The post-dissertation-defense entry

So I have not written since December, but here's my excuse - I was writing my dissertation draft. Now that I have defended, and passed, and been told by my committe that "draft" was probably a generous description of my dissertation, and started my revisions, I'm taking a moment out to update whoever is reading about Audrey.

She is now about 21 1/2 months old (her second birthday is coming up in June) and while she is still sometimes hard to understand, she does use a lot more words. She still can't pronounce some letters, though, which leads to very cute mis-pronounciations. She calls Paul's flip-flops "bap-baps." Nana Mary gave her a stuffed elephant that we often use as a pillow when she's getting her diaper changed, and "elephant" comes out sounding more like "elli-floo." Her favorite stuffed animals are "Ow" and "Bear" (Owl and Bear). A blanket is "ban-keh," and horse (either the animal or the bouncing on the leg game) is "or-see." One of my favorites is "Got-chew" - When Paul would chase her or pick her up I used to say "Daddy got you!" and now she'll run away and say "Got-chew! More Daddy got-chew!"

On the other hand, some words are very clear. Mom, Mommy, Mama. Daddy, Dad. Audrey. Her favorite thing - dance! Even complex words like "pretzel" she can practically do, especially if the pretzel in question is chocolate-covered. (Pretzel! More!).


Other than talking, she's busy playing at day care, and hanging out once a week with Grammie and Grampie and one of her new favorite people, Paul's brother Patrick (Pat-tri). She's also a daredevil, insisting on climbing ladders at the park that look way too big for her, but somehow she manages to get her little feet from rung to rung (see picture), whith a certain amount of parental hovering, of course.

She's definitely in the "Audrey can do it" stage with everything from putting on her pants to brushing her teeth (although we have taught her that while Audrey gets a turn to brush her teeth, so does Mom, so she'll come up to me after she finishes brushing and say "Mommy turn." And she definitely knows what she wants, whether it's for us to dance with her (Mommy, dance! Daddy, dance! Nana, Poppa, dance!) or to buy some ice-cream from the ice-cream truck at the park (Mommy, ice?), or to not take a nap (No, no, no, down!). More fun to come, I am sure, and hopefully it'll be a bit better documented on this site in the future!