Birthday Monkeyshines

This week's episode of Monkeyshines featured the special guest appearances of Grandpa Monty and Grandma Fredi, which made the weekend just unbelievably fun!








Our adventures started, as always, on Friday evening when Daddy picked up two smiling little people, and whisked them away to Daddy's play palace. We had only a brief visit from our Pittsburgh-based benefactors on Friday night, but it was enough to really excite young Master Zechariah and Miss Miranda. In fact, they were so wound up that they ended up staying up way past their bedtimes.
In spite of this, and much to Daddy's chagrin, Zach was up bright and early the next morning (5am) ready to start his day and hit the Sensory Gym. We had a nutritious breakfast, watched a little Wonderpets, and proceeded to get ready.

Saturday was kind of a mixed weather day, but the rain held off for our walk to the gym where we found Mommy already waiting for us. We got Zach into his session, then Miranda and Daddy went off around the corner to Daddy's cookie-meeting, where Miranda is now something of a celebrity (especially with the ladies - who needs a puppy, huh?). She did a great job of being quiet as a mouse, though I don't think she quite got the idea - she kept telling everybody in a really loud stage whisper, "Quiet, there's a mouse over there!"

We left the meeting a bit early so that we could pay our usual visit to the pet store and say "hi" to our friends the kitties, the doggies, the birds and the lizards. Two of the Siamese kittens remained and had been joined by a small tabby, the lizards were mostly sleeping - that's what lizards do most of the time - and the dogs went generally berserk upon seeing Miranda, which or course scared the sh@! out of the birds. It was therefore a very successful visit.

We went straight to the park after collecting Zach, because everyone had eaten a late and huge breakfast, and because the weather was threatening some rain. We stopped by the Gregory Hotel on the way and collected Grandpa Monty and Grandma Fredi, and off we went. I know that you all are probably getting tired of all the park pictures, but that is something that we do a lot of and park pictures are less boring than pictures in Daddy's small Brooklyn apartment.



Eventually the rain started but it came on really slowly, so we had time to pack it up and retreat from the park in an orderly fashion. We went back to Daddy's house and had a wonderful lunch. Miranda couldn't decide what to have so Grandma Fredi (who is a world-famous cook) made her a gourmet grilled cheese sandwich. Zach plowed through some chicken and other things.

After lunch it was time for some presents (that's "presentos" to our friends South of the border). Grandma and Grandpa had come bearing gifts for the young lord and lady. Miranda got a huge book full of thousands of stickers - pictures of all kinds of items. She immediately peeled of some stickers of some olives and set about redecorating Daddy's apartment. Zachy got some Thomas the Train pieces which came with two videos - Grandma and Grandpa chose very well. While the grown folk were busy trying to figure out how to get past the tamper-proof packaging on the DVD's, the re was a knock at the door which turned out to be the mailman with a package full of birthday cheer for all from Aunt Susie, Uncle Wayne, Samantha and Leah. It was like Christmas all over again. Inside the package we found four wonderful books, two of which came with CD's that went along with them. We also found a gear set that Zachy had admired on his last visit to Aunt Susie's house, and that the Childers had brought back all the way from London just for our little people.

Opening all of these presents and playing with all of these new things was completely exhausting, so some naps were in order, not just for the little ones. We didn't want to mess up our bed times and have a repeat of the night before, so we held it to only an hour, then got up and had our baths, playtime, dinner and a quiet evening - bedtimes were mercifully early.

Grandma and Grandpa wanted to get some clothing for Zachy and Miranda so we got up Sunday morning, had our breakfasts, then went to collect Grandma and Grandpa for a trip to Century 21. We found out that it opened later than we expected so we decided to take a walk to the park by Zachy's school. We played there for a while then went to Century. Each of the kids got an outfit and Daddy even got to new shirts to wear to work - thanks Grams and Gramps!

Lunch was next on the agenda and then another trip to another park. We went to the park by Fort Hamilton High School and played on everything, then Zachy led us down to the field where Miranda spent some time casting about, looking for additions to her rock collection. She made several good finds.

The weather was much better on Sunday and before long we had all shed our jackets, sweatshirts and whatnot. Unfortunately, as the afternoon wore on. Grandma and Grandpa had to start getting ready to hit the road and Daddy had to start thinking about returning the monkeys to Monkey Central so we strolled back to Daddy's house where we said a fond farewell to the elder Millers then had some quiet playtime and cuddle time.

At 4:30 we loaded up all the monkey paraphernalia and marched down 3rd Avenue, stopping briefly at the bakery and laundromat, and made back to Monkey Central by 5pm. Miranda had nodded out about 10 minutes before we arrived so Daddy kissed her as she lay in bed, got a smooch and a high five from Zach and said "see ya soon" on our next adventure with Monkeyshines.