Y'all broke my kid

We had a huge weekend. That's why there have been no posts since last week. Sorry. Back to the weekend. John's brother Fred, our sister-in-law Mary and their three year old granddaughter Elizabeth (called Lizzie or Liz) came up to visit. In turn, we had our three year old granddaughter Emily for the weekend too. The two girls are about eight weeks apart in age. We've had them together before but now they're old enough to really have fun and actually play together.

The idea was for the two grandmoms to take the little girls and go play on Saturday. The brothers would go off and do brotherly things, then we'd have everyone over for dinner on Saturday evening.

Fred, Mary and Liz arrived on Friday afternoon. Emily had spent the whole day asking me when "wibet" (the best I can do of her version of Elizabeth) was coming. And spotting every car or little girl and asking if that was Wibet. (We've always called Liz Elizabeth, it's just a nicer version of the name although Liz is easier for her to spell and manage name-wise I guess.)

For her part, Liz was doing the same thing to Fred and Mary -- asking where Emily was and when she was going to see her.

We met at our favorite restaurant (you have to get there early to get served without a long wait beforehand) and the girls immediately began playing and being super excited: jumping up and down on the benches, yelling, crawling under the benches, spilling chocolate milk and much more. I eventually got up and apologized to the people in the next booth as both girls had hit their heads on the back boads of the both MANY times. The family there was really cool about it which was great. Still. We've been there and had kids clunking on the booth and know it to be irritating depending on the type of dinner you're having (if it's a romantic evening, forget it).

After dinner, we went to a farm market that puts up giant teepeesfilled with hundreds of illuminated elaborately carved pumpkins. The girls picked out pumpkins and we went on a short unscary hayride into the woods. Then we came back to our house, got them into jammies and into bed. The room Emily sleeps in has a queen bed in it and we also put an aerobed up so each little girl could have her own bed -- didn't think trying to put them into one bed was going to work. Neither did the aerobed/big bed arrangement. There was plenty of talking, squealing, bouncing and then crying. Emily sleeps with white noise (radio tuned to static at our house) and a nightlight. Liz sleeps in quiet. Just wasn't going to work. So we moved Emily into our room and both girls promptly konked out.

We rigged a bed on the floor from pillow shams and extra pillows and blankets so that's where Emily slept when we came to bed. That was fine until about 6:30 Saturday morning.

When both kids (and the new puppy) were up and ready for the day, we headed out to one of our favorite breakfast restaurants. Both girls had new Barbie dolls brought by Fred & Mary so they were reasonably occupied while we ate. After breakfast, Mary, Liz, Emily and I took off for an indoor playground called The Sandbox . We had the place almost to ourselves and had great fun. Then we headed to the Scarecrow Festival that the village puts on -- organizations decorate scarecrows and they're displayed along Main Street. Another great excuse for a festival - food, lots of families out walking through the sunny October weather to look at all the scarecrows. We took the kids on an antique fire engine ride and had ice cream for lunch. In total, we walked probably close to three miles, more than plenty for the little ones!

We came back and all of us took naps. Then Erin, Mike and Lucy (15 months) came up for dinner. The weather was so good we ate on the deck rather than in the house. It was beautiful outside. Even the yellow jackets didn't bug us. After Erin, Mike and Lucy left, we got the kids into their jammies and watched Toy Story. They were both mesmerized and stayed up until about 10:30. Emily leaned over to me at one point and said "When the movie is ovew, I want to go to bed." Never thought I'd hear her say that!

We tried putting them in the same room but it was clear almost from the start that it wasn't going to work again. So we moved Emily to our room and Liz had the aerobed. Ultimately, Johnnie ended up on the makeshift bed on the floor of our room and I slept with Emily.

Sunday morning, Liz was up early and we were on our way to breakfast by 9ish. We stopped for coffee and Erin met us to trade Emily back. By then we were REALLY ready to be on our own for a little while. Fred, Mary and Liz took off for home and Johnnie and I went home for a nap. Naps are really lovely, aren't they? Very restorative.

Erin called about 6pm to tell us that Emily slept from 1:30 to about 5:30. Her comment: "Y'all broke my kid!" comes from keeping Emily going so much that she took such a long nap. Let me tell you, the kids broke the grandparents too!