Grandma in charge

This past weekend John and I went on a trip to New York City for the weekend, and we left Nolan with his Grandma for almost 48 hours. That's nothing new for Nolan to not be without me for that long, but without both of us? He figured that Grandma was a fair trade and was plenty happy. My mom did not get a fair trade on the weather, as we left them to deal with thunderstorms and heat and humidity. They still had a splendid time at home, playing, watching movies (needless to say, Cars) and got a fantastic play date with Ruby's family next door as they had a party with miraculously good weather. My mom's only fear was not understanding what Nolan wanted to tell her in his toddler tongue. Apparently it wasn't much of an issue, except that Grandma didn't know why at one point Nolan wanted her to come into my closet. I showed her later Nolan's "store" in there. A cubby with finger puppets for money, offering "sailboats" or rather triangle shaped blocks, books and cars for sale. He loves to run to other side of the cubby and sell you things, and if you don't have money, he'll just go find some other substitute somewhere in his room.


He told Grandma to turn her hand so he could give her some salt. As if she needed extra luck watching him...


We treated Grandma to dinner at Honeypie before we left. A new discovery is that if you get an entree, for $2 extra you get a piece of pie! We three downed some chocolate cream pie. It's still amazing to me how adept he is with utensils when it comes to dessert. He does not drop a crumb or drip ice cream anywhere to speak of.



As we were walking back to our car, we noticed our new neighbors, friends who had moved from way across town, and went to welcome them. Music ensued, with Nolan tapping out a perfect rhythm on the drums and insisting that mom keep playing the bass drum.

Nolan was not mad at us for leaving as I had anticipated. He was more upset when Grandma had to leave! Since getting home, I've noticed that he has actually changed. He is more assertive and bossy really. At the playground today he was not the shy one as usual and wanted to engage all the kids in play. I think knowing that he had to show Grandma a lot of things they way we did them made him feel more self assured. With this in mind, I can't wait to see what preschool will do for him in a week!