Buttercup Discusses Our Upcoming Trip

Buttercup has always loved pointing out airplanes.  I think the little kids used to watch for them in the orphanage, and then chant together "air-o-pen! air-o-pen!"  For a while she would look for them and think that Daddy or Gramma was inside, and wave to them.

The other day she and I were eating lunch and she heard her favorite, distant buzz: "Air-o-pen!"  But she knows who is going in an airplane now: "Air-o-pen!" she chirped happily.  "Bye-bye, Bu-cup-y!  Bye-bye, Mama!"  That's right, Buttercup and Mama are going in an airplane next!
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Last night I broke out one of our going-on-an-airplane books, hoping we could have a good conversation about what to expect on the trip.  I am planning on reading one every night now, so hopefully the girls will have something familiar to look at.  And to discuss expectations, like that there will be a lot of waiting (somehow, that isn't covered very well in the books!) and to not talk with the police or customs officials if they are talking to mama.  And to uncover unexpected expectations.

Like Hibiscus declaring that she wasn't going to wear a seatbelt, she doesn't like seatbelts, and she's just going to sit like "dis."  Emerson replied with shock that she has to wear a seatbelt, it's the rule, and she said she wasn't.  "What will they do if I don't put on my seatbelt?" she kept asking as we went through various scenarios.  We finally got up to the part where the flight attendants would make her go off the plane if she fought with them and wouldn't do what she was told.  "I'll just go off the plane and get on the next one," she said with her usual confidence (and lack of logic).

Buttercup had not participated in the conversation up to this point, and was looking more and more worried.  "Me gonna, me will wear, I's gonna wear seatbelt," she finally told us.  I reassured her that that was a good choice and the flight attendants wouldn't make her go off the plane.  She immediately felt much better.
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One morning we were trying to get ready for school, and the children were having various conversations in a kind of unconnected manner, as they usually do at that time of day, including our upcoming trip.  I try and get them started and then go downstairs to make them breakfast, which gives them some motivation to actually get finished dressing.  So I announced that I was leaving to go downstairs.

"Me wanna go wiv YOU-OU!!" cried Buttercup, quite worried.  But I wasn't sure what part of the conversation she was thinking of.

"You want to go with me downstairs, or you want to go with me to America?" I asked.

"Me wanna go wiv you A-MER-ica!  To-gedda!!" she cried.


Oh, my sweet girl.  You will go with me.  We will go together.  I have waited so, so, SO long, just exactly so you can go with me.

Together.

Finally.