Three's the Limit

Today I discovered that three days is about all that the girls can handle on our own. It didn't help that Abby woke up wanting Dada - at 3 a.m. Not only is is hard to reason with her at that hour, but it is hard to reason - period. I finally got her back to sleep with the promise that we would see Dada at a more sensible hour.

Once she had moved on from playing the guitar, she wanted
a drum set. We finally got everything just right.

Maybe it was the rough night, or maybe it was the fact that a mere three and a half hours later Abby was ready to get up, but we both got going in a rather rotten mood. She didn't have a lot of patience with how quickly Mom was fulfilling her requests, and Mom didn't have a lot of patience with the number of requests to be filled. It all came to a head when she needed her guitar (with the strap) and the microphone (on the stand). It doesn't sound like much, but the guitar was in her bedroom, upstairs, and the strap needed to be found. The mic stand had broken long ago and so the microphone needed to be taped to it. I grabbed the handy electrical tape, but it had apparently made one too many swords and the roll ran out before the job was complete. While I was running around trying to get all of this taken care of Abby was sobbing on the floor. When I finally lost my patience and told her that we would put everything away if she couldn't calm down, she tearfully apologized for crying - and I felt horrible. She clearly was exhausted, and just didn't know what to do with all the frustration she was feeling. With some snuggles and an "All better now," we got everything just as she wanted it.

With the way things had started out, I was sure that it was going to be a very long day indeed. I'm happy to say that the whole day wasn't quite so draining. We did have some fun during an enforced "rest time", and we had lots of laughs during the hour or so that we threw balloons around. There were other moments when things got a bit dicey. Bath-time was filled with quite a bit of yelling (Abby, not me), and we did have an issue with some apple sauce, but overall it wasn't such a bad day.

Jason got home safe and sound, and we were both very happy to see him. There was a difficult bit when it became clear that Abby was more fixated on the present she had been promised, than greeting her dad, but we had a little talk about that and she soon remembered her manners - sort of.

An hour after he got home from a long day of travel Jason, bless his heart, took over for the night while I went out and had some much needed "girl time" with a good friend. The laughter (and the libation) were good medicine for me after the day I'd had. When I got home, Jason reported that she was a good girl and that they had a nice evening together. He had arrived home just as we both needed him, and therefore all is good at the end of the night.

Our great beast of a German Shepherd is afraid
of thunderstorms. So when a particularly loud
boom went off this morning he "hopped" up on
the couch to sit with us. He is not allowed on
the furniture, but I made an exception here. Abby
was very good about comforting him.

Maybe he was feeling so grateful for the hugs
Abby had given him, but he was awfully patient
while she played dress-up with him.

Abby drew this picture of a "smiling man with
a belly button." I thought it was great! Not
sure where she got her inspiration though.