Well Owen’s cold quickly hit me first and now it’s on to Brandon. So far it seems that Dad has be left out – not such a bad thing! It definitely has been noticeable that the boys are not feeling quite right – the crankiness, irritability, coughing, runny noses have been doing a number on everyone this week. One night we thought a walk outside would help clear everyone’s heads, get some space between each other and enjoy the warmer weather. It worked quite well Owen ran up ahead with Dad pointing at everything, crunching the snow and splashing in the puddles (remind me that next time we do rubber boots and splash pants) and Brandon and I walked slowly behind; Brandon took in everything, in his slow methodical way. At every lamppost, fire hydrant, tree, each piece of paper or leaf on the ground we would stop, look and examine. This slow process reminded me of Owen’s first trips outside once he started walking and the weather warmed up. I didn’t push Brandon along to keep up with his brother instead I very consciously followed behind him and let him discover the wonders of the outdoors. We slowly made it to a new wooden footbridge and Sean and I sat on the rail while the boys ran back and forth, loving the sound the wood made. Oh and how could I forget as we were leaving for our walk Owen reminded us that they needed their sunglasses?! The sun was going down but they insisted and so they both walked with their sunglasses on the whole time, even once the sun went down they insisted they needed to keep them on. I was most impressed with Brandon; he wore them and they never fell off!
A new little girl started at the day home this week, she is 10 months old and Sean and I are very pleased that the boys will have a girl to play with; maybe she will teach them how to play a little gentler, a little quieter, heck maybe even teach them it’s okay to sit and read a book; and I mean the whole book, not just a couple pages! Ha ha Apparently Owen is quite shy around her but Brandon is very interested; he watches her and talks to her, maybe he likes that he’s not the baby around anymore! Of course any child new to being dropped off at a “strange” place is going to cry – both Owen and Brandon did it! In asking Owen each day about the new girl and if he plays with her and what she does – his response is “she cries and cries, even when I give her a toy”, although one day Owen did inform me that “she cried but then she stopped”. Owen has been telling me more and more about what he does at the day home each day; I try to ask him what he ate for lunch, if he played outside, what toys did he play with and sometimes when I get no response from Owen I will ask Brandon and then Owen feels the need to correct and interject! Ha ha
It’s been a long week of everyone (excluding Dad) being sick and it’s taken it’s toll on everyone, especially Mom and Dad. Lucky for us and maybe unlucky for Grandma and Grandpa H they offered up their babysitting services to us Saturday night. It was a much-needed break for both Sean and I but at the same time we felt bad leaving Grandma and Grandpa our sick little boys. Grandma and Grandpa were troopers and were patient and all smiles with the boys. They admitted there were some meltdowns and some crying spells but the moments when the boys were laughing and smiling made up for it!