A work in progress is still considered progress... right?

I got to spend last week at my parents' house, continuing our work on renovating and updating their home. We had a great week, and though we got a lot of work done, there were more important things going on behind the scenes. For one, the serious male bonding between my dad and Patrick. If I wasn't around to be the favorite, the honor would fall to grandpa Gus (sorry, Joe!), who cements his place at the top by being the only one nice enough to turn on the lawn mower for Patrick - "brrrrrrrm, brrrrrrm!" The rest of us try diversion tactics since, quite frankly, we're tired of checking out the mower. For another, there is nothing so priceless to an exploring toddler as an open backyard. Living in apartments for so long, we haven't really missed having one - until now. Now I long for the dirt-digging, weed-pulling, lemonade-sipping, free exploring times there are to be had with such a plot of land. Patrick NEVER got tired of going outside, unless it was to INSIDE the garade to check out that lawn mower just one more time. Needless to say, we're still (yep, STILL) crossing out fingers for that house. And lastly, there is no way quite so easy to please our tough-to-please grandma Gustavson as simply letting her be with Patrick for a while. She thinks we don't trust her to watch our babies (because we don't), which seems to be insulting for a woman who has a care-giver come help HER out a few times a week, so if she is "left lone" with him for a while, she gets both the pleasure of his company and the feeling of being trusted to be in charge (she isn't). Meanwhile, I get the pleasure of kicking up my feet and watching through the window only to intervene when stairs or stealing great-grandma's walker is involved. So for the week I got to have fun being artsy for a while, my parents and grandma got to hang with Patrick for a while, the house is getting better slowly but surely, and we all got to spend a little time doing things we don't normally get to do. Now, let's do it again!