A Week-end at Mimi’s
and Pappy’s House
The twins have come to stay at Mimi’s and Pappy's for the weekend. They are two years old and we are always excited to see them. Their first order of business upon arrival is to take care of the spice cabinet. Ethan and Emma do not feel that I have that cabinet organized correctly. The reason I know this is because they roll that cabinet open first thing each time they visit and "shake, shake, shake" each spice and then proceed to put each container in another spot, usually not in the spice cabinet. I have found spices in the drawers with the pots and pans, in the living room, on the counter tops, in the toy box, etc. On this particular visit Ethan grabbed the pepper shaker when my back was turned and took it to the living room table and proceeded to "shake, shake, shake" it everywhere. I didn't discover the problem until Emma came up to me with pepper in her mouth. She had her hands in her mouth and was trying her best to get the pepper out. She wasn't crying but she was very uncomfortable. I gave her milk in her sippy cup and then a drink from Pappy's iced tea but that wasn't working. What really worked after I wiped as much as I could off of her face and tongue was a piece of ice. That worked. She loved it. Note: Never turn your back on a two year old!
Generally we explore the toy areas in the house. One area is in their bedroom and the other is
in Mimi’s and Pappy's bedroom in cabinets under a window seat. That one was just recently discovered. It is the cabinet where some of Kacie's and
Karli's toys are. Wow, Kacie and Karli have
great stuff. Binoculars (pronounced
neck- u-lars by Ethan), a camera (Emma always says "say cheese" when
she plays with a camera) and balls, and books, and ELMO! and a big blue bat,
and birthday hats! The "birt-day hats" were identified by Ethan and
he gave each of us one. Pappy and I both
put ours on and wore them even though they are not really birthday hats. They
are safety cones that belonged to Lee Ann when she was a safety patrol in grade
school. Yes we grandparents revert to a couple of silly-willies quite often
when the twins come to visit. I think we
have more fun than they do.
I asked the twins if they wanted to go outside. "Okay" . The twins don't answer
with a yes or no. Well, yes they do if
the answer is no. They like to say no. But if the answer is yes they say
"okay". Going outside at
Mimi's and Pappy's is lots of fun. There
are chickens (bwauk) and cows (moo) and cats (meow) and a dog (woof,
woof). When identifying animals one is
required to make the sound that the animal makes. It's an Ethan and Emma rule. Anyway, before we went outside Ethan got a net
sock from the kitchen. It was netting
that tomatoes came in at the grocery store.
I put it on his head like a stocking cap but he insisted on pulling it
over his face like a bandit. He wore it
while we played outside. He was very
comfortable in it as it was a perfect fit.
He had no qualms about meeting the neighbors and saying hello with his
mask on. All activities outside on that occasion were played with his mask
on. I wish I had taken a picture of
it. He was so cute.
One of the places we like to play is in the cypress trees
north of the house. We have a game we
play in the trees. They run through them and hide behind them and I say
"Ethan, Emma where are you?" and they appear through the trees with
big grins on their faces and they squeal with delight. "There you
are!" I say. Emma is especially
fond of hiding. She moves into a bushy tree with her back to me and says
"Where's Emma"? And then she
happily squeals again as she turns around to see me. All the while she is quite visible to me. As far as Emma is concerned if she is in the
bushes and she can't see me, she's well hidden.
Another place to play is what we refer to as the 'tee box'
in the back yard. There are steep little
hills on each side of the tee box that Ethan and Emma love to run up and down .
They laugh and run and don't seem to mind if they lose their balance and
fall. They just hop right up and do it
again. Ethan discovered some droppings
that Hank the dog had left at the bottom
of one of the hills. He carefully inspected it and pointed to it
and said "Poo-poo....Poo-poo nasty" .
He says this quite often at his own house too when he spies Daisy's
poo-poo. Very observant and smart young
man. He steers clear of poo-poo.
When we get back into the house the twins get into high
chairs for a quick bite. They like to
have their chairs facing the TV so they can watch Sesame Street as they
eat. Ethan allowed me to remove his
bandit mask in order to eat thank goodness.
I hid it after that so he wouldn't want to wear it the entire
weekend. After cleaning their faces and
hands and getting them down they began 'free play' again. Ethan likes to go in circles. He goes through Mimi's and Pappy's bedroom,
through the closet, through the laundry room and kitchen over and over. He has his little football in his hands. Emma begins to follow him but somehow takes a
shortcut into Pappy's bathroom unbeknownst to Mimi for a minute or two. When I go looking for her I find her in the
bathroom with her back to me with some Kleenex in her hand. "What are you doing?" I say when I
see her. She jerks around and has a
quick little "oh-oh she's caught me" kind of look and drops the Kleenex
and runs to me. Of course she gets a big kiss from me. Didn't see until later
that she was pulling all of the Kleenex out of the box and stashing it behind
the cabinet. Those little looks are so
special to me and I left the Kleenex where it was for a few days so it would
remind me of her sweet sheepish little mischievous face. How fascinating a Kleenex box is to a little
two year old. It continually keeps
popping up another Kleenex for you to pull out.
The feel of it and the sound of it are just too much for Emma to
ignore! What a precious child.
Now it's time to go to sleep. Since they haven't really had a nap it wasn't
difficult getting them down. We brushed
teeth and watched "The Princess and the Frog" Disney movie. Emma fell asleep on me as we watched. Ethan was concerned with the villain in the
show. "That's scary" he
said. He did like the music in the show
and paid particular attention to it. I
picked up Emma and put her in the crib in their bedroom. Ethan followed but turned around and went back
into the living room with his Pappy not sure yet that he wanted to go to
bed. Then he came back into the room and
I lifted him into the crib as well. They may have whimpered just a bit but Emma
crawled up toward Ethan and wrapped her arm around him and they went to
sleep. They are precious little angels
and slept all through the night.
Ethan and Emma, your Pappy and Mimi love you dearly. It is such a joy to take care of you. You will both grow into gentle souls just as
your parents have. I hope that you both
have a chance to be grandparents because then you will realize what a special
thing it is.
