Can't you stay ?

It had to happen. Grandma H.'s stay had to come to an end sooner or later and she had already stayed an additional day to enjoy time with Elaina and myself. ( I took the day off from work to stay with Elaina ! )

This morning we headed up to the stores to do some shopping. I guess that it was my fault for poor planning - our trip was during Elaina's usual naptime. She held up okay through our first and second store and then the meltdown began. Grandma even sat in the backseat with her to console her and accompany her. We decided to grab some lunch sooner than later. Elaina was decent at the restaurant, but not especially anything to brag about. Thinking that we had time to go to one more store, we gave Wal-Mart a chance. She spotted the Little Tikes dollhouse in the front of the store and pointed it out as far as her little arm would stretch. The door to the playhouse wasn't secured so I allowed Elaina to take a peek inside and play for a few minutes. After exploring an empty house on the store sidewalk for nearly 5 minutes, I thought we needed to move on. That wasn't exactly Elaina's plan. She cried when I carried her from the dollhouse until I was able to distract her attention to something else. Our trip was not any bit of a success as Elaina was so tired that she could barely stand herself. Once in the car, she had closed her eyes and was sound asleep before we got out of the parking lot !

Back home, my mom packed her things and with hugs and kisses left for her own house. Eventually, Elaina had enough play time and was ready to finish her mid-morning nap. She slept for another hour and a half in the middle of the day. There's more growing to be done !

We enjoyed Grandma's company and I think that even though taking care of Elaina means alot of chasing, Grandma did a good job !

Do I really have to cook my own meals next week ?