Tuesday, January 20, 2015

Watching Ava & Caleb

We watched Dan & Holly's kids this weekend, 3-year-old Ava and 19-month-old Caleb, while the parents went to Vegas for their 9-year anniversary.

 

Lots of neat moments of cuddling and playing and doing life together.  Heidi and I generally got along fine on most parenting issues.  That's one thing I'm a little nervous and insecure about, so this weekend helped that.  I enjoy having her as my partner in life.

 

On Saturday afternoon, we ran into Lee and Marilyn in the Costco parking lot as they were arriving and we were leaving.  They came and joined us at the park for awhile before nap time.

 

We got together with her sister Heather and her kids for Heather's birthday.  We picked her and the kids up and went to Chick-fil-A on Saturday evening.  Not too fancy, but good food and somewhere with a playground to keep the kids occupied.

 

We all went to church on Sunday morning.  Ava was having meltdowns over the prospect of not going to her church, but eventually calmed down.  When we picked her up, we received very positive reports on both kids.

 

We went to El Pollo Loco for lunch on Sunday.  Caleb conked out before we got to the restaurant.

 

I WD-40'd all the doors in the house since the squeaking was driving me nuts.  I asked Dan beforehand to make sure he'd be okay with it (i.e. that they didn't use the squeaks as kid motion detectors), and he gave the all-clear.


Caleb let me fork-feed him some mac & cheese.  This is apparently huge because Caleb has always refused help from his parents in eating food, always insisting on doing it himself.  Heidi even came in to watch and take pictures of this phenomenon.

 

I let Heidi and Caleb sleep longer in their Sunday nap while I got up when Ava awoke.  I didn't let her watch Netflix like she usually gets to, which resulted in despondent tears, but I was able to redirect her to the chalkboard easel and she got busy making pictures of family, etc.


We read stories and sang songs for bedtime.  I'm a little worried about Ava's theological education because she didn't know "This Little Light of Mine," but we sang it several times to sink it in.  Heidi noticed my Pentecostal roots coming out in how wildly my light was moving and shining.


I didn't get MLK Day off from work, so I had to leave at 6:30a to get to work on Monday, but I was still able to get some time with Caleb before I left since he woke me up at 4:30a.  I changed his diaper, brought him into cuddle for a bit, and then took him back to deposit into his crib.  There was wailing every time I tried to leave, so I calmed him down again and firmly told him he was okay and to go to sleep.  Heidi and I both tried to hide our shock when it worked and he stayed and slept for another few hours on his own.


We were and are exhausted, but it was a great weekend, and now we gear up for watching Heather's kids this next weekend.