Thursday, February 28, 2019

A crazy-busy Thursday

Thursday, February 28:  I was due to arrive to take care of the tinies at 9AM and I arrived on time and ready to go! Except we weren't going anywhere ... just staying put and making sure these two rascals were safe and sound. Hopefully, they would nap at around 10:30, and Dylan was expected back at 12:30.
 Poor Erin. Today was a re-run of yesterday, except for the part where she slept most of the time in my arms. Well--she did sleep, and it was just as sweet but a whole lot briefer. I think she felt more miserable today than she did yesterday. No smiles for her grandma today, but is that really important? No! Poor little mite ... she clearly does not feel good.
 Mr. Aidan, on the other hand, is always a barrel of laughs. Here he is enjoying Sesame Street while enticing me to tickle all of his dimples and adorable fat places.
 Erin was not having ANY part of our giggles and shenanigans whatsoever.  But we were not too crazy, out of respect for her little feelings. Perhaps her teeth hurt her very badly! How rude would it be for Aidan and I to make enough noise to make her head ache further? So we kept it low-key.
 Low key is NOT in baby Aidan's personality!
 Thankfully, Aidan was tucked in for his nap at 10:30 and fell asleep almost immdiately! Erin was cuddled, snuggled, fed, walked, sung to, rocked ... and slept for 35 minutes. It was a very nice 35 minutes, though. She is super soft and extra sweet. She was clearly NOT happy with me, though, and I was pretty glad when Dylan walked through the door!
 I drove back to my house in between Erin and Kaity-Girl. Kaity and I went back to Avon to get an eye shadow pencil sharpener (ordered the prior week), and then we actually went grocery shopping and had a lot of fun doing it.

Kaity is a delightful little person ... have I told you that before? Truly. She has a very ready smile. She loves to help. She has very good ideas too! She did very well not whining or complaining while we were at Meijer's. We got ourselves a Kit-Kat to split after our dinner.
 We played for a very long time with our PlayMobil horses and playground. Kaity plays really well with these toys. She enjoys their details and how their parts move and connect together. The horses and riders are her favorites--mine too! We have Luna, Nico, and Dusty. They are beautiful horses ...
 They have their own stables and riders too. 

 Our playground set is really nice too. We combined the horses with the playground set yesterday so that we could have more people to pretend with. Kaity had a whole story going on about dangerous sliding and climbing, etc. 

 Baby Jo-Jo was here again. We DID play a few games of Hide-n-Seek with baby Moses. These pictures (below) are of Kaity trying to find the new hiding places Moses came up with.

 Kaity loves this game so much! I really didn't like it very much a few weeks ago, but Kaity has taught me that it can be a very fun game!
 Here is Jo-Jo's last hiding place! In between my microwaves and refrigerator! Silly Jo-Jo!


An extra-busy Wednesday

Wednesday, February 27:  Kelly has new office space for her massage practice--that's good news! But their regular Wednesday and Thursday morning care-person hasn't been feeling well, so I was asked to come over and take care of the "tinies" this morning. Aidan was already napping when I arrived, so I just watched baby Erin for awhile.
 She's been running a low-grade temp for a day or so and drooling super much too. When I had the chance to see inside her little mouth, I did notice some teeth breaking through in the back (top).
 She clearly was not her smiley little self. She is such a polite baby, that she will usually smile back whenever she is smiled AT ... but I could not get the tiniest grin out of this poor dear. She was clearly not feeling well.
 I did get to cuddle up with her on the recliner and sing her to sleep, hold her, rub her soft face and little back, listen to her sighs, smell her sweet skin and generally enjoy a little piece of heaven for two hours ... so ... clearly I received blessings from this tiniest grandchild, who was very pleased when her mama came back home. 
 I skipped over to Schuler's and worked on my Bible study in between watching Erin and picking Brendan up from school at 3:00. 

After Brendan and I visited our new fish friend, we drove over to the Beach house. We weren't able to come here last week because the roads were slippery ... so it was nice to be back here in our familiar territory. Brendan plays so nicely here. He is not difficult to entertain at all and almost anything interests him. He made some totem poles out of my window stickers and placed them inside Kaity's window illustrations.



 We also played with LEGOs for quite awhile and read more of "Exodus", the beautiful picture book I have. We talked more about how God wants us to believe His Word and obey Him, and some of the promises we can claim if we do that.
We also watched "Wild Alaska" to check out many other of the great things "God has made", Brendan was careful to point out. I'm so thankful Brendan's faith is growing and that his heart is wide open to God's Word. 


