And the Winner is…Grandma!

looking for dirt, sand, or wood chips

One giant and beautiful park near my daughter's home offers kids 3 sets of playground equipment and it has ball fields for baseball and softball practice and games. Since I had to go out for diapers yesterday and Dollar General was only a couple of blocks from the park, I decided to take 2-year-old Avery to the park while her brother and sister were in school instead of just playing with her in her back yard. In the back yard, though she doesn't know how much fun she'll have in it yet, sits a giant pool awaiting a deck, a trampoline she enjoys jumping on, and a pile of dirt she calls a mountain, where she loves to play.

found a cubby hole under the play equipment
where she could play with the wood chips – in the shade

We generally play in the back yard or go for walks in the neighborhood, but yesterday we went to the giant park – where she played in the sand – and the dirt – and the wood chips. All kinds of play equipment, like slides and swing sets and ride-on toys were spread throughout the park, and Avery chose the sand, the dirt, and the wood chips.

OOH! Lots of wood chips!

When it was time to go home for lunch, however, though she happily trotted off to the car, she refused to get into her car seat. She can be very stubborn and I knew that if I demanded her to get into her car seat, she would throw a fit, so I calmly sat in the driver's seat while she jumped into the front seat with me. When she reached for the water bottle, I grabbed it first and told her, "Remember what I said – you can have it after you get into your seat." 

and a sand box

She started to cry, asked for a tissue, and then looked at me – wondering if I was serious, I think, about having to wait for the water. 2-year-olds test their limits and I could see that mind of hers trying to figure out what her next step would be. I wasn't giving in and she knew it. The breeze blowing through the window felt wonderful and I had the foresight to park under a tree so we were in the shade. Unfortunately, though our winter was long, we had only 2 weeks of Spring and now it's Summer already. So I rested my head back on the seat and I could tell Avery knew I would have stayed there all day if necessary.

playing the other day on her back yard "mountain"

I said not another word about her climbing into her car seat, but out of the corner of my eye, after several minutes, I watched her climb into the back seat. The rear view mirror told me she was in her seat, ready to be buckled in. I climbed out, grabbed the water bottle, put it on top of the car, buckled Avery into her seat, and then handed her the bottle of water.

Grandma wins again ;)

The New Grandson I Never Knew I Had

Yesterday I flew out to Virginia to visit my son and his family. His two sons are here (his daughter is with her other grandmother in Illinois) and so is their cousin, Wesley. I have a grandson with the same name, but this Wesley is my daughter-in-law's sister's son. So, no relation.

However, this little 5 year old hears his cousins calling me Grandma, so he started doing the same. But he called me by his other grandma's name, too – Grandma Chris, so I told him my name wasn't Grandma Chris, and he wanted to know what he should call me. He had also been calling me Grandma Wiza, which is what Kaden always calls me. So I said, well, you can call me Theresa, or you can call me Grandma Wiza, or you can call me Goddess.

He said, "I'll just call you Grandma Chris."

He started calling me Grandma Wiza, though, so as long as his mom, Vicki, doesn't mind, I'm OK with it.

Later, when his Aunt Michelle went to the store and I was in charge, he asked, "Can I have some M&Ms?"

I told him, "No you already had M&Ms. It's time for a healthy snack. Do you want a banana, an apple, or a plum?"

"NO, I want something for my tummy," he said, as if I thought he wanted the M&Ms for some other reason, like maybe for his artwork or something.

"I know. So what do you want, a banana, an apple, or a plum?"

"A banana will be good for my tummy?" he asked.

"Yes."

"I won't turn into a werewolf or nothing?"

Huh? He was serious. When he realized he wasn't getting anything other than a healthy snack, he took the banana. After he had the banana, he told me he needed M&Ms now because he had "scrubbles" in his tummy.

Scrubbles? Hadn't heard that term before, but I thought it sounded like it could be the sound gas makes moving around a slightly empty tummy. Clever, Wesley!

Anyway, later, after his Aunt Michelle arrived home, he wanted to know if pizza would cause him to be a werewolf and his Aunt Michelle told him that if there were mushrooms on it, it might.

I'm beginning to understand his fears about becoming a werewolf.

My Grandma, The Bug

I've been in Virginia for the past ten days, enjoying my time with my son, Greg, and his three children, Taylor, Kaden, and Zac, while his wife, Michelle, was in Illinois, working at building their new business, FroYo Creations in Bourbonnais, IL.

My grandchildren are the cheapest forms of entertainment I know (as you might have surmised from some of my other blogs), and once again I find myself having to relate yet another occurrence of "How do they come up with these things?"

Having been away from Audrey and Nolan, I was looking forward to seeing them again. Audrey and Nolan are pictured here in dress-up on the day they performed their own version of American Idol while their mom, Brittney, and I attempted to watch the show in front of them. You can read about that day HERE.

But getting back to the Grandma plays a bug story (which is a very short story, by the way), here's what happened shortly after I came home yesterday:

I was unpacking my suitcases when Nolan came into my bedroom swatting around a hockey stick. Just as I turned around to see it, he said, "Hey, Grandma, pretend you're a bug!"