Best Friends

Justin is probably Abby's most favourite person in the whole wide world. They are second cousins and Justin is about a year older than her. They get to spend lots of time together since they go to the same sitter and sometimes Mike's Mom will watch the two of them together. Abby is forever asking if she can go to Justin's house or if she know's Grandma's coming the next day she wants to know if Justin's coming too. On days were Abby's with Grandma and Cindy's off for the day too they'll make arrangements to have lunch or just get together so the kids can play.

Tonight was Courtney's birthday party (Justin's older sister) so we all headed over to join in the festivities. Abby, of course, was beside herself that we were going to Justin's house. As soon as we hit the driveway Abby's asking where Justin is. Through out the night wherever she went she wanted Justin to go with her and most of the time he did. Have you ever seen two 3 year olds play catch? It's something you shouldn't miss. There's Abby and Justin playing catch. Standing about two feet apart. Now while both of them are pretty good at the throwing part (need to work a bit on their aim however) they're both really lousy in the catching department. In fact neither one of them can catch at all. So there they stand, two feet abpart, throwing the ball at each other. Now since they can't catch the ball it just bounces off of whatever body part it's collided with (head, arm, face, knee... you get the picture) and rolls away. Laughing their butts off the "catcher" runs to pick it up and they start all over again. They didn't get tired of this game and we didn't get tired of watching it. I would have love to have gotten some pictures, but the nature of the game keeps them moving all the time.

While the other kids were eating cake and watching Courtney open her gifts, there's Abby and Justin playing... well I guess it would be called house. I'm not really sure. You see Courtney and Justin have a very large wooden fort/swingset in their backyard. Up in the fort portion is a plastic play kitchen with a rubbermaid tote full of play dishes, pots, utensils etc. So Abby and Justin take all the dishes and throw them down the slide, then they slide down. Then they're taking the pile of dishes and moving them to a lawn chair under the fort. They treated it like it was very important work. The two of them worked together as a team to move all the dishes and there was a lot of dishes. It's funny how they just began tackling this job together without ever discussing that's what they were going to do. It just sort of happened.

Next it was on to the bouncer, empty of the bigger kids who were still eating their cake. It took them a little while to synchronize it, but in no time they were jumping in unison while singing their ABC's. At the top of their lungs of course. I mean it isn't any fun any other way. The end of the evening found them playing quietly together in the rec room. Sitting side by side at the keyboard banging out some "music". All of the sudden Abby hops up, grabs the doll stroller and starts pushing it, saying I gotta go, I'm late for work, see you later. Justin does the only thing he can do, hops on his pedal tractor and follows her to "work". It turns out they work at the same place. Yeah they build large scale towers out of MegaBlocks. They're very avant garde looking.

So now it's time to go home. Well as you can imagine that went over like a lead balloon. With Abby insisting that she was staying at Justin's house and Justin insisting that Abby wanted to sleep in his bed. We told Abby to say good bye and her reply through clenched teeth was... I'm not saying goodbye. Apparently she felt if she didn't say it, then she wouldn't have to do it. So with our pouting and angry daughter we headed for home. With her telling us about the dinosaurs that are outside when she goes to sleep. And let's not forget the monsters that are there when she wakes up. It's the first time she's ever mentioned anything like that. I'm not sure if it's something heard from someone else or she's having dreams about them. Or she was trying to make us feel guilty for taking her home to her Monster infested bedroom and dinosaur ranch we live at.