the sleepover

Well, the much anticipated sleep over with t.c. was last night. My daughter in law practically threw him in the door yesterday afternoon, hugged me, and ran back to the car because her baby was sleeping.

The kid came roaring into the house, hollering, “Take my backpack! Where’s Tim!” They played Legos and trucks and Barbies, ate Cheez Its all over the place, happy to see each other.

The house is still fairly trashed, but I don’t care. It’s a happy mess, absolutely worth it. Last night we watched that movie, Bolt, and they took baths and finally went to bed at nearly 11, Tim, t.c., and Julia all together. There was a little laughing and then they were asleep.

Today Dannell was Christmas shopping, so John came with l.c. at noon to fetch him, and they stayed a pretty long time, fixing the computer upstairs and eating lunch.

When it was finally time to go and he had both kids all pulled together, all their stuff, coats and hats on… you know how that goes, well t.c. ran upstairs with Julia and hid. John yelled to him in the stairway a few times and finally put down the baby in the carseat and went to fleece t.c. out of the upstairs.

I could hear him scolding him, “This is the most outrageously disrespectful thing I’ve ever seen. You need to make good choices, blah, blah, blah…” I was laughing, outrageously typical of young squirrels is more like it, like he himself once was. It’s hard to take the child too seriously.

(Last summer when I had him in a public restroom, and he couldn’t decide if he had to pee or not, finally I told him to just make up his mind. It didn’t matter, just decide. He went into the stall and slammed the door yelling, “I hate grandmas!!!” Slam, slam, “I hate GRANDMAS!” Aww, man, just pee or don’t pee. A woman I know came out of another stall, not sure if she should laugh or not, and I said, “He doesn’t mean it.” The kid is hilarious.)

Anyway, as they came down the stairs, I asked t.c., “You having a little listening problem?” He nodded, and as Julia tried to coax him to turn around and run back upstairs, John said he should not listen to her. I agree. She’s a bit nefarious.

Okay, last night t.c. told us the following stories:

The kids were playing in a part of our addition basement where the walls are not entirely finished, just sheetrock and tape. He asked me why I didn’t paint the wall. I said, “Well, we have to finish smoothening it and sand it some more. It’s a big job.” He asked why Grandpa didn’t do that, so I told him, “He’s busy with other work. He doesn’t really have time.”

The child turned to face me and palm up said, “Oh, well! You should call my dad. He’s a great worker. He works and works. Do you have our number?” I told him yes I know that number. Oh my gosh, the kid makes me happy. The whole world is better with him in it.

He told us this story too about his blanket. It’s a limp blue satiny blanket that he’s very attached to:

He and John were walking along on a sidewalk and a bad guy came up to them and, “…POKED my dad, and we ran and ran and ran because we were scared, and I DROPPED my blanket and lost it cause we were running so fast.”

Dan and Alicia were here then, and also Heidi’s husband Joe. Dan and Joe listened to this with big eyes, I’m sure like I was, picturing any bad guy approaching John (6’5”, 230 lbs.) and poking him.

After a long pause, Joe said, “That sounds like a bad dream.”

Dan nodded, “I’m thinkin’.”

The child just said, “Yeah. It was terrible.”

When he left I kissed the crown of his head where the hair is extra red and told him, “I’m so glad you came to my house.” (...to my family, to my life, to my heart)

He said, “I’m so glad too.”

Well, yeah. It was a totally great sleep over, completely worth the wait. Love, Val