Adventures In Visiting

Today a wild/wonderful/great/fantastic disaster/hurricane/whirling dervish visited our household: C and her family came to visit. Wow. It was interesting, to say the least.

My house is used to holding two people and one cat--and at times it seems too small for that many entities. C and her family added eight more people to the mix. Suddenly, the walls felt as if they were closing in on me. Everywhere I turned, there was a person! To have that many kids in one house, you need a place twice as large as mine! You couldn't walk two steps without almost stepping on a kid. I think the fact that they move so fast made it seem as if there were more here than actually were. They were like speed demons tearing through the house. Not much sitting was done by any of them.

We are empty-nesters who don't get a lot of company--especially company of the under 14-year-old kind. So, I haven't child-proofed my house. That made things a bit interesting. I wasn't afraid that the kids would damage any of my stuff--it is only stuff and can be replaced--I was just concerned that they wouldn't hurt themselves. The 2-year-old didn't want to walk across the floor--she rather liked going from one end of the house to the other by climbing on the furniture. She wanted to sit on the window seat in the dining room--the one that was made for our 16 pound cat! Not a good idea. We disagreed on how good of an idea it was. She also would take an object that she knew she shouldn't have and run to the best hiding place in order to play with it. She reset our remote thermometer while hiding and walked off with my book light. The child finally passed out just before they left (which wasn't surprising as she didn't stop the entire time they were here.) This was something C was hoping would happen--it just makes the ride home that much easier. :) I'm STILL wondering where the kid gets her red hair from. We are blond/light brown haired Finns, for crying out loud!

Things could have been quite bad while they were here if I wasn't such a cool grandmother. How do I figure I'm cool? I have EVERY Nintendo gaming system that has been made, so the kids have something to do while they visit. And play they did! The son-in-law and two oldest girls played the Wii in the kitchen while the 3 and 4-year-olds played the Nintendo 64 in the living room. C herself played my Nintendo DS--at least when she wasn't nursing the baby! The noise level was amazingly loud, but everyone was happy. What more can you want?

Other than a few slops of food on the breakfast nook floor, they really didn't do much 'damage' of any kind. The 2-year-old DID bite a couple of chunks out of one of my round candles, but it could have been worse. (We only found one of the pieces, so changing her diaper ought to be interesting in the next few days--the candle is a nice shade of cobalt blue!) I never would have thought of putting the candles away--they were in the middle of the dining room table where I thought they would be safe. Goes to show how innovative those kids can be. :)

I don't get to see the kids often enough, so I was very happy they were here. I am happier that K took the afternoon off so he could be here to visit, too. I don't really know if I could have done the visit on my own. It really took four adults to keep the kids corralled, safe, and non-destructive. They don't get here that often and, in all honesty, I don't mind all that much. :)