We woke up extremely early this morning to catch an early morning flight from Copenhagen to London, where we had an over six-plus-hours long layover. While it did initially seem like a long time, the time really flew by quite quickly. We tried to go to the Cathay First lounge, but because they had first class passengers waiting to board a flight in about 90 minutes, they asked that we come back when they left (which made sense since they’re prioritizing their own passengers first). So while we waited, we hung out at the Qantas lounge next door. We eventually went back to the Cathay lounge, had breakfast in their formal dining room, hung out by the windows and watched planes come in and out. We had lunch (another delicious meal!), then I took Kaia to have a shower with me. We spent about 30 minutes showering, drying, moisturizing, blow drying our hair, and getting ready to board our flight back to New York. I think this was our very first lounge shower together, as previous times when I’ve showered, she usually sits outside the shower and waits for me while singing. This time, she enjoyed the shower thoroughly, making up stories of ducks playing and jumping in “puddles during the rain.” Every time I told her we were almost done, she kept on insisting that she wanted to play with the ducks more in the water.

As I dried her off and applied lotion on her, I kept thinking about how all of this will come to an end. One day, she will no longer need me to shower her, to dry her, to moisturize and dress her. One day soon, it will be considered inappropriate to take her into a shower or bath with me. Kaia is already slowly but surely dressing herself already. Every day she gets older, closer to the point of eventually leaving me and not being as close to me. I feel like I am just soaking these moments up with her needing and wanting me this much. I love watching her imagination run wild in the these fancy lounge bathrooms. I also love seeing how much she enjoys the lounge and overall travel experience. She has experiences at her age that I never got to have until my mid to late 20s. I wonder if she will look back one day and remember any of these experiences and think about what a lucky little Pookie she was, and how much fun she had with her daddy and mumma.