My husband and I went to Ruth’s Chris for Valentine’s Day. I had a medium-rare fillet and garlic mashed potatoes and Chocolate Sin cake. Mmmmm. The only downside was that our romantic dinner was last Friday, February 10th. On Sunday, he flew off to his new job in Washington State where he gets to joyfully work on a nuclear waste problem. Go, Steve!
Monday morning, I packed up the Valentine’s Day decorations that were hanging around mocking me. That’s okay; we had our nice time. An early Valentine’s Day is still Valentine’s Day -- to me, anyway.
Tuesday was a little sad, though. There was no one next to me when I woke up; no one in the house; no Valentine’s Day kiss. I went to dance class and then participated in a demonstration at the Fairfax County Courthouse where Karen Rasmussen and Barbara Bream, two members of my church, applied for (and were denied) a marriage license in the good Old Dominion. I returned home to set up for my tutorial session. I was busy and didn’t give the holiday another thought.
At 4:30, the doorbell rang and a seven-year-old duly presented himself for reading instruction. “Thank you for helping me get better in my reading,” he said (I image an obedient repetition from parental coaching) and held out a big red envelope and small golden box in hand. (Is that Godiva? Oh, yes. Score!)
“You made my Valentine’s Day!” I told him happily. “This is the only Valentine I got today because Mr. Steve is out of town. This is so nice!”
He told a long story about selecting the card which I didn’t quite catch as it was rattled off at about 300 words per minute. We sat on the couch where I opened the card, read it aloud and stood it up on the work table.
The boy, whose classic grin is missing two front teeth, slid across the couch and wrapped his little arms about my neck and gave me a gentle hug. Then I got a spontaneous kiss right on my cheek. He scooched back and shyly looked at the floor.
I’m telling you, that was the sweetest Valentine.
Showing posts with label Disney with small child. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Disney with small child. Show all posts
Thursday, February 16, 2012
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Imagine It: Kangaroo Bean Bag Hop
First the build-up. The bean bag game sits carelessly by the couch as though left there by an un-scheming Grandma. Suzie is too excited to see us to notice it when she gets home from school, but when Alan arrives home, he hones in on it.
“What’s that, Nana?”
“It’s a bean bag toss game for us to play, Alan.”
“Can we play now?”
“Not right now; we’re going out to dinner. We’ll play tomorrow after Day Care, okay? Suzie will play, too.”
“Okay. I will play, and I will get the bean bag in, and I will get three points!” So young, yet he already knows the game.
Friday is a long day, and when we pick up our boy, the young women tell me, ‘We hear you have a bean bag game to play.”
“Yes, we do. We’re going to play as soon as we get home.”
“I’m going to win! I’m going to win!”
I’m a little bit worried about his focus on winning. I mean, he’s three; is he going to be able to toss the bean bag into the net? Will he be crushed if he can’t?
On the way home, our plan is crimped. I had thought we would take the it outside in the lovely sunshine. However, dark clouds gather, and it begins to rain. When we get hom, Suzannah and Papa are playing an i-pad game, but Alan and I carry the game up to his room. He's pretty excited about it and pretty excited that he'll be able to play without sharing, too.
We unpack it. In their wisdom, the manufacturers have included TWO small tables of targets. Alan helps me jam the legs into the odd-angled receptacles. I am sure, in his newly-found masculinity (“I’m not cute; I’m COOL!”) he will want the three blue bean bags, but he opts for the red ones.
He is still small enough that his fingers seek the tag on one bag, stroking it, holding the bag by it, letting its weight swing. He cradles all three in his arms and walks right up to one target. He drops a bag in each the five point netting, one in the 10 point netting and one in the 15 point netting. “I win!” He dances around, yelling with triumph,“I got three points! I won, Nana! I won!”
Now it is my turn. I stand four feet away from my own target – a distance from which it is nearly impossible to miss – and toss in my bean bags.
There is not a begrudging bone in Alan’s little body. The dance is repeated with the same ecstasy and glee. “You won, Nana! You won!”
