Happy Birthday to me, Happy Birthday to me...

Beautiful Blue Eyes loves his broom.

Beautiful Blue Eyes loves playing outside in the trees.
Well, all did not go as I had hoped last night. Granddaddy needed to get outof bed for a few minutes and Beautiful Blue Eyes missed him immediately, even though he was sound asleep when Granddaddy got up. BBE screamed as soon as he realized he was in the room alone, so when I went in to check on him he was very upset.

Nothing would do but I had to sleep with him. He had a restless night, but I guess that can be expected since to him he was in a strange place. He is such a close sleeper-up-to-you that you’re afraid you’ll squish him. I don’t think he was cold. I think he was so lonesome he needed to know one of us was nearby.

He woke this morning between 6:30 and 7:00 crying, “I wanta get up.” I tried to convince him it was still dark outside, but he was having nothing to do with that. He wanted to get up then, so we did. He immediately wanted to know where Dwanddaddy was. Granddaddy was still catching some zzz’s so he and I played around up front until Granddaddy got up.

After breakfast we went on a walk with my sister and her husband. We took the stroller out for BBE, but he would have nothing to do with it. “I walk”, says he. Well, it was more like, he runs because he kept us on the move for the next hour plus. He found so many things to keep him occupied.

He discovered the riding toys in the mall that you have to pay .50 or more to ride, and he had to spend lots of time checking them out. Then we played on the light reflecting pad. I have no idea what it is called, but it is something that has balls or other lights on it and when you step on them they move around and you change them. Then back to another area that had the riding toys. (They sure know how to put those things in places where kids can’t miss them.) As luck would have it, a Korean/Chinese couple had their child sitting on the motorcycle. All went well until Mommy decided her sweetie needed one more ride on it. All that varoom-varoom-varooming just set Beautiful Blue Eyes afire. He wanted to ride on that motorcycle, too. The mother had already asked me if it would be alright for him to ride on the back with her child, but I didn’t see that as too good an idea because he would never have gotten off. I thanked her, but “no thanks”.

He wanted to watch the waterfalls which hadn’t really started shooting up at the time we went by the first time, but he was fascinated by just the bubbles that came from the water. His aunt gave him a penny to throw into the water because he asked for it. He gave a good hard throw and it ended a long ways away.

Then it was stop by the toy rides again on the first level and after finally being able to pry him away from those one final time, we went by the pet shop and watched some of the little floppy-eared bunnies as they drank from their water bottles, then we saw a little puppy trying to make a lasting impression on its new potential owner. (And to my friend with the crazy, mental dog, and you know who you are, I saw a little dog chewing on the metal of the cage and I started to post a sign saying, "Don't get me, you'll be so sorry, someday!, but I didn't because I had to drag the kid away, just short of kicking and screaming. Mostly kicking. Well, come to think about it there was lots of screaming, too.

Then he wanted to know where Dwanddaddy was. Yeah, so did I! I told him he was probably sitting in a chair in Sears fast asleep. So we rushed off to find him. By the way, when we met Dwandaddy and Uncle the first time they had already finished their walk. I asked him if he wanted to keep him with them. Guess what that answer turned out to be. That’s why our walk became quite an extended one.

My sister suggested if we walk together Monday maybe we’ll make sure he’s secured to the stroller. That was MY suggestion to begin with, but SHE felt he would be just fine walking.

His other Grammy told me that when Papa comes in the house at night the first thing she does is she hits him and says, “Tag, you’re it”, and he is on duty for the rest of the night until he leaves for work in the morning. I tried that and it didn’t work. I don’t think I hit Dwandaddy hard enough. I may have to rethink that. Maybe she hit him over the head or something. Perhaps I should try a harder blow to his head. We’ll see.

BBE loves those buttons in the elevators and since we had to ride it twice he was having fun. I was just afraid he would hit the emergency button and everybody would come running, but he was good. He just pushed the right button and let it go at that.

He almost went to sleep on the short drive home, but he managed to stay awake. He should have been very tired because he covered lots of territory at that mall this morning, that and he had lost sleep overnight, so I was surprised that he didn’t go to sleep immediately.

