26th June, 2017. 10:13 am.

So the Old Songs festival was a bit of a bust this year.

Last year (and the year before), Katie Beth loved the bands, loved watching the musicians play, danced and generally had a good time.

This year, although she did occasionally listen politely for a minute or two, she was entirely uninterested.

She loved the HOUR-long play about river health, she liked Roger the Jester, she liked the mariachi band - all the things in the kids area. She loved the activities in the kids area (playdo, ink stampers, bead jewelry, and lots more). She enjoyed playing with other kids. She was by far the youngest kid other than babies in arms, and now I understand why.

She wanted to run and play outdoors and she had a great time doing that. She did not want to be quiet while people listened to music.

At one point during the big Saturday night concert, she and I went for a walk and we found a group of five children, roughly ages 4-8, playing hide and go seek. She happily joined them. I was the only parent standing around watching them. But then again, I had the only kid who might get lost. All the other kids were old enough (or had older siblings old enough) to find their way back to their parents. It's a perfectly safe place, fenced, no roads, with tons of adults sitting around - I wouldn't have worried about letting her play hide and go seek while I sat down and listened to the concert. But she just could not find her way back to us. I think she's inherited my terrible sense of direction.

At one point Sunday, I went to the bathroom and Sandy was watching her as she ran through the amphitheater waiting for the big Sunday afternoon concert. She was going up and down the aisles. But then a group of people were moving around and Sandy lost sight of her in the crowd. Sandy was totally panicked. KB also realized she had gotten turned around, so she made her way over to where we were sitting...during the Saturday night concert. She was confused that we weren't there and started walking up and down calling for us, while we were looking at the aisle on the other side, where she had been when Sandy lost sight of her. So a volunteer swooped her up, sat her on the steps to the stage and offered to auction her off.

"We have a lost little girl here named Katie Beth. Does anybody want her? She's a very nice little girl."

So I ran up and got her. I asked her if she was scared.

"Mommy, I almost made it on the stage!"

Yeah. No fear and no direction sense.

We had been sitting in our Sunday location for more than an hour before she forgot where we were, by the way.

She did this several times when we were in the big barns listened to shows throughout the weekend, too. She'd go dancing up an aisle, and then turn around and seemingly forget that, oh yeah, my mommy is standing right at the end of that aisle where I just left her.

So she'd start walking around looking for me, never looking behind herself. I had to "rescue" her at least twice.

Some people also clearly felt I should never let her out of arm's reach. No. We're in a nice, enclosed space in which I can see the exits. There's nothing dangerous here. I want her to learn how to be an independent person. It's worth occasionally losing sight of her for a minute to not spend the rest of the time telling her she can't be trusted to move around. I want her to trust her abilities. Also I want her to get a little better at it so she can find her way back! :)

Anyway, she was totally uninterested in the music, sadly, so I spent a lot of time outside the venues, sort of half able to hear enticing music. Sandy also went out with her so that I could listen at times, but we couldn't do it TOGETHER. So it pretty much sucked. But KB had a great time, in her own way, and cried when we left Sunday. I'm thinking next year will be more of the same, so maybe we should get a babysitter one day. Of course, it might be a factor of the musicians - this year they did not have any children's musicians, and the humor musicians were doing dark humor songs on guitars instead of rollicking good fun with many instruments. No big dance music either. Sometimes it's just a quiet year.

She was so exhausted that she fell asleep on the ride home. I carried her in and she slept another hour in her crib before waking up, eating dinner, and going back to bed.

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8th June, 2017. 3:15 pm.

KB wanted a sand box as her "big girl toy" when we sold all the baby toys. So we bought a tent for $15 and now we will fill it with sand. Probably I could have also just bought one of those little plastic sand boxes with a lid, but they seemed so small...anyway, now we have a tent.

She was thrilled and spent a bit of time in it today before I left for work. Sandy and I put it up by the garage.

