Babysitting Glory

Got to Hang with this Little Imp

One of the inescapable truths I’ve discovered about grandparenting is that babysitting is now the highest form of entertainment. Wingman and my Favorite Daughter were attending an upstate wedding this weekend and asked if we would mind the FBR store during their absence. They thanked us profusely for journeying down to New Jersey for the exercise but I felt guilty for not paying them for the sheer entertainment value of spending time my granddaughter.

Helping Mom with her Pre-Wedding Lipstick

Sharing the Divine Daniel Tiger with Abuela

I still attended First Friday celebrations which is not the preferred technique prior to a three hour drive but I figured I was going to have to wait out the rush hour traffic anyways. I retired to the Man Cave with strict instructions to my Favorite Panamanian to leave me in peace for an hour so I could catch some “z’s” She later admitted this was much harder than she anticipated. I knew of an excellent method of insta-napping – putting on the next in my series of bad sci-fi movies. I was out like a light and completely refreshed an hour later for the drive.

Sticker Application on Grandpa

And Herself

My granddaughter continues her precocious ways, seemingly to acquire new abilities with each passing minute. She had both her grandmother and I completely engaged for the entire day and a half we spent with her. She’s out of diapers during her waking hours and taking increasing control, trying to direct adults to leave the room when she has to go. She is also completely devoted to Mr. Rodgers’ animated replacement – Daniel Tiger (the only TV she is allowed to watch).

My Minnie Mouse Ears

And Again

Her first action was to pillage the customary gifts her abuela acquired during the week prior to our arrival. I’m thinking it might be financially prudent to seize my wife’s credit cards a week preceding any visit with our granddaughter. Part of the gifts included some stickers which she seemed to think looked fantastic festooning both her and my arms. I stopped to buy gas on the trip home and discovered a couple that I forgot to remove. The gas station attendant said nothing. That was easier to explain than the set of Minnie Mouse ears, part of her Halloween costume, that she was determined that I wear. I snuck up to her bed room and hid the ears before we left.

Piling Mulch on top of Playground Bench Important

Ice Cream Wars

We Know Who Won

She Climbed All the Way to Top by Herself
I was Only Spotting (Which was not appreciated)

One of the highlights of the day was when she escorted us to her favorite playground. She insisted on running  a lot of the way which was not what her grandparents had in mind but, well, you could guess who won that disagreement. Her grandmother acquired an ice cream cone while we were there and the FBR, a well know food pirate, became intensely interested in it. It was fun sitting next to them refereeing the ensuing negotiations.

Why are Grandparent so Slow?

When She Gets Excited she Flexes Her Hands Repeatedly

My wife decided to let me sleep in Sunday morning since I was up late trying to figure out how to gets Sportscenter on their internet only TV. The FBR was having none of that as she marched into my bedroom and demanded that I arise and accompany her downstairs to play. I am incapable of denying her anything so I was soon covered in stickers and singing the Wheels on the Bus. Speaking ion that g.d. song, my wife and I made a rookie mistake. One of the gifts we brought her was a microphone that played one song – The Wheels on the Bus. All she had to do was push a button and out it came. We heard that friggin song no less than 267 times. Wingman opined that it might just disappear on Tuesday which just happens to be rubbish day.

Balance Returned to the Cosmos

Wingman and a very “under the weather” daughter returned Sunday from the wedding in time to catch most of the Patriots’ game with us. Wingman had to leave to catch the game with some friends but it was fun seeing the Pats bounce back from their first game disaster. In what was touted as a contest between two of greatest quarterbacks on this generation turned into a rout as a very focused Tom Brady carved up a bad New Orleans defense. Little doubt remains as to who is the greatest of all time.

Mounting her Director's Chair in the Kitchen

Using a Feminine Product as her Bunny's Diaper

Always Trying on her Boots
Just Trying On - Not Wearing

It is completely undeniable that the FBR is utterly charming. One of my daughter’s Curbside gals is relocating back to NYC and staying with them while apartment searching. She has also fallen under my granddaughter’s spell and we are both incapable of resisting her. She seems to have appointed me as her personal attendant and pitched a tantrum when I went outside to load the car. She’s old enough to realize my wife and I were leaving and she made it a point to express her unhappiness with that development. She even refused to give me a going away hug in the form of castigation for my effrontery.

While nothing could diminish the sublimity that was the weekend spent with that little bunch of energy, the trip home gave it the ole college try. We usually travel north on the Garden State Parkway and cross over into Connecticut via the Tappan Zee Bridge. We were approaching that point when one of those new signs that say how much time it currently takes to reach a certain point helpfully pointed out it would take 58 minutes to reach the bridge – we were less than nine miles away. I’m nothing if not a broken field runner when it comes to traffic jams. I headed further north into New York, a good thirty miles out of our way to catch the northern passage of I-84. The whole trip did take us a thirty minutes longer than usual but I counted it as a win since it would have been an hour later if I dove into the Tappan Zee traffic and that’s not counting the time I would probably have to spend explaining to the police why I murdered somebody while stuck in traffic for an hour.

The Bad Cinema project count rises to #9 out of 100 with Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet. A Russian Sci-Fi flick from the 1960s refitted with a couple English speaking actor scenes and released in all its awful glory.

Can't Wait to Take Another Walk Like This