I dragged Milly in her wagon to the grocery store this morning to pick up some breakfast supplies, and when we got back Nick and Eli were there to eat with us. We had waffles, eggs and sausage. Both of the kids added Froot Loops to the menu as well.
After we’d finished eating and Milly and Eli played a bit we decided to go to the Splash Pad. Amanda and I had heard of it but had not yet taken Milly there, so we followed Nick and Eli. It’s a little area next to a pool downtown that has a bunch of water toys. There are buckets that fill up and dump water, a couple water cannons, a tunnel of rings you run through that shoot water out on you and some poles that have water flowing from them. It’s not as large as I expected when I heard about it, but it was free and Milly and Eli were the only kids there until we were leaving.
We had a good time at the Splash Pad. The kids were a little hesitant at first, so we grown-ups got a little wet in encouraging them to play, even though none of us brought any bathing suits. By far, the water canon was the favorite for both Milly and Eli, though Milly enjoyed standing with her back against the water pole too.
When we got back to the house both Milly and I took naps while Amanda went to Old Navy. She spent almost nothing and got two pairs of shoes for Milly and I think some shorts for herself.
Later on we went to hang out with some friends in Leland that we hadn’t hung out with in a while. It was great to catch up with them. Milly had been in a slight funk, but she perked up when an African drum and a guitar were brought out. She also got to play with a toy that shines the moon and a bunch of stars on all over the place. When I asked her how many stars there were she counted to six and stopped.
Milly and their kid took a bath. He’s still pretty little so he was in a baby tub and Milly kept saying she wanted to get in the boat.
When we put Milly down in the pack & play she was allowed to have the star shiner thing in the room she was in, and when we said our prayers for the first time she had an answer of her own when we asked if she wanted to thank Jesus for anything. She thanked him for the stars and the moon.
After that we just hung out for a bit. We’d been asked to bring some games and, knowing these people aren’t big gamers, we thought we’d bring something relatively simple, so the options were Carcassonne and Phase 10. We ended up teaching them Phase 10 and played six or seven rounds of it. I was losing when one person dropped out because he had to be up early, but the rest of us played one more round and I was only the runner-up loser then.
I’d told them about how when we get Milly up from someone’s house, she’s usually wide awake when we take her to the car and she always stays awake on the ride home. Not so, tonight. She was groggy all the way to the car and fell asleep pretty soon after we left.
Zach Dotsey