mothers day

Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Babysitting

Last week I got to go to Provo and tend Emma for a couple of days while her mama and daddy went to Idaho and ran the river. They had a ball and so did I. Emma is such a delight and even when she is doing something she shouldn't be she turns that grin on you and you melt. It is her daddy's grin and I don't know how Kecia ever wins an argument!!

But anyway, I had bought a couple of fun water toys on clearance at Wal Mart plus a bubble machine. The bubble machine was great...Emma was crying as her mama and daddy left and she wasn't happy being left with grandma...that lasted about eight seconds until grandma said "Emma, grandma has bubbles!!" That's all it took. Mom and dad were FORGOTTEN!! What a hoot!

So - they had dropped her off in Layton on their way to Idaho and Emma got to go on my walk with me at the Layton Park and feed the ducks - she knew what they were and kept pointing them out and saying DUCKS!! quack quack quack. That 2 1/2 miles was extra long pushing a stroller up and down the hills - thank heavens Cheryl was there to help me push on some of the hills. As we walked along Fort Lane all of a sudden a little hand reached out and pointed and she made some funny noises but they weren't words - she simply didn't know what those big black critters were...I said "Cow" and she turned and looked at me like I was crazy. I said those are cows Emma - what does a cow say and she made half an attempt at saying moo - but I could just hear her thoughts...that's what a cow REALLY looks like?

Then we got in the car and headed South to Provo. She was a jewel and fell asleep five minutes after we got in the car! That has got to be so uncomfortable, buckled into a car seat with your head bobbing forward but she slept the whole way. We got to Provo at noon which is her normal nap time so she was ready to play. I got her some lunch and we played inside for an hour or so and then I went out to the car and got the swim stuff out. I just hooked up the little play pad first of all.

It hooks to the hose and the outside edges fill with water and the big colorful fish on the bottom also fill with water so when you step on them they squirt water out. Two of the four edges squirt small streams of water out all of the time and two spots on the edges also squirt a pretty good stream. I sat Emma's little pool next to one of the streams so it would fill the pool!! The play pad was marked ages 18 months plus and was just perfect for my three kids in Utah County - the big kids would say BORING but this was little one sized. This is a picture of the play pad and the ball shooter both. I took the picture the next day and didn't get a good picture of the play pad at work when the hose was hooked up to IT.

After she had played for a half hour or so I called Melinda and invited her over with the boys to play in the water with us. She said that Simon would be sleeping for another hour and then they would head over. GREAT! After another 15 minutes all of a sudden Emma headed into the house and I followed and she went in and climbed in bed!! And finished the nap we had cut short earlier!

Da called back after a while and said Simon woke up a half hour early and they would be leaving in just a bit. Emma slept until they came and all of us trooped out to the back yard again for water fun. Dirk had the day off and he so he came with them which was an added bonus. So we adults sat in the shade while the kids played in the water.

Simon loved the play pad - it was just like his own personal drinking fountain - he sat and played in the water spout for almost the whole time! Ben kept shying away from the water at all until all of a sudden we realized that it wasn't HIM that he didn't want to get wet, it was his shirt! All three kids had a fun time playing with the water pad and then I decided to get out the ball shooter. That is the red thing in the picture. The hose hooks up to it and it also squirts water out in six directions but it also balances the little plastic balls in the spout of water out of the top - much like grandpa's cute clown but this is a much cheaper version of it. It had four balls and probably if you turned on the water high enough it would balance one for a few minutes and then another and another until it had gotten through all four balls. We did one at a time and it would stay up there for minutes on end!

The videos of the ball shoot are at the end of this blog -

Emma's FAVORITE THING to do was put the balls into her basket. In fact when I got to her house and got the balls out for her to play with she immediately emptied the rocks from her basket into the 'trunk' of her riding toy and put the balls in the basket. She entertained herself for a longggggg time with this activity. Sometimes Grandma would take the balls out and toss them and then she would go giggling and running after them to put BACK in the basket!

Ben and Simon and Dirk and Da finally decided it was time for them all to go home - we had a wonderful afternoon with them and I am so glad they could come to play. I took Emma in and fed her some dinner and then she trooped outside to play again - with her stroller and her basket and her riding toy... she kept busy. Finally about 7:45 I took her inside to brush her teeth and get some jammies on and get her bis and she climbed into bed by herself and went to sleep immediately. Kecia says I must have worn her out (ya think?) cause bedtime is usually stretched out with little knocks on her door from the inside hoping mom or dad will let her stay up later. Not that night - she zonked out and I didn't hear another sound from her till 8 am the next morning.

I got to sleep in Kecia and Glenn's beautiful new bedroom all decorated to make you think you were at the beach! Nice bed and NICE room. Good job Kec!

The next morning the sun was pouring in through the kitchen door and I thought - great light for pictures. So while Emma slept I took pictures of my necklaces on Kecia's gorgeous wooden table. The lighting was great and the richness of the wood added to the pictures.

After breakfast and a bath we headed out the door for grandma's daily walk. We walked down to the dollar store that is by Macy's because I had forgotten to bring a toothbrush and the batteries in my camera had given up the ghost. While we were there we also bought some cute things for Emma's hair.


The day before Kecia had pulled Emma's hair back as you can see, and it lasted through the night and so I left the elastics in and added a couple of little clips to match her outfit (she wouldn't allow more than the time it took to put in two though. So when we got back to her house we put in the cute blue elastic with the pink and green and yellow plastic loops. Just a cute picture of Emma in a makae hand me down. She looked so cute in it and it brought back memories of Mickey from long ago!





After lunch time I put Emma down for a nap at noon and she slept for THREE hours!! I had to keep checking on her to make sure she was okay!!! I worked on necklaces while she slept.


After she woke up she grabbed her pink basket again and carried the hair bows all over the house. So I got out the other package of ribbons and put this one in her hair - her mama says she won't leave them in her hair at all now unless she ties the hair in a knot around it but she looked so cute with the dangley's of ribbon !!













Emma did a pretty good job drinking out of a bottle of water!





















We went outside and spent another couple hours playing in the water and I kept her up until 8:30 that night hoping she would be awake when her mama and daddy came home. When I put her to bed she seemed to settle right down and after a half an hour I opened the door so her room wouldn't be too hot. Three minutes later out she comes, ready to play so I kept her up because I knew her mama and daddy were within 15 minutes of being at home. So was sooo excited to see them. They were soooo excited to see her! They brought grandma a nummy shake and if I hadn't had that she wouldn't have had anything to do with me!

Thanks for the fun visit and play time Emma - thanks Kecia and Glenn for entrusting me with your most precious Emma. Oh - two more pictures still - videos rather.



Sorry this is sideways - I forget when I am shooting the pictures that I have no idea how to turn the video the right ways when I download it. So those of you with laptops can just tilt the laptop but if you are watching this on a desktop you will have to tip sideways!

Some of our fun together

3 comments:

Unknown said...

I showed Emma a picture of the ball thingy and she said "PAPA!" I think she is a little confused as to who is Papa and who is Mama...lol. She doesn't dump those rocks out for everything, so she must have thought those balls were something neat. She loves carrying treasures around in her little basket like that. I'm glad she was good for you and that you had a fun time! We didn't worry about her the whole time (though I did miss her a bit!)

Kristanne said...

Sounds like you had a great time. She is such a cutie. I bet she loved having you all to herself. She was so sweet the day I got to take care of her. We have to do that again sometime.

Melinda said...

That was a fun afternoon! Sounds like Emma had a great time with Grandma. Cute little girl, and fun pictures.