Sure, we’ll babysit for you Hayley! You need to get away with your husband – book yourselves a weekend away! Four nights?? Uh, ok…we’ll figure it out, Peter will help. 🙂 Fast forward, the day arrived. Three year old Emily and five year old Henry were dropped off on a Thursday night. Friday morning they both have school, Peter and I both have work. Will we be able to juggle all this?? You betcha!

It’s all about team work baby! Peter made breakfast, I helped them to get dressed, we took turns getting ourselves ready…minus our workouts at the gym…Peter was able to do the afternoon pickup so I could stay late at work…then after work the fun begins!

We made gummy candy with a kit they had from Christmas! (From The Learning Express toy store)

It was actually a simple activity that Henry especially enjoyed; mixing in the cherry flavored powder, then removing the candy from the molds. (They only took ten minutes to solidify.)

So far so good! We had dinner at our favorite neighborhood restaurant, ice cream at home, then it was tub time. We were ALL in bed before 9:00. 😉

Ta – da! It’s Saturday morning and I got showered and dressed in just 20 minutes to get Emily off to 8am ballet class…yeah, it’s not an impressive outfit, but not bad for ‘casual grandma’…Peter again made breakfast and while the kitchen looked like he was cooking a Thanksgiving dinner, the kids were happy and we were all fed. 🙂

While I took Emily to ballet, Peter took Henry to the park – then I took Henry to a birthday party and he took Emily to the park. Is your head spinning yet? Hahaha! No gym today…gotta keep these kiddos busy…

Now where are we going??? Off to visit Uncle Brad and Jillian to meet their new cat!

Oh my goodness, Lance is soooo cute!!!

But Lance didn’t know what to make of little Emily…

As for Henry, he was way more interested in playing video games with Uncle Brad…we all had a nice afternoon, then before we knew it, it was 4:00…let’s go home for a bit of quiet time before heading out for dinner….What? You thought I’d be cooking??? Hahahahaha!

As you have heard me say before, life is too short for one outfit per day, AND, when the sun goes down, the heels go up.   So you know what’s coming…I changed into something (still casual) that felt more like ME. This inspired both kids to want to wear their nicer shoes. Happy Gigi.

Saturday night, third night, we are all still smiling, off to dinner…

With a dirty martini served promptly to me, and a plain pizza served promptly to the kids, the night was off to a good start and ended the same way…we were ALL in bed before 9:00.

Sunday morning arrives. “Hey, kids, would you like to go to the day care room at our gym and play with all the toys???” “YES!!!” OK, let’s go after breakfast! We all get dressed and excitedly walk into the gym, checking in at the front desk with the woman we have known for years…”Oh, I’m sorry, the parents have to be members of the gym to use the day care room.” Pause. The four of us just stand there staring at her. My eyes are bugging out of my head. “We have our grandkids for four nights and we haven’t been able to work out once!!!” She looks at me cautiously as if I were a bomb about to go off, then oh so very kindly made an exception for this one time. All good. 🙂

Closing in on the finish line…later in the day we all went grocery shopping and I finally cooked for our traditional family Sunday dinner…as we put the kids to bed Sunday night I started to have a sad feeling in my heart knowing it was nearing the end…

Peter offered that he would stay home so I could go to the gym Monday morning…I was tempted but did not want to be away from the kids if they got up early. Sure enough, at 5:30am, Henry walked into our room. “Gigi, can I snuggle with you?” Oh boy, did I ever make the right choice.

Henry had school on Monday, but Emily did not, so it was Gigi’s turn to be in charge…what did we do? Well, what do you think? We went shopping and out to lunch!

Doing a four night sleepover was a first for us, and I was a bit nervous in anticipation, especially with both of us working, but it went very well. They were both so good and my partner in crime was AMAZING. Papou: you are the best!

While a part of me was glad to have our normal life back, the other part of me felt a ‘sick to my stomach sadness’ akin to when something really wonderful has ended. But Henry explained that there was no need to be sad – he matter of factly said, “I’ll see you Sunday, Gigi!” 😉