Daddy's Home!!

Duncan got back yesterday at about 5 pm and Calleigh and I were very excited to see him. We didn't jump all over him and lick his face like Dewey and Marlee but we were smiling. It's so nice to have him home - - it was stinky being a "single" parent even for a few days.

The good thing is that we had some distractions to keep us busy during his absence. On Tuesday morning, Calleigh and I accompanied Ron and Elaine to a nursery to look at some plants. They were in the market for some having just torn out a bunch of old ones. The nursery is huge and Calleigh traipsed all over it and didn't miss a thing. She picked up rocks, pine cones, and anything else that caught her attention. She saw a butterfly and she was this close to grabbing it. I have some interesting video footage of me screaming as she's about to clasp it in her tiny little hand. The video is too long to show here unfortunately (or rather, I'm too lazy to wait for it to upload). We also happened upon a stray kitten who appears to be living there and Calleigh spent a fair amount of time chasing it through the shrubs. Of course, it always was a few steps ahead. The highlight of the excursion was when we happened upon some little fountains that people could buy to put in their yards. They were full of running water and Calleigh loved splashing in them. As you can guess, we had to do a change of clothes upon leaving. After the nursery, Ron and Elaine treated us to a lovely lunch at the Macaroni Grill, one of my favorite restaurants. It was the first time for them and they really liked it.

Late Tuesday afternoon I got a text from Shannon inviting Calleigh and I to dinner at the Olive Garden. Since we were treated lunch, I said what the heck and off we went. David ended up meeting us too. Unfortunately, we didn't have the jolly good time that I thought we would. Calleigh was not on good behavior. I think she said to me at one point, "Look Mommy, you took me to a restaurant for lunch and I cooperated nicely with that plan. But going out again for supper is just too much for me to handle." She didn't want to sit in her high chair, she didn't want to eat except for the blueberries I brought with me. So it was a hurried dinner. I did enjoy the leftovers for lunch on Wednesday at least.

Yesterday morning Aunt Shirley invited us over for a visit to her house. She has decorated the place very nicely with things that she has gotten great deals on. We spent a lot of the time on the big deck out back and Calleigh chased some lizards around. Aunt Shirley knew how to get Calleigh laughing and here is a picture of Calleigh doing just that. When we were leaving, Aunt Shirley gave Calleigh a stuffed animal of Gumby and it's so cute to listen to Calleigh say "Gumby" as she totes it around.

After we left there, we went to the pediatrician for Calleigh to get her flu shot. Of course, she screamed her head off. I have no idea if the shot itself hurt or not. She started screaming when the nurse put the thermometer in her ear and didn't stop until we left. She is very proud of her band aid however and showed it off to Duncan when he got home.

Today we had tentative plans to meet up with the Spencers who returned to the airport from their cruise. We thought we might get to meet them for lunch but as it turns out, they didn't get back in time. So we went to Walmart for our groceries instead. While we were in the parking lot, Calleigh started noticing all of the airplanes. She's been quite taken with airplanes since our trip up north. The funniest thing is that she says "Airplane," points to the airplane and then says "Hug." I don't know if she wants to give the plane a hug or what. I suppose it looks pretty small way up in the air. Anyway, this evening we made sure to bring out her own airplane to play with and she loved it.





I'm going to end here. Duncan and I have a big backlog of shows to watch. Not that we watch a ton of TV but because I was gone for a little more than a week and he was gone for three days, we didn't watch anything for practically two weeks.