We ordered pizza and he decided he needed to go with Granddaddy to get the pizza. “I come”, says he, “I come”. So we all three “comed”

I picked up the scrapbooking album I had in the back of the car that we had been working on for The Little Princess. He and I read over the pictures many times over and in different versions because I couldn’t remember my exact words every time, and each time I would say, “The End.” and close the book. He would say, “The End. Weed it again! Weed it again!” We “wed” that scrapbooking album many times on the ride to and from the pizza place. He loved looking at the pictures and having me tell him the story behind the pictures.

After our pizza lunch we spent some more time playing on the floor. He learned to use the beach sand bucket to catch the toy cars he dumps from the dump truck and then he dumps them back into the dump truck. He had so much fun playing over and over. Repetition is a great way of learning and playing when they are little and they do repeat themselves so many times just for shear entertainment.

Then he found The Little Princesses’ tea set and her stove. He wanted to play with them, and since I put no limitations on Little Princess playing with boy toys I didn’t see a need to keep him from playing with her toys. After all someday he will have to learn to wash dishes, cook and clean up, so he may as well find pleasure in doing it now.

The little kitchen toy has a sink that makes a swishing noise when you push the faucet and he enjoyed washing those dishes after he had poured me a few cups of hot tea. Little boys enjoy drinking tea, too, right and certainly big boys have to eat so why shouldn’t he learn by playing with the tea set. After all he’s only 2. I’m sure he plays with girl toys in play school.

Then it was time for him and Granddaddy to take a nice nap. Granddaddy read him some books and then I heard them settle down about two hours ago. I just heard him making noises and Granddaddy is finally coming alive again. Now I see a little head sticking in the door. Got to go and play with him some more, since he’s been so sweet. Catch up later tonight after he’s asleep, maybe.

We played with the ABC board The Little Princess and I play with. We concentrated mostly on the letters A-B-C-D-E. That was the top line on the board. He would try to put them in their proper spots and I think he finally managed to get a few of them down where they belonged. But we worked on them at various times rather than let him get completed bored. He had to learn to twist and turn them so he could get them on the magnetic board, but he got there. He would go and start with playing this Leap Frog musical ABC ball while we were doing the ABC’s. He’s doing a great job of singing along with the ball with his ABC’s and I think I can see an improvement since he got here last night in how clearly he says his letters and words. Then again, maybe I’ve just gotten better adjusted to being around him.

One of the first things he wanted to know yesterday when he talked to me on the phone was: “Do you have a backyum cleaner, Grandmomma?” He wanted to help me backyum. He gave me the broom to use to try to get his ball from behind a chair. He’s a pretty smart little cookie to know how to retrieve something.

He was helping me clean the mats on the floor earlier in the day and he said, “I sweep it with a brwoom.” He loves to sweep outside with two brooms I have out there and he had to get them out to use today. He never forgets those brooms when he’s playing outside.

I’m always afraid he will go into the road before I can catch him.
Sometimes he knows no fear of roads. A couple of trips ago he couldn’t even hear the cars, so it was an even greater danger to him then. So, today I stuck a little plastic “Stop Sign” out a little past midways and told him he was not to go any further than that. He was to stop like we had asked Granddaddy to stop at stop signs and lights last night. It worked fairly well. He respected the limits placed on his driving and it worked out much better for both of us.

He threw our little green ball back and forth to me while he was outside. Whenever he would make a wild pitch he would say, “I get it, I get it” If I missed one that stayed on the driveway he would let me get it. It was as though he took responsibility for the bad throws and I had to take responsibility for my bad catches.

I had pictures out of The Little Princess and his brothers as well as of him. I asked him who Little Princess was and he told me loud and clear just what her name was. He sat at the table eating his meals with the pictures of his brothers parked in front of his plate. He was enjoying having his brothers back again. He misses them, I know.

There have been so many things he’s said that I’ve wanted to write down, but I just haven’t had time to write them and no room to cover everything here, but these are a few of the fun things that he’s done just today. I had intended to post some pictures of him today, but time has run out on the day. Maybe later I may go back and add them when I have time to play around with them.

So that has been how I’ve spent my birthday today. Happy Birthday to me! I couldn’t have spent it any better. He’s such a little sweetie, and I wouldn’t trade a minute of my day with him.