We met him, his mother and his little bare-foot brother at the Varsity for swap-out and a meal with just the three of us before we began our outting.
Little Analyzer had been feeling a little lonely the last few days because his next-in-line brother was enjoying a week away from the other two boys by visiting his other aunt in North Carolina. This was his week, his year. Big brother got a chance to have lots of fun experiences last year, but he was beginning to feel the pangs of not having brother around, as annoying as he finds him at times. Some of his feelings also may have come from being a bit jealous because he was missing out on all those fun times this year.
He was treated yesterday to "Mom and me only" time at a movie. Littlest brother stayed with their other grandmother, but still he was needing a little extra attention, so we had made plans last week to spend time with him today.
So, in spite of a few problems to begin with we finally were able to begin our time together. Of course, the Varsity always means great, plump greasy onion rings along with our naked dogs and lemonade/Cokes.
He's hamming for the camera, just like he usually does.He chattered like a little magpie the entire time, speaking again in his earlier learned language of "Greek" to me as he tried to explain his newest Nintendo DSL game card or something or the other that he had bought yesterday to go with another one he had saved for weeks or months ago.
Why can't he just talk about articulated dump trucks like he once did when he was very, very young, maybe before he was 18-19 months old. (I guess I should try to find the records to document that age before I get reprimanded for it, but he was very young!)
Of course, I didn't know what an articulated dump truck was at that time, either, but at least he could explain that well enough for me to understand it. Not like these games he loves to play so much now. And Webster never anticipated the need to explain what a Nintendo DSL was. He did anticipate a dumb grandmother who wouldn't understand an "articulated" dump truck.
Anyway, I told him to be sure to remember to pack the whole game as well as his cards when he comes to visit us with Little Free Spirit for a couple of days next week. Maybe he can make me understand it better with hands on experience, if I can see the game enough. It's kinda small. It has a stylus with it. That's about all I know for sure about that game.
After downing two naked dogs, an order of onion rings and two cups of lemonade, Little Analyzer was ready to take on two old people for a few hours.
I had called my daughter earlier in the day for some suggestions of what to do with an eight-year old. She has a twenty-month old, but she's still pretty good at thinking up things. You can only guess from reading my earlier paragraphs I needed something I could do and understand it, so she had gotten on the internet and came up with some ideas. My favorite turned out to be going out and playing putt-putt.
It has been years since I had a putt-putt club in my hands, so I didn't expect too much from myself, but I had always enjoyed it when my husband and I played years ago. He reminded me we had paid every penny of $.50 a game. I think it eventually went up to $1.00 a game and those prices were ridiculous, considering what we didn't make at that time. Whew! Am I dating myself, just a little bit?
I threw out that idea to the eight-year old and he jumped at the chance to play and beat the old folks. The prices have gone up from that original $.50 or $1.00 a game to $5.50 at that particular course, which considering the prices for a lot of other entertainment ideas was pretty cheap! That was for an 18 round course.
That was all we needed. It turned out to be a very hot day and considering Little Analyzer is a very pale little boy whose grandmother didn't even think about packing sunscreen for either him or herself, some of us turned out pretty much baked. And sweaty. And stinky. And exhausted.
He never complained for one moment. He acted like he was just happy to be with us and enjoying the competition. I have to say he was a pretty good little player. He played by the rules, didn't complain about the heat and just in general acted like he loved being there.
We had played 16 holes before he managed to sink his ball into the nearby water hole.
This was indeed a bad shot!He had resigned himself to having finished his game with that move, but Granddaddy and I took turns and let him use our balls so we could finish the game, until of course, we came to the final ball which goes away forever. I gave up my final shot so he could sink it for me. (Later, he was polite enough to remember to thank me for letting him sink the last ball!)
He liked to say he beat the old folks, but I was the only one who sank a hole in one. He could hardly believe it! I could hardly believe it! But he was happy for me.
Who knows what the score was! After a while we were only playing just for the fun of it, not to see who was the best. We were all pretty lousy at times.
The game finally ended and we headed for the inside to cool off and to take a couple more pictures of him making monkey faces each time I aimed the camera at him. I warned him I was dragging those horrible pictures of him out a few years from now when he finds a cute little girl to date. He asked, "So you can show her how I acted as a kid?" Yep,that's about it.
And that's exactly what he is. He's still a kid. It's hard to always look at him like that because he's growing so tall and acts so mature, most of the time, except when he's posing for my camera!
After a bit of cooling off we made our way over to a Chick-fil-a which was right in the same parking lot. His order was for an ice cream cone and a large, large cup of water. He was completely dry. Why didn't I think about maybe needing a bottle of water! In the hot sun, no less. I'm just out of practice is all I can say.
His plans for the rest of the afternoon, probably after dinner was to relax at the pool with his Daddy. Then his day would be complete.
Again he reminded me he's a kid when, in the middle of Chick-fil-a, he leaned over, hugged me around the neck and said, "You guys just spoil me to death!" And, yes, he had reminded me again earlier, he's still just a kid, as he grabbed my hand and his Granddaddy's hand and walked between us as he held them as we went to find the putt-putt course. (At the Varsity earlier he was going to tell us how to get to the place, but he put his hands to his head and said his GPS wasn't working for some reason. It never did work right, but we found the place anyway.)
I suspect those days of open affection will end within the year or two. I so hate to see them end! I hate to see the day when he's no longer happy being seen with the old folks much less hugging them and holding their hands.
In his sweet innocence he made our day. It ended up being a much better day than it had promised earlier. As a matter of fact, it was a down-right great day. Some of his out-loud thoughts included comments about how his brother was going to be so jealous when he heard how much fun he had! And I'm sure little brother will share his fun with him, too.
Now what in the world can we do next week...with two little boys?
4 comments:
Very good write up of our great day together! It was HOT, but nice to play putt putt again. You need to put a couple of the pictures on here, that we took yesterday.
Post has been up-dated with pictures.
So you already had one experience with realizing you should have applied sunscreen and should have remembered a bottle of water, but you forgot once again when we picked the blueberries! What am I going to do with you?
Hey, when you've kept as many kids of so many different ages as much as I have lately, you would forget the water and sunscreen, too.
I'm needing a vacation. Ready to go on one with us? Oh, I forgot you've got a kid, too, now. Oh, heck!
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