We play for another 10 minutes before Suzannah joins us, and the bean bags instantly morph into baby kangaroos who have to go to sleep in the target nets. They are stuffed in with pieces of fabric tucked around them for blankets. The lights go off. Alan climbs into his cot, pulls up a quilt and then jumps up and turns the light on. With great satisfaction, “I was naughty!” There is mad hopping all around and much screaming and laughter. I think Kangaroo Bean Bag Hop may be the best game I ever played.
And guess what? We won!
The perfect grandchildren with their peanut butter-banana caterpillars.
“What’s that, Nana?”
“It’s a bean bag toss game for us to play, Alan.”
“Can we play now?”
“Not right now; we’re going out to dinner. We’ll play tomorrow after Day Care, okay? Suzie will play, too.”
“Okay. I will play, and I will get the bean bag in, and I will get three points!” So young, yet he already knows the game.
Friday is a long day, and when we pick up our boy, the young women tell me, ‘We hear you have a bean bag game to play.”
“Yes, we do. We’re going to play as soon as we get home.”
“I’m going to win! I’m going to win!”
I’m a little bit worried about his focus on winning. I mean, he’s three; is he going to be able to toss the bean bag into the net? Will he be crushed if he can’t?
On the way home, our plan is crimped. I had thought we would take the it outside in the lovely sunshine. However, dark clouds gather, and it begins to rain. When we get hom, Suzannah and Papa are playing an i-pad game, but Alan and I carry the game up to his room. He's pretty excited about it and pretty excited that he'll be able to play without sharing, too.
We unpack it. In their wisdom, the manufacturers have included TWO small tables of targets. Alan helps me jam the legs into the odd-angled receptacles. I am sure, in his newly-found masculinity (“I’m not cute; I’m COOL!”) he will want the three blue bean bags, but he opts for the red ones.
He is still small enough that his fingers seek the tag on one bag, stroking it, holding the bag by it, letting its weight swing. He cradles all three in his arms and walks right up to one target. He drops a bag in each the five point netting, one in the 10 point netting and one in the 15 point netting. “I win!” He dances around, yelling with triumph,“I got three points! I won, Nana! I won!”
Now it is my turn. I stand four feet away from my own target – a distance from which it is nearly impossible to miss – and toss in my bean bags.
There is not a begrudging bone in Alan’s little body. The dance is repeated with the same ecstasy and glee. “You won, Nana! You won!”
We play for another 10 minutes before Suzannah joins us, and the bean bags instantly morph into baby kangaroos who have to go to sleep in the target nets. They are stuffed in with pieces of fabric tucked around them for blankets. The lights go off. Alan climbs into his cot, pulls up a quilt and then jumps up and turns the light on. With great satisfaction, “I was naughty!” There is mad hopping all around and much screaming and laughter. I think Kangaroo Bean Bag Hop may be the best game I ever played.
And guess what? We won!
The perfect grandchildren with their peanut butter-banana caterpillars.
Monday, December 20, 2010
My Perfect Date
Everyone was pretty exhausted by our last evening at Disney. There were few ambitions left to fulfill. Suzie still wanted to ride Thunder Mountain; Alan had been asking for the Winnie the Pooh ride for three days. Steve and I agreed that one child was easy whereas coordinating two children on divergent developmental levels was, well, disastrous, so after clearing it with their Mom and Dad (you can guess how much arm-twisting that took since it meant they got the night to themselves), off Steve and Suzie went for an evening of stomach-turning fun. I spent half an hour waking Alan up from his nap, and then we outlined our big evening.
A still groggy little boy waited pretty patiently with me for a bus that took 15 minutes to come, and we were off to the Magic Kingdom. He walked into the park, asking to be carried but not fussing when I said no. Once there, he climbed in the Disney stroller, and it was comfortable fun to be able to stop without losing an entire party so I could hear what he had to say or to look at Cinderella's castle, lavender lit with silver tinsel lights adorning the spires, whatever he wanted to do.
I nabbed fast passes for the Pooh ride, and we shared some ice cream – his preference, chocolate swirl. The Dumbo ride had a long wait, but all Alan really wanted to do was play with the matching three-part clowns that cornered the line. We simply let people pass us by as we made funny combinations and then climbed out over the chain and rode on the carousel. Some people (okay, one little girl next to us) are disappointed when they have to ride the small, center horse, but guess what? When you ride inside of the ring, you can see yourself in the central mirror! We watched ourselves laugh as we circled.
