From 1 to 3

I'm not a babysitter, I've never been a babysitter. In fact, Adrian's was the first diaper I ever changed. Now don't hate me for saying this, but I don't really like other peoples' kids. I just can't relate to them in a caring way like I do with Adrian. When Adrian has a booger, I pick it. When another kid has a booger, I'm to the point of gagging. And don't get me started on the other end of things.

So 2 weeks ago I had to put these feelings aside when I agreed to babysit the two children of one of Jon-Paul's good friends. He was going to be training for a new job during the day and his wife also was working during the day. I agreed to help them out for 2 weeks while he completed his training. After training he would be working nights, so they wouldn't be in need of childcare after that. The boy will be 3 this month and the girl will be 2 next month. So I was all of a sudden responsible for 3 kids under 3.

Monday morning he showed up to drop the kids off and of course Kata greeted them with her wall-shaking barking. They don't have any pets so meeting one dog and three cats was all new to them. Kata scared the girl to death by barking in her face and that was it for her the rest of the time they came over to our house. She was terrified of Kata and wouldn't let me put her down for 2 seconds. Yeah, that made it easy to get stuff done.

One thing I really wasn't used to was all the mess. If Adrian takes one thing out he has to put it away before getting something else out. Try telling that to two that weren't used to that rule. Wasn't working, so I basically followed them around cleaning up just to keep my sanity. I'm also not used to constant movement. Adrian is content to play with something for quite a while. These two moved from one thing to the next every five minutes! Sadly, the only thing that kept their attention for longer then that was if I gave them juice and turned on a cartoon. Their attention would be held until the juice was gone. I really, really tried to limit their juice intake, but they wouldn't drink anything else. While this went on Adrian stood there asking for water. What a good boy!

So I mentioned that I don't like to deal with the other end of things. I haven't had to clean a dirty diaper from Adrian since at least February. We're working on holding his pee right now, and we'll get there soon. Anyway, neither of these kids even attempt to use the potty. The boy will be 3 in a couple of weeks!! So you know what that means, I was doing a lot of breath holding.
I could go on and on about how much I hated it, but I won't do that. Here are a couple pictures of when I didn't mind having them here. Snacking on the couch, eating lunch at the counter, and ah yes napping!

To Show Low we will go....

You'd think that with me having the whole summer off of work I'd be able to keep up with this blogging thing. Adrian and I started our summer off by going "camping" with my parents in Show Low. I put camping in quotation marks because I don't consider being in a RV parked behind the ELKS club really camping. I would rather be parked down by the river, but I was still able to enjoy the cool weather and wonderful smell of pine trees.

In preparation for the trip Adrian helped my dad wash the RV, more specifically the TOP of the RV. My mom and I walked out to find this:

A little nervous shock ran through my body when I saw him up there, but I trust my dad and figured he would be ok. The next part had me a little bit nervous too though. We told them it was time to get down and of course he insisted that he ride on my dad's shoulders. At least they came down rather slowly.

Once they were safely back on the ground they both gave us their "Cheese!" faces...too cute!!

The relaxation began as soon as we arrived in Show Low. My grandparents were also up there because my Papa had been invited to play his guitar at the ELKS club during lunchtime for 3 weeks. My Papa set up the hammock that I actually used when I was Adrian's age. So Adrian and Papa jumped right in...

Adrian loved to walk around the park kicking over stumps and finding rocks. One day I found an inch worm on my arm, so Adrian began playing with him. He was gentle for a while but I think he eventually squished him.

The trip did have a little bump in the road about 3 days in though. On Thursday morning I woke up to my mom standing over me at 4:30am telling me that she was taking my dad to the emergency room. He was in so much pain he didn't know what to do with himself. His side really hurt. So off they went and around 6:30 my mom called to tell me they found out he had a kidney stone. Ouch! So, the rest of the trip was sort of a bummer because he didn't feel well enough to do much and Adrian couldn't understand that. So my mom and I took turns trying to entertain him as well as Papa does, but I know we just weren't as good.

Now my dad and Jon-Paul have something in common that they can talk about since Jon-Paul had his first kidney stone in high school. I guess they can compare their pain.