Cabin Fever Week: Wednesday and Thursday

The last couple of days have been busy ones around here. I usually spend Espen's naps as "me-time" where I read and write blogs, read a book, or spend copious amounts of time on Facebook, but I've been a whirlwind of activity and productivity lately, and have spent my time trying to get the house cleaned and in order.

The occasion? A visit from Espen's grandma and grandpa (Nick's parents). I love my mother-in-law to bits and pieces, and absolutely know that she wouldn't think less of my for having Cheerios all over my kitchen floor (after all, she did take care of me after Espen was born and knows full well how messy things can get around here), but I still can't help but want everything to look effortlessly spotless and shiny for her. "Oh no, we can always see our reflection in the kitchen sink. That's just how we like it!" Maybe it's some subconscious desire to show her that her son really is in good hands? Please tell me I'm not the only one?!?

Anyway, it takes two days to clean our little house when I have my little sidekick with me, so that is mostly what we've been doing. However, we did squeeze in some fun things to do together:

On Wednesday we were in the guest room taking the sheets off the bed, when Espen decided to pull a photo album (remember those, oldies?) off the shelf. "That looks fun" I thought, "I haven't looked at those in ages." So I dropped what I was doing and sat down on the floor with him to look at the photos. I enjoyed looking at the old photos and getting my reminisce on, and Espen enjoyed looking at the photos and seeing the faces of people he recognized, like Mama, Daddy and all his grandparents. I'm sure some of it was bit confusing, like Daddy wearing glasses, or Mama being 20 lbs. lighter (that one confuses me too. Why? Why?), but he was happy to look and chat and turn the pages. And I was happy to have a captive audience who was actually interested in photos from almost a decade ago.

If you have some photo albums lying around, I'd definitely recommend spending some time with them to fend off the cabin fever.

Thursday was mostly spent being a grown-up, productive and useful member of society, but the fun part of the day definitely came about when Grandma and Grandpa showed up. It took a few minutes for Espen to warm up to them again, but pretty soon he was playing and giggling. Then Grandma got a few belly-laughs out of him too. Of course I forgot to get the camera out, so you're just going to have to take my word for it. But, oh, it was cute. I'm so glad that we have one set of grandparents that live close enough to visit every once in a while.

Well, I should really take advantage of the rest of this nap and do something fun. I have something a little ambitious planned for today's Cabin Fever-busting activity. so wish us luck! I'll be back sometime this weekend to tell you all about it.