Survival of the Grandparents

While Krzysztof and I went to Colorado for a ski trip in February, Krzysztof's parents graciously came to our house to watch Brandon. This was the first time that BOTH of us were away from Brandon for this long. We were gone for 5 days. And this was the first time that Brandon's Dziadzia and Babcia had ever been with him for that long without one of us around! Here's a few things they did:

KZ's Uncle Martin came in for a 2 day visit from Boulder while we were gone. The 3 of them took Brandon to the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City.

Here's Brandon and his Dziadzia.

And Brandon with his Babcia.

Having a snack at the museum. That's Brandon's great uncle Martin.

They also took Brandon to this mall we have near us that has quite a few of those ride on cars. Fortunately for all of us Brandon doesn't know that they move, and he's quite content to just sit in them.

I love this picture. But I hope I never see Brandon looking at me through the windshield of a real red convertible unless he's sitting in the passenger seat and the convertible belongs to me.

Reading books with uncle Martin.
Brandon will sit with you for hours if you'll keep reading to him. This just blessed the hearts of his grandparents, who are both librarians! Brandon, however, gets obsessed with certain books. We call them "books of the week" because he rotates which ones he's obsessed with each week. He wants the same 1 or 2 books read to him over and over and over and over and OVER again! I think the librarians even tired of it after a day or so!

When we called to check in one of the days we were gone, Brandon's Babcia asked us, "Does Brandon usually push his chairs into the kitchen so he can read books in there?" Ummm....no. I'm glad they took a picture. What a silly little guy.

That wasn't the only thing out of the ordinary that Brandon did...

His Dziadzia told us straight out that he planned to spoil Brandon while we were gone. We didn't mind. That's what grandparents are for, right? But Brandon really took advantage of them.

While he is very mischievous when we are home, there are certain things Brandon knows he is not supposed to touch. The big ones are the trash can, the stereo, and the blinds. When we got home we found all of the knobs off of our stereo. We asked KZ's parents what happened to the knobs! They were like, "Oh, Brandon kept taking them off and playing with them so we just took them all off and put them up there on the mantle." We honestly had no idea the knobs even came off! So obviously Brandon got in lots of time pushing stereo buttons to make up for all the days he's missed out on it while we are home.

And we were horrified to find out that he constantly tried to play in the trash can! He reportedly especially loved to take out the empty cereal and cracker boxes to add to his toy collection. He must have been in that trash can a lot because KZ's uncle said he was like "a little raccoon!"

These last few pictures are from the Kidscape exibit at the Johnson County Museum. This is such a great place to take kids.

Our little farmer.

Brandon loves hats! Apparently one fireman's hat wasn't enough for him. Don't you want to give this little firefighter a kiss on those puckered lips!

Brandon says, "Don't worry sir, I'll fix your leg right up...and I'll try to put all your organs back in their right places too."

All in all Brandon's days with his grandparents seemed to go really well. Brandon was happy most of the time, and KZ's parents told us they would love to do it again. I don't think they have to worry about not getting that opportunity again sometime soon! We missed our little man, but it was nice to get away knowing he was in trusted, capable hands!