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!

Renewing Vows and Unanswerable Questions

Just to be clear, the two parts of today's title are not related - I just have two short topics I am thinking about so I figured I'd put them in one entry.

On Valentines Day, Paul and I renewed our wedding vows while holding Audrey, who was content to try to dismantle the two roses tied together with ribbon that they had given us. The renewal ceremony was held at a Lutheran church on the southeast side, and most of the people participating were from that church, but a few, like us, had read about the ceremony in the paper on Thursday under "alternative things to do for Valentines Day" and called the church office on Friday to RSVP.

The service was at 2 pm, and Paul's story is that he got so frustrated with me complaining that I had nothing to wear (that fit, anyway) around 11:30 am that he took Audrey and sent me out to buy something , anything that I felt looked decent and not to come back until I had something. It took me almost 2 hours but I managed to get a black skirt. I couldn't even find a whole outfit. But I put the skirt together with a shirt I already had, fed Audrey, and we got in the car and went to the service, making it just in time.

My story is that although we made it to the service, I forgot my camera so we have no pictures of this event. We ended up waiting a bit anyway once we got there because they were waiting for one more couple who had RSVPed. The service was nice although I did have to get up and walk around with Audrey when the pastor made his remarks - a sort of mini-sermon, but still too long for Audrey to sit through. After several readings and the remarks, we got up to renew our vows. The church was octagonal, and had an octagonal alter rail around the central altar, so we spread out around the alter, facing our partners. There were 13 couples, and the pastor had specifically admonished us that we were to say our vows to our current partner and not to someone we happened to be standing next to as we circled the alter. One couple had been married 50 years that day, so they stood up on the alter with the pastor and he read the vows for them. The men went first, with the pastor saying "I, Don" which Paul quickly changed to "I, Paul" then..."take you, Roberta" to which Paul promptly repeated "take you, Roberta" I started laughing as Paul pressed on, repeating the vows and slipping in "Kay" in a few spots so he could assure me that he was renewing his vows with me, and was not in fact marrying Roberta.

After the service the ladies of the church had made a variety of valentines cakes - one looked like a mini wedding cake but others were heart-shaped with jam and the best one, a low-sugar chocolate cake. They were all very tasty, and people admired Audrey who of course put on her most charming looks for them. As I told Paul, I wanted to renew our vows because it was a sentimental thing to do on Valentines day, but also because I knew there would be a story. Or in this case, at least two.

Now, to close with the unanswerable questions. There are two, right now. One is "How's your dissertation going?" and the other is "Is Audrey sleeping through the night?" The short answers are "Slowly" and "No" and I don't really want to get into either!