The Sleepover

"Pappy, are you a-seep?" Katie said in the only kind of whisper a 2-year-old can muster into my dad's ear at roughly midnight. He giggled, and I'm sure my mom followed suit. The night with Katie in between my parents in their king-sized bed would be full of story-reading, giggling and a few crying sessions for her mommy and daddy. But when Dad stumbled into the kitchen for a cup of hot coffee the next morning, despite his exhaustion, he reported it had been the best slumber party ever.
We're blessed to live little more than an hour away from my folks, which makes day trips between our two towns fairly easy. But we hadn't spent the night at Nana and Pappy's since my son, Adam, was born six months ago. Before he was born, Katie would sleep in a playpen in my dad's office while Aaron and I bunked in a spare room just down the hall. But Adam had the claim on the playpen this trip, leaving Aaron and I puzzling over where to put Katie. She'd never spent even one night in bed with us, and frankly we weren't too excited about inviting her in and potentially starting a trend. My parents, on the other hand, were more than eager. "OK," Aaron and I said with reluctance - not wanting to subject them to what we knew would be a much more eventful night than they'd bargained for, but also not wanting one for ourselves.
What I often fail to realize is that such things are grandparenting bliss.
And Katie had just as much fun on her visit, being fed whatever she wanted and holding a captive audience while dancing around the living room to Barney tunes. To top it off, my aunt is in the midst of knitting Katie the cutest little hats and clothes and spent some time using a mini-measuring tape to check Katie's dimensions. Ever the student, Katie began holding the device up to every object within her reach, reporting everything as measuring "one-a-pounds." We all cackled.
Adam, of course, was in his own state of euphoria. His rear scarcely touched any hard surface, as he had several sets of eager arms just waiting to cradle him. And his enthusiastic grin had everyone enamored.
But as in all good things, it had to end. We packed up the car and kids and headed home to Louisville, with our babies falling fast asleep within just a few minutes of our departure. Katie, who'd spent more than an hour slumping uncomfortably in her car seat startled awake with about five minutes left on our journey home. When our car rolled up the driveway, she finally recognized her surroundings and protested, "No home! No home!" And finally, as we rolled into the garage, Katie arched her back, screaming, "No!"
She was home. Back to nights in her crib with no one to talk to but her stuffed bears and duckies, and they don't giggle back. There would be no more snacks immediately following dinner. I will try to be a more enthusiastic audience when the Katie show is on, maybe less engrossed in the household tasks I'm usually trying to accomplish in the mean time. But I've got a feeling that nothing really replaces the kind of attention kids get from their Nanas and Pappies. And maybe that's the way it ought to be.