As I mentioned earlier today, I had Lailah this afternoon. When I pick her up in the mornings, we usually go to my place, and play inside, then (when it’s a warm day), we walk over to the park (sometimes she pulls the wagon, sometime [ok, most of the time], I end up carrying her). Today, we drove straight from Lailah’s house to the park, and we parked on the street, and unbuckled her from her car seat, and placed her next to my truck, as I went toward the back to retrieve the wagon, etc.
As I’m placing our stuff in the wagon (blanket, juice boxes, snacks, camera, etc.), she is already heading (almost “running”) down the walking trail toward the play ground area. I mean she was about a hundred feet ahead of me (the park is very secluded and safe, the walking path is very open), so I’m halfway toward her and I stop in my tracks and just wait for her to finally turn around to see where the heck I’m at, which she finally does. She calls out to me, but I’m still far enough away that I can’t make out what she is saying. I wave her toward me, and she gets the msg and runs (skips) toward me. I got the wagon handle and she insists on pulling the wagon. Trouble is, the walking path is at a slight downgrade and the wagon keeps (slowly) overrunning and bumping into her…she tried very hard to stop it, but not with a whole lot of success. She finally asks for my help and we both pull it to the play area.
We play on the slide lots of times, she then runs to the swing, but again, once she gets in, almost immediately wants off (quite unlike the first two times earlier this month). We go back to the slides and she now wants to try something new, sliding down on her belly, feet first. She loved doing that.
Finally she wants to go home (my place), and wants me to carry her. I say no. She insists. I say no. She insists and starts to pout. I say no and finally hold my ground. She almost starts to cry, but sees I’m not going to budge (this time), and finally gets in the wagon.
She IS growing up. Much too fast (sometimes).
I pull her in the wagon to my car and before we (I) put the wagon in the pickup bed, i put her in her car seat (but don’t buckle her in yet). I get back to her door and she is insisting on not riding in her seat, wanting to sit “not in the back, GranPa Brian”, but with me. I live on the same side-street as the park and it’s less than a block away (about ten houses). But, I don’t want to take any chances (on my shift) and tell her she needs to be in her car seat and she backs down and tries to buckle herself in. Again, with no pouting.
We get to my place and I’m gathering all the stuff the needs to be brought into the house and she’s already at the front door, yelling for me, to hurry up. First thing she says when I open the front door as she’s walking in, (something to the effect of) “oh GranPa Brian, thank you for cleaning up your place” or maybe it was “oh GranPa Brian, thank you for getting out my toys”, and she starts taking off her coat and tries to take off her shoes (she can only do one shoe). She has the nicest manners, always complimenting me on my glasses, hair or color of my shirt, etc.
We do some of our usual activities, and we end up in her room, where her bed and (ultra soft) blanket is, and she wants me to read one of her favorite books (Charlotte Jane Battles Bedtime). She insists I get on the floor next to her (remember, she is on a comfortable baby bed and I’m on the hard floor). We read it together, and I pause on almost each page, encouraging her to finish the key point of each sentence. She is so smart.
We do more of the usual stuff – our routine, and I give her some supper. By this time it’s about 5:30, and I had indicated to Jordan I would be dropping her off around 6/630. She is nowhere ready to go home, we run around playing tag, “you can’t catch me, GranPa’. I somehow can always catch her but she can never catch me – even when I’m just a foot or two away from her). It’s now 6/615, and I tell her that her daddy is home and wants to see her. At first she indicates her desire to go see Daddy but then realizes it means having to stop playing with me. It’s obvious that she doesn’t want to go when she goes to her bookshelf, grabs one of her books (the Orange Aardvark one) and pleads for me to read it to her (which I do). She then gets another book, same thing. I end up texting Jordan saying we’ll be there by 7. She and I finally finish up our reading and I get our shoes on and her jacket. She walks out to the car, and we drive home to daddy.
She says so many funny things during our day together – I wish I wrote them down since I tend to forget them. I’m glad I’ve started “taping” (yes I know, such an archaic term) her – she likes to watch herself after we finish a taping session – gets a lot of giggles out of it. I taped us reading our book together (again).
We played with a new app (at least it was for me), called boxtrolls (from the recent kids movie). I’m not sure if mommy/daddy has it or maybe daycare, but she just “knew” how to play it. Most of the time she wants to be in control (of the iPad), but she’s starting to learn about sharing, saying to me, “you try it, GranPa”, or “its your turn now, GranPa”.
I know most of you (my HS friends) have already gone thru this, raising your kids so many yrs ago (on the other hand, I know several of you – my former work colleagues – are much younger than me and still have kids in elementary school) . But the last 3 yrs are a new experience for me – and I’m am so glad to be a part of her life, and I’m glad I’m able to record my memories like I’ve been doing since last fall (I really should have started doing that on the day she was born or soon afterwards, but it didn’t occur to me). Anyway, this really is for myself, and maybe a bit for her to read when she’s older, as well as for your own reading enjoyment too – if you’re into this kind of thing.
Thanks for reading, your support, encouragement and love. It means a great deal to me. She’s the BEST thing that has ever happened to me. EVER.
