Just Like Being A Young Mom...MINUS The "Young" Part...

I am happy to announced that I SURVIVED!  I wondered for a while if I would.  I kept my grand daughter, Parker Ann, for 6 DAYS IN A ROW this past week!  When my sister called on her way to work one morning, I told her that I had been up since 6 a.m. working around the house.  Puzzled, she asked, "Why in the world would you do that?!"  I explained that I was trying to get caught up on everything before Parker arrived for the day because she would NEVER allow me to do such things as, washing the clothes, making the beds or cleaning the dishes.  She thought about that for a minute and replied, "Yea...It's just like being a young mother again."  When I failed to say anything, she added, "Well, minus the 'young' part..."

There was a day when I had four little ones of my own, aged 6 and under.  I was a stay at home mom and  to tell you the truth, I'm not sure how I did it.  Perhaps it was youth and the fact that my hormones were not exiting my body at an alarming rate.  And those years apparently caused a bit of amnesia, I'm afraid too.  I seemed to have forgotten how much attention an 18 month old requires.  Well, "my" answer to that problem back in my "Mommy Days" was having help.  Not the type of help you may be thinking; I was using "child labor".  Yep!  The older kids helped me watch and keep the others occupied, while I could at least keep our underwear clean.  And THAT was precisely what my problem was going to be this week.  But WAIT!...I DID have "help"; Ryan was home from dental school for the week on his Mardi Gras break!  YES!!!  I would resort to "child labor" again.  I just might make it after all.

The first two days, Parker only spent the entire day with us, so we were able to sort of recoup over night.  Thursday through Sunday afternoon, however, was overnight.  OK, so we would take this thing one day at a time...REALLY; how hard could it be to take care of one little girl?!  As soon as Justin and Sarah dropped her off, we got busy playing outside.  The weather here in the south gave us a wonderful gift of temperatures in the 70's and 80's and we were definitely going to take advantage of it.  Pulling out some sidewalk chalk, Parker experimented, scribbling all over the sidewalk...and then rubbing in on her face as well!  Hopping in her car, she also posed for a few candids...

Day one found us celebrating Fat Tuesday by visiting our local zoo.  Parker had never been to the zoo before and she seemed to LOVE it.

The end of the day found us truly exhausted and thankful that Parker's bedtime was at 7:30.  Ryan, who is only 24, said he had to admit that Parker had totally worn him out. We both collapsed on the couches while planning the events for the following day...

Day two found us visiting a restaurant that I'm SURE I hadn't been to since my own children were in elementary school; Chuck E. Cheese.  I wasn't sure how Parker would like all of the noise I had remembered from past days, but she was so excited to be there we could barely get her to eat the pizza we had ordered for lunch.

Worn out from having so much fun, we all returned home to take a little nap. Oh, by the way...I really love nap time!  There was no way I was going to catch up on house work during this time; it was used purely to recharge MY battery!

The rest of the weekend found us  making a visit to the bookstore...

Making some music...

Sharing snacks with the dogs...

And going to church on Sunday...

It was late Sunday afternoon when Justin and Sarah rolled in looking all relaxed from their anniversary trip to New Orleans.  We had a wonderful time with Parker Ann, but I suddenly gained so much respect for all of the stay at home moms out there.  How in the world did they do it?...How had I done it?  And those who write blogs about their adventures in motherhood...well, my hat is REALLY off to you!  It had only been about 30 minutes since the kids had pulled out of the driveway and I was sitting on the couch knitting, while Robby sat in his chair surfing the Internet.  I said, "Do you hear that?"  He stopped typing for just a minute, turning his head to the side to listen and said, "I don't hear anything."  Smiling, I said, "Exactly...it's the sound of silence."