Moments

This weekend, Arya was at Empire with Hanna and Andrew, so I only got to see her in passing. They dropped by on Thursday to pick up her airbed, and then on Sunday night to crash.

I went out to meet them on Thursday; Arya saw me and ran towards me calling "Daddy Luuuke!" That was awesome. On Sunday I put her to bed and then we hung out a little in the morning putting slippers onto Dr Bear. Both times she refused to give me a goodbye hug, or kiss, or even to say goodbye; I am pretty sure she does this in the hope that I won't go and it breaks my heart to do so.

I saw Dragons!

I took this photo because she
wouldn't let me do anything else.

This weekend was our long planned trip to Norwich to see the GoGoDragons street exhibit. It... did not go entirely as planned.

Some of this was our fault; we left a bunch of stuff behind and I think we were overoptimistic in how much we planned to do. We also, however, got hit by Arya's shifting sleep patterns. She fell asleep on her way to Cambridge, at about 3:30, and didn't wake up until we lifted her bodily from the car to stop off at a Tesco pretty much for the purpose. This did mean that she got to see my parents when we arrived at Carleton Rode, but it also meant that she didn't sleep again until gone midnight, by which time Hanna and I had been thoroughly tried, wound up, and kicked or headbutted repeatedly.

Saturday was, therefore, exciting.

Patch was a particular hit.

We got the Park and Ride into the city and hit the trail. Well, actually we went to Boots to buy wipes and replacement clothes as she had spring a leak, eventually having to go to the nearby Disney Store for the latter, scoring a very popular Frozen t-shirt and shorts set (she is a total sucker for Frozen.) Then, finally, we were ready to look at some dragons.

Arya is suitably unimpressed with
Wonder Dragon; I think it's the
lips.

There were a lot of dragons, although I don't have a huge number of photos. Another of our oversights was a phone charger, so we had to pick up a cheap digital camera and most of the pics are on the machine at home. The day itself was a definite success, however. We met up with friends for lunch, and even while flagging visibly, Arya became quite excited each time she saw a dragon, and at the end of the day announced proudly to her grandparents 'I saw dragons!' I think her favourite was 'The Mother of Dragons', which was painted with other, smaller dragons, and had an egg in the curl of her tail, cracked and with an eye poking out, but she was also very taken with Tuppence and her coin scales.

She fell asleep on the Park & Ride, and stayed asleep back to Carleton Rode, where I hoiked her out and carried her around the end of the village fete for ten minutes to wake her up, then we had a play in the playground; a little swinging to get the old brain spinning over again, a go down the big slide with Daddy (we came off the end with a whoosh and a bump) and fun with the xylophone before heading home to worry chickens (and be worried by them.)

We had a light dinner with Granny and Grandad, then returned to Littleport. Arya declined to fall asleep, but went out like a light within about ten minutes of getting home.

It's important to be clear that this
was her choice.

On Sunday we went swimming, although I confess I am a little spotty on what actually happened. I was on the poolside and sort of zoned out. Since she might read this one day, I may as well note that she impressively judged her own body sufficiently to know she was about to pee, and thus refused to put her nappy on. Not a bad choice, but she was standing on the bench in the changing rooms at the time, so not an ideal one either.

We did some shopping - which, due to only Waterstones having an early opening included the purchase of a Batman Duplo set (phenomenal hit; within thirty seconds of constructing the Batmobile it was being driven off by the Joker) and a small, beanie version of the dragon from Room on the Broom, now dubbed Baby Rah - headed home, stuck the BBC adaptation of Room on the Broom on the box and dismissed all thought of leaving the house - or indeed the sofa - for the afternoon.

We didn't quite managed to stay put. We did go out to get some more Frozen cereal, after a tense discussion with Arya, and Hanna did a quick grocery pickup as well.

"I want more beckfas." (She does love her afternoon cereal.)
"We don't have any more, but if you wait until Mummy is up, I can get some more."
"Want more beckfas!"
"There is no more. Would you like to put some shoes on and we could go out for some."
"Want more bekfast!"
"I know, but if you slam your hands on the table once more, you definitely won't get any."

The aromatic delights of hot
artifice.

Ah, parenthood.

Dinner ended up running late for... reasons* so I reheated some chicken korma for Arya and boiled a little rice. Since she can be funny about things that come on the plate, I rinsed the korma tray and used that to serve it, with a spoon to load curry onto her plate. She loved it, and once again was asleep within a few minutes of settling, falling asleep across my lap and barely stirring when I transferred her to the bed. We just had the one bedtime upset, when I went to get more milk and she came after me because I'd forgotten to keep Baby Rah with me (while she held on to Daddy Rah.)

This morning she and Hanna went home, taking both Rahs with them.

We're currently hitting some obstacles in that she doesn't always know where or why fun becomes painful for others, and she seems to connect 'sorry' with an admission of malicious intent; like, if she says sorry we'll be all 'ah-ha! You are evil!' Which of course we won't, but it's uphill work. She is also developing worrying levels of sass, as well as an ability to sleep through any disturbance that I wasn't expecting until at least 13 or 14. We still adore her, but it can be difficult. To quote another discussion from the weekend:

"You're a trial, Arya; did you know that?"
(Proudly) "Yes!"

I said: "I'd better do some washing up and start dinner."
Hanna said: "There's no rush; she still looks okay."
Less than an hour later, Arya started bouncing off the walls with hunger and exhaustion.

Maw Sawbries

Having walked in our shoes (one of mine
and one of Mummy's) Arya felt qualified to
judge us.

Arya loves strawberries, but I'll come back to that.

