A song for Grammy

While I was making dinner Sunday night, Rebecca grabbed her songbook and started singing a song.  It went on for several verses!  Of course, I had to ask her to hold it so that I could capture it and send it to Grammy. 

It's like deja vu....but better!

On Friday, I was able to leave work early to meet up with Nanny Rebecca who brought Little Rebecca to me.  Rebecca and I then met Julie, Addie, and "Addie's bro-der Nu-cas" for lunch and some shopping.  It was like old times...except with a special addition!  Rebecca thoroughly enjoyed having Addie to play with and insisted on holding her hand. Unfortunately, Addie wasn't in the mood for tandem strolling, so Rebecca resorted to dragging her around.  Nonetheless, I think both girls had fun, despite the lack of napping that had occurred.  I don't think I had mentioned that we'd had the opportunity for a similar afternoon the week before, before Rebecca and I went to pick up my mom from the airport.   We had bought the girls the same dresses at Gap on that occasion and took the opportunity on Friday to have them match.  Are we ridiculous, or what?

The Woltils are in town to introduce the West Coast to Mr. Lucas Daniel Woltil, who is every bit as wonderful (and large!) a baby as his big sister was.  Ever the multitasker, Julie is also using her maternity leave to finish and defend her dissertation this week.  Good luck, Julie! 

Precious baby Lucas....

Some Rebecca-isms

Rebecca has learned what her parents careers are.   Any time she hears the word "lawyer," in any context whatsoever, she turns to Ramy and exclaims, "You're a nawyer!"  When asked what mommy is, she will say, "she's a sigh-caw-jist."  In the evening, she asks me, "Did you see your ki-ents today?  Did you help them get better?"

Rebecca is quite intent on being independent.  She is quite proud of the fact that she can do many things by herself and will struggle to do them even when she isn't really able to do it.  She was attempting to take many little pets and friends downstairs and couldn't keep them all in her hands.  I offered to help, and she said, "No, I can DO IT!"  I said, "Okay, well, if you need help, just ask."  No sooner had I said the words, she said with an utterly exasperated voice, "Mama, can you HELP ME, puh-leeze.  I can't carry all of these by myself!"  She gave me a look like I had forced her to carry an ox across the desert on her back.

Our daughter remains the queen of negotiations.  When Grammy is here, she is always asking how many days she will stay and is always arguing for her to stay "five."  When there are 12 days left of Grammy's visit, Rebecca tries to negotiate to five.  When there are two days of Grammy's visit left, she asks for five.   Just before dinner, Rebecca asked me for some marshmallows.  I told her no and that we were going to be having dinner in a few minutes.  She said, "But can I have marshmallows PLEASE?"  I informed that marshmallows aren't a dinner.  She said, "Well, how 'bout for a snack now?"  When deciding where to eat lunch out one day, Rebecca clearly wanted Johnny Rockets.  We said we could eat at Bravo Burger.  She said, "How 'bout Johnny Rockets?"  She said, "Or we could eat at Johnny Rockets!"  We suggested some other place.  "Well, maybe Johnny Rockets!"  Each time, she suggested it as though it had just occurred to her.

Rebecca has a thing about repeating herself.  She won't do it.  If she says something and is asked to repeat herself, she'll usually say "Never mind."  When pressed about it, she will say, "I changed my mind!"  No amount of cajoling will convince her to repeat herself.  Tonight, she was looking at a card that had all the Disney Princesses on it, and she was naming all of them.  I thought she said something funny about one of them, so I said, "What did you say?" 
"Never mind," was her reply. 
Me: Can you repeat it?  I didn't hear you. 
Rebecca:  I changed my mind! 
Me:  Why won't you say it again?  Are you embarassed?
Rebecca: Yeah....

Fast forward to us being at home and telling Rebecca to put her shoes away in her room.  She didn't want to do so, because she didn't want to go in her room, as it was dark (never mind that she can turn on the light herself).  She said, "I don't want to!  I'm embarassed!  Mama, you embarass me, all the time!"

Logic

Do you know of anyone who would go to the lengths of outright bribery to assure good pictures for a photo shoot?  Yes, you do.  Me.  I had promised Rebecca ice cream and a special surprise if she smiled nicely and was very good and cooperative for the picture session on Saturday (fortunately, the other two were teenagers and I didn't think I'd need that much coercion for them).  She promised she would, and she kept her promise, so I kept mine.  One of her most cherished Christmas gifts was a Zhu Zhu pet -  something that I bought totally without knowing what it was but just knowing that it was the hard-to-find toy of the season.  When I saw it pop up on a website I was shopping in the middle of the night, I ordered it on a whim.  She loved that crazy thing.  They had come out with new ones, including some "girl" hamsters, so that was Rebecca's pay-off reward for the good pictures.  Thus, "Jilly", a pink Zhu-Zhu pet with a tiara and tutu came to live with us.

Because the Easter Bunny doesn't come to our house on Easter Sunday until he knows we've gone to Mass, we had a little extra time on Easter morning to contemplate what the Easter Bunny might have brought Rebecca while we were driving home from breakfast after church.  As we drove, she pondered whether the Easter Bunny might have brought her another camera, like the one she got for Christmas. I told her that she already had one camera, so she didn't need another one just like it.  She said, "Well, I already have one hamster too but now I got two of 'em. Maybe I can have two cameras too."

Easter 2010

Not much better

Well, I thought I was going to do better, but not quite, apparently! 

No word on my dissertation, other than that my chair gave it a once-over and thought the first read was good...but he's going to give it more attention in "the next few days."  That was Tuesday, so I'd like those next few days to have already happened!  I'm anxious to get a date!

