jennanddave.com

Remember me? I thought I'd take a minute to tell you a bit about our weekend while my kid protests taking a nap by banging relentlessly against the wall of his bedroom.

Late Friday afternoon, the three of us piled into a rental car and headed for the vast open expanses of Interstates 80, 81, 84, and finally 87, home of some of the worst rest stops in the history of rest stops. (Roy Rogers? Seriously?) My grandmother's birthday was Friday and we thought we'd surprise her by showing up on her doorstep bright and early Saturday morning.

My parents got there in time for lunch on Friday so they took her out to dinner and got her a little cake to celebrate with on Friday night. Because Friday was her birthday. The bigger celebration with the bigger cake would be on Saturday. The day after her birthday.

By Saturday afternoon I noticed that she was getting a lot of phone calls from people wishing her Happy Birthday. There was even a bouquet of flowers delivered to her from my Aunt. After the fourth or fifth call, I asked my dad why everyone was calling on Saturday instead of Friday. Because Friday was her birthday. He said he didn't know. Then he said maybe her birthday wasn't Friday. So I asked her "Wasn't yesterday you're birthday?" And she said "No, yesterday I was 89. Today I'm 90." And my dad and I had a good laugh, then blamed my mom for misleading us, because she's the one who knows this kind of information. After discussing how we would avoid making this mistake again next year, we settled on writing down "Grandma's birthday" under the correct date on our calendars. Seems like a good plan.

Later when we brought out her extra super big and official birthday cake, Grandma asked us why she was getting another one since she'd gotten one already the evening before, and my dad said "Because yesterday wasn't your birthday." Slightly embarrassing and yet she got two birthday cakes! I hope everyone forgets which day my birthday is next year.

As if not getting the day of her birthday right wasn't bad enough, when I told Megan about it on Monday, she laughed and said "Didn't you guys do that last year? Or was it the year before?" Now that's embarrassing.

Posted by Jenn at 02:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Yesterday morning my Dad and I strapped Henry and the dog into the backseat of the car and drove off to brave the wilds of the westernmost regions of the state. Not that the Berkshires are all that frightening, I just have a tendency to give in to dramatic impulses once in a while. "Once in a while" being, let's say, every ten minutes or so. Give or take nine minutes. Or so.

The point of the trip was to visit with my Grandma. I haven't seen her since last April which is completely unacceptable. My only excuse is that once Henry got past the age of one year, it became harder to travel with him overnight to places because he was a bit sensitive about whether or not we would be there when he woke up if he wasn't completely familiar with his surroundings. Now that he understands that when we say "We'll see you in a few hours," we actually will see him in a few hours it's become easier. This has been a very recent development and it's made life quite a bit easier in certain respects. Of course the flip side is when we say "You can have your chocolate bunny later" he actually remembers. Now we have to be very careful.

Anyway, he was a bit shy around my Grandma at first but then warmed right up to her after she encouraged me to go ahead and cut him piece after piece of chocolate-frosted cake, which I did because I'm afraid of her. After lunch we went into the living room where I flipped through a huge bag of family pictures, Dad and Grandma lounged on chairs, and Henry ran back and forth between the organ and piano she has. Perhaps needless to say, he was in heaven.

While Henry was napping, I got to sit down and talk with Grandma, take the dog for a walk, throw snowballs into the stream that runs through her backyard with my Dad, and generally slow down and enjoy being there. After dinner Henry didn't particularly want to leave the house that had the chocolate-frosted cake and piano in it and only after a bit of coaxing did we manage to get him out the door and into the car. Although he was too shy to give her a good-bye kiss, I'm sure the next time Henry sees her he'll remember her.

Posted by Jenn at 07:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

My parents came up for the weekend on Friday and left this morning. Although it would appear on a day-to-day basis that there's absolutely nothing to do in the neck of the woods we call home, we managed to have a crazy weekend anyway. Each day Henry's nap got later, as did his bedtime, but who wants to sleep when you can play with grandparents instead? The best part of the weekend occurred last night when, after months and months of coaxing, Henry finally said "Grandpa". And since he said it once, he decided to say it a lot. The saddest part of the weekend was this morning when he said "Bye-bye Grammy!" and waved as she went out the door. Henry said bye to his Grandpa after they were in the car and driving away. He's been asking for them all day.

Tomorrow is Halloween which means I have five million pumpkins to carve. I always set a lot out down near the sidewalk in order to lure kids to our part of the street. Most of the neighborhood is older and so there are a lot of porches with the lights turned off; people don't bother coming our way much. This year will be worse because our street's closed off due to construction. Of course none of this stopped Dave and I from stocking up on enough candy for 2000 kids, which led to the following conundrum at the store: do we buy candy we like because we're probably going to have lots left over, or do we buy candy we don't like because we're going to have lots left over? We bought candy we like, but probably we should have gone the other way.

Who am I kidding, we did the right thing. I plan on being in a Butterfinger/Snickers-induced sugar coma by nine o'clock tomorrow night and I'm looking forward to it!

Posted by Jenn at 02:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Henry is fourteen months old. Knowing that, you could safely deduce that my dad became a Grandpa fourteen months ago, and technically you'd be right. However, I'd like to say that my dad officially became a Grandpa this past Saturday.

My parents came up Saturday afternoon to babysit Henry so Dave and I could have a leisurely dinner then go see a movie. They've done this before, but usually we've only gone out for a movie, and we've always caught the late show which means Henry was already in bed by the time we would leave. While talking to my mom early last week I mentioned we were thinking of heading out on the town around five, which meant they would have to deal with dinner, bathtime, teeth-brushing, and bedtime. I believe my mom's exact words were "GREAT!!!" which is technically only one word, but you know what I mean. (For the record, they couldn't wait to get rid of us on Saturday. From the time they stepped off the train to the time we actually walked out the door to go out, I believe they asked us at least four times to clarify exactly when we were leaving.)

After we picked them up from the train station and had some lunch, we set Henry loose from his high chair so he could run around. Within five seconds my dad was on the floor with him and the two of them played until Henry started fussing for his nap. I gave Henry some milk, tucked him in, then retired back to the living room. While Dave was messing around on the computer, my mom and I worked at restringing Dave's banjo and my dad settled onto the couch with his book. Ten minutes later, my mom and I notice a low rumble coming from behind us. We turn around to find my dad, glasses still on, book across chest, snoring away. He and Henry had completely worn each other out. I turned to my mom and said "It doesn't get more "grandpa" than passing out on the couch after some hard-core playtime with the grandkid does it? I guess this means he's official now."

Posted by Jenn at 09:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)