Its goodbye...again

On this otherwise ordinary Thursday we had to say goodbye, once again, so Kate and Joel could return home to blighty. But as Connie says, its not goodbye, its more of a see you later.
After they finished packing we spent a couple of hours at my favorite park in Sayville. Joel relaxed and sat with a sleeping Violet in the stroller, while Kate followed Caden around, making sure the boy in the orange stripey shirt didn't say 'aghh! The monster' again in Caden's direction, the way protective Aunties do. I, on the otherhand, watched Caden play. I love watching him at the playground, taking a step back and seeing what he does. First of all he ate his sandwich up high on the jungle gym 'one bloody bridge, two bloody bridges,' he observed (note to self: don't react to his new word and he'll get over it. We hope)! He then chased two little girls holding hands around. It was kind of a game. At least Caden thought he was playing with them while they were genuinely trying to get away. I think he liked the one with the pigtails the best, she got all the big smiles. The girls then made a woodchip 'sand' pie on a ledge. Caden inspected it. They began to run away and as an afterthought pigtails came back and said 'don't mess up our pie.' Caden smiled at her and shoved it off on to the ground...
Its a beautiful thing to watch kids play at this age, mostly too shy to talk to one another but happy to follow and copy one anothers actions. Monkey see, monkey do. Yesterday, Caden made friends with a little boy, Christopher, by doing exactly this. He waited for Christopher to sit down on the slide next to him and then they would both go down together. There was some chasing to be had of course too. And it wasn't long before Christopher, who was a few months younger, was also swinging back and forth on the bar over the slide. I'm sure his Dad loved that!
But back to today, it was time to head back home. 'Kate, Kate, KATE!' He was all about Auntie Kate, I think he knew they were leaving. He kept trying to tug her by the hand back into the guest room to play some more 'tickle time,' even when it was time to leave. By this point Kate and I had our sunglasses on. We didn't want Caden to see anyone get upset. And off they went. Caden sat on the front step doing a little 'sprinkle' wave, half smiling, half confused.
We then played with 54 mini bags of fruit snacks, I know because we counted them! Violet was in and out of sleep on the couch, really watching her little hands as she clasped and unclasped them and sucked on her paci before falling asleep for a few minutes only to begin the process once again. Caden and I ate a packet of fruit snacks each and he counted out three more 'one for Kate, one for Joel and one for Daddy.' I didn't have the heart to say they wouldn't be coming back to eat them. We then got into a lighter mood by stuffing Caden's T-shirt over and over again with 49 fruit snack bags. And then the following hour was spent watching the 'work mens' get to work with cutting down some huge oak trees in the yard over the street. Caden was amazed they were climbing trees way up above the house and chainsawing branches down to the ground 'work mens up in trees like monkeys!' we laughed. It was all very exciting with the branch eating truck and so forth.
Then Daddy came home and everything was back to normal. Goodbyes are exhausting but neccessary if we are going to spend a collection of FAB memory-making days with family...and speaking of such, Auntie Jemma will be here in a handful more days. Thanks for all the fun Kate and Joel!