Graduation!

I've decided I hate blogging. But I keep doing it halfheartedly because it's the closest thing to a journal I'll ever have, and there is definitely stuff I want to remember about this phase of our lives. But if no one wants to read it, I wouldn't blame them!

Life has been a whirlwind since I last posted. With work, thesis, moving, family visiting, and a quickly-moving toddler, there is not a lot of extra time. We are currently looking at leaving for Florida in early August. Clark is finally finished TAing (forever!) and now gets to focus on thesis-writing full time. He's on a "5 pages every day for 40 days" plan. That's easier in the sciences than it is in the humanities, apparently. He can put in things he's already published, for one, and he gets to put in figures, which take up a good amount of space. He already walked for graduation the first week of June, which was nice because we had lots of family come to celebrate with us. We also all went to see The Lion King at the OC Performing Arts Center the night before, which was a really amazing show. Violet really enjoyed graduation because she liked clapping for all the people's names. The rest of us realized that it was actually quite boring, but worth it to see Clark be recognized for all his hard work these past five years. Clark feels like it was a little pre-emptive since he hasn't defended his dissertation yet, but that's just a formality. Right?? My mom insisted on telling the waiter at the restaurant that Clark was "my son-in-law the new doctor" and Clark got to hear about his medical complaints. The best part was, since Clark got a much-needed haircut and shave for graduation, Violet refused to go to him and spent all weekend crying "dada!" for Claron.

Violet continues to be more fun with each passing stage. She is firmly a toddler now, and quickly leaving babyhood behind. She uses a fork and spoon (when she feels like it), loves to run and play outside (unless there are bigger kids around), and has a keen awareness of the power of her own cuteness. When she throws a full toddler tantrum, it is preceded by her crouching down very carefully, getting on all fours, lowering herself to the ground deliberately, rolling to her back, THEN screaming and thrashing and kicking her legs. But she can almost always be coaxed out of the tantrum by a Fig Newton or piece of fruit, and most of the time if I just walk away she will eventually grow bored and get interested in something else.

She has a really amazing vocabulary by now, thanks to the Baby Signing Time DVDs. I know a lot of people don't let their toddlers watch TV, but these DVDs have done amazing things for her and I would recommend them highly. Each of the four DVDs has about 25 signs on it and Violet is close to knowing all of them (she uses maybe 50 of them correctly, another 25 she can recognize and try to imitate, and the last 25 we haven't seen yet - that's just a rough estimate). She is starting to try to talk out loud as well although it's still largely unintelligible. I can't get enough of listening to her laugh "giggu giggu" when I "tickle" her. She is definitely aware that there is a lot of stress at home and I have to be careful to keep focused on her toddler needs when she's awake and save the moving stresses for naptime and nighttime. She's such a social little girl I think she will do great with the changes. One thing she is NOT good at is sleeping in a room with other people or taking naps when there are a lot of people around, which has made the family visits a little difficult. Hopefully by the time she ever has to share a room she will have learned better sleep habits. But since my mom left and Violet has been back in her own room, she has napped for over three hours both days and slept great at night. There is hope.

Here's a bunch of pictures Amanda took with her lovely camera from graduation weekend.