THE MANY FACES OF KATE

Kate has new glasses. She picked them out in 1.3 seconds. She knows what she likes.

Spread the laughter,
Share the cheer.
Let's be happy,
While we're here.

GUESS WHAT KATE CAN DO?

This is Kate. She is in 2nd grade. She is very sweet. She always wants to help in the kitchen. Today she and Liza helped made buttermilk fudge and then we told stories on the lawn swings.Here is Liza, feeding apples to the horses that live just around the corner. Kate doesn't feed apples to the horse because she is afraid. She thinks they will bite her.

But Liza wasn't afraid.

Sweet brave Liza.

Sweet timid Kate.

But...Kate can do something even her dad can't do. Sweet, timid, little Kate can burp the alphabet.

Never underestimate the power of a woman.

DO THINGS WELL, LIKE KATE, WHO IS GOOD AT BEING GOOD...AND HUNGRY

This is Kate, my hungry four-year-old granddaughter. She's the one who somersaulted onto the cat and catapulted (ha!) her off the sofa the other day.





We tended Kate today and it's always entertaining to see how soon she is going to be hungry and all the things she is going to find in the cupboards to ask about. Here she is eating carrots in her tent we constructed in the family room.

Here's what she ate:

a banana

carrots

crackers

mac and cheese

a chocolate truffle

more carrots

Valentine conversation hearts

a cherry bagel

She was here a little more than three hours.

When Ruby--age 2--is here she puts everyone in the Children's Nativity set to bed, they all lie down. Kate put them all to bed, too. Even Baby Jesus got taken out of his real bed to make a bed on the cold hard ground. Poor baby Jesus.

This cabinet is one I had when I was a child. It now holds markers, paper and coloring books.

After Kate left I went outside to take a picture of the mountain but it's too hazy to get a decent one so I took a picture of my cheesy birdhouses. This is the one that started my collection--the one on the right.

Deverl--a real Mormon name--made this for us when he was our home teacher. You can tell who Deverl home taught because we all have one of his birdhouses. This one and the one you can see part of are the only ones that aren't falling apart.

I remember where I bought all the ones that are falling apart and, in some cases, I remember talking to the people who made them. One woman was so proud that she and her dad had built birdhouses together. The problem is, they stapled them, didn't even use nails. Every time her birdhouses fall apart in a new, creative way I see her face and make that noise in the back of my throat. As You can see, Deverl screwed his birdhouse together. It will still be standing after the mutants run amok.

I have told my children that one day the mutants will be marauding and I will watch from the front porch and tend the kiddies while they are off fighting the battles. My front porch will hold me and about four kids, if we snuggle. I must campaign for a bigger porch. Or less mutants. Or less me.

The rest of the cheesy birdhouses and the snow shovel, thrown in just because I forgot it was there.

This is my welcome angel. Her welcome sign now just says...well, nothing. So she's holding a sign up for all the world to see with no message. She is not representative of her owner. I always have an opinion, even if it's wrong.

And last of all, here is the big mouthed frog, hiding under the chair made of tree branches, that my children's-book-writer niece, Lezlie Evans gave me.

When she was a preteen, or in her early teenage years, she used to tell me the Big Mouthed Frog joke. I loved it. She was so dramatic. (She has more personality than should be allowed--she should have to share with someone who doesn't have enough.)

I loved her joke and made her tell it over and over. Last year, for my birthday--which is one day shy of five months away--get those presents ready--she brought me a big mouthed frog to remember her by. As if I could ever forget Lezlie.

I don't know that this post really has a purpose other than to say that if you are going to do something, do it as well as possible unless it's to be a non-lasting thing. Like dinner. You're going to eat it up and forget it tomorrow so if you make a mess of it, its no big deal. If you are going to build something like a house, even a bird house, it ought to be made well.

Although, make enough lousy dinners and one of two things will happen. You will get sick and die of malnutrition or some horrible disease attributed to your food choices or you will get taken out to dinner.

Well now.

THE NAME GAME

Tonight, while I was pondering about today's blog I came across this photo: Bond . . . James Bond. Here's the text that went with the photo:


"Have you ever thought about how your personality would be different if you had a different name? Does Bond . . James Bond ever feel so much stress that he just wants to go back to bed? If that was your name would you suddenly feel bolder? More daring?

"Or maybe you are having a little trouble threading a needle and you were suddenly called Harry Potter would it make a difference?

"Or is Shakespeare correct?

"What's in a name? That which we call a rose By any other word would smell as sweet.

"Would you still want to crawl into bed if you were Bond . . . James Bond?"


Today, two of my granddaughters were here. Kate--age four, and Ruby--age two. I was talking to my daughter-in-law about Kate's name. I told her it was a good strong name. Not wimpy, like Lynne. I told her that I wondered if I had a different name, a stronger name if I would be stronger.

We talked about Katherine Hepburn, who was called Kate by her friends and was such a strong willed person. Then I told her my favorite Katherine Hepburn movie is BRINGING UP BABY. Katherine Hepburn actually pulled a leopard around by a rope around its neck in that movie and I remember reading that the leopard wasn't a trained leopard--or maybe there were two leopards and the one she was jerking around was the one that wasn't trained--in fact it was darn cantankerous--and how she said later that she could have been killed but she just pulled it around, like she had good sense.

