Week at Grandma’s {Riley}

When Kenny and I were little, we both loved the Berenstain Bears series of books. Our moms also both saved all of those books from our childhoods, so we were able to pass them down to Riley and Rory. Rory is still too young for them, but Riley loves reading about the Bear Family.

He has become especially partial to one entitled Week at Grandma’s.

And after reading it many, many times the past few months, he decided that he wanted to spend a week at Grandma’s just like Brother and Sister Bear do. Grandma and Grandpa were only too happy to play along, and they invited Riley to come stay with them for a few days. (Because of other commitments on both ends, they were only able to keep him for three nights. We crossed our fingers he wouldn’t realize that wasn’t a whole week!) Riley was SO excited.

They picked him up on a Sunday morning and drove back across the lake to Mandeville. They stopped off at the grocery on the way to the house, and there happened to be a huge rescue truck parked in the lot. Riley got to climb inside and even honk the really super loud horn. Awesome timing.

 

The rest of their day was spent eating lunch and playing at a playground/park in their neighborhood. Judging by the pictures we got, Riley had lots of fun.

 

 

But by bedtime, Riley was ready to come home. He kept telling Grandma that he was worried he would be sick and that he was scared. She laid and chatted with him for a long time before finally telling him he needed to go to sleep, and she said he seemed fine. But at midnight he woke up screaming, saying there was a monster in the room, there were “voices in the sky,” that his head, leg, and tummy hurt, etc. He was inconsolable. All signs of being in an unfamiliar room in a fairly unfamiliar house at night in the dark.

He actually ended up throwing up and said he felt much better afterwards. I think he worked himself up so much that his body just rebelled. Poor thing. He and Grandma were up until 1:30 and then he was up for the day at 5. Poor Grandma.

All along, though, he kept saying he wanted to come home. And after the bad night, Grandma decided not to push him to stay. But they kept him most of Monday and even went to another playground late that morning, where Riley acted completely normal and had a good time. He even got dirty enough to need a change of clothes afterwards.

 

Even so, he still said he was ready to come home, so they dropped him back off around dinnertime on Monday. I was happy to see that he was okay, but I was sad that he didn’t spend more time over there. There were so many fun things they were going to do that he missed out on.

However, I can’t say I’m completely surprised. I was painfully attached to home when I was young and missed out on many a sleepover because I just wanted to be home in my house in my room with my family. I thought this time for Riley might be different since he would be with his grandparents, whom he loves, but you just never know.

He has said since that he wants to go back to Grandma’s to stay (he even said that to me the very next day!), so I’m hopeful this was just a fluke.

Besides, he and his brother had better learn to be okay with spending a week at Grandma’s…..Kenny and I are going to need a break from them one of these days!