Fence is going up too (after we empty the moving truck Sunday) and then we'll get a kiddie pool. For now we are getting a sprinkler.

So that's what's hot for big girl toys this season: a kiddie pool, sprinkler and sand box. :)

Sandy has a nice chair and I think she hopes to spend the summer outside. She has a pool membership too, but she claimed it was too cold today to go swimming.

It was 78 degrees.

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5th June, 2017. 12:43 pm.

I had such a great weekend. I didn't bother to hang up signs or pay for advertising...I just pulled stuff out of the garage until it got dark, left it all in the yard til morning, cleaned things at about 6 a.m., set it all out and priced everything and was ready to start around 8:45 a.m. Pretty much the easier yard sale ever.

I posted photos online and that was it. We're on a busy street, so people just drove by and stopped.

I made $150 in two days, and then I posted the most valuable items online to sell individually. So that might bring in another $100.

But most importantly, I made lots of space! Actually, not "lots" but...walking room, anyway. We have a lot more to go to get to actual space. Instead, we're going to Rebecca's this weekend to pick up more stuff! I am hoping to make room for the bunk bed in the garage by then. We shall see.

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1st June, 2017. 10:38 am.

I may hold a yard sale this weekend. It will be called, Dragging All The Crap Out Of The Garage and Basement.

Mainly known as Toys Appropriate For A Younger Child and All The Kitchen Things You Could Ever Need.

Seriously, Mike has three times now (!) brought us a TRUCK LOAD of toys. Most of which have pretty much FILLED our basement and garage. Seriously the amount of crap is astounding.

Best of all, Monday is garbage day. So whatever doesn't sell, I can just put on the curb!

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30th May, 2017. 4:02 pm.

Okay, last post was a little but of a downer. Here's better:

This is going to be a great summer!

This weekend, we are going to Great Escape or swimming while Sandy sells at Comic Con in Albany.

Next weekend, we're going to the Gorhams! ...mostly to pack a truck full of stuff from Aunt Mary's house, but hey, we'll see them! And Kelsea!

The weekend after that is my 20th Emma Willard reunion, and then The Day Formerly Known as Father's Day (Mommy's Day). Not sure what we're doing for that. Maybe swimming. We discovered last year that Six Flags is SUPER crowded on Father's Day.

Then we're going camping at Old Songs Festival, which will be fantastic.

The next month, we have one weekend free, and then it's DexCon and flying to the family reunion. The one good thing about the reunion ending Friday morning is that we have the whole weekend to recover.

Then on the first weekend of August, we're going to Glimmerglass to see two operas, as we have done since KB was born.

Of course we're doing dragoncon at the beginning of September. And then, whoosh! Summer will be over. :(

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10th May, 2017. 11:20 am.

So, on a blog devoted to Disney I saw this listing of restaurants from most to least expensive, with the basic message that if you want to get more than the dollar value of your Disney meal plan, you should eat at the top restaurants. Except some of the ones we are going to have great ratings but aren't as expensive.

For one brief, lunatic moment I started trying to make a list. Then I remembered. We have the meal plan so we don't have to worry about the cost of food. Not because we are trying to somehow get a deal. We have to remove stress, not to ADD stress as we look for the best deal.

Then I firmly closed the page and moved on with my day. :)

We have three character meals - possible Chef Mickey for a late lunch on the day we are tentatively planning to skip nap so she can see a particular parade with a FLAME-BLOWING DRAGON, Mickey and friends at Tusker House for lunch at Animal Kingdom, and Doc McStuffins for breakfast at Hollywood & Vine.

Everything I have read says you shouldn't do breakfast anywhere, and that H&V is so much better at lunch, and that REALLY you should do the Fantasmic package.

It is so tempting to lose my mind.

But - my two-year-old who is afraid of loud noises does not want to see the Fantasmic fireworks show. (Her mommies do, but oh well!)

And my two-year-old wants to eat with Doc McStuffins. Breakfast was the only time available, so that's what we're doing!

