As Mimi’s blog stated, both sets of Grandparents had the
pleasure of taking care of, and spending time with, both kiddies for Michael
and Marie’s business/pleasure trip to Florida. Since Mimi and Diddy picked up Libby to take her to a Florida wedding on
Friday, May 30, I was able to bring Matthew home to us on Saturday to spend 2
nights at our house. Papa and I were a
little nervous that Matthew would miss his Mama, Daddy, and big sister too much
to be happy staying with us but he was the
perfect, happy angel that he usually
is!
As he is working so hard at crawling (and even
harder at attempting to stand), he eats voraciously and sleeps even
harder. He loves to laugh and can be
tickled into belly laughs. He also loves
peek-a-boo and giggles/laughs every time you play it with him. You can just see his eyes taking everything
in (just like Miss B did at his age and still does) and wanting to explore
everything. Here he is crawling in our
kitchen and then attempting to open the first drawer he was able to reach.
He loves the water and being bathed in the tub. We brought his special bath seat and bathed
him in our Jacuzzi which he so much preferred over the big sink in the utility
room that we had to bathe him in the last time he visited! He loves to stand in the tub thanks to his
Daddy starting that at an early age.
And we also found out that, much like Libby, he enjoys music
including any that he can pound out on his own! As you can see, he stands by himself, not for very long right now, but I
do see that in the near
future.
We had wanted to take him to the pool but the weather didn’t
cooperate. We did take stroller walks
and had the opportunity to show him off to our friends and neighbors. Miss Cindy said that he was much too pretty
to be a boy! And he loved being able to
have Commish greet him in the mornings and any time he got up from a nap. And Commish enjoyed licking Matthew’s face
every time she could but especially right after Matthew finished eating.
Monday morning came too soon as we had to take Matthew to Rome
to share with Mimi and Diddy. But in
exchange, we got to pick up Libby! We
hadn’t even left Mimi’s kitchen before Libby asked me if we were going to have
her favorite side dish Fried Green Tomatoes. I told her that I hadn’t planned on it but if she wanted to help me make
them, we’d stop at the grocery to pick up the ingredients. She couldn’t agree faster.
Preparing fried green tomatoes has become a tradition in our
house when Libby gets to visit. A few years
ago, we had been on a family beach vacation and I had them at a
restaurant. Marie had them, too, and
gave some to Libby who wolfed them down. The next time she came to visit, I found a recipe online and made them
for her. It has now become something
that she and I do together. She enjoys
measuring out all the ingredients and we each have our own job. She mixes the dry ingredients and I mix the
batter. Then I dip the slices in the
batter (it’s such a dirty job) and she gets to pat the coating on the tops of
the slices. She loves doing it so much
that before her nap on the day we were going to prepare them she said, “And
GiGi, don’t start making the fried green tomatoes until AFTER I wake up from my
nap!” Well, yes, Ma’am, I won’t! She also helped me make Baked Zucchini
Chips. She used my mini food processer
for the first time and even pressed the buttons on the noisy machine. They didn’t turn out quite like we expected
but we had fun making them.
Libby loves being with Papa. They make each other laugh and she knows that she can tease him about so
many different things. With Matthew’s
musical stand up table still available (it used to be a toy for Libby), she
would intentionally call Papa into that room and tell him “Papa, you’re going
to love this” and then press a button on the table so that it plays music from
(as best as I can describe it) the “scat” genre. Papa tells her that he doesn’t like hearing
that and, of course, that encourages her to do it even more!
Libby and I got to go the pool and even though it was a little
cool, we had a wonderful time. I had
gotten her a few toys to play with in the pool, three of which were weighted
toys that she would throw into the water and dive down to get them. She does this at her swim lessons but it was
the first time at our pool. She was so
proud of herself that she wanted me to tell her Mommy how well she did with swimming today! So sorry but no pictures
of her swimming.
On Wednesday, we had a little more time than I thought we had
and asked if she wanted to go our big park. They have lots of climbing, swinging, rope walking, etc, there and we
hadn’t been in a long time. They also
have fountains for kids to play in. She
immediately asked about playing in the fountains and I told her I didn’t know
if they’d be on yet but agreed that she could play in them in her shorts if
they were.
We played in the park and I can’t tell you how much she has
grown and become more adept at the things she used to not be able to do. She was very proud of herself and stated
after doing a rope climb that “I couldn’t do this before.” And, yes, of course, the fountains came on
and she, much to her delight, was able to play in them.
After lunch Wednesday, including her other favorite food that
I make—Honey Glazed Chicken Wings, we packed Libby and Commish up and drove to
Rome. We hugged and kissed and then I
sent all of them off with Mimi and Millie to be returned to their loving Mommy
and Daddy. It was a wonderful time and
we loved getting to spend quality time with all of the kiddies.
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