I had told Katie I’d watch the girls while she took Adam out to celebrate Father’s Day. Then, I found out my sister Margy was coming into town for the weekend so my Mom invited us all over for dinner.
I asked Katie if it was okay if I brought the babies to Gramma Punkin’s. She said “If you want to.”
Well, why not?
Side bar: I finally got a smart phone. Jay gave it to me for Mother’s Day. So now I can receive picture texts and it doesn’t take me ten years to text back. I tried to text all my kids that they were invited to G. Punkin’s for dinner because Margy was in town. Auto correct changed the message three times from You are invited to Gr. Punkin’s for dinner. Margy is in town. To You are invited to be pumpkins for dinner. Kathy is in town.
Now, I’m pretty sure my kids could have figured out the pumpkins part, they know auto correct, but the part about Kathy would have confused them. Our Kathy lives here.
Margy got into town early so we all walked around the lake in the afternoon. Then I headed up to Katie’s house. Traffic on a Friday at 3:30 is no joke. I got to the house a bare ten minutes before Adam’s Uber arrived. Boopity Boop are used to taking a nap at 4:00 and only a fool interferes with babies’ naptime. I used that time to make up bottles, pack their bag, put their froggy chairs in my van and prepare to haul them both across the west metro.
When they woke up, they were both hungry so I fed them. Then I changed them into cute, coordinating, not matching, outfits. They were both delightful and smiley. They didn’t even mind when I strapped them into their car seats, which they do not love.
It’s 33 miles from Katie’s place to my folks’ house.
Fortunately, rush hour was over so traffic was light on this leg of my journey. I never heard a peep from either baby all the way to Glen Lake. I thought they’d fallen asleep but when we reached our destination and I went back to unbuckle them, they were wide eyed and ready to play. I guess they just really enjoyed the music I had on.
They were a bit intimidated by the crowd of strangers who cheered their arrival like they were the Dalai Lama or something. Boop didn’t mind being handed around by new people too much but Boopity objected. She brightened up considerably when she caught sight of Martha, who of all the cousins, looks the most like Boopity’s Mom. Both babies decided pretty quickly that everything was okay and they could tolerate the people handing them around. Like all tiny kids, they were kind of shy and weren’t about to do any of the hilarious tricks for this crowd that they do for me at home.
Boop’s favorite’s were Johnny and Charlie. She showed off how strong her legs are for them; standing up and waving one leg at a time, like she was about to walk.
At sunset, we packed back up and I took them home. Once again, I heard not a peep from two wide awake infants all the way across town. They were perfectly content to be crammed into their seats as long as I kept One Direction pumping on the speakers. Before we left my Mom’s, we’d put both of them in their pajamas because I thought they might fall asleep on the ride home. No; they were wide awake and ready to play when I took them out of the car.
Since modern practice is not to allow any blankets in a baby’s crib, Moms zip them into blanket bags over their jammies. I had bundled them up in their bags with the idea that they would know it was bed time. Boopity was down with the program but Boop got very angry. I couldn’t figure out why: She wasn’t hungry, didn’t want her pacifier etc. I decided to check her diaper. The moment I unzipped that bag, she laughed, kicked her feet in the air and grabbed them. Turns out, she’s recently discovered she has feet and loves to grab them. She got very frustrated when she couldn’t find her feet in the jammy bag. She was laughing her head off playing stretchy-touchy with me when her parents got home.
It was exhausting but really fun.
An exhausted Nana is a happy Nana.
I’ve been sleeping really well, lately.