Bring on the Hugs!

Eric left Thursday night to work a gun show in Pennsylvania and so I invited my parents to share the weekend with Elaina and myself and keep us company.

I estimated grandma and grandpa's arrival to be shortly after Elaina's regular bedtime and made an effort to keep her busy enough to welcome their arrival late Friday night. Just as she was pointing to a picture of Pop-pop, I saw their van pull into the driveway. We ran excitedly to the door and Elaina was thrilled with her incredible luck of having the real thing awaiting at her doorstep. Magic!!

Elaina was prancing around excitedly, not knowing who to hug first or longest. She happily exclaimed "Grandma! Pop-pop!" as she went back and forth between them nearly a dozen times. Our excited little girl had quite the night as we welcomed our friend Craig over to visit awhile and Elaina did somersaults and passed out hugs until after 10:00!

Saturday morning was the best! Elaina woke up at her usual 7 a.m. to which I hugged her and squeezed her as I carried her downstairs to her grandma whom was happy to do the same as I went back to bed! Yippee! Another 2 hours of sleep for me! For any mom I know, this is a rare steal and a welcome opportunity. We had a lazy kind of morning until we decided to load up our crew and head out to do some shopping. We scoured through only a few stores and went out to enjoy a late dinner. Elaina was surprisingly well-behaved despite the late hour and didn't sleep or even make a peep the whole drive home. Once we were home, it was a whole different story. The child must have been only charging her battery to turn on the wild-child the minute we walked through the door. She was trying to jump and stomp and march through the kitchen and persuaded each of us to join her in individual rounds of "Rosey" (Ring Around the Rosey, that is.) We were all about to drop and Elaina was still going strong until close to 11! Hello! This is daylight savings night tonight people! We lose an hour tonight! Any type of loose schedule we have previously had our child accustom to, is totally out the window! This could make for an interesting week ahead.

That bring us to Sunday. Today. The weather was beautiful and sunny and gorgeous. I would venture to say the temperature reached an all out 60 degrees! A heat wave I should say! A short while after lunch, we decided to treat ourselves to ice cream sundaes for dessert at a new local restaurant down the block. It was such a nice day, we even soaked in the sunshine by walking there. Elaina and I shared a monster brownie sundae with the tabletop and about 8 napkins. We all left sticky, happy and full. At this point, grandma and grandpa had to get on the road to head home. We hugged and kissed and said our goodbyes, but the minute they walked out the door, Elaina began to sob. Granted she was already tired, but this was an all out whining sob and real tears to boot. I walked her out to their van to help Elaina recover and showed them just how much they would be missed already in her tearful goodbye.

Whew... she never gets this emotional when mommy or daddy ever leave. What are you trying to say Elaina? You're giving me a complex, kid.