3 Things I don't want to forget

With the impending arrival of baby boy, there is so much going on, and so little sleep happening that sometimes my brain feels like Swiss cheese or a colander. So I'm trying to document a few things that have been happening in the last few weeks.

Thing I don't want to forget(tidwtf) #1 - ren fest

We went to the Renaissance festival to celebrate our 5th anniversary. It's such a fun tradition, and this

time all of us, even E, got to dress up.  I had to rent a costume, since pretty much none of my clothes fit, as little man has made me look and feel much more pregnant than his sister ever did. We looked pretty good as a family and the festival is so much more fun dressed up, especially with an extraordinarily cute kid with you, the paid actors all interact with you more, they fawn over the kid and give you things they normally wouldn't give to others. It was awesome.

E was our little autumn fairy warrior and she loved it! We have been telling stories about the fairies, last year she got a fairy stone from the face court, and our stoies are about how the stone allows E to travel to the realm of fairy and play with the fairies, especially Dog fairy and Cat fairy, so we were in the hunt for the fairies. E was enraptured by all the people in costume, a little intimidated by the more creepy/scary costumes like the dragons, but still highly curious. She would pipe up occasionally "they're just people dressed up, pretending, right?"  But this grasp on reality didn't hold true for the fairies, the fairies are real, and around them she could fly.


So of course when she asked to "fly" we let her. She barely weighed enough to meet the minimum requirements, and the attendant didn't even take our money until after she was sure the harness would fit. It did, just barely. I was completely prepared for her to get strapped in, go for one "flight", panic, and want down. But that didn't happen. The attendant started her out with just a little bounce and as she got more and more comfortable he started launching her higher. The higher she flew, the bigger her grin got. She LOVED it.  She looked so brave and fearless like a picture out of Peter Pan.

It was a fantastic day, filled with friends, elephant rides, circus shows, jousts, pony rides, 'fishing', 'flying', bells, flags and tri-colored icees.  E was absolutely spoiled by everyone.  The gold fairy gave her bubbles, the purple fairy gave her a new fairy jewel, the Owlchemist gave her a gold dipped feather.  Our friend's dad bought her a joust flag to cheer on the knights "Go blue!" The garland sales girls gave her bells to hang off her garland.  The Icee vendor let her have 3 colors, though he told our friend that they only gave out 1 color.

We searched and searched for the fairy court, visiting their throne room in the garden twice but were never able to find the faeries.  I thought E would be devastated, but she simply stated "we couldn't find the faeries, they were hidin' "  E lasted until about 3 and then asked to be picked up by Auntie Shelby (who she'd clung to like a barnacle all day) because "my foot is starting to hurt a little bit".  She got super comfy and cozy in Shebly's arms and then once she transfered to Daddy because we were leaving, promptly fell asleep in Daddy's arms.

TIDWTF #2 -sweet sister

E is excited about being a big sister.  She tells everyone there is a "baby in mama's womb"  or "I'm going to have a baby soon!"  She's already possessive of him. "That's MY baby"
Currently I've been sleeping on the couch because of issues with getting comfortable and E has moved into her big girl bed, with no baby gate on the door.  So when she wakes up in the morning she comes out to me on the couch and greets me with "good morning mama." and then immediately follows it with "good morning baby" and she loves to give him hugs and kisses.  She likes to talk to him, and expects him to talk back via mommy or daddy.  She likes to share her food with him and tell him what he will be able to do when he gets bigger.  She asks me quite frequently if she can "take baby out" yet.

She loves to play with his toys and pretend to be a baby, I hope that she doesn't get super jealous of him once he is actually here. She likes to go into his room and play.  The other day I went in there to put some clothes away and found a very sweet scene.

The rocking chair had been drug to the side of the crib and E's "baby ballerina" doll was tucked into the crib.  Her head was resting on the turtle pillow E picked out for her present to baby brother and wrapped up in a blanket.


TIDWTF #3 - Sleep (or lack there of)

E still doesn't like to sleep.  She actively fights it some nights.  We have kept the same bedtime routine since we started.   When it's time to start the routine we say "it's time to get ready for bed" now when we start to say it she interrupts and shouts "pway!" (play)

Once in bed she sings, talks, reads, plays with her water bottle, her "Rexy" pillow pet, her froggy flashlights, anything she can do to prevent going to bed short of actually getting out of bed.


Once asleep she is restless, she seems to have bad dreams, she wakes up and needs water (we keep a water bottle in her bed).  She wakes up and takes herself to the bathroom (win!).  She wants to be cuddled but doesn't want to be touched.  She cries for me, even when I'm standing right next to her. No wonder she doesn't like to sleep.

Tonight as we were walking out of dinner at dusk she noticed it was getting dark and began insisting "the sun is up!"

I pointed out that the moon was up in the sky, which she knows means it's "sleep time" and so she began to shout out "go away moon!" all the way home.  It was adorable.  She claimed that she was making the moon disappear by putting on her sunglasses.  We played a game with it where we would open the skylight and show her the moon and say "hello moon!" then she would shout "go away moon" and we could close the sklylight....we repeated the game all the way home.