Play time!

Our schools were closed for four days last week due to inclement weather, re-opened on Friday.  My daughter in law slowly got crazier and crazier with the two younger ones home all day, unable to go outside.  So I told her I would pick them up and take them to McDonald's, feed them, and let them play in the play space for a couple of hours.  Our local McDonald's has a really good one.  Then I decided that we could just take them overnight.  Joy and I texted back and forth about me picking them up.  She told me they were excited.  Understatement of the year.  I get to their house and Nolan age 11) and Livvie age 5) are sitting on the front porch, in their coats and boots waiting for me.  As I pulled into McD's, Nolan looks over at Arby's next door, and says "I think I like Arby's better".   Hah! Arby's was out of the question because they did not have a play space.  The play space was the whole point.
So as soon as we get food, get settled, another family with a girl about ten or eleven came in.  Daughter went up on the play structure and proceeded to get a cramp in her leg.  She started screaming and crying and couldn't move.  Other kids were trying to help her, but finally her mom had to climb up and get her calmed down enough to move and crawl down.  Fifteen minutes of super drama.  Nolan said, "Well that kind of spoils it for me!"   I told him the girl was gonna be fine, he would be fine, go play.  Livvie was pretty oblivious to the whole thing.  She just avoided the tube that the girl was in and kept playing.  After a while Nolan got over it.  Livvie tried to take her tablet and marker onto the structure with her, but I told her no.  Immediately after that, Nolan tried to take his sketch pad and pencil and I told him no.  He tried to bargain, but I wasn't going for it.  I could just see some kid getting poked in the eye with a pencil, or having to drive back because one of them for got it on the structure.  Not happening.   He came running up to me at one point, stopped and announced, "I was never here!".  Then he ran off.  After a while they got tired and came back to the table to draw for a little while.  Livvie drew a noodle person, ( kind of like a stick person, but with curbed limbs).  She named it something like AAVRUM 3.  Nolan and I started trying to pronounce it.  Nolan explained how he liked the drama of drawing out the "A" in a name.  Like saying, "Oliviaaaah!"  Or "Cynthiaaaah!"  I told him we could say his name, "Nolaaaaahn!"   We repeated it a couple of times, Nolaaaahn, No-Laaahn!  I was like No Lawn, you mean you don't have any grass?  He got it right away, and said y\"Yeah, I don't hardly have to mow!"  Then they went back on the structure.  The next thing I know, I'm hearing fart noises.  Nolan has the kids gathered in one of the intersections of the tubes, explaining to them how he makes the noises.  He just kept going and going, getting louder and louder.  I looked at the other mom at the next table, and said, "He had to get THAT talent!"  Another kid, who was probably 13 or 14, was at the table on the other side laughing his head off.  I was enjoying being a Grandma, feeling like I didn't have to to anything about it.  But finally, I told him it was time to knock off the noise.  Nolan is a born haggler, so of course, he was like, "Just one more!"   I said OK.  He made it a good one, but then he did stop.  Such a good boy.  Livvie is working on the haggling too, she just has a lot more work to do to get it right.  We had a great week-end.  I asked Nolan what he wanted for dinner, he said he liked salmon, so I got salmon at the store for dinner.  They stayed up really late, because they could.  Gramma and Grampa weren't going to make them go to bed.  They slept late today, we fed them breakfast and lunch, then took them home.  Livvie had a cheese sandwich with dill pickle and mustard on it.  Hmmmm.  She ate it, so I guess it was OK.