Nighttime Musings

As all of you know by now from my constant discussions of it, Charlotte still sleeps with me and I still have to lay with her until she goes to bed.  This is not what I imagined with a 3 year old, but alas, here we are.  At this point I’m just hoping as she gets older she’ll eventually grow out of it but my plan B is to buy a king sized bed soon.  Anyway, we’ve got this little routine down where she likes to watch a little TV or her iPad, tell me “my stomach is growdaling! I’m so hungry! Why do you want me to be hungry?” and I have to get her a bowl of pretzels, and then we lay in the dark listening to music and chatting.  I’m starting to really love this last part of the day before she drifts off to sleep.  The conversations we have are actual conversations and not just babble.  She talks about what she did that day and what she’d like to do tomorrow.  She asks questions and she sings along with the songs.  Last night she asked if I could go to the store after work and buy her more macaroni and cheese and then made an entire shopping list for me.  She requested macaroni and cheese, apple juice, pretzels and loops loops (fruit loops).  Then she took a minute and said “oh wait, daddy already bought me loop loops! I don’t need those, but maybe some candy.”  Then she asked me “when can we go to the fun place again? The fun place with you and daddy?” And I didn’t know what she meant and she said “you know, the one we went with dominim and anca!” Which is what she calls my friend’s children, Donovan and Bianca, and I remembered the fun place was Adventureland.  “Let’s go there again so I can ride the horses on the carabell (carousel).”  And then she asked me to buy her a real horse and said we could keep it in her room.  I let her watch the Belmont race and I think she’s got horses on the mind a little too much.

I don’t always love having to give up my night time free time to wait for her to go to bed, but these little moments of unwinding and chatting will definitely be something I miss when she gets older.  When she’s done talking she always curls into me and her breathing slows and I just think how lucky I am to have someone to love like I love her.