Dear Reese,
This morning is sweet. We sit on the living room couch as you wake up, you’re on my lap, but leaning back into me. You drink your bottle steadily, holding it in your hands all by yourself when between gulps. I’ve never really seen you do that before. I find us a book from the coffee table shelf and read us a morning story (Otter’s Heart Family).
We smile and laugh while you get dressed. You play contentedly with toys on the kitchen floor while I make your bottles for the day. We record a video of you to send to your Mama A — today is her birthday. You give a little smile at the camera before chasing after the plastic crab toy you’re scooting across the floor.
Some mornings are hurried with hurdles and rejected bottles or blowouts right before we walk the door (see: yesterday).
But this morning is kind and gentle and it’s so sweet to be with you, little girl.
Love,
Mama
P.S. Tonight, I swear you signed “all done” for the first time when I showed you the difference between that and “more” once again. We are in conversation, darling.
The Knight & The Cursed Forest, Part 4
The rain continues as you follow the route the three fairies laid out for you. Soon enough, you see the tree with the woodpecker’s hole up ahead. You might have missed it if it weren’t for the light of the fourth fairy sister. Unlike the bright white of the first fairies, her light is dark green. It reminds you of the color of The Great Bullfrog if she had also glowed.
With the duck at your side, you waste no time approaching and calling out to her.
“Who is this?” the fairy says, poking her head out of the woodpecker notch. Her skin appears as green as the light emanating from her, and her voice is scratchy and ornery, like she’s got some gnarled bark in her throat.
You explain that you’re on a journey and that her fairy sisters asked for your help in exchange for their assistance with your curse. “What will it take for you to remove their curse?”
“Pfft,” the green fairy says dismissively. “Those whiners. Going on and on about how rainy it is all the time, and now they’re complaining that I gave them exactly what they wanted. Ha! It’s good for them to dry out a bit. They don’t have the connection to the forest that I do. Acting all uppity with that white glow of theirs but my power comes from the very green of this forest.”
She seems like someone who needs praise, so you nod and say, “It’s true you seem more powerful. And I hear you’re friends with the trolls too. One of them tried to eat me, you see.”
“Oh, did they?” she says, sounding very happy about it. “Well, you seem all right, now.”
“Is there anything I can do for you that will have you lift their curse?
She gives a dramatic sigh. “Well, I wasn’t planning on removing it for a while now, just to really teach them a lesson, but I’ll make you a deal. My favorite troll, the vanguard of all the trolls, is late in reporting to me today. He should have been here hours ago. He’s very strong, but he’s a lazy oaf who oversleeps. Go wake him up for me and bring him here. If you do that, I’ll let my sisters get drenched again.”
You agree, feeling a little pointed around at this point, but follow the directions from the green fairy.
Like the first troll you met, you almost miss this one too, but this time your eyes are peeled. True the the green fairy’s prediction, the massive troll is fast asleep. At least two times larger than the other troll, this troll is lying on the ground and using a tree trunk for a pillow. If you couldn’t observe the slow breathing, you might mistake it for a small hill or massive pile of brush.
How hard can it be to wake a sleeping troll?
Tap, Tap. You tap on his shoulder. Still asleep.
Pat. Pat. A little firmer now. Still asleep.
Slap. Slap. A couple of forceful slaps to the arm should do it. Still asleep.
Kick Kick. You put all your strength into a few kicks to the gut. Still asleep.
This is ridiculous, you think, so you go right up to his face, climb up and bite him squarely on the nose.
Still asleep!
You look at the duck for guidance and he gives a couple of loud quack, quacks! but the troll is still asleep.
“He must be having a really good dream to stay asleep through all that,” you say. “Maybe we can make the dream not so nice anymore and he’ll wake up.”
You go up the troll’s ear and start to talk directly into it, telling a story about all the things you know trolls fear. Sunlight. Children. Children who glow with sunlight and surprise him at night and turn him to stone.
You keep it up until the troll starts to mumble, “No, no, keep it dark. No, no, let me eat children.” And then, finally waking up with a start, he screams, "Children don’t eat me!”
Scrambling backwards, you watch the troll blink awake.
Step one complete. But now you have an awake and angry troll looking right at you!
To be continued.