A day with Grandma and Grandpa

For one reason or another, I don't remember the circumstances that lead to it, but our daycare was closed on a day I had to work.  On the rare occasion that happened I'd drop the kids off at my parents' house.  My mom would take Erik to school with her (where she is a 1st grade teacher) and my dad had the pleasure of spending the day with Katie.  This happened to be one of those days.

Because we'd have to leave a little earlier than usual to get everyone settled at Grandma and Grandpa's house I just let the kids stay sleeping while I got ready for work. Just before leaving I'd haul them out of bed and we walked out the door.  We'd have a bag packed with clothes, toothbrushes, toothpaste and all the other sundry needed to get ready for the day.

I dropped the kids off, gave them each a hug and a kiss then headed off to work.  It wasn't until I got out of work and arrived at my parents' house that I heard all the stories of the day.

After breakfast and a little relaxing time dad was getting Katie dressed for the day.  Pealing off her PJ's Katie makes a declaration that makes my dad take a double take.  "I don't like it when my mom puts spiders in my jammies!  Especially the pink ones."  Hmmm, is that pink spiders?  or is it spiders in her pink jammies?  Either way, I assure you that I have NEVER put spiders in anything Katie wears.  Not even pink spiders.

Later that day my mom and Erik got home from school and settled in for the afternoon.  While Grandma was getting dinner ready Katie came in to the kitchen and made another one of her declarations.

"I remember the day I was born."  She says.  Upon saying that she rolls herself into a little ball on the floor and starts moving her head in a 'pecking' manner.  She says "I first had to break a crack in my shell."  Hmmmm, maybe that is why her birth was so difficult.


Once she got that 'crack in her shell' she started pushing on an imaginary wall.  She had to make that small crack a hole large enough for her to climb out.  Finally she managed to get an arm broken through the imaginary shell.  From there she could squeeze her other arm out.  As she pushed her arms through the shell the hole grew large enough for her head to pop through that hole in her imaginary shell.


Just imagine the joy you'd feel, you have been trapped in a tight ball for your entire existence and you can finally move your arms.  That is the joy expressed in the grin Katie gave Grandma and Grandpa.  But while hatching, if you stop at getting your arms out of that shell you have only gone half way.  And Katie does nothing halfway.

After a brief pause (after all, she did need to take a rest after all the work she had already done, making a hole in that imaginary shell large enough to get both her arms and head through) Katie continued on her task of emerging from her shell.

She pushed the shell down her legs far enough she could step out with one foot.  Once she got on leg out of her shell she was able to get a firm footing on the kitchen floor.  Almost there!  Grasping the back of one of the kitchen chairs Katie gave a few good kicks of her still egg entrapped leg.  Finally she was free of the confines of her shell, born to take on the world that spread out before her eyes.

"That is how I was born." she announces.  "But it was really hard to break out of my shell."

As you can tell, a day with Katie is rarely uneventful.  Between spiders in her jammies, hatching from an egg and many of the other off the wall things she shares, a day with Katie can be an adventure without ever leaving the house.