Surviving 48 hours with a 5-year-old

Sandra Hansen
Posted 11/22/17

It starts Friday evening with great expectations of sharing laughs and toys and stories about the past week.

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Surviving 48 hours with a 5-year-old

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It starts Friday evening with great expectations of sharing laughs and toys and stories about the past week. By Sunday evening, the great expectation is a quiet time in a tub of hot water and a handful of aspirin.
Saturday and Sunday have been packed full of assisting Julia ride her bike, which is equipped with training wheels. The ride includes maneuvering numerous driveways with treacherous humps going down and coming up on the other side. But the little driver has them figured out and knows to wait for Gramma’s assistance. While waiting for Gramma to catch up, she balances herself by holding on to the mailbox, or sometimes just sitting and looking over her shoulder to measure Gramma’s progress.
This weekend was pretty windy, so the ride was limited to one circuit of the block. Then it was time for a plastic Frisbee game. That proved to be challenging because the wind wanted to play, too. It won. The plastic disk proved to be adept at suddenly making a right or left turn just as your fingertips were closing in on it. With the wind’s assistance, Julia managed a few good strikes on the house, and Gramma’s efforts seemed to take a lurch into the wild blue yonder just as the flying saucer approached Julia’s tiny hands.
Giving up on outdoor entertainment, we retired to the living room floor where we colored numerous pages and read stories to each other. This week’s favorite was about making a mess of baking chocolate chip cookies, beginning with the wheat field, the sugar cane patch, and the cocoa beans, to the smoke rolling out of the oven.

Of course, the story lead to a modified baking experiment. The pre-packaged dough from the refrigerated section of the store made it a lot easier, and the experience is a sweet treasure.
One of the biggest treats for Julia was the discovery of a stick horse that had waited a couple of years for her in the hall closet. She had forgotten it from an earlier visit, but made up for lost time. The pink and white steed covered a lot of miles this weekend, romping around Gramma’s house.
Gramma rode a make-believe horse as we raced down the hallway into the living room way too many times to count. And of course, Julia’s horse was so fast, she won all of the time. Darn!
And we can’t forget the numerous DVD’s: “Shrek,” “Frosty the Snowman,” and cartoons from the past, like “Popeye,” “Betty Boop,” and “Casper the Friendly Ghost,” are among the favorites that get played again and again. Oh, and we can’t forget “Alvin and the Chipmunks” and even “E.T.”
Gramma did get a break Saturday afternoon when Mommy and Julia went to see a Christmas themed movie, “The Star,” at the local theater. A nap sounded good, but it was also a chance to catch up on chores that were waiting their turn.
Needless to say, Gramma was happy to drag herself into bed Sunday evening, hoping the aches and pains would ease enough to let the Sandman visit. And Julia bounced into dreamland, eager to get to school Monday morning to tell her classmates about the fun she had with Gramma.
Thanks, Julia.