She told Mandy (my stylist) that she wanted hair "just like Mommy", and then actually managed to sit up straight, chin up and shoulders down, hands in her lap with only minimal fidgeting, the whole time her hair was being cut.
Mandy swore she'd never had a kid that young act so good.
That afternoon, we packed up and went down to Chuck and Anita's for their monthly board game gathering. Their daughter Heidi ran off with Penny, and the other women present were happy to pass Alex around amongst themselves for most of the time we were there, so Matt and I got a couple of hours of mostly kid-free social interaction. It was nice. Chuck grilled an astonishing amount of meat and everyone brought good sides, and we had a nice time.
The only downer was that about ten minutes before we were going to leave anyway, Penny had a bit of a mishap on their backyard swing -- the chains twisted mid-swing and ended up scraping Penny's back and hip on the wooden support for the slide. She wound up with two ugly bruises surrounding a couple of fairly ugly-looking scrapes. I feel bad for poor Heidi, who'd been pushing the swing -- I think she felt responsible, but it really wasn't her fault, and she tried very hard to help distract Penny while Matt was cleaning off the scrapes.
That night wasn't so good -- Penny woke up around 2 with an ear infection, and of course she had trouble getting back to sleep. She got up about four times over the course of half an hour or so. And of course once she got back to bed, Alex woke up.
(Alex wasn't so good with the sleeping all weekend -- he was up closer to 5 than 6 all three days.)
Sunday morning, Penny's ear was still bothering her. It seemed to come and go in waves, but when it hurt, she was sobbing in pain. Matt took her off to the Urgent Care clinic as soon as it opened, and they came home a couple of hours later with a confirmation of the ear infection diagnosis and some antibiotics.
But by that afternoon, she was feeling enough better that we packed up again and trooped down to my brother's house for a pre-Memorial Day cookout. That went smoother than Mother's Day -- we managed to get Alex to fall asleep just before dinner, so he napped in his carseat while Matt and I ate. He woke up before dessert, but he wasn't the Superfuss he'd been just before he dropped off.
As fun as all that had been, Matt and I were relieved that we didn't have any actual plans for Monday. We anticipated spending the day lounging around the house. It... sort of worked out that way.
At 10:15 that morning, Ray rang our doorbell to ask if Penny could come out and play. By 11:30, all four adults were out as well, watching them and chatting idly.
At noon, Travis hauled out the grill and Melissa invited Penny (and us) to join them for hot dogs for lunch. The kids were very excited to get to eat outside without having to interrupt their fun. After lunch, they went right back to playing with Ray's superhero toys without missing a beat.
I got Alex down for a nap just about lunchtime, and took the baby monitor back outside with me. Matt and I kept checking it to make sure its battery hadn't died, and every time we ran into the house for this or that, we'd listen, but he must've been completely wiped out from all the activities (and the waking up early), because he slept at least three hours.
It was really awesome -- Penny and Ray were perfectly happy to play with only occasional, minimal input from the adults, so the four of us sat around and chatted and generally had a great time.
Penny and Ray didn't stop playing until Travis and Melissa decided it was time to take Ray in for their evening activities at about 4:45. Six and a half hours, the kids played. It was awesome. Though it's possible that I should've put sunscreen on myself at the same time we were putting it on Penny...
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