I gave my daughter a gift today.
I gave her the gift of a day.
I keep Rhodie on the days she works. I watch him when she has a hair appointment, a doctor's appointment, or if she and Aaron have something to do...like attend a company party, or a wedding, or dinner with their friends.
On the days she doesn't work, they spend a lot of time at our house. Either they will come over here, or I will go over there. We sit around and talk and love on the baby...and basically do little else.
But, earlier in the week, I told her I was giving her a day...a day like a Mother's Day Out day. I told her she could have 5 or 6 hours to do whatever she wanted to do. She could clean or read or decorate or nap or shop or paint her toenails...I didn't care. And I didn't need to know.
I went over to their house, and picked Rhodie up at 9. I had told her to have him ready. I didn't want to get started talking, and take up the time I was giving her. I brought him to our house.
My grandma name is "Millie," and so the kids call our house, "Millie's World." In fact, they sing a little song about it. Do you remember the little jingle from Sesame Street, "la-la-la-la, la-la-la-la, Elmo's World?" They just change the name "Elmo" to "Millie."
She told me he was tired, so he took a nap pretty soon after we got home. It was Jim's Friday to work, but when I texted him to say I had the baby...he responded with, "leaving now."
And when I told him he could pick up Chick-fil-a on his way home, he said, "OR...we could take the baby to Chick-fil-a..." which is something we have not done.
So that is what we did. We packed him up like we used to pack up all of our kids...diaper bag, bottle just in case, blanket, hat, coat, car-seat...and off we went. We were like two giddy kids. Joshua was pretty excited, too. He kept saying, "I didn't know we were GOING to Chick...I just thought we were bringing it home."
When we got there, I got Rhodie out of his car-seat. The hat I'd found in his backpack was a black Mickey Mouse "boggin'." It looked precious on him. Jim said, "I'll carry him," and took him right out of my arms. I got the table wipes out of the bag,, because I know that's important to Holly...I grabbed Joshua's hand, and my purse...and headed through the parking lot.
I know why Jim wanted to hold the baby. He's pretty much the cutest baby ever. And as Jim proudly carried him on his arm, EVERYONE stopped to smile or comment on how cute he was.
We got our food, and got seated and settled for our lunch. Rhodie was ENTHRALLED with Chick-fil-a (good boy...gotta start 'em young!). We couldn't even get him to look at us, because he was looking at ALL THE STUFF and ALL THE PEOPLE. I was watching his eyes...they were darting to the windows to the tables to the children to the things hanging from the ceiling. SO MUCH TO SEE.
While we were eating, Holly texted me to see if we were okay,..if she had left us enough milk...if we needed anything. I didn't tell her we weren't home. She said she was "getting out," if we needed her to bring anything by the house. I told her we were fine. And then Jim and I joked that we might see her car in the drive-thru, because SHE likes Chick-fil-a, too!
We saw a young family from our church. The man is on our staff. They sat in the booth behind us. Jim turned around and told him, "Holly and Aaron have no idea where their baby is," which totally made it sound like we had kidnapped Rhodes in the dead of night or something. The man raised his eyebrows, and said, "oh...really?"
We had to do some back-tracking there for a minute...and explain that we did, indeed, have permission to be watching him. That we just didn't tell them we were at Chick-fil-a.
Rhodie was perfect on our little outing. We sat beside the indoor play area, and talked about how, next year, he would be in there, crawling around in all of the dirt and slobber and GERMS of the other kids.
YUCK. I'm not ready for that, because I remember those days...and I remember having to climb up into those tunnel things to retrieve one of my children when they either were refusing to come down because it was time to go home...or they got up there and got too scared to come down. And let me tell you...I'm not as spry as I was as a young mom. I'm pretty sure no one wants to see my old rear-end crawling around in the play yard at Chick-fil-a.
But I'll do it if I have to!
I think Rhodie had a fun day at Millie's World. Even tho I keep him one or two days a week, this day was different. For one thing, it was a LOT shorter...and for another thing, Jim got to be here! I can't wait for the warmer weather, when we can spend more time outside! :)
"Grandchildren are like a crown to older people..." Proverbs 17:6
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