Overnight Monkeyshines

(Please note that the previous Monkeyshines post has been updated with 6 new images - Enjoy!)
This weekend featured the long-awaited overnight “slumber” party visit of our favorite little people. Although this will be the “new normal” it was special because it was the first time, none of us were used to it and we didn’t know quite what to expect. A complicating factor was the weather, which, with wind chills at or below zero, was bitterly cold throughout the weekend. This meant spending 24 hours together in Daddy’s little apartment. We handled it in style and had great fun in the process.

The visit started off the usual way at the Sensory Gym, only without any head injuries or vomiting this week. We arrived at Daddy’s house soon after, and Zach repeated his performance of the week before by handing Mommy her coat and shoving her out the door. We set about playing immediately, while Daddy got lunch ready. Zach ate a good helping of spaghetti, but Miranda, who had had her muffin on a stick with Mommy while Zach did his therapy, was not hungry. Zachy got spaghetti all over everything, including himself, so Daddy decided that a change of shirt was in the cards. As soon as the shirt came off the boy took the rest of his clothes off and jumped in the bathtub – so… it was bath time. Miranda loves the water too, and came running out of the woodwork, tugging at her clothes as soon as she heard the water running.

After the bath and some fresh clothes, Miranda asked for her milk and lay down on the couch for a nice long nap from 1:30 to about 4:15. Zachy and Daddy had some nice time together doing our thing. Zach is saying more words and the words that he is saying are becoming much clearer, so that I think even someone who didn’t know him would be able to understand some of them. I had planned to take them to Little People’s Parties, which is an indoor playroom with a jungle gym, rock-climbing wall, basketball, etc., but by the time Miranda-panda woke up it just didn’t make any sense. So we made dinner and had another bath, this time for real – hair got washed and ears got cleaned behind. We then put on our pajamas and had a nice quiet evening playing games, playing our instruments and watching our videos. They both really like hearing the guitar – when I play, Zach takes a blanket and makes a tent over our heads which he thinks is just so cool – kind of like an intimate club atmosphere. Both kids enjoy playing the guitar themselves too and both seem to have the Miller gift for music.

After our videos Zachy started getting tired, but Miranda was full of energy. Zach can get a little grumpy when he is tired, especially towards his sister and he earned a timeout for going after her with his feet. In fairness, there is really nowhere that he can go to get away from her and Miranda can be a bit larger than life at times. We had story time after brushing our teeth and by the end of In the Night Kitchen, both little people were happy again.

Zach fell asleep at around 9:30 so Daddy and his little girl watched an animal show until she fell asleep at around 10:30. Daddy watched his little ones sleep for awhile then decided to get some sleep himself at around 11:30. At about 2:30am Zachy got up and came into bed with Daddy and slept for another hour. At 3:30am he got up and decided that it was morning, flipped on all of the lights, turned on the marble machine and went to work. Daddy managed to keep him out of the bedroom for a while, but by 4:30am both little people were hard at play and Daddy was in the kitchen frying chickens for breakfast.

We ate our breakfast and played with some new toys like our rhyming cards, and just generally hung out all morning. By 10:30 or so both kids had had a snack (for lunch) and had crashed for some serious power naps. Mommy came by at a little after noon, just as we were all waking up. We changed our diapers and pullups and saddled up the big red stroller and said “bye Daddy’s house, see ya soon” – Miranda actually says this. Miranda grabbed a lollipop for the road and we all hugged and kissed, eagerly awaiting our next visit and our next installment of Monkeyshines.