
When my children were young I didn’t have many opportunities to have ‘adult time’ – I couldn’t afford a babysitter and my parents weren’t able to watch all three of my children. Therefore, if I went anywhere, they came with me. I’m not complaining, but it did occur to me from time to time that it would have been nice to have an overnight or an extended weekend where their father and I could enjoy time spent together. With that in mind I invited my children to leave their children to a once a month, “Meme” overnight-slumber party- extravaganza - a Meme Palooza. The benefit would be two-fold; mom and dad would get a break and I would have my own special tradition with my grandchildren.
Abby is coming for her first Meme overnight next month and Eli had his fourth slumber party this past weekend. One of my favorite childhood memories is spending time with my cousins and I would love for my grandchildren to have that same experience. At some point I plan on combining all of my munchkins on the same weekend and that way I get a ton of fun and they have special time together too.
Abby and Melissa joined us this weekend because Charlie was out of town. I was happy to have Melissa with her extra hands, help and company! It sure added to the party atmosphere her at Chez Cougan. Eli is very mobile now – I had to put gates up at both stairwells because one of his favorite things to do is climbing up stairs – getting down them is a different story. He’s still a little shaky on his technique and has to be monitored very carefully! He eats everything now and it is certainly entertaining to give him tastes of things to see how he likes them. He’s sleeping longer and more soundly and gives you fairly clear indications when it’s time for nap or bedtime.

Language is coming along although most things he talks about sound a lot like “dog.” There is the occasional “T” sound and I think he has the word ‘truck’ down pat. He definitely is all boy and doesn’t mind getting dirty, and anything that rolls is accompanied by the engine ‘ggrrrr’ sound.
The best moment of this weekend was when he woke up during the night. I tried to put him back down in his crib but he started crying. Not wanting to wake everyone in the neighborhood up I put him in bed with me. He immediately noticed Penny and Scout sleeping on the bed and proceeded to repeat, “dog, dog, dog,” over and over again. I pretended to have my eyes closed and would repeat, “Eli, it’s nighttime, it’s time for us to sleep.” All the sudden he put his head on my shoulder, closed his eyes and went to sleep! What a surprise – he could not have been more precious!

A constant theme for me is how blessed I feel with all that I have in my life. This weekend is just one more indication of that continuous blessing!
Oh, goodness, that picture of Melissa with Abby and Eli looks just like the one with you with M and K in your arms!
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