Bogle Family Blog: Rainbows at Mimi and Papa’s House – Day 1

[Alright, blog readers – please give a warm welcome to our first guest blogger – Carolyn Bogle (a.k.a. Mimi; a.k.a. Michael’s mom). She wrote up summaries of the days that she and Michael’s dad (a.k.a. Papa Bogle) spent with Lily while Michael and I were on vacation. She included some of her favorite pictures, and also wanted to include a slideshow, but it looks like that isn’t working for me so I’ll have to try to upload that again later. So without further ado, take it away, Mimi!]

While Mommy and Daddy were on vacation in Aruba, Lily came to spend some time with Mimi and Papa and those days will be treasured moments for both of us. Waking up to a chirping little voice each morning was priceless and now all we hear are the foot stomps of Oreo (you have to know our big bruiser of a cat) down our steps. Not quite the same to say the least! I learned that morning not to respond to her when she first wakes up for she will very clearly tell you “no, no, no” while pointing to her bed, “re, re, re” telling you she has not had the time to play and read in her bed (translation to me is I can go downstairs and enjoy one cup of coffee). We had soooooo many priceless moments and really got to enjoy the treasure that she has become to all of us. It brought back so many wonderful memories when Lily’s Daddy was a child. We proudly went around wherever we went showing her off and enjoying each and every moment. We had some very special times and the first day after breakfast Lily and I went to get dressed then off we went to the zoo where I let Lily be in charge as to how long we lingered or moved on. Speaking of moving on, when we first arrived at the zoo that morning, we went into the penguin house to see them being fed their breakfast. After the feeding was over, Lily announced to all with her regal wave, “Bye bye.” Of course people around us were commenting how sweet and cute she was but then I noticed that her bye byes were getting more and more repetitive. I was still caught up in this sweet moment when she looked up at me and frantically announced over and over again, “bye bye!” I had a light bulb moment – get with it Mimi, Lily wants to leave and she has had enough of penguins. Knowing our sweet Lily, in the past she would announce “go” as her cue to move on but that was then and this was now. Now she has moved on to a more polite way, bye bye, bye bye, bye bye. OK Lily I get it! So now while we went around to exhibits I waited for her announcement of bye bye and off we went. Needless to say many of the exhibits we took at a brisk stride but when we reached bronze statues of animals and she asked me “hug, hug” followed by “hold” (both with her sweet hand motions and pursed lips) what else could I do but stop. She took in every part of all of the animals and especially announced every facial feature (eyes, nose, mouth and ears) not to mention lots of hugs (I stopped the kisses for we all know how birds love statues not to mention the yucky germs). We strolled past the elephants where she did her elephant trumpet which is so cute (actually much better than I could do). Of course it entertained those around us. She fell in love with a baby elephant statue and so had a hard time moving on but since the waiting line for other children was backing up I had to take her off, let’s just say unenthusiastically, while Lily called out “no, no, no” accompanied with her little wiggle dance (maybe belly dancing is in her future). Not to worry, for the giraffes were in sight and so we stopped to feed them lettuce. Lily was totally captivated by them so we fed them over and over and over and over again. I must admit that I was getting a little worried the first time since Lily had her whole hand in the GIANT giraffe’s mouth feeding them lettuce. The zoo attendant assured me that they do NOT BITE. Being over cautious I fed the giraffe and sure enough, it was just a long wet scratchy tongue and l-o-t-s of gum. I even got into this moment. I finally announced to Lily say bye bye to the giraffes and (surprise) Lily went down to a total meltdown (i.e. Lily’s entire body turning into a wet noodle emphatically and LOUDLY announcing “no, no, no”!) I have to admit it was very hard not to laugh. This meltdown never lasted more than mere seconds for she is so easily distracted. Needless to say I quickly diverted her attention to the zebras in the next enclosure while we moved on and she was totally content. She then spotted the carousel and it was love at first sight. We rode the carousel 4 times and still when it started to slow down she frantically voiced her “no, no, no” complete with wiggling dance!!!! (I never seem to get tired of this little dance she does.) Again picking her up, I quickly diverted her attention going into one of the stores where she went thru her “hug, hug, hug” followed by “hold, hold” complete with her hand gestures. It was so adorable and I went through all of the stuffed animals looking for the one she would fall in love with, but she would hug and kiss them then wanted me to put them back. (LILY I AM TRYING TO BUY YOU A STUFFED ANIMAL.) All she wanted was the little animals that come in a tube. So we bought two of them and she was as happy as she could be. Off we went to the picnic tables to eat our lunch, then when we finished some more play time on a large bronze gorilla as well as a family of lions. We also saw some koi fish in a pond where Lily announced that she wanted to feed the fish with her sign for feed. I had to tell her that we couldn’t feed then now but that she could feed our fish at home when Papa came home. (It became a ritual at night when Papa came home for him to take her to the pond to feed our koi. I am not sure who was happier, Lily or Papa.) She was getting tired so I announced it was time to go home (BIG MISTAKE). She announced “homo” repeatedly where lots of people were gathered. I of course said “Yes Lily we are going to Mimi’s home” trying to quell any minds around us to assure them she was not being taught to be politically insensitive. This got a few chuckles from the crowd. (I must admit this episode of “homo” was repeated a few times the next few days). I mentally tried to make a reminder to myself to say “It’s time to go to Mimi’s house” where she will say her version of house (how) but of course I would forget. We drove home for it was close to nap time and for me cleaning up the house and oh yeah, dishes from breakfast.

Then Lily was up and we played in the house till Papa came home where she reminded him it was time to feed the fish outside. After dinner, we then went to our neighborhood park where she loves to go down the slides and swing on the swings with her big beautiful smile, “weeeeeeeeeeeeee”. Could this day get any better? I have to admit this was a birthday I will forever treasure. She was my cake, ice cream and presents all rolled into one sweet package.