Day 1

5:00am. That's when my grandkids woke up this morning. Even though they didn't get to bed until almost 10:00pm, they seemed to feel they had enough sleep. Boy, did I set them straight! Vika wondered why it was still dark outside. Through a cotton mouth and with eyes that could barely open, I mumbled something about it still being the middle of the (friggin') night and they needed to get back to sleep. I went back to bed, but my mother ears turned on and, as long as I could hear them whispering to each other, I couldn't get back to sleep. We all finally did get back to sleep (oh, by the way, Ed slept through the whole episode!!) around 5:20 and had a restful 1 1/2 hours before Miss Vika decided enough was enough and pranced into our room.

The sun was up and she simply was done with the whole sleeping thing. So she climbed into our bed and watched cartoons while Ed and I got up and ready for the day. She did inform us that she tried to wake Eamon up - to which I replied, "NO, NO, NO - never wake up a peacefully sleeping child!!!" He finally woke up around 9:00am and joined the cartoon-watching. Actually, when the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles came on, Vika told me we really had to wake Eamon up because that was his favorite show. I relented.

When the kids got here last night, they immediately headed for the backyard and their bikes. But, after riding them for awhile, decided they wanted to watch a movie. Of course, each of them wanted a different movie so I told them to talk amongst themselves and pick one. Hearing the whole negotiation was interesting. Something about Eamon having the previous choice of movie at home, we could watch his movie tomorrow when we could have popcorn, etc. Vika is a master negotiator and Eamon is not one for confrontation. So we watched Mulan. Ed finally made it home and took my spot on the couch while I cooked dinner.Dinner conversation with these two is often interesting. Last night we had this one:

Eamon: When I get bigger I'm going to be a Papa and fly

Me: Joe Monkey (that's what they call my son) always wanted to fly when he was a little boy, too.

Eamon (turning to me with a very serious look on his face): Yes, but I have a Superman cape.

After that we got on the discussion of bath time. The kids love taking a bath - which often becomes aerobic exercise for me washing their hair, wiping up water, picking up their dirty clothes which seem to explode all over the hallway, getting them out of the tub, dried off and dressed. Usually with a glob of bubble bath suds dangling from my hair and a big wet area on my shirt.

According to Vika, they were messing with each other too much in the bathtub so Mama told them no more baths, they had to take showers. They asked for a "try again" and Mama relented. Then, per Vika, "we had a 'try again' but we STILL did it!!!" She said this like it was totally out of their control and very surprising her her. I told them maybe I shouldn't let them take a bath at my house either, but they both informed me very intently that they wouldn't be messing around like that over HERE. Guess some behaviors are only for those make-Mama-crazy moments.

Finally it was bed time and story time. Who knew that there was a Disney book about having good manners! They explained that I needed to read it to them to so they can remember to have good manner. So we read that one and something about Raggedy Andy and someone using a rope to tie his hand to Raggedy Ann so they could talk (not sure what that was about) and then it was lights out. Today we'll hang out in the yard for awhile and probably watch a couple more movies. Somewhere along the way there will be a trip to Target and to an ice cream store.

I love these kids!!!