Yesterday I helped out at my daughter’s place while my co-grandma-in-law Suzanne had an appointment, so I got to ‘care’ for Ryker. (By which I mean chase around the busiest toddler in 10000 years of human history.) He is 1.6 years old and can open doors already – that’s how tall he is.
Suzanne hung around for a while to transition the care over and I sat in the living room, touched my chest and said, “I’m GG”. (He knows who I am but he’s a human being and I was trying to be polite.)
A minute later he walked over to me, touched my chest, and softly said “GG”. Suzanne saw. I didn’t cry but it was a near thing. He used that name another time but I didn’t hear.
He is so close to talking in full sentences that it’s wonderful, and he puts two words together all the time – but he still uses baby sign for more – I was feeding him a cut up peach. Munch shudder munch shudder stuff munch shudder. It was hilarious.
When he was hungry, he climbed a bar stool -honest to god I was in the same room but not fast enough – and LAUNCHED HIMSELF into his ‘food appreciation chair – without toppling it, mostly because I finally found the JATO bottle and ‘hit it’ – arriving at the chair in time to ensure he didn’t fall off the FRONT of the chair.
In other grandson news, Alex and I were both wearing astronaut t-shirts and Suzanne got a pic (not available yet) and I got to watch Alex lovingly and appropriately interact with his brother (including carrying him out onto the deck so he could continue his passionate and one-sided love affair with the recycling truck) and okay, now I’m crying in earnest.
Ryker can also watch ‘Bluey’ (a recommended kids show, if you want to make your great grandchildren happy hint hint have some of it downloaded so they can watch it.) For twenty minutes at a time. He absolutely loves it and dances to the theme song. WHILE he’s jumping all over his mommabear’s bed. He fell off twice and walked it off. Fearless and self-soothing. TERRIFYING in other words.
AND I got to watch Alex playing a game, Carrion on Steam. It’s a pixellated horror side scroller and ‘not appropriate for my age’ as Alex sagely observed, playing the monster and casually eviscerating the security guards at the research facility. pOp, it would make you happy. I took my eye off Ryker for TWO FREAKING SECONDS (I was talking to Keith, who had just returned from Seattle and a visit to Hank and Janice and Laura with Paul) and he’s IN his brother’s room IN the computer chair (Keith says he has a thing for computer chairs) and PUTTING THE FUCKING HEADPHONES ON. He is the ultimate monkey. His new nickname is Taz, for the WB Tasmanian devil.
Jeff bought me a delicious chicken salad from White Spot yesterday. Honestly it’s one of the best I’ve ever eaten and packed with noms. And the air conditioning works, so again, thank you Jeff for picking out one of the most durable wheeled air-conditioning units ever sold. It was so hot the crows perched with their mouths open.
Jeff and Buster went for a walk this morning, I should find out how that went.