She was a strong woman, that Kate and our Kate is strong too.

Ruby, is an individual, just like her name. She didn't like me for the first year of her life. It didn't matter what I did. I could have stood on my head with candy bars for ears and she wouldn't have been impressed. She adored Phil--still does. She is past the hating stage and past the tolerating stage with me now and likes me but not like she likes Phil. I probably will never be able to charm her like he does. Maybe if I changed my name to Shaharazade. Or Rosamunde. Humm, both names of tellers of tales. I want to be a teller of tales so maybe....

No, maybe not. That would be infringing. I can't find a name I couldn't live without. Once I called myself Lyndy-Lou Dorthea Mae and there were a couple of other names tacked on but time has befuddled my memory.

I gave my girls perfect names. Hillary means happy and she is, in every way, and brings happiness to everyone she knows. Elizabeth means gift from God and she is, even though it might be a few years before she realizes it.

So, I should give myself a new name. Perhaps Gabrielle, which means strong woman of God--I like that, in fact it's my goal, to be a strong woman of God. You could call me Gabby for short, which means something altogether different and fits me often, like the other night when I had A Vacant Mind and said I had nothing to say and then proceeded to say nothing for a good long time.

So Gabrielle it is. Gabby, for short.

CHRISTMAS PROGRAMS TONIGHT

Tonight we went to our granddaughter, Kate's preschool Christmas program. There were eleven little girls, dressed up in their Sunday best. They filed in and sat on big-people chairs with little legs sticking straight out. They wore black tights, white tights, one wore red tights covered in white snowflakes and one little miss had on legwarmers that matched her patterned sweater.

They each had a "part" to say at the microphone, our Kate welcomed us. They sang songs from Sweden, Germany, Hawaii, Mexico, and the United States of America. They had simple costume changes, and once had lighted candles--battery operated. The lights in the room were turned off. As soon as that happened one little girl got the giggles. Kate led the group and walked into the microphone. BONK! Then they all followed her in a line around the audience with their candles, they were singing all the way.

The songs were sweet. One little girl didn't as much sing as yell. One started off the evening with the sulks and slumped in her chair, her head pulled into her sweater like a turtle. Some were distracted and looked around as if they had never seen a room with walls and a ceiling before. One decided she had an itch and proceeded to scratch all over her tummy, which she bared so she could attend to it better. They told us their names and ages, most were four with one six-year-old and one announced she was "free."

We mainly watched Kate, who did an interesting interpretation of the hula to one of the Hawaiian songs. She didn't so much as use her hands in expressive movements as pat her body from side to side. When one of the songs had the line, "you better not pout," she had an expressive, "and if you do pout you are going to be in big trouble" face. She was practicing to be a mom, I'm pretty sure. She has beautiful large eyes, an engaging smile and confidence that the rest of us would do well to have at any age.

As soon as the program was over we hugged everyone--well, the family members anyway, and dashed to our church house as we were late for our Ward Christmas party. We shouldn't have worried. Our Ward was operating on Mormon Standard Time, which is "always a few minutes late." We missed the caroling but were in time for dinner. I took a salad, a variation of my Poppy Seed one (I'll post it on my cookbook site). I guess it turned out okay as I got a request for the recipe from yet another one of the beautiful women in our ward. I tell you, our neighborhood is full of beautiful woman. This one looks like a Russian princess and she might be. Her ancestors are indeed Russian.

The Primary children were all dressed up as members of the nativity. They sat in rows on the stage and sang song after song about the birth of the Savior. There were boys with towels draped over their heads, tied with cord or twine . One boy had a turban on his head that was unbelievable in its magnificence, one had a crown. There were angels, at least two Mary's (one whose real name is Mary) with baby Jesus dolls wrapped in baby blankets. The Primary presidency had supplied halo's made of tinsel to all who wanted them. The girls held their heads high so not to disturb the perfection. The boys took their halos off and twirled them on fingers.

After the Primary kids the Young Men and Young Women did several numbers with bells. It was reverent and beautiful.

After the youth, a couple, who sing like professionals--actually they almost are professionals, sang some carols that I had not heard before. They are happy and in love and made us feel like they were in love with us too.

He played the accordion, which I think was my Dad's. It belongs to my son but he Lent it to Eric--my son is Eric's wife's niece's husband. How's that for confusing? We're all just one happy family here. One day I will tell you how Trent got to become Eric's wife's niece's husband. A real love story and I was the matchmaker. The best success I ever had and the luckiest day of Trent's life.

The whole evening was delightful. Family, all watching the littlest member sing and walk into a microphone and conduct herself with regal confidence. Good food with friends all around. Wonderful innocent children and the youth, so clean and happy and anxious to read the music and ring their bells at the right time. Beautiful carols, sung about Mary and Joseph and the baby, born in the stable.

I looked around the cultural hall, filled with tables full of people, most of which I know pretty well. I had an overwhelming feeling that I was good friends with each of them in Heaven. Good friends with the children who I don't know very well since I don't work in the Primary any more. I felt like we laughed and learned and shared our lives and we should love each other here. It was a tender gift, given to me for just a few moments. An exquisite feeling of joy. I am content.