monday's mulling: whew!

How Todd and I felt after we spent a week in Cleveland watching our little grandson during his parents' hospital stay after the birth of their daughter. 

We read umpteen books and Owen got attached to Richard Scarry's Best Story Book Ever. It's a large book with lots of pages with lots of pictures and words. It takes a long time to read. Owen watched his parents leave for the hospital Friday morning and was teary all day. He missed his mama and dada. He asked me to read the Best Story book Ever at bedtime. What a stall tactic! Todd read it to him a couple times at lunch - again stalling his nap time. Little rascal knows what he's doing. Anyway, I hid it after a couple days, told his parents where it was and they agreed that the book could go missing for a while.

A couple trips to the grocery store kept us on our toes. Owen likes to stand at the end of the cart vs. sitting in the kid seat. That's just asking for an easy tumble out of the cart. So I told him that if he stayed seated, he would get 10 mini marshmallows when we got back to the house but if he stood up at the end of the cart, I would take a marshmallow away. He got 7 marshmallows when we got home and tried to negotiate the other 3 back.

And just the everyday stuff...fixing his meals and after meal clean up, bath time, playing inside and outside, reading, taking him to the potty and having to talk about the word Charmin on the toilet paper, the hand washing routine after the potty, taking walks and cawing at the crows. He likes his routines and I quickly learned not to mess with them or there would be a meltdown.

But it was a wonderful week. Owen amazed us with his creativity...how he built a beehive down in the basement and we had to buzz around before going in the hive. His parents have read Pete the Cat and His Four Groovy Buttons to him a gazillion times and he has memorized the story. He "read" the book to us. Wow...what a smart little guy. One day we were in the backyard and Owen was helping Grandpa cut the grass. All at once he came running across the yard and excitedly said, "Didi, the moon is in the sky!" The wonder of a little child is so innocent, so profound, and so inspiring. 

The elated but exhausted parents brought their baby daughter home last Monday. This grandma still has her mom ears and boy does that little girl have a set of lungs in the wee hours of the morning! We had Owen's monitor in our room and I heard every bump and cough and other noises he made. When that little guy wakes up, it's full speed ahead. 

Our time in Cleveland came to an end last Wednesday when the other set of grandparents came to take their turn helping the kids adjust to life with two children. I cried when we left. I do miss all the hustle and bustle, but you know, after you've been away from the familiar, it feels good to return home. As Dorothy said in The Wizard of Oz, "There's no place like home, there's no place like home." I just wish Cleveland were a click of the heels away with some ruby red slippers.