Caleb's Visit

Megan and Charlotte left this morning for an overnight Girl Scout event. Megan is one of the troop leaders as well so she will have five or six eight-year-old girls to keep an eye on. Jeremy works on Fridays which meant Joe and I had Caleb with us until Jeremy got off work.

I picked Caleb up at 8:20am and as soon as he got in the house he headed for the drawer with art supplies. All he needed was a pencil and a sketch pad and he got to work drawing a robot he had designed in his head.

When he finished drawing, I asked him if he would like to help Grandpa Joe in the yard. He went out for about ten minutes and helped to shovel stone into the wheelbarrow. Caleb had worked up an appetite so ate an apple.

 Next up, at his request, was to go to the Saint Michael Town Center Park which also has a splash pad. Megan had sent extra clothes in case Caleb got his clothes dirty helping grandpa. We were at the park about 10:30 am and it was already busy. Caleb found another boy to hang out with and they ran around the park climbing on everything. Caleb decided to climb up one of the slides instead of sliding down it. I watched as he tried the monkey bars. He is so tall that he ended up with nowhere for his legs to go – standing up, his head almost touched the bars. Think those were probably meant for toddlers.

Of course I took pictures!

Next up was the splash pad. I took a video of the most popular part of the park – the water tower. All of the children were lining up under the tower which tipped over about every 5 minutes.

Then it was home for lunch of his very favorite foods to eat at our house. A peanut butter and honey sandwich (no crust), mango slices, cucumber slices, dill pickles, and a glass of milk.

After lunch he went out and helped grandpa for another five minutes and then came and declared he was tired. He laid down on the floor under the bench in the family room for about ten minutes. He then changed places laying on the floor in front of the couch in the family room. After about half -an-hour he went back out to help grandpa for another ten minutes or so.

Jeremy was scheduled to pick Caleb up at around 3:00pm. The last forty minutes I allowed Caleb to play educational games on my computer. I was laying on the couch, reading, and fell asleep. Caleb woke me up to get his password for a math game.

Caleb is a joy to have around. He has great manners and I especially appreciated how he took his dirty lunch dishes to the sink when he finished lunch. When he wants to do something, he asks permission. It is easy to tell that boy yes. First because his asks are reasonable, and second because I can’t read minds. I don’t have to be concerned about entertaining him every minute. He finds things to do to keep himself busy and happy.

He was happiest though when his dad came to pick him up. They most likely have fun things planned for the rest of the day, fun things like playing a video game together and playing with the dogs.