Next we headed over to Pooh, but the attendant said we had to wait out the five minutes until our fast pass was good. She was nice enough, however, point out that in the regular line there were several play items, and we spent our time happily making Pooh's vegetables squeak, drumming on watermelons and turning a wheel that made red balls go poppity-pop.
Unfortunately, the ride itself wasn't as much fun as the pre-ride play. We climbed into our honey pots with happy anticipation, but the focus was Pooh's nightmare about heffalumps. It involved sharp turns and jiggly bumpswhich would have been okay by themselves, but which were accompanied by large, close bright graphics that burst up in front of you and swirled and turned. On the whole, it scared Alan and assaulted my eyes.
Back into the night, the park was jammed, and lots of lights and music jabbed through the dark. I felt both of us had had about as much as we could stand. There were two important elements of our evening left, though. We stopped at the Disney Emporium to pick out a present. Nothing matches seeing a little boy's eyes light up as he tightly clasps his first light saber! From there, we hiked to the bus for which, luckily, we had to wait only five minutes.
For the final item on the agenda, we returned to the resort, stopping at the restaurant for take-out. We walked back to the room where we had a picnic (hot dog and fries in a sand bucket for him; roast beef/blue cheese chiabatta for me) ON THE BED (oooh!) while we watched Toy Story on TV.
I had a grand time. It was exactly my idea of a wonderful evening (well, except for that damned Winnie the Pooh ride). However, it is a bit disquieting that, on reflection, I find that my perfect date is a three-year-old.
A still groggy little boy waited pretty patiently with me for a bus that took 15 minutes to come, and we were off to the Magic Kingdom. He walked into the park, asking to be carried but not fussing when I said no. Once there, he climbed in the Disney stroller, and it was comfortable fun to be able to stop without losing an entire party so I could hear what he had to say or to look at Cinderella's castle, lavender lit with silver tinsel lights adorning the spires, whatever he wanted to do.
I nabbed fast passes for the Pooh ride, and we shared some ice cream – his preference, chocolate swirl. The Dumbo ride had a long wait, but all Alan really wanted to do was play with the matching three-part clowns that cornered the line. We simply let people pass us by as we made funny combinations and then climbed out over the chain and rode on the carousel. Some people (okay, one little girl next to us) are disappointed when they have to ride the small, center horse, but guess what? When you ride inside of the ring, you can see yourself in the central mirror! We watched ourselves laugh as we circled.
Next we headed over to Pooh, but the attendant said we had to wait out the five minutes until our fast pass was good. She was nice enough, however, point out that in the regular line there were several play items, and we spent our time happily making Pooh's vegetables squeak, drumming on watermelons and turning a wheel that made red balls go poppity-pop.
Unfortunately, the ride itself wasn't as much fun as the pre-ride play. We climbed into our honey pots with happy anticipation, but the focus was Pooh's nightmare about heffalumps. It involved sharp turns and jiggly bumpswhich would have been okay by themselves, but which were accompanied by large, close bright graphics that burst up in front of you and swirled and turned. On the whole, it scared Alan and assaulted my eyes.
Back into the night, the park was jammed, and lots of lights and music jabbed through the dark. I felt both of us had had about as much as we could stand. There were two important elements of our evening left, though. We stopped at the Disney Emporium to pick out a present. Nothing matches seeing a little boy's eyes light up as he tightly clasps his first light saber! From there, we hiked to the bus for which, luckily, we had to wait only five minutes.
For the final item on the agenda, we returned to the resort, stopping at the restaurant for take-out. We walked back to the room where we had a picnic (hot dog and fries in a sand bucket for him; roast beef/blue cheese chiabatta for me) ON THE BED (oooh!) while we watched Toy Story on TV.
I had a grand time. It was exactly my idea of a wonderful evening (well, except for that damned Winnie the Pooh ride). However, it is a bit disquieting that, on reflection, I find that my perfect date is a three-year-old.
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