Sunday part II

When we arrived home to take down the Sukkah, Tani was still sleeping. I hoped to make good progress while he slept but he woke up soon after I started. So Melissa and Tani came up to help. It's important to give Tani jobs to do - he helped put the black bungee cords in a bag. He ate rice cakes on the ladder while we were taking down the poles. Then he helped put the bamboo roof in the box along with individual, 4 foot poles. He was able to get most of them in the box, only needing help with the last two. We moved everything back into the garage including his car and tricycle (which we had in the backyard by the sukkah for the week). As we were heading back into the apartment building, Tani saw his canine friend Emma, a little white dog who owner is named Suzanne. Suzanne is great with Tani and lets him walk Emma a bit. Tani walked Emma down the hall and then went back to retrieve his tricycle, which he road down the hall and into the elevator and then up to the fourth floor. When we got up to our apartment, we saw our neighbor Angela, who told us thather mother had just passed away on Friday. We had known that her mother had been declining and was on hospice. Tani was curious about what we were talking about, so Melissa explained that Angela was sad because her mother had died. "Why?" Tani asked. "The angels asked her to come with them and she went" answered Angela. Tani thought for a moment and then asked Angela "where is your other mommy?" Melissa explained that not everyone has two mommies; in fact, it's a pretty special thing to have two mommies. Angela nodded her head in agreement.

Melissa talked with Angela in the hallway, and Tani and I went inside the apartment. It was late afternoon and we asked Tani if he wanted to go for a walk into woods or to the Jenks playground. He chose Jenks, which is a community playground built mostly from wood on the campus of an elementary school in Chestnut Hill. It has towers to climb in, tube slides, and a bunch of balance equipment. Lots of kids come to play there and Tani loves it. We met a two year old boy and his Dad, who takes care of him during the week while his wife works. We then came home and Melissa made pizza and salad while Tani watched a video from the library on the laptop. We ate dinner and then it was time for Tani to go to bed. Melissa has pointed out to me that I tend to let Tani extend bedtime with every stall tactic in the book and her goal was to have him sleeping by 8-8:30. Well, he did fall asleep - but so did she - they are both sleeping in Tani's new bed with the train sheets, pillow cases and comforter :) (a gift from Grandma Susan and Grandpa Morris).