A Weekend of Parenthood

This past weekend, Robyn's sister, Megan and her husband, Graham went to Cancun, Mexico.  They didn't invite us.  They never do.  (How rude is that?)  But, I suppose that they've been to Cancun twice without us, and we've been to Hawaii twice without them, so it's fair.

While they were away, we had the opportunity to watch our 2-year-old nephew, Will.  We stayed at their house for the weekend, so that he could be in his own environment, with his own toys and his own bed and everything familiar.

Robyn picked him up Friday afternoon, and I joined the two of them that evening after work.  This was who greeted me when I got there.

Precious

He spent the evening doing important things like driving his cars on my face.  When that important work was completed, we moved on to stacking the rings.  However, the rings were pretty offensive.  Every time he stacked them they ended up out of order.  Each time he would briefly lament the sad state of affairs, and then laugh as he dumped them out and restacked them.

Naturally, after he went to bed, we continued playing with his toys.  I explained to Robyn the logic puzzle called, "The towers of Hanoi."  Here she is pondering deeply.

Don't worry.  She totally solved it.

The next morning, we had planned to attend the Birth Mother Walk in Spanish Fork.  It's an event put on by Families Supporting Adoption.  The intent is to honor birth mothers and the sacrifice that they go through that makes adoptive families possible.  Most people go and walk in honor of a specific birth mom.  We pinned a sign to Will's back saying he was walking in honor of his "future cousin's birth mom."  However, he let us know after about 30 seconds that he was not interested in having a sign pinned to him. so that ended pretty quick.

After the walk, everyone comes together in a big group and they all release balloons into the sky.  Before releasing the balloons, Will and I did a photo op together.

Apparently, we're not that great at actually looking at the camera.

When it came time to release the balloons, Will excitedly watched the other balloons drift into the sky. But when we told him he could release his balloon, he gave us a look that said, "Why would I do that?  You know this is a balloon, right?  A BALLOON!  You don't just waste balloons."

Here he is holding tight to his balloon while the others drift into the sky.

After the balloon release they had a few other activities for the kids.  One of them was a race.  They let kids 3 and under race first.  I asked Will if he wanted to race and he said no.  But, when he saw all the kids lining up, he wanted to be where the action was.  He went and stood next to all the other kids.  They all took off running and he watched them run away.  About the time they all started crossing the finish line, he decided it looked fun.  He took off running, laughing gleefully the whole way.  It was pretty much the cutest thing ever.

After the birth mother event, we noticed there was a park nearby.  (And by we noticed, I mean Will noticed, and let us know the importance of visiting the aforementioned park.)

We walked over and had the place to ourselves.

Will slid down every slide.

I joined in on the sliding.

Also, this preciousness occurred.

The saddest part came on Sunday.  Sunday evening I left to go spend time with my Mom for Mother's Day.  Afterward, I was going back to my own house, so that I could leave in the morning to head into work.  I told Will I was leaving, and gave him a hug goodbye.  He looked at me and his bottom lip started to quiver, and tears started to form in his eye.  It was the cutest and saddest thing I've ever seen.  I promised him we would hang out again soon.  Robyn promised him she would do her best to be as fun as me.  (But let's be honest, that's hardly possible.)

All in all, it was a great weekend.  I could get used to being a parent.