Life As I Know It: Our Weekend

Last Friday I left work a little early so I could go visit my mother in law, Suzie, in the hospital with Jesse and Riley. Suzie had surgery on Monday and I hadn't gotten to visit all week so I wanted to see how she was doing and let her know I was thinking about her. While we were visiting Riley noticed the door across the hall was open. She became quite fascinated with getting into this room and we assumed that it was because they had their TV on. However, after closer inspection we noticed a huge balloon with a smiley face on it. Our last couple experiences with balloons caused her to have complete breakdowns so we weren't sure if she actually saw the balloon or not. If there ever was a balloon that was going to freak her out it this would be the one to do it.

This is one huge balloon

No seriously, this is one big balloon!

Riley and I were out in the hall waiting for Suzie and Jesse to take a stroll around the hospital floor. While we were waiting I was attempting to keep Riley out of the balloon room. She thought this was a great game and laughed super hard when I would get in her way. Thankfully. Because I could so see it going the way of the tantrum. After a nice cruise around the hospital floor we arrived back outside grandma's room only to have a woman appear from across the hall. She asked if we wanted to have the balloon as it was given to her 20 year old son who had no interest in it. We hesitantly walked Riley up to the balloon and she actually seemed somewhat interested in it. So we took it home and she randomly points at it and sorta plays with it. This is a big step and we are relieved that she doesn't have Globophobia as my husband feared.

While at the hospital Riley did two new things (way to show off in front of grandma!).

1. She signed 'please'. I was talking to Riley and said the word 'please'. In turn Riley took her hand and swirled it across her chest. I have randomly been working on some signs so I wasn't sure how much my signing would take with her. In fact, she did it twice. She's so smart.

2. When we were leaving Riley waved at grandma and said 'bye' without being provoked to do so. She's been waving for some time although it is often on her own schedule. Sometimes it is several minutes after the fact. But this is the first time she said 'bye'. She has a toy that will say 'bye, bye' after a couple minutes of inactivity and this weekend when she played with it she would copy it each time it said 'bye, bye'. Needless to say we heard a fair amount of 'bye' this past weekend.

Riley was smelling like suntan lotion Friday night so it was definitely bath night. She is still a big fan of the bath and now also loves bubbles in the bath (this was an iffy thing for awhile).

Bath pigtails!

Saturday was a pretty good day for Riley. We had a somewhat busy day planned as we wanted to go look at lighting for our kitchen (no luck finding what we wanted), put the knobs on the cabinets (thank you Jesse), and continue to put items into the cabinet (and out of the guest bedroom). Riley was great about playing by herself and keeping herself busy. We even got to go to the park when the sun came out.

There's a balloon up there.

I can play by myself like a big girl.

Grandma was able to go home from the hospital on Saturday so we went to visit her and Grandpa Michael on Sunday. Shortly before we left there was a tornado siren that went off in our neighborhood, but when we turned on the news there wasn't a huge alert so we weren't sure what to do. The sirens stopped and we hopped in the car. I know, probably not the smartest thing to do as we probably should have been a little safer and huddled down in the basement until it was all clear. While in the car we discovered the storm was heading in the opposite direction from us so we continued on. Little did we know that before we left home a tornado touched down within a couple miles of our home. Then the storm headed north and caused a lot of destructive damage. Sadly some lives were lost, a lot of people injured, homes destroyed, and so many trees down. Some friends of ours live right in the path and had a tree come down on their house. Luckily, they are safe and sound.

This weekend Riley also helped while I continued to put kitchen items back in the cabinets. She (and our cat, Lucy) are big fans of the salad spinner. For the past month or so it has been on the floor in the guest room. I am a little hesitant to store it away in a cabinet as she enjoys playing with it so much. Actually, I would say she is a bit territorial with it.