Friday, April 23, 2010

While the Parents Are Away



The Parents have left town and I am in charge of the boys! Very cool--but it's a lot of pressure, too. What do we do on a staycation (staying at home during your vacation instead of traveling to a pleasure destination) that is as memorable and fun as getting on a plane and escaping Alaska during breakup?

Fortunately toddlers are not as hard to please as adults. They really do enjoy the little things in life. Wednesday--our first day of unsupervised freedom--we started off our at-home party with some bubble wrap stomping (see photo above) and we followed that fun by skipping nap time.

Skipping nap time sounds like it would be great fun--after all the only good reason to skip nap time is if you are too busy having fun to stop and rest. Unfortunately our skipped nap was the result of great-grandma's lame-o dentist. The man cannot keep to a schedule. The office staff told me the appointment would take only 15 minutes. I scheduled a full hour because I've had plenty of recent experience with this man's inability to keep on schedule. He ran an additional 45 minutes late this time--yes, a total of an hour and a half late! I'm glad he's not my dentist. The boys and I were hanging out at Borders book store waiting for great-grandma to phone us. Borders is a favorite store of the boys, but we don't usually hang out there that long.

Thursday was our first full day of freedom. What did we do? First we slept in to make up for the missed nap. Then we went on a hunt for new mini monster trucks (see upcoming post for details on why this toy is worth hunting down). We hit three stores before we found a decent supply.

The boys enjoyed the trip except for the late spring snow storm that covered them in big, fat, wet snowflakes every time we left the truck to go into a store. Bentley does not like getting wet. It offends him greatly. He likes snow well enough, but only when it's on the ground and he has some control over where it goes.

He's outside shoveling snow as I write this. He just came in shrieking because he got his jeans a little wet and he wants new jeans NOW. I told him to wait until he's done shoveling outside. He wasn't pleased with my decision, but he did go back out to shovel more. Opa is with the boys--I have not allowed them outside on their own. They are much too young!

What are our plans for the rest of our parent free period?! I promised the boys they could play Wii every day--after all they are on vacation, too--but, we already hit a glitch with that plan. Bentley threw a tantrum Wednesday night when Opa shut off the Wii after an hour, so Bentley lost his Wii time tonight (Thursday). Jake made his opa promise to not knock him off the platform in fencing.

Opa is taking Friday off work, so we can do something special. What would that be in Anchorage in April when the ground is wet, wet, wet?! I'm sure the boys will have plenty of ideas.

Now Jake is here demanding his Wii time. (I've been interrupted a few times while trying to write this post for tomorrow.) I have to go and get opa moving in that direction. Bentley is being very good about his missed Wii time. He's focusing on watching Dr. Who with opa and then taking a bath in our large tub. Like I said earlier, toddlers are quite happy with the small joys of life. It's a life lesson we older folks could learn from them.

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Where are the parents you might be wondering? Are they on a romantic getaway? No. They traveled away at the same time, but Kara went west and Matt took Viva east. Kara joined three cousins in Hawaii for a little R&R. Matt took Viva to South Dakota to meet her great-grandfather and her great uncle and to spend a couple of days with her grandma Vicki. Viva is sure to get spoiled--so I have to make sure I do some make-up spoiling here at home with the boys. :-)

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