Keeping Up

I'm glad my kids are young – at my age, I really could not keep up with their schedules! I know this, of course. But we had a good taste of it this weekend.

Friday evening the younger daughter called on her way home for work. She was excited because, after a long week of work, they were going out with friends Friday evening. After sharing supper of Chicago deep dish pizza, they were going to the Corn Maze. I think that's terribly energetic for a Friday night, especially knowing she'd worked a lot of extra hours last week.

Saturday mid morning we picked up Mom and headed toward KC for Miss Whirlwind's birthday party. It wasn't a “straight” trip, though – after Friday evening's phone conversation, I needed to run by the apple orchard and pick up a jar of apple butter for younger daughter.

Once we got to the Metro area, we made a detour to the south part of Blue Springs to pick up the 8-year-old granddaughter......Dad was working and Mom had a training for her job. We got her and her dance gear loaded up and made our way to Chuck E. Cheese.

Saturday was a beautiful, warm day. While making our way to Independence Center Mall, we watched the MetLife blimp cruising around. It was in town for the Chiefs' game on Sunday. The new Chuck E. Cheese at Independence is decidedly bigger than the former location on Noland Road. I don't know how many birthday parties they had going on simultaneously. Little Miss Whirlwind was in her glory greeting all her guests.

We started with the party guests getting their game tokens – I was trailing the 8-year-old we'd brought with us, and hubby attempted to keep me in sight. We would wander, then pick a machine and play one game. Then we would wander, then pick a machine and.....well, you get the picture. She actually hit a couple of games the second time before she started shooting baskets. She's pretty good and stuck with that until time to eat.

It had been quite awhile since hubby and I had pizza, so it tasted pretty good. By that time I was keeping track of the time. I had two pieces of pizza, then took the 8-year-old back to the game floor. She shot baskets until she used all her tokens, then we turned in her tickets. By the time she chose all her prizes, it was time to go – her dance school had a special hip-hop clinic that week, with the final class at 2 on Saturday. I ran her to dance class and got back to the party in time to see Miss Whirlwind open her last few gifts......older daughter had made sure to hold the gifts from the family until last, so I got to watch her open our gifts. She was thrilled.

We helped get everything gathered up from our party so they could set up for the next round. After a bit more visiting, we headed toward home. We were so glad we were able to go, as well as being able to pick the 8-year-old up for the party and then get her to dance class. We were, though, very glad that we don't have to keep that kind of schedule on a daily basis!! Like I said, I'm glad my kids are young!

Son called on his way home from work Saturday evening to make sure the 8-year-old had been good for us.....of course she was! We're not her parents! He wasn't surprised to learn she'd traded her game tickets for candy. He didn't have to work on Sunday, so hopefully he had a quiet day. I'm not sure what older daughter had on tap for Sunday, but it usually involves grading papers and getting ready for the next week of school. Younger daughter and her hubby left the party Saturday afternoon to go camping overnight with friends – then they were winterizing their camper on Sunday.

Us? We went to bed early Saturday, slept in on Sunday, and really didn't do anything else! Mom said she sat in her chair most of Sunday afternoon and relaxed. Whoever said parenthood is for the young definitely knew what they were talking about!