Have a cookie. It will make things better.

Nora has entered into a phase of clingy, sleep-hating passion.  She wants to be no more than two feet away from me at any given time.  She is scared of random things; tonight she told me she is scared of waterfalls because if you drive your boat by one, you will fall down, down, down.  I managed to ease her fear by reminding her that a) we don't own a boat, b) we don't live near any waterfalls, nor has she ever seen a waterfall in person, and c) we will be certain not drive near a waterfall in any boats that we happen to ride in. Then I asked her where she learned about waterfalls, and she said Dora the Explorer. I'm not sure if I've ever discussed my hatred for Dora the Explorer, but now I'm fairly certain we simply cannot ever be friends even if she gets an outfit that matches and stops asking questions then blinking dumbly at me for five silent seconds.

Small but mighty. Since she prefers to be near me at all times,
she helps me with lots of projects. This day I taught her how
to use a screwdriver while we switched the direction of the dryer door.

Spiders are terrible. (But caterpillars are cool.)

Squirrels are worse than spiders. Well. Where do I even begin? We have recently moved to a new house (which I did not discuss on my blog because weirdos love the internet), and shortly after moving in, an evil family of squirrels followed suit, and nested in the soffit of a dormer window.  So we called the handyman, who came out, shooed away the squirrels, replaced the soffit, and left.  The squirrels came back, chewed a hole in the new soffit, made themselves at home, and had a lovely time. Handyman came back, shooed out the squirrels (but perhaps not all of them? we don't know), put aluminum over the spot where they were entering, left. Squirrels attempted to climb out the side of the soffit. Called the pest control company, who, it seems, have remedied the situation.

As you can imagine, this caused quite a bit of trauma with the littlest person living in our home (unless you count the unborn one, in which case, the second littlest person).  She now asks thirty-five times a day, "but HOW will we not get any holes in our house?"  And I can't say that I blame her. Squirrels are the worst.

Furthermore, mothers and fathers must not leave. She becomes very sad every time Ryan goes to work. "I am so sad," she says ninety-four times a day, " because I am missing Daddy."  Yesterday she asked, "But HOW do we get Daddy to not go to work?"  As if he is off to the bars for 10 hours a day rather than making the money for a house and food and a college education.  I remind her that I am staying here while she sleeps, doing boring mom things like the laundry and washing dishes at the kitchen sink (and raiding the stash of cookies); even so, she asks "but you are staying here and not leaving while I sleep?"

So we're in a phase. Knock on wood - it seems to be getting better.  Last night she only woke once in the night, yelled Mommy a few times, but before I could roll my gigantic self out of bed (this is quite a task these days), she had quieted and was back to sleep.  This afternoon she was happily entertained by a caterpillar crawling on a stick for a good 20 minutes, and even stayed outside while I quickly ran inside to get my camera.  (Lately I cannot go to the bathroom by myself, or walk to the closet from the bedroom to hang up a shirt without my little shadow following me.)   I am trying very hard to be patient and encouraging with her; to be excited about the lava lamp night light she picked out even though I think it's ugly; to read the thoughtfully chosen bedtime stories written specifically for this purpose - but today when I was outside trying to accomplish a little yard work (also a monumental task with a basketball belly), she had to go to the bathroom. We hadn't been back outside for five minutes when she had to go AGAIN, and this time the dog was in a tizzy because she didn't want to be left outside alone... and I wanted to yell "CAN NO ONE IN THIS HOUSE BE OKAY BY THEMSELVES FOR THREE MINUTES?"  But I didn't, thankfully, and shortly after the caterpillar saved the day. 

Thank you, Pabi the Caterpillar.

So even though sometimes I weep silently into my bowl of ice cream at the end of the day, when all is finally, blissfully quiet - all is well.  Another baby is coming and sure to wreak havoc on life as we know it, but his or her little head will smell so nice and s/he will adore Big Sister so much that we will get through it, and probably even have some fun in the process.