In fact, they watched Coco and played together while I put together the new Adirondack chair I’d ordered from World Market, which actually arrived about a week ago but I haven’t had time to open the box, much less put it together. Babalouie and Tot wanted to help me put it together. I distracted them with a football so I could do the work. They were very enthusiastic about helping but at 4 and 2 ½ years old, I was pretty sure ‘helping’ would include losing every bit of the hardware.
I got the chair put together just about the same time the movie ended and so did the rain! The kids were all very helpful in getting the new white chair out of the living room and onto the front hill, where we put it smack in the middle of our chairs. It looks grand!
We now have six beautiful Adirondack chairs in different colors on the front hill. It’s a lot of chairs. I may move the blue and green ones into the back: they’d look perfect on the deck, which I’ve done over in shades of blue in the last couple of years.
World Market has several new colors of chairs and I love them. I could get very greedy and go overboard, which is kind of my thing. If something is worth doing, it’s worth doing to death, right?
I’ve always avoided anything I could do in moderation and the olive green, peacock blue and jadeite chairs look luscious.
Since it had stopped raining, we piled the kids into their conveyances and went to the park. It was quite an undertaking and I couldn’t have done it without the very capable Nanners to act as my Lieutenant. Xena and Babalouie were on their bikes, Tot was in the stroller and Nanners and Bean walked, keeping everyone going in the right direction. We took the long way around the school to get to the playground.
Turns out, public school wasn’t out yet so the playground was crawling with kids whose teachers were sick of trying to keep them indoors and concentrating. It made for an exciting and fun hour or so.
Babalouie and Tot were surprisingly easy to keep an eye on: all they wanted to do was conquer the Big Kid equipment. Nanners, Bean and Xena hung together on the swings and took turns burying each other in the sand. Some little boys from the school spent a fair bit of time showing off and trying to make them laugh. Being as young as they are, they just thought the boys were ‘weird’.
Tot proved to be absolutely fearless on the Big Kid monkey bars and slides. He charged right up the rope ladders and across the swinging bridge to the biggest, twistiest slide in the place, where he didn’t hesitate to fling himself, backwards, down the tube. Babalouie enjoyed everything. He always does, which makes him delightful company.
We were on our way back to my house when I realized I had no lunch for all these kids so I texted MJ to stop and pick something up on her way back from visiting Dad. While we waited for her to arrive, we sat on the deck and had popsicles. By that time, the sun had come out, the deck chairs were dry and we put up the umbrella. It was a swell morning!
After lunch, MJ had to take her kids home so Tot could get a nap. I had plans with Xena and Babalouie, too.
Xena made it clear that she’d been looking forward to riding her bike around the Lake since the day she first got it. I told them we would go spend a little bit of time with their great grandpa, John G. then we’d head to lake and they could ride themselves to exhaustion.
It took a bit of time to get the car loaded up. Bikes in back, seats in the middle. I had to switch the seats after I’d installed them because the neck rest on Xena’s was stuck and wouldn’t rise high enough for her head but eventually everything was situated just fine and that’s when I discovered that my driver’s license was not in my wallet.
I searched my purse, which is small; not too many places for an ID to hide. No license.
We went into the house and the kids helped me scour the back hall and my office where I may have dropped it. No luck.
I’d been running errands the day before, including a trip to the bank, where I’d had to send my ID in with my deposit (I knew that stupid new policy would make trouble for me). It took a while to track down a phone number online but eventually I got through to the bank and sure enough, I’d left my license in the tube. They’d tried to call me but I think they still have our old land line number so of course, they had no luck getting through to me.
I told the very nice young lady that I’d be there in ten minutes to pick up my ID.
Back out to the car, I got the kids all buckled in safely and that’s when I discovered that some time between putting the bike’s in the back and calling the bank, I’d lost my keys.
My car keys.
YOU SPEND ALL MORNING WITH FIVE LITTLE KIDS AND SEE WHAT YOU LOSE.
I’m proud to say I kept all the cursing in my head.
I unbuckled the kids and we all trouped back into the house, which we scoured again,looking for the keys.
I normally keep my keys on a carabiner that’s attached to my purse, in their own dedicated pocket because I KNOW I can’t keep track of anything. I have no idea how they managed to miss the pocket.
