My daughter in law had a teacher’s work shop to attend in downtown Minneapolis. She needed somewhere for the kids to hang on Thursday.
Oh, twist my arm.
The three of them actually came into town Wednesday night after dinner for a slumber party. That made everything so much easier.
She had to be downtown before 8:00. I don’t know when the kids woke up. It was after 8 when I rose, to find Jay and Babalouie enjoying breakfast together. Babalouie requested “big bites” from Coach.
Milestones: Babalouie is now potty trained. He spent his entire day with me in big boy unders and had no accidents. This is huge.
Babydoll awoke sometime before 9. She was more interested in getting down to the park than in eating breakfast.
I had to use all my negotiating skills to get the two of them to agree to let me brush my teeth and get dressed before loading up the stroller and going to the park.
Once there, they wasted no time in mounting their attack on the toys.
It was a cool, thick, overcast morning.
Babalouie and I watched a jumbo jet fly low over us, then ascend through the cloud cover and disappear. He looked at me, his big blue eyes huge and said “whoa.”
City life is so exciting to my two little cowkids.
And it was about to get even more exciting.
We’d only been at the park for ten minutes or so when their cousin, Meg showed up. Meg nanny’s and one of her charges had baseball practice at Armatage. She and her other youngster joined us at the playground.
And then it got even better!
MJ has been leaving her kids with cousin Hattie so she can run in the morning. One text from Meg and MJ dropped Hattie, Nanners, Bean and Tot at the park with us!
There were almost as many of us as in the backyard while growing up.
The kids played (the swings are the big favorite) for two hours. At that point, I realized that not only had I not been allowed to eat any breakfast before our expedition, I’d only had one cup of coffee.
That’s no way to fuel up for a day spent with little kids.
Not only that, Babydoll hadn’t eaten anything, either. So I asked her if she wasn’t as starving as I was. She looked very thoughtful, then answered “Yes.”
We all agreed it was time to pack the strollers and head back up to my house. Meg and her boys had already left, as baseball practice had ended. Just as we left the park, MJ pulled up. She packed up her kids and Hattie and promised to bring us lunch.
I took my kiddles back to the house and we ate some breakfast. MJ was true to her word and an hour or so later, arrived with frozen pizza and watermelon.
After months of looking at new stoves online, it finally occurred to me and Jay that the only thing that wasn’t working perfectly on our current oven was the door hinges. A call to service plus and ten minutes of switching out hinges and our 18-year-old Maytag is as good as new. It’s going to take me a day or two to get used to having an oven door that opens and closes without a fight. But the pizza cooked perfectly.
Less than two hours after our late breakfast, all the kids and I had a picnic on the deck. Pizza, watermelon and cherries. I was the only one who could spit the cherry pits all the way into the bushes so I encouraged the kids to spit them into napkins.
While we ate, the clouds blew away and the rest of the day was clear, blue and hot. We played in the back yard for hours. Babalouie was tired but game. Babydoll loves nothing more than playing with her cousins. She and Bean were dressed as princesses.
Tot was Mr. Smileyface, as he too loves hanging with the big kids. He’s getting more mobile by the day.
Shortly after MJ changed Tot’s diaper, Babalouie told me he needed to go potty. Once in the bathroom, he whispered to me “he has a penis, just like me.”
“Yes,” I nodded. “You two are boys. The others are girls.”
He nodded, very seriously, filing that information away.
Two year olds are great.
Many hot, fun hours later, MJ had taken her kids home and the kiddles and Megan had texted that she was on her way back. We were watching Looney toons on the porch and Babalouie finally gave up his battle against sleep. He was conked out in the rocker with me when his mom arrived.
Babydoll, who had been good as gold all day long, cried like her heart was broken when she had to get into the car.
There’s only the present when you’re four years old.
When I think of how quickly they’ll grow up, it makes me want to cry.
But I won’t. Because its all good and every age is even more fun than the last.
An exhausted Nana is a happy Nana.