katie allison granju

a lovely weekend October 29, 2007

I got my parenting do-over this weekend.

I took all 4 children, plus J’s friend S. -who is sort of like an extra kid of mine- down to Bell Buckle for Saturday and Sunday. Jon stayed behind to care for our gravely injured cat (he had his throat slashed open in a cat fight).

The children were all really well behaved and fun, and they had an excellent time playing with all their cousins. They each also visited with my grandmother; E. even presented his recent speech from school on Robert E. Lee for her, which she enjoyed a lot.

On Saturday night, there was a town-wide Halloween carnival downtown, and the kids all walked down there in their cistumes and played games, did karaoke, and ate candy. Well, except H. - he isn’t doing a costume this year. I think he and his friends did wander by the event, though.

C. has suddenly become this very outgoing, grinning, smiley, chortling baby, so she charmed everyone with her gooey baby giggles all weekend. I was concerned that she wouldn’t sleep at all, as she seems to be a real creature of habit when it comes to her bath-and-bedtime routine, but I brought her SNUGGLENEST (could baby products’ names be any stupider?) with me, and she slept great. She loves that thing.

On Sunday we caught up with family and friends at the BELL BUCKLE PARK for what would have been my COUSIN WARD’S fifth birthday. His mama, Julie, had planned a really beautiful celebration, with cookies and a balloon release. The weather was gorgeous. I can’t believe this is the third birthday without him

We got back pretty late last night. Generally I would get the children home much earlier on the night before a school day, but we wanted to be there for the memorial service, which was late in the day, so I made an exception.

When we got home, Jon had the jack o’ lanterns lit on the front porch, and a fire burning in the fireplace. Good stuff to come home to.

I was really, really tired after driving four hours in the dark with a car full of children, so Jon was sweet enough to handle overnight duties with baby C. last night. She actually did pretty well; after sleeping all the way back from Bell Buckle, she was asleep again by midnight and slept until 4am. Jon got up with her at 4am and has been up ever since. Today is also one of his days to take her to work with him, so I know he’s going to be exhausted.

But anyway, it was a really lovely weekend.