Mark went on a business trip this week. He was gone for three nights which coincidentally is the same number of grandchildren I have. Kara took this as a sign that I should have the children each spend one night with me. I don't like being home alone, so I opted to take her up on her offer.
The first night I took Bentley home. (I wasn't ready to chase Jake or Viva around the house. I thought I'd rest up first.) Bentley was a charming overnight guest. He was eager to come--that's always nice!--and he's a great, low-key companion. We came home from Kara's fairly late, so he didn't get to play very long before it was bed time. He grabbed five books and we headed down to the bedroom.
After reading those five, we came back up and he picked another five. We had a delightful time. He even read one of the books back to me. Five times. It was very cute--although he won't believe me that on the last page the book reads "That's my robot!". He insists it follows the rest of the book and reads "That's NOT my robot!".
In the morning when he got up, he requested that we go to the park. I decided to try out the newly remodeled Cuddy Family Park near the library because I had some books on hold at the library. We were disappointed to not find any playground equipment at the park. Before the remodel there was some! However, we still enjoyed our visit. Bentley had a good time climbing the bleachers in the small outdoor theater. Then we visited the library and he did three puzzles and we collected my books.
Tuesday night it was Viva's turn. I was a little anxious about having her stay because she's such a wanderer and you have to keep your eye on her every minute. We ended up coming home late again, so there wasn't much time for her to play before it was bed time. I rocked her to sleep because I'm sure she misses her twin at night time when she's put in a room by herself to go to sleep. That is not her usual routine. She was quite content to be rocked to sleep by Grandma. (I don't see nightly rocking become a routine at her home, but that's okay because at home she has Jake to croon/cry her to sleep while she returns the favor.)
In the morning I decided to take her to meet my brother who is visiting from out of state and then we went to Costco for a diaper run. She was very good-natured during our adventures. She usually is, if you aren't tampering with her freedom.
Last night it was Jake's turn to spend the night. Rather than come straight home from his house to mine, I detoured by my parents' home to introduce Jake to his great uncle. Jake was not friendly. No big surprise there. We ended up staying out two hours past Jake's bed time. Jake fell asleep on the way home. I did not get to rock him. :-(
This morning I attempted to exercise while keeping my eye on Jake. It's possible to do this with Bentley. He will do puzzles or other activities in the front of the family room while I use my elliptical machine in the back of the room. I hoped that if I brought out the right combination of toys I could keep Jake happy while I exercised. Well, it was not as easy as I thought it would be. He would not stay on his half of the room! Gee...why did I think that a fourteen month old would stay away from a moving exercise machine?
GRRRRRRRRRR! Jake just deleted the rest of this post. His fingers are way too fast and he likes the escape button in the upper left corner. Now I have to rewrite what he sent to the great blue yonder. Fortunately I hit save regularly or I would have lost the entire post and I might not have bothered to recreate it.
Back to my rewrite...After Jake's failure to stay on his half of the room, I tried two ways to confine him there. I rearranged the two couches (they are heavy!) so that they created a barrier across the room. I had to stuff a long body pillow behind one of the couches to keep Jake from squeezing through.
Jake hated my barrier. He screamed and cried for ten minutes. I thought he'd give up after a while and play. He did. For a minute. At this point I was only half done with my 45 minute work out.
I took a break. I vacuumed under the couches because when I moved them I found snack food underneath them. Next I put slide buttons on the feet of the second couch. Last year I had done that on the other couch, but I didn't complete the job because I wasn't sure if they helped or not.
Then I had the brainstorm to place Jake in his play pen close to my exercise machine. He'd be happy near me and I'd be able to finish my exercising. That's what I did. It worked great. Now it's time to shower and take Jake home so he can have a nap with his twin. I have to be quick before Mr. Fast Hands returns and demolishes this post again.
P.S. I'll add a cute photo when I get Mark to download the photos I took on his camera while he was gone. I did not take any photos of the children at our house because I left Mark's camera at their house.
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