At Mimi's and Papi's

On Sunday we went to visit Andy's parents for his grandfather's 94th birthday. We left Mr. Meh with them for the week because my dad's away and there's no one to take care of him this week.

We're going to pick him up tomorrow, Thursday, after work. I can hardly wait. I can't wait to see him. Not having him here at home, I feel like a part of me is missing.

But it seems that he's been having fun over there. I was somewhat apprehensive on Sunday because he seemed more clingy to me than usual. When we arrived there, he was a bit shy, clinging to me before eventually loosening up and exploring the house.

Although, strangely enough, he remembered right away where in the kitchen he needs to stand to ask for a cookie. Eventually on Sunday he had a blast opening and closing drawers, pulling stuff out, and playing with balloons. Andy's mom had gotten a bunch of balloons for the birthday celebration. Ivan had a blast.

In the evening, when it was time to put him to bed, he didn't go down easy. He was fine taking a bath, but not going to bed. I wondered whether it ws because he was too tired or because he knew something was up and didn't want to go to sleep. After a few failed try to put him to bed and repeated plays, I finally left him in the crib to cry and fall asleep. Which he did within 10 minutes or so, which seemed longer than eternity.

Driving back home on Sunday, I felt awful for leaving him. I feared he was going to wake up in the morning and feel like we abandoned him. I could picture him calling out inquisitively, as he always does, "mama?" "dadda?"

But Monday morning he woke up with a big grin on his face and didn't skip a beat. Andy's mom said they had a blast. She took him to a pet store among other places, where he was in awe of the fish tanks (wanted to put his hands in it), recognized turtles (yeah, we have a stuff animal turtle, there is a turtle in a book of his , and there as the back yard tortoise Tatters that resided in our yard for a few weeks this summer), and met a parrot.

There was a parrot in the store that kept saying "hello." Ivan apparently cracked up and was laughing at the parrot, which in turn kept saying more "hellos," which got Ivan to laugh more.

I wish I had been there to see that. I keep trying to picture it and laugh at it.

On Tuesday they went to a creek and today they stayed at home. Andy's mom says he was rather exhausted and slept a lot today.

I can't wait to see him tomorrow.

As both grandmas agree, having him away from home for three nights is really pushing it. Andy's mom noticed that with each passing day, he seems to get a bit more "concerned." She noticed that he misses us.