Meet P-Diddy

Wednesday, February 27:  First of all, some background to this fish story--Ruthanne and Terry were in town last Friday (and did I take ANY pictures? No!) to finish up some stuff regarding mom's estate and taxes, etc. We had to drive down to my mom's tax person's office to drop off some paperwork. Having never been inside her office before, I had NO idea she had a beautiful salt water fish tank! A very kind woman (Barb) introduced us to the one fish who has been named--he is a puffer fish and his name is P-Diddy! Isn't that a scream? Barb fed the fish while we were there, and I couldn't help but think how much Brendan would enjoy meeting this great fish.

Fast forward to ... Wednesday after school. You see, I pick Brendan up from school Wednesday afternoons usually, and the tax office is only a mile or so away from Trinitas! I nearly forgot about P-Diddy and had to turn the car around and drive back two miles! I was trying to ease Brendan into this experience ... just to feel him out and spark a little excitement for this small event.
By the time we walked into the office, Brendan figured out that the "surprise" animal lived in the ocean (we were playing 20 questions) and that it was indeed a fish. But what kind?!?!? 
 Brendan KNEW that P-Diddy was a puffer just by seeing him and then he proceeded to tell me how its body would swell up and the spikes would "PREtect" it from any prediters.
 Barb, so kind, came out with the food so that Brendan could watch P-Diddy eat. There are five other fish in the tank, but they are rather elusive. There is a gorgeous blue and gold striped and polka-dot fish, a gleaming blue fish that is shaped like Dory, and some other truly beautiful creatures that are very fast swimmers and hide behind the foilage.
But Mr. P-Diddy is not at all shy. He has the most fascinating eyes (not captured well by my "photography"). They are a sparkling blue/green and have all kinds of fascinating shapes all around them.
Brendan made fast friends with our little fish buddy. P-Diddy followed Brendan's finger everywhere.
Sigh ... well, this doesn't compare with a petting zoo or anything ... but it's the middle of winter for Pete's sake!  

We were thankful for a glimpse at some truly awesome creatures God has made. Brendan kept telling me that God had made them so that I would NOT forget. He is the sweetest soul.

Tuesday, February 26, 2019

Out and about with Aidan

Monday, February 25:  The weather has been at it again (!!), so when I picked Aidan up after noon on Monday, I decided not to drive all the way back to the Beach House; instead, we started out at the E. Grand Rapids Library--it is one of my favorite librarys because there are so many nice toys, and play spaces, and trains, and even stuffed animals and puppets for goodness' sake!
Thankfully, Aidan is too young to notice that we are not playing at my house (he loves it here) and was fine just exploring these surroundings. Although I will say that his favorite thing to do was to climb up and down the stairs between the ground and first floor--but that was okay too. I needed the exercise. 
 Also, the library was not over-crowded today and there was plenty of room to play and enjoy the toys.
 Aidan is quite a climber ... at least if he is climbing UP--he's not quite as astute coming back DOWN yet. He was so happy sitting in this comfortable Thomas engine. Look at his cute little face.
 He played with these magnetic rubber toys on a lighted table (also there is a mirror that is facing Aidan) ... so it's an interesting space in which to play.

 I had brought along a tiny coloring book and a few crayons, so we sat and colored for a little while.
 Kids are so unique, aren't they? Aidan LOVES to scribble with pens, crayons, markers, etc. He is a bit early, I think, to love it so much--but I am very glad. It's one of my favorite things to do too.



 Aidan tried carting this over-large stuffed bear around with him for awhile, but it was significantly larger than he is!
 After about 90 minutes at the library, we drove over to Culver's to eat. I brought along some "safe" snacks for Aidan and he also ate my order of fries, dipped in mustard (naturally). He dips everything in mustard if it is available. I shared some of my drink with him.
 Aidan is a very contented little guy. We probably sat here at Culver's for over an hour without Aidan protesting a single bit. He ate his food and then we played.
 I brought along a few of his favorite trucks, which he refers to as "Ducks" but ... hey ... I KNOW what he means! He says "fries" too, as well as "Knock-knock" because Brendan does knock-knock jokes with him. 

 Aidan was so pleased to play with these three trucks while I finished eating.

 He is the sweetest little baby I have ever met. It's terribly hard to restrain myself from just kissing him head to toe constantly.


After we finished eating, we drove over to Woodland and walked around for awhile. I even did a little bit of shopping--no purchasing, but I did try on a few things without a single protest from this little sweetheart. He was holding on to his fire truck and sitting comfortably in the stroller. We walked around the mall and then it was time to go back to his house. All and all, a pretty nice afternoon!