Harder Than I Thought...

This is turning out to be a lot harder than I thought.  I don't mean having the grandboy with us; I mean, packing him to go home.  I will allow that it has been very busy at our house for the past three weeks.  His mother has been gone, and we have had to add the wants, needs and habits of a potty-training, nap-forsaking two-year-old to an already almost impossible schedule.  (Did I mention we have also agreed to adopt our daughter's six-month-old lab?)

Our grandboy spent the first week of his adventure adjusting.  He, like a tiny preschool liquid filling the spaces in an existing container, poured himself into our home and hearts.  He was compliant and pretty flexible.  He became less picky about his food, hung out with his older aunts and uncles, didn't assert himself very much and was generally well-behaved.  In short, he went with the flow. 

Then, the slippery slope, the point at which he began to create the flow.  We think he spent his first week observing our behavior and storing data.  His tendrils sought out the chinks in our armor, the weak spots in our hearts.  He is absolutely the youngest unschooled--but very accomplished--psychoanalyst we have ever met.  Bumpie and I were completely unprepared for this savvy new generation of toddler.  He became enamored of his beautiful aunts, and ran to them at even the suggestion of discipline from us.  He decided to use his little blue potty only when he wanted candy, forced the girls to stay awake with him when he couldn't sleep (once until 5:20 a.m.) and trapped Bumpie in his web of sticky fingers and cute baby words.  None of us tired of him, though; not once has he been a pain.

I thought I would be okay about packing his things.  But as I folded his tiny clothes and sorted his little wee toys, I began to long for the child who was still here.  I lingered over his sippy cups, smelled his no-tears baby soap.  Like his mother and Uncle Raymond, he hid a most odd assortment of objects in secret places.  I couldn't help smiling at their discovery.  In a compartment in his riding toy I found the dog's baby, a flat-head screwdriver, a soda bottle wrapper, purple Mardi Gras beads and a hairbrush.  In a cabinet, we found some crackers, the Wii remote, a shoe, some batteries, a comb and a fork.  I am sure there are undiscovered treasures yet to be found.

Yesterday, a few chicks hatched here.  He promptly named them after his brother, his grandfather and his aunt.  The chicks are named:  Baby Miam (Liam), Baby Bumpie and Baby Aunt Mawie (Molly).