Going on my first vacation with my grandson

My oldest daughter, Lindsay, lives in Washington D.C. Stacey, her younger sister, decided to visit Lindsay, and invited us to go along. (The two girls have always been close). It was a family trip with our little love to see our oldest love! They flew and we drove. Driving to D.C. is not too bad, only 7 hours away from Columbus, Ohio. My husband does not like sharing driving responsibilities with me. Unfortunately for me, he now has Sirius radio, and one of his favorite programs is “Willie’s Road House.” Hearing Willie Nelson and his friends is enough to make me want to head for the hills. So, I plugged my iphone in and listened to my juvenile rock-n-roll. Anyway, we finally get to DC, go to my daughter’s apartment, and Mr. baby Aidan is waiting for us. He sees me, and starts to clap. I am the clapping, singing, grandma. The apartment wasn’t equipped with toys and Aidan played with a Lacrosse ball, not intended for babies,all weekend. We all noticed he is now using his knees to crawl, and naturally, we were excited. He’s been doing an army crawl up to now; hands and no knees. When my husband came into the room, after parking the car, Aidan broke out in a big smile. Like it or not, he gets a little bit more excited when he sees my husband. Maybe he senses they are both males! Aidan also met another adult male, Assaf, a cousin from Israel. Assaf is bringing over his family as soon as he can. This includes 3 bigger children, and a baby girl who is about six months younger than Aidan. Hopefully, he’ll get to know them! He was happy to let Assaf play the father role. It’s a good thing because Assaf is homesick for his family! We took him on the metro, and he thought that was great fun. He seems to enjoy people watching, and acted like he’d been riding the metro all his life. He looked pleased with all the new things he got to ride in: the elevator,and several escalators. As if on cue, he fell asleep when going to the museums, so it made it easy on the adults. He is starting to be a toddler and rebelling slightly against his parents. When they put him in the stroller, he will hold his body stiff so they can’t fasten all the seat belts. I don’t know why he does this, but it doesn’t really work. After several seconds he gives up, and let’s them do their thing. He’s also been doing this on the changing table. Maybe he wants to change his own diaper. I have a feeling this kid will toilet train himself so he won’t have to go through all the rigamarole of diaper changing. He met his third cousins at the zoo, two adorable boys, but his response was a growling noise. I think he was trying to establish the fact that he was a boy too. They were much older, 2 and 5. After a few minutes, he took his nap while we all attempted to see some animals at the National Zoo in DC. Never go there with a car to park! It’s impossible. The hordes of people made it impossible to see the animals, but we were there to visit with each other anyway, so it didn’t matter. ( I did see an elephant who didn’t look too excited to be in captivity. I was glad to see he had other elephants to pal around with. ) We took Aidan with us to the restaurants. His servants, parents, fed him so he wasn’t hungry. He looked up with curious eyes at all the servers. Maybe he was wondering if they were day care workers. Maybe he couldn’t figure out why they were talking to the adults instead of him. (Which is usually the case.) His parents slipped him some human food. He seemed to think it was quite tasty and gummed the little tiny pieces. He only has two teeth. He got his first taste of a sweet pancake, and that seemed to turn him on. He entertained himself at brunch with a plastic cup which he turned upside down and tried to bang. After he got tired of that. he took an empty water bottle and stuck a napkin in it, than pulled it out. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could all be entertained like that? My daughter and son-in-law had the right idea when they wouldn’t let me walk around with him. After all, he has to get used to the restaurant. I have a feeling he’s going to get just the right amount of discipline. Finally, it was time to go. We all waved goodbye, including the baby, and that was the end of our first family vacation together!

My first official Mother’s Day as a grandmother

Today, I went to my daughter and son-in-law for my first Mother’s Day as a Grandmother.

We walked into the house, and Aidan, my grandson, clapped his hands and was totally delighted to see all of us. He gave us a soft “hi” . Members of our entourage included Great great Aunt Ruth (Rochel), Uncle Brian (aged 32), Grandpa and Grandpa. I can’t help wondering what Aidan thinks of all the relatives coming and going.  He is everyone’s little Prince.

Naturally, I wanted to hold him, but someone else wanted to hold him more. Aunt Rochel, held Aidan ( a sturdy toddler now) in her arms for a good 20 minutes. Aunt Rochel is a little frail, but she’s a tough, stubborn, curious, and above all, optimistic about life. How many people can hold their great-great-nephew.

You could see her joy and amazement that little Aidan wanted to sit on her lap. Everyone loves to feel needed, and she did. He was enjoying it too. No protest.

I was happy that I had my family around me. The only one missing was my oldest daughter whom we called. I got my first grandma card! I gave my daughter a card too.

It was a good day!

My grandson at 10 months

Today, my grandson got to say with Grandma and Grandpa for 6 hours.

He really knows us now. He doesn’t waste any time smiling and clapping his hands when he sees us.

He is now rolling, and going backwards and forwards. It’s not a traditional crawl, but it seems to be working for him. Now, we have to chase him to get him away from potential danger.

He loves to go down in his playroom and play with his exercise saucer and contraption that he can throw balls down, and it lights up and plays music. (Great toys these days).

I was proud that my daughter knows how to decorate, and puts up all his art work from daycare. They do clever things like putting his feet in paint, and creating around that. It’s all very adorable and a nice thing to save.

I’m also glad to see that the TV is not a focal point in this house. He hardly ever watches it. This was pediatrician advice that I thought was silly, but now I think it’s a great idea. No sense putting your kid in front of the TV or computer. There’s nothing like one-to-one human interaction.

We took him for a walk outside,and he seemed to really enjoy the whole experience. I was doing my kiddy patter that I used on my own kids, pointing out interesting things: purple blossoms, orange flowers, yellow fireplugs, dogs,etc. Because of this, they all graduated college. (Well, who knows?)

I did my grandma spoiling thing by singing him to sleep, and letting him sleep on me. He already knows that I like to do this, so he happily plays along. As a matter of fact, he now expects it! You can spoil a baby if you try hard enough.

He has two bottom front teeth now! And I think he may be getting some other teeth soon. He also has a few words: mama, dada, his name (sort’ve) and hi. He also repeats some words. Now, he waves bye bye and hi.

While feeding him, I allowed him to hold his spoon. He gazed at it like it was the grand prize. He wanted to bang it against the top of the high chair. He got really excited when I let him hold his empty food container. He definitely had that look in his eye that said, “oh boy, I’m not supposed to hold the food container, thanks Grandma.”

Finally, after the walking, napping, feeding, etc, mom and dad came home. He was happy to see them, and visa versa.

It was just enough time to spend with my precious little grandboy.