My bro and his family stopped by for a brief visit Sunday morning, loaded up their gifts and then hit the road for the long drive home. The days post x-mas went by fast.
My they are a talkative bunch. I kept thinking, "No wonder I was so quiet as a kid. If he talked as much then as he does now, it's amazing I ever got a word in," and also, "Was I quiet by nature or in part because of him?"
After a couple days, shifting my sleep schedule to accommodate them started to get to me. I didn't succumb to my niece's wet hacking cough, but my throat was on the verge of being sore. I could tell if I spoke a lot that it would get sore, so that sort of worked out for the best. Then getting 1 word in to my bro's, SiL's, or niece's 9 words didn't bother me. Of course now I don't feel like I said much of anything the whole time they were here.
What else? One of my favorite things about my 5 yr old niece is that she said "Thank you" to strangers who held open doors for her. Also when she said, "It was very nice to meet you" to my Mom's best friend that we'd stopped by to see.
Also much to everyone's amazement, she bowled a 197 for her first game of Wii bowling. Much dancing and jumping around ensued after each strike or spare she got.
If you've ever made a Mii on the Wii, you know the little tune that plays as you make your avatar. Mom had brought up my bro's xylophone sort of drum that our Grandddad made and my niece starting playing along to the tune.
Delayed gratification and five year olds don't mix though. The poor kid was so ready to bust with xmas excitement, I wanted to say let's just open it all now. But we were all good though she was pushing the limits of her secret holding abilities as well. If she couldn't open stuff, she wanted other people to know what they'd gotten.
Rock Band 2 is a whole mess of fun. My niece was determined to play and though the guitar was way too hard, she did pretty well on drums. Watching my dad on guitar and her on drums was hilarious. My bro can join my band any time. He intuitively kicked his guitar into overdrive and racked up lots of points. I'm better on drums but my guitar has vastly improved too. Whacking the drums is really satisfying though. If I start playing harder difficulty levels, I'll get an upper body and right foot aerobic workout.
As they were leaving, my bro and SiL both urged me to come visit them. I'm still not sure about it but the fact they are both finally quitting smoking has improved the odds tremendously. It was really nice not having to wait around for them to have an after dinner smoke nor having that smoke saturated smell in everything of theirs to contend with.
2 years ago on TTaT: I will
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