Warning: Long blog ahead with no cute Brianna sayings at all!!! Proceed at your own risk.
When my job was first relocated at the end of September, I received many interesting comments since --for the second time--we had just moved to be near the place where I had been told I would be working for the next few years. I went from being dropped off at my office door by Paul on his way to work to being dropped off at a bus stop while Brianna was still asleep and going from the bus to a train to a twenty-minute-wait to another bus to a long walk to my office. I have not written that much here about this partly because I haven't wanted to write anything as ugly as most of my thoughts were, but mostly because --at moments when I could have pulled off a good Kristen-style rant--I didn't have access to a computer (another aspect of the work relocation)!
One of the things that someone said to me when we got the news about the relocation was something like, "Hmm. God must have really been missing His quality time with you during your commute, so now you'll have more of that again." Well, I completely disregarded this notion largely because I could not see past my own irritation with the inconvenience and energy-consumption that this particular mode of commute involved. This morning I'm thinking, Hmmm. And this is why.
Fortunately, my morning commute has just been greatly improved. Because I now need to start work a bit later, I can actually just go downtown with Paul and Brianna as they go to work and school and then catch a train and a bus (and a walk) to my office. This is so much better because I am now on one particular vehicle for a long enough period of time to feel I can accomplish something! And I don't spend as much time standing outside waiting!
But yesterday afternoon was a really rough commute home. If anybody had called me during the course of that commute (okay, not anybody--probably just anybody from my church!), I probably would have answered the phone with, "Have I mentioned lately how much Dallas sucks?" I was unprepared for the weather and stuck standing waiting for a bus for over 45 minutes in the cold wind with no shelter. (I finally ended up taking a different bus to a train station that was way out of my way and eventually getting Paul to pick me up on his way home because I couldn't face the long walk home in the cold.) Even in my disgruntled state, I had to feel a bit of pity for Dallas. It just doesn't stand a chance with me. Usually, I hate it for being so hot and humid, but yesterday I was cursing it for being cold and windy. The poor city cannot win. The main constant in my loathing tends to be the public transportation system, which I think actually just translates into Dallas not being New York City. I could write a rant almost daily on Dallas's public transportation system, but for today I will refrain because that is not conducive to my main point. If such a rant were on my student's paper, I would X the whole section out and write "off-topic!" Of course, I would do the same thing to these sentences, which is why they hopefully do not read this blog for examples of academic writing!!! Anyway, since we are leaving right after work today for a rapid road trip to Amarillo and I am doing the teaching at my church on Saturday night, this morning I was grabbing all kinds of books I thought might prove useful for prep and throwing them into a backpack for the car. Then I transferred the three that weighed the least into my briefcase for commute-study.
On the bus, I thumbed through one, "Glimpses of Christ" by Karla Worley. I was looking for some stories that I vaguely remember the book being rich in. And suddenly, these words so leaped off the page at me that I had to go back to them: "'Bloom where you are planted,' I've always heard. That doesn't mean 'Do the best you can where you've been stuck.'" Ouch, Karla. But I kept reading: "It means put down roots, estabish friendships, connect with your community. Live, as Julie said, in a state of 'heightened awareness.' I am right here, right now, for a purpose. Recognize needs. Thrive, don't just take up space. Spread out your leaves, lend beauty and shade, bear fruit. Bloom and release the fragrance. . . . Plant your life."
Good stuff. But the thing that really pierced my heart is that this is one of Karla's conversational-style responses to her interview with ME six years ago. (The "as Julie said," made me look at the context!) Many, many hmmmms. And a fruitful commute that I am grateful for, even in the rain.

This morning while Brianna was getting dressed, she called out, "Who can help me put my socks on?" I called back, "I will! I will!" When I went into her room and knelt down to start pulling her socks on, she said, "Thanks for volunteering!" :)
Last night, I went in to hug her goodnight, and when my fingers went under the edge of her two pillows, I felt something strange. I said, "What is that?" and pulled out her jump rope with the sparkly ends. She said, "It's my jump rope that Pat gave me. Not Miss Pat my teacher, Aunt Pat--granny's Pat who lives in Dallas." I said, "Yes, I remember who gave it to you. What I'm not clear about is why it is under your pillow. Remember that we need to keep it put away in your drawer so that the kitties don't eat the shiny streamers and get sick," I said as I put it into her drawer. "Well," she said, "I was just going to surprise the tooth fairy."
Anyway, Brianna is going to take a vacation. She is going to spend about a week in Albuquerque with Paul's families and then about a week in Amarillo with my parents. They'll bring her home as they come to our house for Thanksgiving. So she will be out of school for 3 weeks, but I will only have to give her up for 2 weeks, which still seems unbearably long to me! SO last night, she said, "Now wait a minute, do I only get to spend one day at Granny and Paga's house?" I explained that she would spend one day at Granny and Paga's house before Grandpa D picked her up to take her to Albuquerque for a week, but then she would come back to Granny and Paga's for another week. Then I said, "Wow! That sounds like a very big trip. Are you sure you're up to all that?" With a huge grin spread across her little face, she said, "Yes! I'm sure!" I said, "Do you promise to remember how much I love you the whole time you're gone?" She said, "Yes, Mommy, No matter where I am or what I am doing, I'll always remember how much you love me--because you love me INFINITY!"

Brianna is not happy at preschool anymore. SIgh. I know part of it is that she has been sick and is still just a little too tired to keep up the pace all day. But I think the real problem is that her class isn't learning things that are new to her. Because her birthday is in late September, she didn't start kindergarten this year. Okay, that's fine. I know how healthy it will be for her to be for her to be one of the oldest in her class and I know about not rushing childhood and all that stuff. But right now it seems like we have taken a bright child and held her back a year. Some of the kids in her class are just turning four.
I have considered the fact that if I do lose my job, it might be a good thing in that I could stay home with Brianna, and we could definitely learn something new every day for this one last stretch before she does start kindergarten. But I think she would quickly get tired of having only me around for so much of the time. And I love my job because I love my students!
I know I need to do something, but right now I guess I can only pray for wisdom about what it is that I need to do.

We were eating at Wendy's the other night and I had ranch dressing. So I asked Brianna if she would like to dip her chicken nuggets in the ranch dressing intead of ketchup. She did so, then looked carefully at the dipped nugget before eating it, saying, "I wonder how chicken nugget dipped in ranch dressing tastes." She ate then said, "Hmm. It tastes . . . familiar." :)
She went into our bathroom in a hurry a few days ago and then called out, "Mommy--there is clothing piled on the toilet!" My housekeeping monitor. "That's okay," I had to yell back,"--just pile it on the floor." What really got me about that was the use of the word clothing. I never say clothing. Another one of those clonks on the head that says, "Clearly, this little person is not me."