Bye-Bye Maria:(

Today there was a party at YaYa's to say goodbye to Maria who is leaving to be a nanny and to say goodbye to Joey, Lavinia and Pepe who are going to pre-school. The party was outside and it was really nice to spend time there and to see how much fun Simon has playing with the kids. He much prefers to play with the older kids than the ones his own age. Ryan, the 7 year old who lives upstairs from YaYa, played catch with him for a while and Simon was the happiest little boy in the world. He clearly felt very important that Ryan was paying so much attention to him. Simon isn't so good at throwing the ball, so Ryan set up 2 milk crates one on top of the other and Simon would roll the ball across those and then Ryan would catch it and roll it back. It was very cute. He also went on the see-saw with Francesca and Josh, but Josh really didn't want to share the handlebar part with him so that didn't last too long. When it was time to say goodbye to Maria, Simon gave her a hug and a kiss and then kept blowing her kisses as we started to walk away. She was crying (wouldn't you if you weren't going to see Simon anymore??) and he got a very concerned look on his face, so we walked back over to her and he put his hands on either side of her face and babbled something and then blew more kisses to her and said "bye." He's so sweet. When we got home, he immediately asked David for a cookie, pointing to the box of oreo ice cream sandwiches. Of course David gave him one and he proceeded to get very very messy, but he kept offering me bites of the ice cream so how could I be mad at how dirty he was? He was exhausted after his full day and after I read him 2 stories I carried him over to his crib and he gave me a big kiss, pointed to his crib and said "down" and then something that sounded kind of like "goodnight." Haven't heard a peep from him since!