, too." It wasn't prompted and wasn't expected because until that time, she hadn't replied in kind unless prompted. So it was a nice surprise and filled me with warm, fuzzy love. She's showing a lot of self-awareness and awareness of things that are not right in front of her. You can tell she's bringing up images in her mind's eye when you talk to her and ask her questions she has to think about. She's started to enjoy talking about school and her friends there. We'll go through the list, naming them, naming the teachers, naming anyone else who may have anything to do with school. It's part recollection, part stall tactic, but it's a nice way to have a conversation. You can tell she's visualizing the individual kid when she's trying to come up with the names. Then she'll say something like "We don't hit our friends," or "We don't yell at our friends." I don't know if that's just a declaration of her sense of right over wrong or something she's been told out of necessity. I just know she's right and agree with her.

We're also working on her not saying, "Yeah" to things when she means "yes." So now, very deliberately, she'll say, "Ye-ss" as though it had two syllables. She'll quickly add, "We say 'Yes,' not 'yeah.'" I have to check my own speech because I'll more often than not say, "yeah" to something. It just sounds so rough coming out of such a small mouth.

She's still very much into pretty princess things and enjoys dressing up. But yesterday, before church, she decided she wanted to be an angel, dressing in one of her princess dresses. It's a dress-up costume that actually has a bunch of fiber optic filaments throughout that light up when you push a little button under the skirt. But at 10:30 a.m. Sunday, I wasn't going to get into a big fight with her over wearing the thing to church, so Brigid was a pink frilly angel at church. You have to learn to pick your battles with a 2-and-three-quarter-year-old.

Bossy McBossy Is Back with a Vengeance

Happy New Year to friends and family who read our blog (all three of you). We had a very nice new year's celebration, with Jack being able to take New Year's Eve off. He and I went to dinner about 6:30 at the Butcher Block and returned in time for me to get Brigid to bed. I had picked up some things to make dips and snacks with for our family celebration. We watched "Apollo 13" and waited for the appointed hour where we switched to watch the ball drop, wish each other happy new year then went back to the tension of the doomed Apollo 13 launch. Jack worked New Year's Day, but the girls served at Mass, so that was a nice way to start 2009. We had Matt and Kristen over for dinner Friday night and exchanged gifts with them. I made shrimp pasta, enough to serve as Monday's dinner, too. Then John came over for a turkey dinner on Saturday. Gifts were exchanged, and Brigid was all over her Uncle John, only to drop back into shy mode the next day when seeing him at Mass. Maybe it's the vestments. They can intimidate anyone.

Margaret and Patricia went back to school yesterday after an unheard-of 16 days off at Christmas. I had the same 16 days off for vacation, but somehow it didn't seem fair -- my days get taken off my accrued vacation time. Theirs is just part of their school year. They go for another week and then have a day off for Martin Luther Kind Jr. Day; then another three weeks and then they have a week off in February. If only the real world operated that way. That stretch between February break and April, however, is grueling with very few days off. They can only hope for a snow day here and there in between, and it may actually be coming this week with the nor'easter we're supposed to be getting. However, that being said, none of the huge storms we've been slated for have really hit -- or at least have hit during school hours -- so for the first time in a long time, they haven't had a snow day before Christmas. It's too bad they can't plan snow days the way they can plan regular days off. It would break up the calendar a little more.

We've all noticed an explosion of verbal development in Baby Brigid in the last few weeks. It's impossible to document it all here, but suffice it to say she is carrying on complicated conversations and saying complex sentences with great gusto and meaning. She has also ratcheted up her Bossy McBossy persona a notch and a half over the same few weeks. Being able to express herself with more fervor has given her a new sense of power. She enjoys telling us all what to do in a voice that means business. Nowhere was this more evident than last night when I was trying to get her to bed. I had her asleep five times over two and a half hours and at 11 p.m. she was still fighting going to sleep in her crib when Dad came to the rescue and put her in the big bed in our room. Even though she was falling to the mattress in her crib every time she stood to protest being in it, she was wide awake enough at 11 p.m. to sing and talk for another hour in our bed. She got up with ease this morning. I'll be interested to see how long her nap at Sibley was when I pick her up this afternoon and/or if she's been a bear throughout the day. She may very well save that up for us later this evening.

She did tell me last night when she was in our bed that she thought there were monsters in there. I assume she said monsters -- it's also how she says "lobsters" but I have no reason to believe she thought we kept lobsters in our room. I don't know if the monsters observation was her attempt at stalling or if she has really started imagining things in the dark. She certainly didn't sound frightened or concerned, just pretty matter-of-fact, and when I told her no, there were no monsters (or lobsters, for that matter) she just repeated, "no monsters in here."

Even though her stubbornness last night at going to sleep caused me to have some grumpiness myself, I tried to keep in mind that she's a baby and it won't be long before I don't have to rub her back or cover her up over and over again or hold her in the big chair. It's a time I should actually be cherishing, no matter how tired I am at the time.