little surprises

Sometimes, The Kiddos surprise me. Sometimes, I am expecting the worst and I get the best instead. Of course, sometimes, it turns out the other way around... but let's not focus on that.

This past weekend, Gramma J and Grampa J were supposed to come for a nice long visit. That's not how it played out. Grampa J fell. He spent a few days in the hospital instead of at my house. He is doing well and is at home, and for that we are very grateful. We love you, Grampa J! But, The Kiddos were a tad disappointed when they got the news that the much anticipated visit was a no-go. I expected that. I knew they would be disappointed, and honestly, if they hadn't been disappointed, I would have been disappointed in that, if that makes any sense at all. But, The Boy surprised me. He asked a lot of questions that I never expected out of a three year old. "How did Grampa fall?", "Was the floor slippery?", "Where is Grampa hurt?"... don't those seem like such big boy questions? I had not told The Kiddos that Grampa was in the hospital. I had simply said that he fell and was hurt, and he needed to rest in bed. But Grampa told them he was in the hospital when they spoke on the phone. I expected that this would frighten The Kiddos, but it did not. They surprised me. They asked if the doctors were helping to make Grampa better, and when I said yes, they seemed content with that.

Now, since Gramma and Grampa J could not come, I had a weekend of time to fill. As it turns out, Grampa D is starting his own business; a retail menswear store. I took The Kiddos to see Grampa D's store. It is due to open this Wednesday, and daddy has been going every day to help Grampa get ready. The Kiddos were excited to see the store, and I was glad to have somewhere to go. How long would you expect a small, half full, menswear store to entertain your kids? I thought we had 20-30 minutes, tops. The Kiddos surprised me. During our visit, I started to help get things ready... items tagged and labeled, taken out of plastic, etc... 2.5 hours later, my kids were tired, but still behaving very well! They had found it to be very entertaining to help with the trash, and had kept themselves busy.... no TV, no toys, no books, and almost no attention. They helped Grampa with his store, and they are proud that they did.

This evening, The Boy had an accident. He wet his pants, which does not happen often. We got him changed right away and moved along with our evening. At bedtime we found that his blue babies were soaked. Ummm... uh-oh. We hadn't realized that when The Boy wet his pants he had also wet his babies. The babies have been an absolute bedtime necessity for quite some time, about two years. I am sure you would agree, but I could not let The Boy take the tinkle-soaked babies to bed. I explained this to him, and he was upset. He was disappointed. But he handled it well. He surprised me. I told him I would put them in the wash and bring them to him as soon as they were "nice clean". He seemed OK with that, in a quiet and sad way. Then The Babe shows up. She had already been tucked into her bed, but she overheard about The Boy and his babies. She appears in The Boy's room with one of her favorite stuffed animals, and says "I just wanted to offer to let him sleep with Puppy, since he can't have his babies". The Babe surprised me with her compassion and generosity. The Boy said thank you to The Babe, and everyone fell asleep just fine.

The Kiddos surprised me a lot this weekend. It's been good.... and I love them very much.