The Long Weekend

I had initially thought -wrongly as I see now -that I would be caught up and able to post about this past weekend before now but here it is, now Tuesday a.m. and I'm just getting around to doing this! How time does fly, huh?

We had a really great weekend here. Some expected things, some very unexpected too but all for the best.

First -gotta tell you about this one -unexpected tonight but one we've sort of been working on with Kurtis for quite some time now. We've been trying to teach him his body parts -what each area is called and then, narrowing things down from there, ya know. It took what seemed like forever that we were singing, over and over to him, that little song "Head and shoulders, knees and toes" ya know and pointing to those particular body parts to try to get him to point and name them too. A couple weeks ago, he surprised me by coming to me and pointing to his shoulders and saying something I couldn't quite understand but finally, through a few more gestures, I realized he was trying to do the moves to that song and he wanted me to sing it again for him.

After doing that, and watching him point to his eyes, ears, knees, etc., I started pointing to other body areas -one of those being his mouth and then teeth and tongue. No matter how much I repeated those things I couldn't get him to even try to say them. Not at all! Nor would he point to them either. And of course, in case you are wondering, to try to teach him the word "tongue" and its location, etc., I did that by sticking my tongue out at him.

Tonight, shortly after supper as Mandy and I were still seated at the table, talking, out of the blue, he came running up to us saying "tongue, tongue" but instead of sticking his tongue out, he was pulling his lower lip up and curling it over the top lip. Which of course got us to trying again to show him "tongue" and by sticking our tongues out at him. When all of a sudden after seeing us opening our mouths, pointing to the tongue and then sticking it out, it suddenly dawned on him to try doing that and when he did, presto-magic, yes he managed then to stick his tongue out!

So of course, we both applauded him for doing such a great job at that. All of which caused him then to run around the house, going up to each person, sticking his tongue out at them and then saying "Tongue, tongue!" and laughing for all he was worth.

And that then prompted me to tell Mandy that move on our part, teaching him that little trick, may quite well come back to haunt us at some time in the future.

Oh well. A boy's gotta learn, doesn't he?

Now, where was I? Oh yes, the weekend.

Although I didn't do anything strenuous over the weekend, this morning I woke up -and this was after having gone to bed early too -like at 1:30 a.m. -and having slept for a good 6, almost 7 hours -but I woke up with both legs from the knee to the ankle just aching like toothache. Seriously, they both felt like I must have had a heck of a workout on some kind of treadmills someplace!

Now truthfully, if I have some aches and pains from having done something that was a bit on the overly exerted side of my physical activity, I really don't mind those pains then, as they were worked for, well-deserved. But when I hadn't done anything over the top and still woke up aching like that, then I get a bit irritable about this stuff. Damned aging processes anyway, I guess.

So, moving backwards once more to the long weekend, what exactly was so special about it for us anyway?

Well, we had company here from Saturday evening through to about 2 p.m. this afternoon.

It was my son's former fiance, Amie, and her little boy, Peyton!

I can see those eyebrows raising now as you try to digest that bit of information. "Did she say that right? The son's former fiance and her son, huh?"

Yep! Thankfully, when they parted company almost six years ago now, they did so in a very friendly manner and they still keep in touch fairly frequently. Because we had become very close to Amie when they were together, it was one part of their break-up that worried us at first as we thought it would mean the end of our family's friendship with Amie but our worries and fears there were soon put to rest and we have all stayed very close friends with her and now, with her little guy who is 18 months old and the cutest, mellowest, little fellow ever!

Although I did get a couple of pictures of little Peyton, I haven't downloaded them and will do that in the very near future.

I also got some other pictures too Saturday evening of the "haul" the son-in-law came home with after having attended a big home auction Saturday afternoon! What a surprise his purchases were to all of us.

He said he hadn't gone to this auction with any ideas at all about bidding on any furniture but stuff that was up for auction was, he felt, very nice and some things were going for peanuts so he bid on a few things and that's how we ended up with a whole new -matching, no less -living room suite, a new computer desk with a hutch, a Dell Monitor and also, a Dell printer/scanner thing too! (Plus he got himself quite a few other odds and ends things that I guess only men or mechanics can enjoy and appreciate, but he was quite happy over how his bidding had gone for him.)

I'll be posting the pics of the furniture and also, how well I was now able to organize my desk area too with this new piece! The nicest thing about all the rearranging of my desk is that my monitor is now positioned almost at the front edge of my desk -not back by the wall where it was on the old desk -and now, I can see the monitor quite nicely. No more leaning forward, or tilting my head back till it strained the neck muscles just so I could get the screen in focus with the damned bifocals, ya know. No sirree! Now, it is up close and darned personal and boy, I am loving it! Vision restored for me and that is a darned good thing. Yep, the son-in-law really did well in snagging this desk, the monitor and the printer (both the latter look almost like brand-new) for a mere $5.00! (The drawback to the printer/scanner thing he learned tonight when Mandy asked him where the cord is to it and he has no clue! Oh well, hopefully he can get one someplace, don't 'cha think? Not that I need it for my unit here but so he can hook it up-provided it will be compatible -to my old computer that he has up at his shop.)

So there you have it now -the bulk of the news from my big weekend.

Just seeing Amie -and little Peyton -again was great but also, to watch the interactions between Kurtis and Peyton Saturday evening when it was just the two little boys here as Maya was spending the night at Jen-Jen and Nick-Nick's place (That's Mandy's good friend and her husband and their children who really cater to Maya's whims.) and watching the boys make friends, occasionally even sharing each others toys too but without all the drama that usually exists here between Maya and Kurt because she expects it should only be Kurtis that has to share, not her too!

Saturday night, we were able to have a nice dinner with son, Clate, his girlfriend and her daughter (Betty and Rachel) and then Sunday, yet another big family dinner with them here as well as with older daughter, Carrie, her fiance, Robert and my older grandson, Alex, being here too!

And now, I think I'll retire shortly -calling it a great end to a really nice long weekend!