We are literally hitting every single show, meeting place and meal that Doc is at...which is a total of two meetings places, one show and one meal.

Fear not, there are also tons of places to meet Mickey and we're doing those too. :)

Sandy is really enjoying planning things. So am I. We still have a big thing to face in Alice's room -- all of her clothes. We might do it before we leave, just so it's done. But we might not. It's gonna be hard.

We emptied most of the bookshelves and Sandy says it hurts every time she sees them now, with KB's books instead of rows and rows of Alice's books and magazines.

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9th May, 2017. 2:06 pm. Disney planning

I've charged almost all of the batteries - three phone chargers (still looking for charger #4) and two cameras.

I found and packed my spotter scope and mini tripod and the binoculars. Still have to find the big tripod.

Swimming stuff is mostly packed, but I had to buy KB new water shoes that haven't arrived yet. I thought maybe her old ones would fit, but I can't even find them. So I assuming they don't fit and moving on. Probably it's too much to hope for shoes to fit from one summer to the next. We have plenty of other shoes, and I know as a kid I lived without water shoes, but I just don't want her barefoot on hot cement and slippery tile. And we're going to be at the pool a lot all summer, not just at Disney. So. Shoes justified and ordered.

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8th May, 2017. 3:50 pm.

My friend Lysa had a fantastic idea. KB wants desperately to hear GaGa say I love you to her again. We don't have it anywhere on video. It's insane. We just didn't...take videos of ordinary everyday things. No idea why. Denial, I guess.

But Sandy has voicemails from Alice and in every single call, Alice said "I love you." So we are going to strip the audio from that and add it to a video that doesn't have good audio. It's a couple clips of Alice reading to KB that Sandy took as video by accident while intending to take photos. We're going to string the two clips together, make them repeating, and then put in the audio. It'll be short - maybe 2 seconds - but it will be there.

Now to just find the time for this.

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5th May, 2017. 2:22 pm.

It's going to be a very hard weekend.

These last few months, I made every weekend special when Sandy was off at a convention and I was home taking care of Alice. I would make her special foods and we'd do special things. Because there was no QC work to do - so naptime was totally open to just sit in her room and talk with her.

Now Sandy will be gone and I'll be home with KB and no one else.

We thought about me coming along, but the hotel is 10 minutes from the convention, and it's not a really child-centric convention, and anyway I think Sandy doesn't want to deal with trying to sleep in the same room as KB, who might wake up and try to play with us at midnight or something.

Of course, that's what we're doing at Disney but anyway...Sandy said stay home. So home I am staying.

Amanda and Mal are coming to visit Saturday.

Maybe I will lose my mind later and throw out roughly half of the basement and garage, which are both full of broken stuff. Or I could actually fix some of the chairs so that we have chairs for parties. That would be a good idea, although it would require me finding my drill, drill charger, drill bits...did I mention the basement is full of crap? I stepped on Alice's headboard, which Sandy refused to throw out, and cut my foot. SO DONE WITH THE BASEMENT. Maybe I should have a huge impromptu garage sale.

Hmm. For $130 I could throw out lots and lots into a "dumpster bag." Sandy might get really annoyed with me. Maybe I should just fix the chairs.

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2nd May, 2017. 3:04 pm.

Way back on the 21st, we ordered a pillow for KB with a picture on it of her and GaGa. It arrived last night, so I left it on her chair.

She has now been desperately sad ALL DAY.

At last report, she was pretending that Sandy was GaGa so that she could hug GaGa and say I love you.

:( :( :( :(

She watched a chunk of Inside Out today, and she was really fascinated. I thought maybe we should show her the movie on the grounds that it could help her with all these feelings. But Jane reminded me that the invisible friend dies in the movie. Soooo....maybe not.

I met some of the people in the co-op last night and they seemed very nice. But to make it to that meeting, I had to skip an evening meeting at which there was NOTHING on the agenda, but of course then things did happen so today I am playing catch-up. Ugh.

11 days til Disney!

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