The M & M's Take Over

If you saw MonkeyGirl's post of yesterday (www.chirpingmonkey.blogspot.com), you know she babysits her neice and nephew on Tuesdays. Grandma gets them on Wednesday.

Today, they were dismissed from preschool at noon, and the preschool was closing down for the holiday. So my time babysitting was longer than usual.

Now, I had many things planned for what to do to entertain them for the afternoon. I knew my usual 2-3 nap wasn't going to happen, so I had to skip that idea. Even though they nap at preschool, it just seemed more trouble than it was worth for probably 15 minutes of quiet time. We watched Polar Express movie, so that was our down time.

Their mom had a Thanksgiving project for us to do, which turned out not too fabulous. We were to make a turkey out of two styrofoam balls, wrap them with brown yarn, and put construction paper feathers on the turkey with what we were thankful for. I sort of got mixed up on the directions and didn't exactly complete it correctly. Sorry Mom!

Then we decorated my two little Charlie Brown Christmas Trees. One is a downstairs tree, covered with Santas. I have a Santa collection, some handpainted ones depicting how Santa is viewed in different countries around the world. Others are those lush, velvet or lame dressed Santas, each with his own charming face, which I can't resist when I see them on sale at the end of the season! You can never have enough Santas. The other tree is fuller and taller, and I cover it with birds, bird nests, bird houses, and the like. It reminds me of being in the country, a life I left 2 years ago, and still miss.

Then little Miss M decided she wanted to cook. Actually, for 3-1/2, she can do a decent job on microwave Mac and Cheese. She is careful, doesn't spill the stuff, and is so proud of her accomplishment. So she fixed dinner for us.

We also have a new toy for the kitchen, an apple peeler/corer/slicer. It is just the right sort of challenge for preschoolers, and unfortunately for them, I only had 3 apples for them to peel/core/slice. It made for a lot of fun, and they ate the apples rather than junk food, so that was great.

The M & M's christened my entire bathroom wall by "swimming" in my garden tub, they had been requesting to take a bath in that tub every time they come over. Tonight, we happened to have two sets of jammies, so they could get dressed for bed after the bath. At their house, tile goes 5 feet up the wall and lines the entire bathtub area, even the ceiling. Mine goes up 5 inches, so the wall got a soaking.

Then Miss Expert stated when she left that she didn't like those decorations I have on the outside of my house, and that I should take them down and put them in the garage. These are the professionally installed lights lining my entire eaves on the front of my house that cost a pretty penny to install! Sure, darling grand daughter, I'm going to take your advice on that one. I'll just turn off the lights whenever she comes to visit the next time.

Little experts, they are becoming so competent in so many things. Often they wear me out because they don't get along. But today they were a joy to be with. Whew, I didn't need that nap after all!