Making House Calls!

There were a couple of folks who couldn't make it to the birthday party last week because they have a little trouble getting out of the house these days.  Our friend Jan, who has followed the babies faithfully here on the blog, and her 90-year old mother who live up in San Anselmo, and my 91-year old Great Aunt Liz (whose sister was my grandmother, Caroline), who just had knee surgery and lives in St. Helena.  So we took the Salvateenies on the road to visit friends and family!

First stop was San Anselmo.  When we got there, I unloaded Daniel and brought him to the door.  I handed him over to Jan and he instantly felt at home, smiling up at her.  For all he knew, I was leaving him there and moving off to drop the next baby at another house, but he didn't seem worried at all.  I went back and retrieved Caroline and Max and set them loose in Jan's living room which, she admitted, had not been "babyproofed" for many years.

The babies instantly fell in love with the round glass coffee table (and the cut glass decanter on top of it!).  At one point they were actually all standing around it slapping their hands down like a fancy little drum circle.

Each baby spent some time hanging out with Jan, though she and Daniel definitely had a special bond.

When Caroline wasn't playing on the table, she was crawling around the room looking for toys.  She found a little 3 pound weight being used as a doorstop and decided that was a perfect plaything!

Max couldn't figure out how she did it! It was too heavy for him.

So he decided to show off, teaching Grandma how to clap her hands.

Daniel was captivating his audience with a game of "Look! It's my Grandpa!"

and just generally being cute.

After that short visit, we packed back in to the car for the trip up to St. Helena.  After a perfect trip across the Golden Gate Bridge on the first leg of the trip, Caroline decided she was not going to enjoy the next ride AT ALL.  In fact, she cried all the way from Jan's house to within a few miles of Aunt Liz's!  This was made all the worse by my GPS that decided to eschew the normal route in favor of the road less taken.  While that might be the way to go to find yourself, when it comes to the roads of the Sonoma and Napa wine countries, it's also the way to find narrow, winding roads with no shoulders or cell reception. Definitely not fun with a screaming baby in the back seat (though it was my dad, trailing us alone in his car, who missed the turn and ended up winding his way back down on the wrong side of the hill, adding an extra hour to his trip).

When we finally made it to Liz's, Caroline acted as if she'd been fine all along, only given away by her poor sweat-filled curls and a slightly husky tinge to her voice -- that's what you get for crying for an hour and a half!  The babies each got to open a present and they were excited to play with all the new toys they got, though the boys seemed even more excited to play with their cousin Larkin who'd come to visit.  

And at the end of the evening (and in preparation for a ride home filled with more bouts of Crying Caroline and a little bit of Maudlin Max as well), we had a FOURTH birthday cake!  This time it was peach  mousse cake.

Max, preparing for cake

Jackie fed Max by hand

This is his "I'm not sure if I like this yet" face

Daniel showed off how well he can feed himself!

Caroline let Liz feed her with a spoon - I think her tantrum is showing its toll on her here.

After a very full day, we got home just in time for a bottle and bedtime, and for the first time since their colds showed up this week, all three exhausted babies slept straight through the night!