A Day With Evan
We drove 1200 miles and arrived here at Golden Village Palms in Hemet, CA on Sunday. We are always pleased to arrive at this lovely landscaped park.
We hustled down the road to be here in time to help out Naomi and Brad (grandkids) on their moving day. We got to take care of Evan. We met them at the new apartment and he didn't want to leave his Mommy. So he sat in his car seat and stared out the window with a set grimace on his face until we arrived at our house. Then he cracked a smile and was OK.
We had a fine day but he sure has a mind of his own. He totally ignores any comments or instructions that don't fit with his idea of what should be happening. As luck would have it, we had a water connection to the toilet spring a leak on Monday so the toilet was not working right. To flush it we had to use the shower spray to fill the bowl. Jim had ordered the new connector and went to pick it up after he dropped Evan and me off at home.
We took a walk on our street and came back for a snack. He walked around outside studying the wheels and then said, "it's not a house." Several times during the day he asked, "You live here?" (Keep in mind that Evan turned 3 this week.)
He has about a 30 second attention span except when watching Sponge Bob! So he was fascinated going in and out of the house. Must have done that 36 times! He brought a movie, Robots, to watch so we put that in and had some juice and chips. After about 10 minutes we were into something else. He didn't like the scary parts :)
Grandpa came home with the new toilet part and went out to get his toolbox. Evan stuck to him like glue. When Jim took the tools to the bathroom to get into fixing Evan was right behind him.
"You want to share the tools?" says Evan.
"No, I don't think so!!" Grandpa replies.
Evan quickly lost interest and came back out by me and started studying the dashboard.
"How you drive this thing?"
Well try explaining that! Guess I didn't do a very good job because he started to turn the drivers chair around and get ready to drive. That's when I had to say..."Listen mister!" That got his attention because that's what his Dad says to him when he's in trouble.
Of course, he had to check out every door and drawer. He opened the pantry and spotted the popcorn jar. Oh! Popcorn!.....and pulled it out along with an open box of spaghetti! Visualize dry spaghettic sticks all over the floor. As a Mom I would have hollered. As a great-grandma I can have fun with just about anything :) OK! Let's play Pick Up Sticks! That consumed about 15 minutes picking up one stick at a time and carefully putting it in the box. Excellent Job Evan!
He found our walkie-talkies so we played with them for awhile. His little fingers couldn't press and hold the button but I could hear him as he hid in back and said, "Can you hear me now?" I responded that I could hear him and he says, "Check, check!" Ahh...the influence of TV.
About 4 PM when it cooled off a little, we took him to the park where we spent an hour on the slides and play towers. We all had a good time :) He did lead Grandpa on a merry chase. They were playing pretend ice cream stand and Evan decided he was out of ice cream and had to get more so he took off running across the park. We thought he was teasing! Nope. So Jim had to put on his running legs to catch the kid!
Thankfully, Naomi called about 5 PM and said they had everything moved and we could bring him home anytime:) We were pooped! Now they are about 30 mintues from us. We had a light supper and then took him to his new apartment. He was so tired he refused to get in his carseat so I had to be a bit forceful. He was asleep before we got out of the park.
We arrived to find the movers, grandkids and friends, very tired but they had the living room and kitchen pretty well set up. They have a very nice 2 bedroom, 2 bath first floor apartment. The pool and playground with a common outdoor relaxing area around the corner. The complex, amenties and apartment are only two years old so still in very nice condition...very posh. We're so glad they could make this move.