The end is near

It's officially been a week since my "baby" girl nursed before bed (although she's still nursing before her nap, except on Sundays, but it's only a matter of time before that's done, too). Part of me is relieved: I'm 7.5 months pregnant, and 2 years old is old enough to not be a baby any more.
But part of me is sitting here crying as I think about it.*  I will never get these moments back. She still loves to cuddle with me and spend time with me, but the day will come when she doesn't want to crawl up in my lap to read a book, or grab my arm and put it around her and say, "hold, please," or let me hold her and sing to her before bed. The day will come when she refuses me and wants to be a Big Girl, the day will come that she is a Big Girl, capable and strong. I look forward to watching her learn and grow and mature. But part of me wants to hold her in my arms, my baby girl, forever.

*Which made Calista look up at me and say "c'ying!," come up to sit next to me, give me a hug, and then feed me goldfish. I love this girl.

The Show-Me State

A few weeks back (all right, almost a month ago now) Calista and I went to Missouri to see one of my best friends and help her with her brand new baby boy. This meant I flew... alone... with a 2-year-old... on my lap... while 30 weeks pregnant.
Honestly, it wasn't that bad. Exhausting, definitely. But Calista did better than I feared, and as well as I could possibly expect - she is 2, after all. We lost a stroller in Dallas and nearly missed our connection, but we made it so it doesn't matter now.
What does matter is the time we got to spend with Liz and her baby! Little Pace is adorable, and Penny the Puppy was also a big hit with Calista. I was so glad I got to see Liz (the first time in more than a year!) and spend some time with her. I wasn't as much help to her as I'd originally planned, because the babe was 11 days late! I had planned that I'd get there the day Jake, Liz's husband, went out of town for a month, but because of Pace's tardiness, Jake stayed around for most of my trip. Oh well. Seeing Liz was so nice!

I was a little anxious for how Calista would respond to Pace - this was kind of like a trial run for a couple of months from now when she becomes a big sister - but she did great! It'll be harder when it's my attention that needs to be divided, but she was great! She loved helping change his diaper, putting the pad down and getting a wipe out and unfolding the clean diaper and throwing the dirty diaper away. Calista actually would try to insist that Pace needed a diaper change, when really he didn't. She wanted to help that much.
She also loved to hold him, and mostly did pretty well at it. Calista would climb up on the couch, sit down nicely, and then pat her tummy/lap and say, "'old Pace, please." She'd repeat it over and over, begging to hold him. And when you tried to take Pace back, she'd try to grab at him and hold on to him - yeah, that wasn't ideal, but she's 2.

Every time she heard Pace cry, Calista would say "c'ying, c'ying!" and point in his direction. She absolutely would not let me ignore it, even if, say, Pace was crying because he was hungry and Liz already had him in her lap and was preparing to feed him... no, he was crying and someone should do something about it!

As I previously said, the dog was also a big draw for Calista.

Penny got walked twice a day, and Calista insisted on going along. She even got to be the one to hold the leash on occasion, which meant those walks had no real leader, since Calista has no idea how to lead a dog.

Penny kind of enjoyed the chaos, but didn't like when Calista tried to use her as a pillow. For that matter, neither did Pace. I think we're going to need to break her of that habit (because we are sooooo in love with it when she does it to the cat!) before our baby boy comes.

Oh, and we had barbecue, because, you know, we're in Missouri.

All in all, I'm glad I went, and I was also glad when I got home and wasn't travelling alone with a 2-year-old any more.