This weekend, Hanna and Arya turned up early evening, with Arya already asleep. She woke up at about eight and decided that as she had already slept, further sleep was a nonsense. I tried to settle her, then Hanna tried to settle her, then we tried to settle altogether on the sofa. Eventually Hanna's endurance gave out and I took Arya back to the bedroom, where she fussed for ten minutes then passed out gulping milk.

Saturday was... exciting, even before we drove to Ipswich after Tumble Tots. For breakfast we had pancakes and strawberries, or in Arya's case just strawberries. I would pass her one, she would eat it, then ask hopefully: "Maw sawbries?" She still doesn't like pancakes.

In Ipswich, Hanna crashed and I tried to stay awake while watching Arya try on my shoes. It got a bit surreal. Then Hanna and Andrew had a pary to go to, and Arya helped Hanna with her makeup before they left. After an hour of trying to put her to bed, she insisted on sharing my dinner, but didn't eat any of it, and then after two episodes of Pajanimals went out like a light.

Anna dress height check.

Sunday was the Water Babies sponsored splashathon (a misnomer, as it's a pajama swim rather than an endurance event; she raised £107 for Tommy's.) Swimming in pajamas is really hard work, so good for her for having a go. Then we had breakfast, then went shopping (all with her in her swimming costume, since Daddy was rubbish and didn't realise it was a pajama swim, so that was what she had to change into,) and the rest of the day was pretty chilled. We watched Despicable Me twice, but she rejected 2 and we watched Frozen once more instead.

I was ever so sad to see her go today. She refused to say goodbye, I think in the hope that I wouldn't leave without, but I had to. I'm not sure I even remembered to give Hanna the leftover strawberries to feed her.

Park Life!

In the hot weather, Arya knows how to stay
cool.

Phew, wot a scorcher!*

I'm pretty sure this has been the hottest weekend of Arya's life, and the resulting slow braining (I suspect I may be part troll) meant that I got fewer pictures this weekend and had instead many moments of thinking 'that would have been a great photo'. Hanna was away, so once more Andrew brought Arya over late on Friday. We popped her in the bath for a wash - with especial consideration given to her feet, as she has a touch of eczema poor mite - which she pretty much hated, then repaired to the living room for Pajanimals, cuddles and thence to bed, where she opted to sleep across the foot of the bed, presumably to hog the cool air from the fan.

This obliged me to switch sides so as not to kick her off the end of the bed in my sleep. As a result, when she woke up at 6 o'clock, she crawled over, lay down facing me, pointed an accusing finger and said: "My side."

We got up, packed much juice and water and fruit and snacks, and headed to Soham for Tumble Tots**. Arya is turning out a proper little monkey in the gymnastic arena and we spent a pleasant 45 minutes pre-lesson chasing her around the entrance hall and explaining the concept of push/pull as it relates to doors. She's still a little shy, but less so than ever, and was excellent both at the activities and at taking her turn, even when the other kids might not be so good.

We have about a five minute window to change buses in Ely, so to no-one's great surprise we ended up having lunch there. Andrew kindly paid for Pizza Express, which has good pizza and nice desserts, but most important of all this past Saturday, really kickass air conditioning. We headed out for the 13:50 bus, only to find out that all those buses were delayed. After the countdown for our bus had reached zero and then vanished, we opted instead to head for the railway station and to spring the extra few quid for a ticket home for Andrew. Arya quickly fell asleep in her pushchair and remained napping an hour and half, even when we sat her upright on the sofa at home.

Hanna called and I gave the phone to Arya. She managed to put Mummy on hold once, but she also made the most delightful smile when she heard Mummy's voice and held something approximating a conversation.

As a red letter event, Arya read from a book; just a few lines, and maybe it was from memory, but still.

Then we watched the new episodes of The Clangers and I made dinner (rich, warming risotto, which seemed much less good an idea as we ate it than when I proposed it.)

Running in circles!

Then came the epic of bath time!

We did our teeth (and she did pretty well) and then I had a bath and got her to help me. She washed my arm and face with the flannel, the latter many times over while squealing 'Makka Makka!' like the war cry of a justly indignant tribal nation rebelling against the oppression of a great, white empire. Despite the fun times we had with this, she was very reluctant to have a bath herself, playing the old 'I need to use the potty' game and insisting on putting her slippers back on until Andrew took them away, but once the slippers were gone and I suggested a bath, she was willing - if not quite able - to climb in herself, sat down and had a good old time playing with the dolphin train while I washed her down. SUCCESS!

She was so happy about this,
because her mean parents wouldn't
let her open it in the dry or indoors.

On Sunday we had an actual lie in, until 8 o'clock. Once we were up we went to the park for the usual slide and swings and ladder climbing. She made it across the horizontal ladder between the two parts of the big climbing frame unassisted (just with two daddies hovering, ready to catch her.) She also had a lovely time being chased by Andrew and hiding around my legs.

Adorbs.

Then we walked home, as it was turning towards rain, which meant that she got a chance to actually use her umbrella, which she's been taking everywhere. I had my own brolly along, so Andrew carried her and she covered them both.

We watched Despicable Me 2 again (note to self, 1 is currently on streaming) and the Cbeebies prom. In the afternoon we did some baking, and I managed not to get caught on the train this time as I saw them off. I almost wished that I had, as I missed her almost immediately.

* While once solely associated with weather, this phrase has a double meaning for me as the words of a 40K Ork confronted by a particularly magnificent flamethrower.
** The school where this is done is newly rebuilt, and was wonderfully cool despite the heat outside.