the royal wedding

I had not been into the media frenzy leading up to the royal wedding, but decided several weeks ago that I'd wake up before dawn to watch. I'm too young to remember Charles and Diana's wedding, and it was such an event that was and continues to be referred to again and again that I knew that I'd like to watch this royal wedding live.

I had planned on getting up at 4am to get myself ready for work first and be ready to watch at 5am until I had to leave for work. Kevin thought I was nuts, of course. When I reasoned with him that we didn't have a DVR anymore and I couldn't record it he looked at me like I'd grown two heads. "Don't ya think SOMEONE will tape it and you'll be able to watch it over and over online and on TV for the next twenty years?" Oh, yeah. But still, I want to watch it LIVE.

There was a kink in my plans. I woke up at 3:47am to the sound of a boogery coughing little girl being placed in bed with me as she was instructed to lay down next to Mommy. "What's going on?"

"She says she doesn't feel good and wants to sleep with Mommy and Daddy." Sigh. Sick kid in bed means no sleep for Mommy. After 10 minutes of listening to Hannah's stopped up nose, I decided to get up.

I heard the sound of little feet following me into the bathroom. A wide awake three year old asked, "Mommy, what are you doing? It's dark outside." How do I answer that? Hmmmm.

"Hannah, something special is happening today. It's a wedding. A real princess wedding. With pretty dresses, and hats, and flowers, and princes, and people, and lots of horses, and a castle. Do you want to watch?"

"I watch princess movies."

"This time what Mommy is going to watch on TV is real. A REAL PRINCESS wedding. Do you want to watch, too?"

"YES!"

I handed Hannah her pink Nintento DS and she played a game in the bathroom waiting for me to get out of the shower. In true preschooler form, she commented on everything I was doing. "You put pants on? You gonna take your pills? You hang your towel up?"

Finally, I was ready for the day. If I would have known that Hannah was going to be up before the crack of dawn with me, I would have bought pastries and had a little tea set out. My clingy girl with a boogery nose was offered blueberry pop-tarts and strawberry milk. I had an extra big cup of coffee. I was going to need it to get through the day with less than four hours of sleep!

We snuggled in the recliner together with her little pink blanket, pop tarts, and our 5 am drinks of choice. We talked about who the people were, where they lived, that the men in red and black in the fancy car with a crown on top were real princes. This was all real, not a movie. We sat snuggled together talking about what we saw for an hour and a half. Hannah lost interest during some of the singing during the wedding. "I wanna watch *sumping* else. I wanna watch *sumping* else!"

"Uh, no. This is Mama's pick today."

"Okay, I play with play-doh."

Hannah played with play-doh and she did watch a little more when the carriages came out and we watched the horses bring the party back to the castle. When it was time for me to leave for work, Hannah crawled in bed with Daddy to wake him up."

"Daddy, I watch a princess wedding. A real princess wedding. With horses, and crowns, and it had a real prince. He's a good man."

I have no idea where the "he's a good man" part came from. Funny kid.