Busy day ahead. Exciting. Yet, lots of little details to wrangle. I’ll explain…

Today will start like most weekdays. Beatrix will awake at about an hour before she is supposed to. I will hear her call for me on the monitor. I’ll stumble down the hallway to her room where will will have a short but important negotiation that will end up with me, as usual, allowing her to read books quietly in her room until it is actually time to get up. This will be indicated by a nightlight that turns into a sun at exactly 7:00am. When this occurs and only when this occurs, is she to come down the hall and wake me. She will agree. I’ll stumble back to bed.

At 7:00am on the dot she will come into my bedroom and announce that the sun is on. I will get up, go downstairs with her, get a show started on the media center, start the coffee, fix her breakfast, feed the dog and cats, and make her school lunch. In that order. I will then go sit with her as she watches the show.

Bethany will come down stairs shortly there after. She will apologize for not being down sooner and blame it on the cats attacking her and needing attention (yes, this occurs every morning). She will then pour us our coffee. A half cup for herself because she likes it piping hot and she can’t drink a full cup more than half way before it has cooled beyond her liking. She will pour a full cup for me and put just under a tablespoon of sugar in mine.

Once the show is over we will all get dressed, I will brush Beatrix’s hair, and help get the two of them out the door. Bethany usually takes Beatrix to school. On any other Monday we would then both get on with our days. Regular meetings and client appointments. The freelancer’s life.

But, today will be different. You see, Beatrix will turn five years old this upcoming Saturday. We know our time is quickly running out. The time when she still believes in make believe. And Princesses. And fairies. And witches. And magic. And good guys winning. And baddies being bad but not so bad that you will have nightmares about them because the good guys always win anyways and she is a Princess (capital “P”) too and the fairies will keep her from having nightmares anyway because, you know, that is their job.

So, today we will return and pack her bags. We have already secretly packed ours. Normally, on Mondays, Bethany’s Aunt Janet picks Beatrix up early from school and takes her to music class. Today, Jan is picking us up first. We will load up the car with the bags and go to school to pick up Beatrix as planned. Jan will go in to get her and bring her out to the car.

Now, when she gets to the car and sees Mommy and Daddy inside, I expect Beatrix will ask, “Are you guys coming with me to music class today?”

At which point we will tell her.

No, honey. We aren’t going to music class today…

We’re going to Disney World!

P.S. I will, of course, try to keep up with the daily posting here, even if it’s just a picture of my favorite little girl enjoying a moment she, all too soon, will be too old to ever appreciate the same way again.