out of the mouth of Dennis

There were lots of lost things today, much searching and eventually finding, and much of it for the same items. He took a gray plastic tote with a host of airline toys (new playset from Granny, complete with plane and all ancillary airport vehicles, signs, streetlights, etc) over to Gran's and Pop's house today. Gran and I have started our newest fitness regime: Zumba, which we do while Dennis naps in the afternoons. This was Day 9--we finished the 7 days of Basic and now are on Day 2 of Accelerated Fat Burning (and here's hoping it does exactly that). Dennis at first resisted going over to their house, not because he didn't want to, but because he was in his underwear, in his room, happily playing with his toys. Whenever David and I would go in there to nag him about getting dressed, he'd hold up three fingers and say "I just want to play for three more minutes, then I'll get dressed." And this might have worked if he had a clock and knew how to use it. He used this particular stall tactic three times before we moved into Advanced Threatening and then he capitulated. When we got to Gran's and Pop's (after dropping Daddy off at work), we ate the lunches we brought with us and then Dennis played with Pop for a bit, working on some hidden picture puzzles. I put him in bed for his nap, and he got up, so I put him in bed again. After he'd been in there a good ten minutes (but was still singing and talking), we decided to proceed with Zumba. He got up when we were about halfway done with the first workout, and we just let him stay and watch. He stood between us and rocked back and forth for a minute, intrigued, but then he saw a doll over on the couch and went to get her. She's an 80's model doll, dressed in a workout leotard complete with yellow legwarmers (she showed up in the hallway at Gran's last night as a result of a Hobbs-the-Dog caper--he'd even removed her legwarmers), only Dennis isn't clued in to the name or purpose of legwarmers (not that I really am, either, but I was alive back then, and--gasp!--actually owned some rainbow-striped ones). He found the legwarmers beside the doll and put them on her arms and brought her to me to show me her "swimmies". He pretended he was taking her to swim class, and where we were doing our Zumba moves happened to be in his imaginary pool. He called out warnings to us to be careful not to get too wet in all that water.

We eventually finished our workout and had collapsed onto the floor in Gran's room when he came in to see what we were doing. His airport playset was upstairs but its carry tote wasn't. He had loaded it into Gran's "treasure chest" and hauled it upstairs. I offered him a choice: he could pack it back into the chest and take it downstairs, or he could go downstairs and get the tote and bring it upstairs. He loaded everything into the chest and then complained of the heaviness of it all. We all eventually got downstairs, toys as well, and I was attempting the always Herculean task of extricating Dennis from their house. He couldn't find his airport toys. He was running to and fro, looking for the tote full of them, when he suddenly darted behind Pop and asked "is it in your butt? No, it isn't" and then ran off to another room before we'd even contemplated what he'd said. It was so shockingly funny that Pop and I had a good laugh (Gran didn't seem to find it quite as funny as we did--she had THAT look on her face). We eventually made it home, stopping to pick up David for his lunch break on our way.

On a side note: I sure will be glad when we have one or both of our cars back. The Tracker's problems are belt related, and the part that came in this morning was not the one we needed. It lacks a pulley, which will hopefully be in on Monday. The Blazer needs a hose or a radiator--we'll learn which tomorrow. It broke down just before our very long period of illness, and neither of us was up to going to fetch it. Since then, we've just been too busy. Thanks so much to Gran and Pop for the loan of their vehicles. Dennis keeps asking if the van is ours now, or if the Trooper is ours now (he really hopes so--he LOVES the Trooper). He's figured it out. He said "it'll be ours until our car is fixed and then it will be Gran's again, right?". Yes, I hope so, and I hope that's a short time frame (even though I love the Trooper, too!).