Tonight, Roy and Leah had a night out on the town planned which included meeting friends for dinner and seeing the Beastie Boys perform at the Exit Inn. What didn’t pan out exactly as planned was a babysitter who could stay late into the evening so Terry and I pitched into help. This was the first time that both Lily and Elijah have spent the night with us at the same time. It was a momentous occasion and I think they enjoyed their stay. Time will tell.
To ensure success, we basically just let them eat and do anything they wanted. For dinner, Lily and Elijah shared some hummus with pretzel chips, Lily devoured a pizza Lunchable while Elijah opted for peanut butter on a spoon. Not a culinary home run by any stretch of the imagination but it’s what they wanted and needless to say since Elijah decided he wanted to eat peanut butter right out of the jar, I made sure that it went home with him.
Later that evening, we made popcorn and watched part of Disney’s “Planes”, which I think is mediocre at best and then the movie, “Brave” which I love. Here’s something I discovered. Lily and Elijah are always hungry. Seriously, it’s like they have hollow legs. After they devoured the popcorn, Elijah still had the munchies and proceeded to eat 3/4 of a banana, which he of course had to peel himself, almost an entire granola bar and literally one bite of an apple. Just as I’m winding them down to go to bed, Elijah says that he’s hungry and requested a scrambled egg. Dude, it’s 8:45pm. Undaunted, I happily obliged. While I’m getting out the eggs, butter and frying pan, I try to tempt his taste buds with something that perhaps doesn’t require cooking, like yogurt, apple sauce or string cheese. Simultaneously, Lily was devouring a can of Pringles that she was not keen on sharing.
It was at this moment that I miraculously stumbled across a “Spider -Man” cartoon which Elijah was drawn to, well, like a spider to a fly. He instantly became transfixed by the web slinger and completely forgot he had the munchies. As it was getting late and to preempt any discord, I intoned during every commercial that as soon as the amazing Spider-Man was over, it was time for beddy bye. I didn’t want any crying or flailing of limbs so I just kept peppering them with subtle reminders.
Speaking of bedtime, earlier that afternoon I had placed a foam mattress topper on the floor in front of the couch in our bedroom and made it up with lots of pillows and blankets. The first thing Lily and Elijah did when they walked into the house was to make a bee line for the bedroom and jump on the pallet. I was summarily informed that it wasn’t very bouncy. C’est la vie. I also set a basket of toys, board books and stuffed animals next to it to lure and entice them. The one thing that Lily latched onto was a stuffed animal I had as a little girl that looked just like our German Shepherd, “Blitz”. She carried it around the house with her and slept with it that night.
Bedtime was relatively uneventful. They got their pi’s on, brushed their teeth, and stretched out on the pallet. Digging in the toy basket, Elijah found an Elmo pop-up book that he wanted me to read which Lily promptly harumphed as being for baby’s. It was then, as I was tucking them in that I realized I really didn’t have any books to read to them that they both would enjoy. I became a bit panicky as I was envisioning scenes of total anarchy. In an a-ha moment, I remembered I had a stack of books from my childhood that were stored in my closet. I grabbed a stool, pulled them off the top shelf and flipped through them to find one that they would find entertaining.
What I unearthed was a book called “Masha’s Cats and Kittens” which Grandmother Ginny had given to me when I was but a wee little one. The scent of mustiness assailed me when I opened the cover and I smiled as saw one of my library book plates pasted inside along with a loving inscription from Grandmother. The book, published in 1970, was pretty politically incorrect for today so as I read aloud I modified some of the verbiage which made me laugh to myself. We wouldn’t want the little tikes to be repeating words in school that have’t been heard in the last few decades.
While I was in the closet looking for reading material, Lily made it abundantly clear that she did not want Elijah to touch her at all so to diffuse a torrent of tears, I laid down between them with book in hand and began reading. The kids quietly drifted off to sleep as I read “Puss-in-Boots”after which I gratefully crawled off the pallet and into our bed.
It was a restless night for all. Both Lily and Elijah mutter and talk in their sleep. At one point, Lily sat up and said “Daddy” in a sad little voice. I crawled out of bed, knelt by her side and gently rubbed her back and whispered that everything was okay and to go back to sleep. Elijah also sat bolt upright in the middle of the night and started to quietly whine/cry. I slipped out of bed, sat next to him on the floor rubbed his back and quietly whispered into his ear. Like a piece of linguini, he limply wilted back into the blankets and fell into a deep sleep. This process was repeated several times throughout the evening with Lily often conducting entire conversations by herself.
Weary of fighting the inevitable, Terry finally got up around 3:30am, turned on the coffee pot and went to the office to catch up on work while I tried to catch a few more hours of shut eye. However, around 6am Elijah was up saying the sky was light and I knew there would be no more rest for the wicked. And I know this may sound crazy, but they were hungry. Shocking. Terry and I fried some bacon and baked some biscuits which Lily enjoyed with some of William’s honey. Elijah however was not in the mood for a traditional breakfast and instead requested a peanut butter sandwich with strawberry freezer jam which I cut into heart shapes using a cookie cutter.
The rest of the morning we watched cartoons and played. I took a page out of the Grandmother Ginny Handbook and confiscated the bottom drawer of one of our dressers and turned it into a toy drawer. Brilliant! Lily sat at the kitchen table and drew pictures with crayons while Elijah and I played Candyland and made all kinds of imaginary things using Jenga blocks. Later, they dug into the toy drawer and found long balloons, the kind you use to make balloon animals with, and a pump so Terry and I blew up balloons for them. Lily and I also made tissue paper butterflies which she seemed to enjoy. The kids also found some Groucho Marx glasses with mustaches and we wore those around the house cracking each other up.
Leah came by a little after noon to pick up the kiddie poos. They were so excited to see their mommy. They gathered up their little overnight bags, their balloons and butterflies and were on their way. Terry and I headed to the Bunganut Pig to enjoy a late alfresco lunch finishing moments ahead of a torrential thunderstorm and then back home where I collapsed in utter exhaustion and took a much longed for afternoon nap.
