Packing for Nonnie's House

Annabelle spent the weekend with my parents so that hubby and I could work on purging the amount of junk and papers we have acquired during our 9 years of marriage to make room for the new baby. We are basically turning our current "office" which is technically a third bedroom into Annabelle's big girl room.

Originally, Annabelle was supposed to spend Friday night with my parents and Saturday night with her Nonnie. Nonnie already had plans to keep Annabelle's cousins, Adam and Molly, on Saturday night, so Annabelle was especially excited.

Unfortunately, Molly turned up sick, and Uncle Matt and Aunt Meredith were kind enough to call us to let us know. I try to keep our distance from germs whenever possible, but especially since I've been pregnant since I seem to catch anything that walks. And, I absolutely refuse to get the swine flu or flu shot!

So, we opted for Annabelle to just spend another night with my parents.

It sounded like she didn't put up too much of a fuss about it, and she even told me that she didn't spend the night with Nonnie because "Ma-wee was sick."

But, she has not forgotten the promise to visit Nonnie again soon. All I heard all day was, "Are we going to Nonnie's house?" "When are we going to Nonnie's house?"

This evening, she proceeded to pack for Nonnie's house even though hubby and I both told her that it would be awhile before we visited Nonnie again. But, it didn't stop her for putting her belongings at the door to take with us to Nonnie's house. "I take this to Nonnie's house," she'd say. "Let me go put it by da door."

After I got her down for the evening, I walked into the living room and looked down next to the front door to find this: her deflated Garfield balloon that she got on her 3rd birthday, her "Ganny" baby doll given to her from Granny for Christmas 2008, painted hand prints and footprints from when she was 7 months old, a Tetris handheld game, a metal heart box full of candy and her most recent tracings and cut outs of her hand prints.

I couldn't help but smile and laugh. It is the little things that make you smile the most, and unfortunately, it is the little things that we too often forget.