Had the little girl today, and will have her again tomorrow as well. I think this is either the second or third week of having her twice a week (of consecutive days), and I really like it. Jordan and Katie always are so concerned over whether they are asking too much of me, and I always try to reassure them, that I love having Lailah babysit me, and would love to do it more than once or twice a week – I would actually pay THEM to be her full time nanny!
Today, as you might expect, because of the gorgeous weather, the two of us actually got outside for the first time, in our spring/fall jackets, and we took the wagon to the neighborhood park (down the street a couple of blocks). Usually (last fall/last summer), she would want me to carry her ALL the way there and would not ride in the wagon and would not walk on her own. Today, she started out pulling the wagon herself, and then walked the rest of the way (with me pulling the empty wagon), to the park.
We got there (we’re the only ones there, it’s pretty secluded), and we played on the slides…it took some encouragement and the first couple of times she went up the slide staircase but then came down the same way (i.e., didn’t use the slide). She finally sat on the slide, and I stood next to it, offering her my hand as she slides down, giving her that assurance, she then remembers how fun the slide is, looks up at me, and says, “let’s do that again!”. We do this a few times, and I then go up with her and sit on the other slide beside her, and we both go down at the same time, holding hands – with me shrieking “aieeeee”. “Come on, GranPa, let’s do it again!”. Must have done it at least a dozen times.
There are lots of other play things in the play area of the park and we walk around them, and play a bit on them, and she finally comes to the swings.
There are two types, the toddlers kind (where you stick their legs into a two hole device), and the usual “big girl” kind. Last summer/fall, we ALWAYS were on the toddler swing. Today, she drapes her body (tummy) over the “big girl” swing, basically “floating” with her hands and feet in the air. She gets off and I ask if she wants me to push her on this (big girls) swing, her face lights up and I get her seated on this swing, her hands holding tightly on the two vertical chains. After making sure she knows to not let go, I give her a tentative push from the rear, and she goes forward a bit, then comes back, I push her a bit more, and we finally get her going up quite a bit, with her laughing and giggling. I stop pushing for a bit, and notice she and the swing are slowing down: “are you running out of steam” I ask? I push her some more, and after awhile, she says, “GranPa, I’m running out of gas!” I give her some more pushes, and she says to me, “swing with me, GranPa, swing with me”. I get on the swing next to her, and start swinging with her. Problem is, when I swing, I can’t push her. She informs me that she’s ran out of gas again, I stop my swinging, and reach over to push her, and get her going again, and again, she says, “swing with me, GranPa”. We do this for quite awhile, with me getting up more than a few times to take dozens of pics of her on the swing. She is having an awesome time, giggling, laughing, shrieking, first warm day in 4-1/2 months, warm enough to play outside, without the usual LLBean minus fifty degree winter survival coat on (the one that makes me look the size of a polar bear).
Abruptly, she decides, we’ve swung enough, and now wants to go home, and starts marching down the path, leaving me and the wagon to fend for ourselves. I gather up our stuff, and get the wagon, by this time, she is way ahead of me. She’s on a mission to get home. Not sure when, if we’re still in the park, or at the first “cross the street” stop, but sometime on the walk home, she convinces me to carry her – ah, I knew it couldn’t last – I pick her up and carry her, her head right next to mine, she arms around my neck and shoulders, holding tightly. Every few houses we pass, I ask her if she wants to walk: “No!”, she says. I try to ease her down so she can walk, “No! Aaaaiiiieee”. She just doesn’t like it when she wants me to hold her and I’m trying to get her to walk. Of course, she wins, and I carry her from the edge of the park to my place, while pulling the unused wagon along with us. I love carrying her, I can feel her love as she holds herself so closely to my chest and shoulders.
We get home, and I get us something to drink and we sit on the couch together, just relaxing. Not sure what we ended up doing, but I nod off first for a few minutes and like I said, she was sitting next to me, but I eventually woke up and she asked me if she could play with the iPad, I kinda ignored her question (since we already played with it earlier in the day), and just like that, she fell asleep right next to me on the couch. She slept for almost an hour and a half and was waking up almost at the same time Jordan pulled into the drive way. I was putting on her first shoe, and Jordan helped put on the second shoe. And, off they went, without so much a goodbye or (just kidding, Jordan puts her in my arms, and she gave this huge, huge hug before she left, almost like, she didn’t want to leave – “I love you, GranPa”…”I love you, Lailah!”).
My life is good. I am so happy to be a part of this family. I hope Katie and Jordan know how much my life has changed these last three years. Who knew back then that I would fall in love with this tiny little kid? Not me. I would not trade this for anything in the world.
The pictures I post these days usually are from the cell phone. These I can easily and quickly post to FB, same day. On the other hand, when I shoot with my other (i.e., “real”) camera, I tend to take many more shots, download to the PC, and then sort thru them, trying to reduce the hundred or so to less than a dozen to post. This process of course delays you from seeing them…sometimes I get them posted, sometimes, it’s hard for me to pick out the really good ones, since I tend to think they are “all” good shots of her, and then don’t post any. Then, I think some of you are getting “Lailah picture fatigue”, and don’t want to bore you with a couple of dozen photos each time I have her. To this I say, TOO BAD!! Haha.