We searched the stairs, the deck, the driveway the car, the garage, my office, the kitchen, the area around where I’d spoken to the bank and I turned my purse inside out.
I was on my way back into the house to re-search the kitchen when Xena said “Nana, let me look in your purse.”
“I’ve already looked twice, “ I said, handing her the bag “but knock yourself out.”
She took the bag, unzipped the back pocket, which is practically inaccessible so I don’t use it…
And handed me my keys.
Fresh eyes are a God send.
I told her she had just earned herself some ice cream when we finally got to the lake.
So we loaded up once again and headed up to the bank, which is about three miles south of our house. We had to go inside the drive through station so I could sign off on retrieving my ID. The folks inside there couldn’t have been nicer and they loved Xena and Babalouie, to whom they gave suckers. Two, in fact; one for now and one for later.
Babalouie has no idea how cute he is but Xena does. She’s a very smart kid and everywhere she goes, strangers tell her how cute she is. It’s like hanging out with a celebrity.
Driver’s license back in hand, I buckled them all in and we headed north, about eight miles up the highway to see Dad. The kids liked the facility; there’s a large grey parrot in a huge cage in the lobby where the elevators are, so what’s not to love?
It really is a lovely place but the elevators are the slowest in the entire state. There was a tiny little lady coming down the hall toward us when I pushed the ‘up’ botton. She was moving so slowly she seemed to be floating rather than walking but she made it to the elevators just as the doors opened. I called to the kids, who were fast friends with the parrot (whose name is Popeye) by then and we all got on board. The tiny lady, who was only a few inches taller than Xena and might have been a hundred years old, didn’t say a word until the elevator made it to the second floor (about a fifteen second ride) but just before the doors opened, exclaimed “MY GOD, THEY’RE ADORABLE!”
“Thank you,” I said “I think so, too.”
The doors opened and it was all I could do to keep the kids from tearing off in two directions. If that had happened, I never would have found them. The facility is enormous and made up of countless identical nursing stations surrounded by rooms. The one time I went for a walk, I felt like I was in an Escher drawing and if my Mom hadn’t been with me, I’d still be wandering around, trying to find my dad’s room.
Dad was delighted to see the great grandkids. They were happy to see him, too. Xena demonstrated her newly acquired reading skills by reading the nursing instructions taped to the wall over Dad’s bed. Babalouie told them his plans for the summer, which include rodeos, calves, baseball and golf. And bike riding. And ice cream at the lake!
By the time we actually got to the lake all the clouds from that morning were a distant, fuzzy memory. It was clear and gorgeous and there were lots of people down there. Unlike my own kids, who never obeyed my instructions while biking together, these two did exactly as they were told: bike up to that bench, then wait for me!
We were on the walk path, since both of them are riding tiny little bikes with training wheels. I know people hate that but too bad: I wasn’t about to let them take their chances up on the bike path with the cychos. And they didn’t mind stopping every few yards: they stopped and asked permission to pet every dog they saw. Only one person said no, their dog was afraid of little kids. All the rest were more than happy to introduce their dog and let the kids pet them. I think the dogs liked it as much as the kids.
There was even a big, fluffy dog at the concession stand to keep the kids occupied while I stood in line to order the ice cream. Both of them asked for mint chocolate chip but Xena, demonstrating her reading skills once again, nearly changed her mind when she saw that Root Beer Floats were on the menu. In the end, she stuck with her first choice. Just as we sat down to enjoy the ice cream, their Mom joined us!
What had been a marvelous outing already suddenly got even better!
After the ice cream was consumed, the kids hopped back on their bikes. We went as far as the beach, where shoes were doffed and wading commenced, before heading back to the car. By then it was dinner time.
Xena was surprised when we pulled into the garage.
“We’re home already?” she asked. We had only left the lake five minutes earlier.
“Yes,” I told her. “I live really close to the lake.”
“Then why did it take us so long to get there?” she demanded. She had apparently already forgotten everything before the ice cream.
A minute later, her Mom pulled up the drive behind me, bearing the dinner she’d just picked up from a local restaurant. We ate on the deck, where Zack had just built a fire in the chiminea.
I think after the whole, long, adventurous day, their favorite thing was playing with Uncle Zack on the deck.
I can’t compete with him.