More drama at CONREP.  They found the guy who was the murder suspect...dead in the getaway vehicle, of an apparent and gruesome suicide.  It has really rocked our clients a lot more, and on top of that, there's been some other big drama with respect to the staff who left.  So just more general craziness there, and it doesn't take much to rock our clients' worlds. 

But three months from yesterday, I'm officially unemployed!  Hopefully by then I'll know something more specific about my hopeful job at FAHC!

Tomorrow we have a busy day.  We're getting pictures of Rebecca and her first cousins taken in Orange County.  They'll be a gift to Ramy's mother for Mother's DAy.  I'm really excited about it and hope she loves it.  There are actually no pics of all three of them together, so I think she will think it is special.  Then we have a birthday party for my friend Raquel's daughter Eliana Grace, who will be a year old.  

My friend Julie had her baby boy!  His name is Lucas Daniel, and he was a great big handsome boy.  I can't wait to see them next week!  Rebecca watched some video of Addie and her new baby brother and was thoroughly confused.  Although she told us she wanted "a bra-der AND a sister," she had apparently never realized that brothers and sisters come as babies.  Luckily, she doesn't have any brother or sister coming any time soon, so we don't have to worry too much about correcting that thought at this point!   

The end of March

March has absolutely flown by, as is evidenced by the fact that I haven't posted a blog entry in two weeks!  Grammy was here visiting for two and a half weeks, and we enjoyed having her here.  I hadn't been feeling so great (actually, the fact that I was cold all the time was the biggest deal) and learned that I am severely anemic.  More bloodwork revealed that there isn't anything wrong with my Vitamin B12 or folate or any of the blood counts, just that I'm iron deficient.  Now that I'm on iron supplements, I'm feeling a lot better!

The other thing that has taken up a huge amount of time has been that I've been working like a maniac to try to get my dissertation finished.   On Friday morning, I submitted a complete copy of it to my dissertation co-chairs.  So hopefully they'll review it, be in love with it, and will tell me to schedule my defense.  I'll feel so relieved once the defense is done!  It's been nice the last two days just not having it hanging over my head for awhile.  Hopefully I won't have many revisions or at least ones that are easily done.

I'm going to do my best to keep my blog in a better state of updates!  No news on my Redstone Arsenal job.  CONREP is in a somewhat more stable state, although it's still a different place than it was before the murder.  I'm on the last three month stretch of internship now, and it'll just be a race to get all my requirements met (although I'm in good shape on all of them).  I have to get my dissertation defended by May 29 and then the next deadline is June 13th commencement!   After that, I'll still have two more weeks of my internship, which I'll finish on June 30.  The end is in sight!

On Sunday, March 7, we went to California Adventure (the other half of the Disneyland park).  We got there early and were able to hang out with a lot of the characters.

We had lunch at Ariel's Grotto.  Princess Ariel was there to greet us when we came down the stairs.  Rebecca was very excited!

Here's Princess Rebecca!

Princess Rebecca and her fairy grandmother

Princess Rebecca's Prince Charming (and mine too!)

A family of princesses (HA!)!

Rebecca and Princess Aurora

Rebecca and Princess Mulan

Rebecca with Princess Cinderella

And of course, her favorite, Princess Minnie Mouse with Rebecca

After lunch, Rebecca wanted to have her caricature done like a mermaid, so we did.  She sat very still and calmly while they were doing her face...

 and then she ran around and danced while they did the body and the water.

Even Daddy got in on the dancing action

Our timing was just perfect, because as soon as they finished with Rebecca's watercolor drawing, we could tell that it was about to start raining.  We made a quick stop to get Rebecca's princess souvenir, just as the sky opened up!  She was ready to go to sleep, so that was the time to make our exit.

We're still here!

It's been really hard to blog lately.  Work is a hotbed of stress right now.  The sad thing is that it isn't the severely and persistently mentally ill clients who are dangerous felons - they're the bright spot, in fact!  It's just the environment in which we're working right now, which is just one hot mess.  I've actually given up on expecting that it is going to get better, and instead am just trying to survive until I'm out of it.  I feel much sorrier for my colleagues there who are going to be there indefinitely...unless of course they close the whole place down, which continues to be hung over our heads. 

I've been working on my dissertation in the evenings, because I have to get it to my dissertation chair and can then schedule my defense.  I have to have defended by May 29 in order to walk on June 13.  I am planning on getting it finished up this next week and sent to my chair and one other person by a week from Monday.  It's amazing how much statistics I had forgotten!  I had to teach myself how to run the program again. 

Things appear to be moving along appropriately with respect to my prospective job in Huntsville.  I email with the neuropsychologist there about once a week.  They had a visit from their HQ in San Antonio a couple of weeks ago and they must have give them some kind of verbal green light to proceed, because since then, she's been getting paperwork in to get funding for the position.  I'd really love to know something definite soon.  It would make it a whole lot easier to plan for the future!

Grammy has been here the past couple of weeks, visiting us while Nanny Rebecca has been on vacation in Hawaii.  We have been having lots of fun together.  Rebecca and Grammy have been lunching and cooking and playing and reading and having a grand old time together during the week while Ramy and I are at work.  Rebecca regularly asks her if she can stay for five (always five!) more days.  Since Grammy has been here, we've gone to California Adventure to have lunch with the Disney princesses (pics coming soon), to the American Girl Place, and of course plenty of shopping and eating out. We're also planning a trip to France late this summer in celebration of my graduation.

Daddy and Grammy took Rebecca to her three year well-child checkup.  She is perfect, just as we suspected.  She remains in the 5th percentile for weight and 3rd percentile for height.  She was 26 lbs with all her clothing on and was 34 1/2 inches tall.  She even did the Snellen vision chart and came out fine on it.  We're very blessed to have a healthy little girl.  The fact that she is beautiful, sugary sweet, funny, and of incredibly high intellect is icing on the cake!

Grammy's here!!!!