Before I go any further, let me first say that no, I am not talking about the family weekends that most people now associate with colleges. Rather, I am simply talking about this past weekend in reference to the amount of family we saw both on my side and my wife's side. Saturday was our celebration of my parent's birthdays. As their birthday's are a week apart, we normally celebrate both in one fell swoop on the same day. On top of their birthday's being a week apart, they are the same age which makes it easier for me to remember how old they are. So to celebrate we went over their house during the late morning for a little cookout and to share our presents with them. We tried to plan it perfectly so that our son was in a good mood when we got there and hopefully would take a nap at some point during the early afternoon hours as he is used to doing when he is home. Well, the first half of our plan worked out fantastically. We got to my parent's around 11 and our son was in a good mood as he normally is at that hour. We brought his toys over and he was all set to go, roaming around the house, exploring his favorite table in my parent's living room, and bringing joy to his great grandmother who seems to be OK whenever he is around. I got sent to the grill not long after getting to their house to fire up the charcoal and get the chicken cooking. Once all the food was ready, we sat down to eat and our son got to try asparagus for the first time and much to our surprise, actually liked it. He also got some small pieces of chicken to go along with the asparagus and his pears and peaches which we brought along just in case. Its amazing what a baby is fed compared to what we eat at a meal. We would almost never pair pears and peaches with chicken and asparagus on the same plate. But that's a baby's life, eating what your fed. When we were almost done with our meal, he started getting a little cranky and as such, we decided to try putting him down for a nap. Being in a strange place, he cried for a little bit before finally nodding off. We were hoping for his normal nap of an hour and a half or at least an hour but instead got a measly 20 minutes. The short nap unfortunately led to us leaving a little earlier than we intended so we could get him home and settled down for a little before getting him into bed at 530.
With our son getting barely half the amount of time napping that he normally does, Sunday morning was a little rough. We normally go to church at 730 Sunday morning. Yesterday was a different story. Our son was overly fussy, prone to bursting out in tears over nothing, and as such we decided against going to church so we could try and get a good nap out of him before heading up to see my wife's family. The issue with going to church at 730 is that Mass is starting right around the time that our son normally goes down for a nap. On a normal weekend, he does OK, but my wife and I both had the feeling that he would not be OK at all if we went. So a nap it was for our son. He got a little over an hour and was in a much better mood upon waking up. With him napping for a while, my wife and I had the opportunity to get our lunches made for the week and to clean up the house a little bit. Come eleven o'clock, we were on the road again to my wife's aunt's house. There was a bunch of her family gathered there to partially picnic, partially to celebrate my wife's cousin's 44th birthday. There were more people gathered than we had at my parent's house the day before and as such, our son was a little shy to begin with. Soon after though, he was making his way around the kitchen, playing with the other kids who were there, and saying hello to everyone. Once the food was cooking on the grill (which I didn't have to do), we all moved outside where our son was perpetually occupied with the leaves, bark, grass, slide and wagon. The first objects he is always fascinated in, the objects supplied by nature for his entertainment and curiosity. The slide he absolutely loved. It was a little kid's slide with four small steps up and a short little slide to the ground. He couldn't quite make it up the stairs by himself as they were really steep and slippery so we placed him at the top and held his hands as he slid down with a smile plastered to his face. By the 30th time or so, he was figuring out that he had to lean forward on the slide in order to remain in a seated position all the way down. The wagon was a model of the old Red Flyer wagons except that it was an all terrain version with over sized wheels and higher sides so you couldn't fall out as easily. He went for a few rides around the yard by himself and once with his cousin who is almost 2 years old. I think his favorite object of all though was a log, about 18 inches tall with the bark falling off, that he stood at for about 20-25 minutes just playing with the bark. He kept going back and forth between the log and a huge boulder that was right next to it. Needless to say, he completely enjoyed himself and once it was time to leave, fell asleep in the car within 5 minutes.
All in all, it was a really enjoyable weekend spent with family. I consider myself lucky these days to have a good amount of our family still living in Connecticut. My side is a little more sparse, but with my wife's and my family combined, it makes for a good amount that we can visit within a 45 minute to an hour drive. Sometimes I just wish the weekend was longer. While I thoroughly enjoyed the time spent with family, the weekend flew by. Last thing I knew it was Friday and now I am heading back to work again for a nice long work week. My wife has a day off during the week so I will not be taking my normal day off to watch our son. Luckily I got to spend a lot of quality time with him this weekend so I won't feel too bad about missing my day this week. Yesterday I spent a little more time with him than Saturday so my wife could catch up with her family some. Most of the time with my son yesterday was spent just watching him explore his surroundings and occasionally taking him for the wagon ride like I mentioned and guiding him down the slide over and over and over again. Next weekend should be a little slower with nothing planned as of yet. Who knows, though, plans change. For now, I will simply keep this past weekend, the beautiful weather, and the time spent with family in my mind to get me through the week.
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