Bucket goes to college

Someday when my niece, aka bucket, fussbucket is big enough to ask. We will tell her the story of when she, her mommy, and I went to Indiana University for a conference.

We had a blast!

While mommy was working, we went:

[on the bus]

[to the student union]

to mcnutt hall.

We saw a lot of friendly people, said hello, danced and played. We learned bucket likes mac and cheese, bananas, being pushed in our stroller (even inside) shrieking when crawling at top speed in a game of chase, the wiggles, peekaboo. Bucket learned she could stand up for many seconds and (hopefully) that her aunt was not so bad. In fact, we spent a lot our days laughing – hearty full-on guffaws. I learned that I *could* put her to sleep, that she liked to hold my finger, that sometimes I made her cackle in glee and that those were among the happiest times I’d ever had.

I’m not sure we’ll be able to describe so she’ll have to take our word for it that the curls on the scruff of her neck and her belly button were two of my favorite spots, that her smell was sweet of milk and soap and the plastic of toys (even when she was dirty), that her squeal and smile sometimes came in the middle of tears or anger and spread like a rushing river covering everything, that my sister and I thought she looked like a college kid in her jean shorts and t-shirt, crawling about at blazing speeds, that everyone was talking about that “cute baby that’s at the conference,” that we put up with them calling you a boy when everyone could see you are a beautiful girl!

And mostly, that we loved you more and more and more each day.